Chapter 7 - Attitudes, Behaviour, & Rationalization Flashcards
- Define attitudes and describe their three components
- Attitude: an evaluation of an object (e.g., a specific
person, a category of people, a type of food, a political
cause) along a positive or negative dimension - Affective (how we feel): I like it (I have positive feelings about it)
- Behaviour (what we do): I ate Hawaiian pizza 10 times last month
- Cognition (what we think): I think that the sweetness of the pineapple provides a perfect balance
to the savoury flavours
- Explain how attitudes are measured
- Can just ask people about their attitudes (self-report)
- Likert scale: numerical scale comprising a set of possible answers (e.g., I enjoy Hawaiian pizza) with labeled anchors on either end (e.g., 1 = strongly agree, 7 = strongly disagree)
Researchers may also be interested in the accessibility
of an attitude—how readily it comes to mind
* Response latency: the amount of time it takes to
respond to a stimulus, such as an attitude question
* Thought to reflect accessibility (shorter latency = greater accessibility)
- Can we always rely on self-report?
- People may sometimes be either unwilling or unable to
report their true feelings or opinions - Implicit measures allow researchers to examine implicit,
or nonconscious, attitudes of participants
- Explain why attitudes may do a poor job of predicting behaviour, including the role
that introspection may play in the dissociation between attitudes & behaviours
Research (e.g., Wicker, 1969) shows that attitudes are often poor predictors
of behaviour—for example:
* Attitudes toward cheating &
cheating behaviour
* Attitudes toward religion & worship attendance
* Racial attitudes & behaviour
* Plentiful examples from politics & everyday life
Why?
Attitudes may conflict with other influences on
behaviour
* Social norms, other conflicting attitudes, and
situational factors may also influence behaviour
- Introspection may cause a rift between your expressed
atttitude and subsequent behaviour - E.g., why do you like your romantic partner?
- Ps asked to generate reasons for their attitude toward their relationship less accurate in predicting future relationship status than those simply asked to evaluate their relationship
(Wilson et al., 1984) - Particularly true when the basis of an attitude is affective (emotional)
- In these cases, cognitive (thoughtful) analysis of your
reasons for the attitude may yield misleading cognitive
reasons. - General attitudes may not match specific targets
- Attitudes are more accurate predictors of behaviour
when specific attitudes toward a specific behavior are measured - E.g., attitudes toward “health fitness” poor predictors of specific exercise practices—but attitudes toward jogging specifically do predict regularity of jogging
- Define cognitive dissonance theory and describe supporting examples, including:
a. Post-decision dissonance and spreading of alternatives
b. Effort justification
c. Induced compliance
d. For each of the above, you should be able to describe examples of studies
discussed in lecture/text, and be prepared to apply to real-world examples
Cognitive dissonance theory:
* Postulates that inconsistencies among
a person’s thoughts,
sentiments, and actions
cause an aversive
emotional state (dissonance) that leads to efforts to restore consistency
* Cognitive dissonance can be reduced by changing
thoughts, feelings, or behavior in order to make them consistent (ex: quitting smoking)
* Cognitive dissonance can also be reduced by adding
thoughts, feelings, or behaviours to reduce apparent inconsistencies (ex: my grandpa smoked and live long, bad for me but helps me relax)
a. Post-decision dissonance:
* Dissonance aroused by the
inconsistency of accepting the negatives of one choice + rejecting the positives of the rejected alternative
* The more difficult the choice = more inconsistent elements = more dissonance
-Spreading the alternatives: Decision dissonance
typically is resolved by emphasizing the positives and minimizing the negatives of the selected choice
* Also resolved by emphasizing the negatives of the unselected choices and minimizing the positives
Example:
* If the big city is chosen, people may emphasize how
great it is to go to restaurants and museums and minimize how frustrating the traffic is
* If the small town is chosen, people may emphasize
how great it is to not deal with traffic and minimize
not being able to go to fancy restaurants or museums
-Other example: study with valued objects to choose from (choose from 2 things like a lot = high dissonance, choose from 1 thing like a lot and 1 like less = lower dissonance, vs gift)
b. * Effort justification: tendency to reduce dissonance by justifying the time, effort, or money devoted to something that turned out to be unpleasant or disappointing
* Greater effort expended leads to more dissonance and more attempts to rationalize behavior
* Festinger: “We come to love the things we suffer for”
-Examples: college initation rites, women sex initiation and boring sex discussion, cult example, ikea objects made ourselves, car dealers… JUSTIFYING THE EFFORT
c. Induced/forced compliance: * Subtly compelling people to behave in a manner that is inconsistent with their beliefs, attitudes, or values
will elicit dissonance, and therefore a change in their original views
-example: kids made to lie that task is fun despite boring for 1$. Dissonance: I’m not cheap and don’t lie easily vs. I just lied for 1$! To reduce dissonance, convince themselves the task was actually pretty fun. When had to lie for 20$, felt it was worth it= no dissonance = that task was boring despite what I lied about
-toy example: mild threat= toy rated as not so great, vs severe threat=object seems more appealing
- Explain under which conditions cognitive dissonance is most likely to emerge
-Free choice
* Choosing to engage in a behavior that is inconsistent
with beliefs will cause dissonance
* Forced behavior does not cause dissonance, since the
reason for the behavior is clear (“I didn’t have a
choice”)
* There is no need to rationalize behaviors we didn’t
choose
-Insufficient justification
* Dissonance may occur when the reason for a
behavior is weak or unclear
* Payment of $1 may be insufficient justification for
lying
* Annoying an adult may be insufficient punishment
to resist playing with a favorite toy
* With sufficient justification (that is, more money,
larger threat), the behavior doesn’t need to be
rationalized
-Negative consequences
* Freely chosen inconsistent behaviors may not cause
dissonance if there was no negative consequence of
the behaviour
o Lying may not cause dissonance if the person
doesn’t believe what you say anyway
* If nothing happened as a result, there is nothing to
rationalize
-Foreseeability
* Dissonance may not occur if the negative consequence
was not something that could be foreseen.
o For instance, if you give someone food they are
allergic to but you had no prior knowledge of the
allergy, then you have no reason to rationalize your
behavior
- Describe the association between self-affirmation and cognitive dissonance
- Cognitive dissonance results from challenges or threats to people’s sense of themselves as rational, moral, and competent
- Self-affirmation
- Boosting our self-esteem and identity by focusing on
important aspects of the self - Self-affirmation can reduce dissonance
- Describe the association between culture and cognitive dissonance; describe the contexts in which people from collectivistic (vs. individualistic) cultures are more or less likely to experience dissonance
- Euro-Canadians’ cognitive dissonance may result
from threats to how they see themselves - Asian-Canadians’ cognitive dissonance may occur
from threats to how people believe they are seen by
others
-example: japanese had to use dissonance reduction in room with posters of judgmental faces, but not european americans
- Define self-perception theory and describe how it relates to, and has been,
reconciled with, cognitive dissonance theory
- Self-perception theory: people come to know their own attitudes by looking at their behaviour and the context in which it occurred, and inferring what their attitudes must be
- Self-perception theory suggests a different
interpretation of the cognitive dissonance research - Cognitive dissonance theory argues that people
change attitudes to fit their behavior because inconsistencies are mentally unpleasant - Self-perception theory argues that an unpleasant
mental state is NOT needed as explanation for the
results of the cognitive dissonance studies - Self-perception argues that people didn’t change their
attitudes; instead, they inferred their attitudes from
their behavior in the situation
“I told them that the task was fun, so it must have
been fun because there wasn’t any other reason to
say it was.”
Reconciliation with cognitive dissonance theory:
* Cognitive dissonance may occur when behaviour
doesn’t fit a preexisting attitude, and the attitude is
important to the self-concept
Inconsistency is threatening to self-concept, so dissonance is aroused
* Self-perception may occur when attitudes are weak or
ambiguous
No strong prior attitude → no sense of inconsistency →
no dissonance (chaiken and baldwin)
Many attitudes are relatively weak and changeable.
- Describe the overjustification effect
- Overjustification effect: occurs when an extrinsic
reward ends up reducing the intrinsic motivation to
perform an action
Example: parent paying child to read books
No reward: self-perception “i do it because i like it”=intrinsic motivation
Money reward: self-perception “I do this because I’m paid to”= extrinsic motivation
-example: babies, external motivation (toys) reduce desire to help (read example in textbook…) - Extrinsic rewards can increase frequency of a behaviour, but can also undermine the intrinsic motivation to engage in the behaviour
- Behaviour will cease once the extrinsic reward is
removed - But rewards can be helpful when intrinsic motivation is
lacking - Rewards & praise for achievement can boost intrinsic motivation
