Exam 2: Chapter 5 Flashcards
What are attitudes?
Favorable or unfavorable evaluation of a particular thing
What are our attitudes made up of?
Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors on a person, place, or thing
What is classical conditioning?
Liking or disliking new objects or events simply because of their association with objects or events we already don’t like
What is operant conditioning?
Rewards and punishments to reinforce or discourage an attitude or behavior
Can classical and operant conditioning occur without awareness of the participants?
Yes to both
What is observational learning?
Learning by observing the behaviors of others of what to do and not to do
What is heredity?
How you are raised influences your personalities and behaviors
What is an example of the heredity unlearned attitude component?
Political and religious issues
What is attitude strength?
How strongly you are holding onto an attitude
What do strong attitudes accomplish?
Accurately predicting behavior
Why is having a strong attitude so important?
Strong attitudes resist change and are more stable than weaker ones, better able to withstand persuasive attacks
What is commitment?
Holding true to beliefs and perceptions that we have
What two elements make strong attitudes more resistant to change?
Commitment and embeddedness
What is embededness?
The traits that are concrete in our personalities and are unlikely to change
How does commitment contribute to strong attitudes?
Shielding attitudes against contradictory information
How does embededdness contribute to strong attitudes?
Anchoring them to change-resistant features of the self
What is knowledge?
What you know that then makes your behaviors possible
What is the textbook definition of knowledge?
The more we know about something, the more likely it is that our attitudes and actions will be consistent with each other
What happens if you have direct contact with the idea?
You are more likely to have predictive behaviors
What are the two aspects of knowledge that intensify that link between attitudes and related actions?
Amount of knowledge required on the subject and the direct versus indirect nature of the knowledge
What is personal relevance?
What relates to you personally, when it becomes personally relevant your attitudes change and your behaviors follow
What is xbility (Kearn)?
The degree to which it comes to springs to mind quickly
What is a highly accessible attitude likely to do?
stimulate actions that are consistent with it
What are behavioral intentions?
What you believe and what you intend to do are different so your behaviors do not coincide with your actions and beliefs
What can you tell by how quickly someone responds?
Which of them would act consistently with their response
What is the simple definition of behavioral intentions?
Specific aims to act in a certain way, more likely than attitudes to predict behavior
What is the theory of planned behavior?
Best predictor of behavior is behavioral intention, subjective norms, and perceived control over the behavior
What are subjective norms?
Perception that important others would approve or disapprove of the behavior
What is perceived behavioral control?
Perception of how difficult it is to perform the behavior
What is persuasion?
Change in a private attitude or belief as a result of receiving a message
What is a potential con of self-reporting?
May lie about behaviors because it might not be socially acceptable
What is observing a relevant behavior covertly?
Without asking subjects to give self-reports of attitudes, simply observing an attitude-relevant behavior
When have researchers found covert methods to be more accurate than self-report?
When people have a good reason to lie about their true feelings/behaviors
What are nonreactive measurements?
does not change a subjects responses while recording them
What are the benefits of using nonreactive measurements?
Using them to record a response is less likely to distort the response, when a subject is trying to hide their true feelings
Why are self-reports usually preferred?
They inquire about attitudes are more directly
Why is the clarity, logic, and memorability of the message so important?
Comprehension and learning of the message content were critical to persuasion
What is the cognitive response model?
Locates the most direct cause of persuasion in the self-talk of the persuasion target
What is the cognitive response model in essence?
Its not what the communicator says, but its what the target says to themselves as a result of receiving that communication
What is self-talk?
The internal cognitive responses or thinking, people engage in after being exposed to the message
What is positive self-talk?
Finding ways to stimulate positive cognitive responses to your message
What are counterarguments?
Challenges and opposes other arguments, weaken persuasive messages by arguing against them
What is the inoculation procedure?
Technique for increasing individuals resistance to a strong argument by first giving them weak, easily defeated versions of it
What are two ways to limit peoples ability to form counter-arguments?
If they learn that an expert holds the position, diminishing time to formulate counterarguments, distracting or overburdening participants with tasks to make them more susceptible to persuasion
What is the textbook definition of inoculation?
Technique for increasing individuals resistance to a strong argument by giving them weak easily defeated versions of it
What is the most common tactic for reducing the persuasiveness of an opponent’s?
Give people direct counterarguments against the strongest versions of that message
What is the fairness doctrine?
Acknowledged the importance of counterargument in free society, so when controversial topics are broadcast free air time is made available for citizens to state opposing views
What are the dual process models of persuasion?
Accounts for the two basic ways that attitude change occurs with and without much thought
What are the two basic kinds of attitude change processes?
Focus on the arguments in a message, and those that involve a focus on other factors such as the attractiveness of the communicator
What is the elaboration likelihood model?
Proposes two routes that people can take to be persuaded, central route and peripheral route
What is the central route?
Focusing on the quality of the arguments when they have the motivation and ability to do so
What is the peripheral route?
focus on factors other than the quality of the arguments such as the number of arguments
When do participants take the peripheral route?
When motivation or ability is missing
Does peripheral or central routes produce more enduring change?
Central processing
What two factors influence a persons motivation?
Personal relevance to the topic, tendency to think hard about any topic