chapter 4 Flashcards
define a person’s attitude
a favourable or unfavourable evaluative reaction towards something or someone, exhibited in one’s beliefs, feelings, or intended behaviour.
fill in the blanks:
student attitudes toward cheating bore ____ relation to the likelihood of them actually cheating
little/minimal
what is the Implicit Association Test?
A computer driven assessment of implicit attitudes that uses reaction times to measure people’s automatic associations between attitude objects and evaluative words, where easier pairings (and faster responses) are taken to indicate stronger unconscious associations
Fill in the blanks:
____ biases are persuasive.
Implicit
ex; 80% of people show more implicit negativity toward the elderly compared with the young
Fill in the blank:
People differ in their ____ biases. Depending on their group memberships, their conscious attitudes, and the bias in their immediate environment, some people exhibit more ____ bias than others.
implicit, implicit
Fill in the blank:
people are often unaware of their _____ biases.
implicit
White people who show strong unconscious racial bias on the IAT also exhibit high _____ activation when viewing unfamiliar Black faces.
amygdala
define the principle of aggregation.
The effects of an attitude on behaviour become more apparent when we look at a person’s aggregate or average behaviour rather than at isolated acts
Attitudes towards “health fitness ______ predict specific exercise and dietary practices, but an individual’s attitude about the cost and benefits of joggings are a fairly _____ predictor of whether he or she jobs regularly.
poorly, strong
what factors predict behaviour?
attitude toward the behaviour, subjective norms and perceived control lead to behaviour intention, and the behaviour intention leads to the behaviour
fill in the blanks:
______ reaction is adaptive
automatic
what happens when attitudes are forged by experience, not just by hearsay.
They are more accessible, more enduring, and more likely to guide actions
how are university students whose attitudes are negative towards their school’s response to a housing shortage, likely to respond when given opportunities to act - to sign a petition, signature, join a committee or write a letter?
Those whose attitudes grew from direct experience are more likely to act
What does the word “role” refer to from “role-playing”?
A set of norms that define how people in a given social position ought to behave
What are norms?
Rules for accepted and expected behaviour that prescribe “proper” behaviour
what are gender roles?
behaviour expectations (norms) for males and females
fill in the blanks:
Tory Higgins and his colleagues illustrated how ______ becomes believing
saying
- we are pone to adjust our messages to our listening and, having said positive things, then likes the person more themselves
what is the foot-in-the-door phenomenon?
The tendency for people who have first agreed to a smaller request to comply later with a larger request.
what is the low-ball technique?
A tactic for getting people to agree to something. People who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante. People who receive only the costly request are less likely to comply with it
what is the door-in-the-fcae technique?
A strategy for gaining a concession. After someone first turns down a large request (door-in-the-face), the same requester counter offers with a more reasonable request
fill in the blanks:
___ and ____ feed each other, sometimes to the point of moral numbness
actions ad attitudes
fill in the blanks:
experiments demonstrate that _____ behaviour toward someone fosters ____ for that person
positive, liking
which three possible sources do social psychology’s detectives suspect for why action affects attitude?
1) self presentation theory: assumes that we express attitudes that make us appear consistent
2) cognitive dissonance theory: assumes that to reduce discomfort, we justify our actions to ourselves
3) self-perception theory: assumes that our actions are self-revealing
what is the cognitive dissonance theory?
tension that arises when we are simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions. For example, dissonance may occur when we realize that we have, with little justification, acted contrary to our attitudes or made a decision favouring one alternative despite reasons favouring another.
People are especially keen on reading information that supports which of their views?
Their political, religious, and ethical views
Fill in the blanks;
Dissonance theory pertains mostly to discrepancies between ______ and ______.
behaviour and attitudes.
what is insufficient justification?
The reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one’s behaviour when external justification is insufficient
fill in the blanks:
Having insufficient justification for their action, they would experience more _______ and thus be more ________ to believe in what they had done.
discomfort (dissonance), motivated
fill in the blanks:
______ _______ theory focuses on what induces a desired action rather than on the relative effectiveness of rewards and punishments administered after the act
cognitive dissonance theory
fill in the blanks:
emphasis on perceived choice and responsibility implies that ____ produce dissonance.
decisions
when it comes to decision making, how are cultures likely to differ?
Americans are more likely to justify their choices, Japanese are more likely to justify choices they made for their friends but not for themselves
- these studies suggest that culture can shape the experience of cognitive dissonance
what is the self-perception theory?
the theory that when unsure of our attitudes, we infer them as much as would someone observing us - by looking at our own behaviour and the circumstances under which it occurs
what is the over-justification effect?
The result of bribing people to do what they already like doing, they may then see their action as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing
what does the self-perception theory assume about tension?
when our attitudes are weak to begin with, we will use our behaviour and its circumstances as a clue to those attitudes
what is the self-affirmation theory?
A theory that people often experience self-image threat after engaging in undesirable behaviour, and they compensate for this threat by affirming another aspect of the self. Threaten people’s self-concept in one domain, and they will compensate by either refocusing or by doing good deeds in some other domain
According to dissonance theory, what happens when we act contrary to clearly defined attitudes?
We feel tension, so we adjust out attitudes to reduce it
- dissonance theory, then, explains attitude change
