Chapter 7: Attitudes, Behavior, and rationalization

Question 1

attitude

Answer 1

An … is an evaluation of an object along a positive-negative dimension. At their core, then, attitudes involve affect (emotion)—how much someone likes or dislikes an object. But attitudes also involve cognitions— thoughts that typically reinforce a persons feelings. These include knowledge and beliefs about the object, as well as associated memories and images. Finally attitudes are associated with specific behaviors. Most generally the affective evaluation of good versus bad is connected to a behavioral tendency to either approach or avoid. When specific attitudes are primed - brought to mind, even unconsciously - people are more likely to behave in ways consistent with the attitude.

Question 2

response latency

Answer 2

How can social psychologists better capture these other dimensions of attitudes? One approach is to measure the accessibility of the attitude—how readily it comes to mind (Fazio, 1995; Fazio & Williams, 1986). To do so, researchers track the time it takes a person to respond to an attitude question—known as the person’s …

Question 3

effort justification

Answer 3

The element of dissonance theory that rings most true to many people is the idea that if you pay a high price for something—in dollars, time, or effort—and it turns out to be disappointing, you’ll probably experience dissonance. As a result, you’re likely to devote mental energy to justifying what you’ve done; this tendency is known as …

Question 4

induced (forced) compliance

Answer 4

…—that is, when people are induced to behave in a manner that’s inconsistent with their beliefs, attitudes, or values.

Question 5

Terror management theory (TMT)

Answer 5

… specifies what people do to deal with the potentially crippling anxiety associated with the knowledge of death, in order to get on with their life.