lecture 4 Flashcards
do attitudes determine behaviour? or does behaviour determine attitudes?
most of the time, behaviour determines attitudes (with some exceptions)
rarely, attitudes determine behaviour (with some exceptions)
can you disagree/stray away from an ideology? describe your answer with an example
you can but it is REALLY hard to do so if you are deeeep into it. you will face a LOT of cognitive dissonance.
example: if you are an isreali civilian, who is now in the IDF, you grew up and were raised to believe in zionism. That is your ideology, and bc ur in IDF, ur willing to KILL for it. Thus, you are VERY unlikely to change this ideology, as the cognitive dissonance would b insane since u basically killed to defend a cause + cant go back on it now.
what is an attitude?
a favourable or unfavourable reaction toward something/someone, which can present itself in feelings, beliefs or intended behaviour.
what are the ABCs of attitudes?
A: affect (feelings)
B: behaviour (intentions, can include what you say you would do)
C: cognitions (thoughts)
If there was an avalanche, would you save yourself over your kid? explain how your answer relates to self serving bias.
We would typically say that we would obviously save our kid, but this wishful thinking is self serving bias, because we don’t actually know! We are just assuming we are good people lol.
what are 5 ways we can measure attitudes? give an example of each
affect measures (ratings of positive/negative mood)
behaviour measures (snake phobia - extent of contact that the subject is willing to have with the snake, how it improves etc)
cognitive measures (favourable over unfavourable thoughts about snakes)
physiological measures (galvanic skin response)
electromyography aka EMG (records electrical activity in facial muscles to see happiness and sadness patterns)
Describe a study on hypocrisy that highlights how it impacts change
study recruited sexually active uni students to help design an STD prevention program
3 groups:
group 1: make a video
group 2: brainstorm
group 3: reveal instances that they failed to follow their own rules or advice (aka hypocrisy)
results: group 3 had the most effective results for change, as they bought condoms after the study.
conclusion: if you want ppl to change, remind them of their hypocrisy!
what are two major predictors of voluntary behaviour? give an example of each.
- attitudes toward the behaviour (ex: “I think exercise is great!”)
- subjective norms (ex: “everyone benefits from exercise”)
what is a major predictor of planned behaviour? explain it and give examples
perceived behavioural control
A main part of this is implementation intentions (remember this term!!), which is when people identify when and where the behaviour will be performed in order to actually increase the likelihood of them doing that behaviour.
ex study: an extra assignment worth 2% was optional during reading week. group 1 told to hand it in as soon as they return. group 2 told to write down when and where they would work on it and then sign the form and hand it in before they left for reading week. Group 2 did better and was more likely to actually do the assignment
what are the functions of attitudes (there are 4)
- knowledge function (helps us organize/structure environment)
- instrumental function (max rewards and minimize punishments)
- ego-defensive function (helps us deal w internal conflicts , like if someone counters are belief system we just ignore them!)
- value expressive function (help us interpret stuff?)
when do attitudes predict behaviour?
what attitudes are potent/strong
this occurs when something reminds us of it, or we gained the attitude through some personal important experience (ex: car crash w drunk driver so ur against drinking and driving and will take ppls car keys from them to prevent it)
what is cognitive dissonance reduction? give an example study.
if someone works hard to attain a goal, the goal will be more attractive than to the person who achieved the same goal with no effort.
example: sex study where they had 2 groups, group 1 had to talk about personal embarassing sex stuff with the group prior to watching some super boring video of ants having sex lol, but group 2 didnt do that they just went straight to the ant video. afterwards, they were both asked if they would come back for another like part of the study, and only group 1 said yes
this ant video was objectively very boring and uninteresting, so group 1 only said yes because they felt yucky about the things they shared with the group. they thought “ugh I feel gross and I worked really hard, so I guess it was a good video” (something like that, just ignoring the fact that video sucked to help with cognitive dissonance)
someone experiences intense hazing with a lot of hard work to get in, and once they get in the group sucks, but they decide to stay and kinda see the group as ‘good’. what is this an example of?
cognitive dissonance reduction
describe a study where roles determined attitudes and behaviours.
in the simulated prison study, officers and inmates actually started being rude to eachother, inmates started being aggressive, officers started being corrupt etc, so they had to end the study for ethical reasons lol.
simply roleplaying led to these outcomes
give an example relating to gender roles that depicts behaviour influencing attitudes
people dressed a baby in pink and strangers made gendered comments, when they dressed same baby in blue they made gendered comments
