Lecture 1 Flashcards
replication crisis
- poor research methods and statistics
- low bar for good explanations
- insufficient critical mindset
some foundations of psychology
- bounded rationality
- humans have goals
- evolution by natural selection
bounded rationality
the idea that people’s ability to make rational decisions is limited by cognitive constraints, available information, and time
- use of heuristics and rules of thumb
scissors metaphor
human rational behavior is like a scissor whose 2 blades are the structure of task environments and the computational capabilities (psychological abilities) of the actor
- fit between environment and abilities of the person
humans have goals
evolution by natural selection
no
- natural selection can explain everything
- psychology is independent from biology
- don’t think about it
yes
- natural selection does NOT explain everything
- psychology must be consistent with natural selection
-consider if theory/explanation is consistent with natural selection
advertising basics
- advertising is any paid communication by identified sponsor aimed to inform/persuade target audience about organization, product, service, or idea
- advertising is ancient
- advertising goals change over product life cycle
- other forms of marketing and promotion are used (direct marketing, sponsorship)
- different views on the functions of advertising (inform consumers, free services/media, funding public broadcasters, creating jobs, etc.)
- persuasion can be useful
identify effects of advertising at the individual level
- relate specific advertising stimuli to specific and individual consumer responses
- articulate the interpersonal, intrapersonal, or group level psychological processes that are responsible for the relation between advertising stimuli and consumer responses
models of advertising
sales-response models
- concave or S-shaped
hierarchy-of-effects models 1
- AIDA: attention -> interest -> desire -> action
- variants: AIDCA, AIETA, A-K-L-P-C-P
- DAGMAR
- evaluation plays key role in each model
- pros: adds intermediate steps between message and consumer response
- cons: assume one order and high consumer involvement; didn’t predict very well
Foote, Cone, and Belding grid
hierarchy-of-effects models 2
- ‘grand theories’: describe everything, for everyone, everywhere
- consumer behavior too complex for single model
- how to get from one stage to the next?
- consumers seen as passive recipients
cognitive response approach (1970s)
- consumer is active processor of information
- attitude change is explained by how the person responds to message
- supportive or counter-arguments, credibility of source, etc.
- basis of dual process theories: add spectrum of involvement
psychological approach to persuasion
- persuasion happens not only in advertising
- persuasion happens but is not well understood
- conclusion: we need better psychological science of persuasion
persuasion example 1: nudges
a subtle, indirect way of influencing consumer behavior without restricting choices or using direct persuasion
- flu shot vaccination pick-up texts
- variety of texts
- scientists not able to predict which text would increase pick-up
example 2: campaign ads
favorability and vote choice for political candidates
- ‘how pushy’ an ad is was a significant and positive predictor of effectiveness
- unifying theme of the results is inconsistency
ABC model of attitudes
attitude is an evaluation of an attitude object
- attitude has 3 components: affective, behavioral, cognitive components
attitudes are influenced by:
- genetics (personality traits)
- social learning (e.g. socialization)
- derive from own behavior (self-perception theory)
- experiences (e.g. classical and operant conditioning)
- mere exposure
evaluation based on information
what is an attitude?
attitudes are evaluative responses, directed towards some attitude object, based on 3 classes of information (‘ABC’)
- no consensus on more specific definition because different theories of what attitudes are
- attitudes are (stable) predispositions: psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor
- attitudes are context-dependent evaluative responses: the categorization of a stimulus object along an evaluative dimension
attitudes are predispositions
- contra responses: if attitudes are defined as response, how can attitudes explain behavior?
- people often explain human behavior by reference to stable underlying dispositions
- personality psychology: traits explain behavior
- social psychology: attitudes explain behavior
attitudes are evaluative responses
- contra predispositions: attitudes can change quickly
- can we solve this debate?
- how could predispositions and evaluations explain/influence behavior?
file-drawer model
attitude is a (learnt) structure in long-term memory that is activated when perceiving attitude object
- attitudes are files with evaluative information in mental database
- implies stability
attitudes-as-constructions model
- attitudes depend on what people think about at a given moment
- evaluation is made online, based on salient or accessible information
how do people form attitudes?
- cognitive information (beliefs)
- direct experience vs transmitted information
- heuristics (if-then shortcut): if (brand image, country of origin, price, etc.) then X
how do people form attitudes?
- affective information (feelings)
- mere exposure (hedonic fluency)
- evaluative conditioning (learning associations)
- affect as information
how do people form attitudes?
- behavioral information
self-perception theory: derive attitudes from own behavior
affect as information
- ‘How do I feel about it’ heuristic
- what is the alternative?
- misattribution is possible, but unlikely as general rule
- ‘How do I feel’ hueristic is not optimal
attitude strength
- not all attitudes have equal effects on behavior
- attitudes not only have direction (or sign) but also strength
stronger vs weaker attitudes
- more stable over time
- greater impact on behavior
- greater influence on information processing
- greater resistance to persuasion
