Chapter 7: Attitudes, Behavior, and Rationalization Flashcards
What are attitudes?
A psychological tendency that’s expressed by evaluating an object with some degree of favor or disfavor.
What are the three components of attitude?
Cognitions: Thoughts that reinforce one’s attitudes towards something.
Behaviors: The tendency to either approach or avoid. The positive or negative actions toward an object.
Affect (emotion): How much someone likes or dislikes an object.
What is response latency?
The amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus, such as an attitude question.
What is the cognitive dissonance theory?
Inconsistency between a person’s thoughts, sentiments, and actions that creates an aversive emotional state (dissonance) that leads to efforts to restore consistency.
What are some examples of cognitive dissonance?
Insufficient justification
Post-decision dissonance
What is insufficient justification?
To engage in behavior that contradicted an attitude and didn’t do so because there weren’t strong enough external incentives (rewards).
What are the basic ways to persuade others?
The peripheral and central route
What form of persuasion requires low motivation or ability from a person or audience?
Peripheral route
What form of persuasion requires high motivation or ability from a person or audience?
Central route
What did the Classic LaPierre study prove?
That attitudes do not predict behavior.
What is post-decision dissonance?
The dissonance that is aroused after making a decision between two (decent) alternatives.
What study proved post-decision dissonance?
The Brehm Study. People were asked to rate products on a scale from one to 5 based on how much they liked the product. The product rated the highest would be taken by the participants. In the second round, The participants rated the products they chose higher than the rest of the products they rated previously.
What theory did psychologists Steele and colleagues come up with?
Self-affirmation theory. This states that dissonance threatens self-worth. You resolve your self-worth by reaffirming self in a domain unrelated to inconsistency.
What are ways to reduce dissonance?
- Adding a new consonant attitude
Making an exception for yourself. “I know coffee stains your teeth, but I’ll be fine” - Change relevant behavior
- Change relevant attitude
