Chapter 4: Behavior and Attitudes Flashcards
Attitude
- How we evaluate an event or person
- Revealed by beliefs, feelings, or intended behavior
- Can be positive (Coffee) or negative (neighbour)
ABC’s of Attitudes
- A: Affect (feelings)
- B: Behaviour (tendencies)
- C: Cognition (thoughts)
Moral Hypocrisy
Appearing moral without acting the same way (raffle tickets)
When Attitudes Predict Behaviour
- Social influences are low
- Attitudes are strong
Explicit Biases
Conscious attitudes
Implicit Biases
- Subconscious attitudes
- Amygdala is the center for these
IATs
- Reaction time measures concept associations
- Implicit biases are pervasive through groups
- People are often unaware of these
- Implicit biases can harm others
- Confirms DUAL PROCESSING capacity for controlled and automatic thinking
IAT Criticisms
- Not reliable enough to assess individuals
- Motivation behind biases are unclear (past experiences shape these)
- Can’t measure positive or negative associations
When Influences on Behavior are Minimal: Principle of Aggregation
Actions over time can be used to identify patterns
When Influences on Behavior are Minimal: Behavior-Specific Attitudes
- While general attitudes aren’t indicative of behavior, specific attitudes are
- Altering specific attitudes can affect behavior
The Theory of Planned Behavior
- Attitude, Subjective norms, and Perceived control all contribute to a BEHAVIOR INTENTION which results in a BEHAVIOR
When Attitudes are Potent
- Reflecting on attitudes makes them more likely to affect our behavior
- Self-awareness promotes behaviors that reflect our attitudes
- Attitudes are more potent when they come from experiences
Behavior Affecting Attitudes: Role Playing
- We tend to adopt the norms of whatever role we are playing in society
- Most people feel dissonance at first, but most will eventually join in the norms
Behavior Affecting Attitudes: Gender Roles
We make an effort to fit the norms that are expected of us, including those of our gender
Behavior Affecting Attitudes: Saying Becomes Believing
- People will believe something more after expressing it, even if they are prompted to express
- We adjust our messages based on who is listening, which can affect our attitude on the matter
Behavior Affecting Attitudes: Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
- People agree to more after agreeing to something small
- When people do something voluntarily, it influences their attitudes which increases the likelihood they will do it more
Behavior Affecting Attitudes: Low-Ball Technique
- When someone agrees to something, they are now more likely to accept a stronger request
Behavior Affecting Attitudes: Door-in-the-face Technique
After someone denies a large request, they are more likely to accept a smaller one
Behavior Affecting Attitudes: Immoral and Moral Acts
- Moral sensitivity is compromised when doing immoral stuff, which makes it more likely they will do it again
- When people perform moral acts with more perceived choice, they are more likely to internalize this choice and be more moral
Behavior Affecting Attitudes: Social Movements
- When people can’t say what they believe, they will eventually believe what they say
- POWs were more tolerant of communism after being forced to say communist affirmations
Why Behavior Affects Attitudes: Self-Presentation Theory
Even when actions are impacted by external forces (system 1, outward influences), we feel a need to express attitudes that correspond with our actions to appear consistent
Why Behavior Affects Attitudes: Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory
We feel tension when two thoughts or beliefs are inconsistent, which causes us to shift our thinking
Cognitive Dissonance: Selective Exposure
Minimizing dissonance by selectively exposing ourselves to things that confirm our beliefs (confirmation bias)
Cognitive Dissonance: Insufficient Justification Effect
- People who feel less justified in their actions feel more dissonance and shift their beliefs more readily
- People who got paid more felt less inclined to say the experiment was interesting because they had a greater incentive to explain their behavior
Cognitive Dissonance: Dissonance After Decisions
- Dissonance after decisions causes us to shift our perceptions to justify our choice (like what we bought more than what we didn’t)
- We often feel better about our decisions after making them
Cognitive Dissonance: Culture
Collectivist cultures feel less cognitive dissonance about decisions made for the self, but more around decisions made for others
Cognitive Dissonance: How to Resolve it
i. What are the cognitions
ii. What action would fix it
iii. Do I need to change specific behaviours or is it my mindset
iv. How important is it to resolve
Why Behavior Affects Attitudes: Self-Perception Theory
- When attitudes are ambiguous, our actions develop these attitudes
- William James: Emotions follow behaviors (wake up early on a big lecture day and then assume we are stressed)
- May explain foot-in-the-door: as we agree to tasks, we start to have the attitude that I am someone who does tasks for people
Self-Perception Theory: Expressions and Attitude
- James Laird: Our expressions affect our attitudes
- Botox makes people’s brains worse at reading emotions
- We unconsciously mirror the emotions of others to help us understand them
Self-Perception Theory: Over-Justification Effect
- Getting a big reward for something makes us believe we only did it for the reward
- Intrinsic motivations are more powerful than extrinsic
- We will read less if we are given an amount that we have to read, even when its less than what we would typically read
Cognitive Dissonance vs Self-Perception Theory
- CDT says we change our attitudes when we observe conflicts between behaviours or attitudes
- SPT says we infer attitudes based on our actions
Cognitive Dissonance Theory Strength
The arousal component makes this theory strong because we all can relate to the feeling
Self-Perception Theory Strength
The correlation of perceived responsibility with attitudes lends itself since this proves that our ambiguous attitudes follow behaviors that seem like our choice
