PSYC 104 Final Flashcards
Affect
Emotion
Behaviors
What a person does, attitudes and behaviors tend to be related
Cognition
thoughts, realizations
Self-report
people report their attitudes directly, often use Likert scales
Attitude centrality
report attitudes about several topics within a domain, the more a topic is linked to other topics the more central the topic is to a person
Implicit attitudes
Attitudes we are not conscious of; Measuring implicit bias is preferred when the topic is very affected by social desirability
Social desirability
the desire to want to respond to a question in a way the person perceives to be socially
acceptable
Attitudes and behavior
Attitudes can predict behavior when the attitude is specific to the behavior; Stronger attitudes predict behavior better than weaker attitudes
Implicit attitudes test
Measures differences in response times between classifying certain groups. Faster response time indicates stronger association
Physiological reactions
Measure changes in physiological measures in response to an attitude object; eg: heartrate, sweat etc
Attitudes and predicting behavior
Attitudes only weakly predict behavior, there are other factors that affect behavior: norms, context, personality
Attitudes and predicting behavior (2)
Attitudes can predict behavior when the attitude is specific to the behavior, engagement with the target of the attitude aligns attitudes and behavior
Cognitive dissonance
A person is uncomfortable with conflicting thoughts, affects, and behaviors
Reducing cognitive dissonance
Change your cognition or affect, change your behavior, effort justification, spreading of alternatives, self-affirmation
Effort justification
reducing dissonance from a disappointing or unpleasant outcome by justifying decision with time, effort, or money devoted to it
Spreading of Alternatives
rationalizing a choice you have made to reflect greater confidence in the choice you made versus the choice you rejected
Unethical amnesia
may just not remember times in the past we acted unethically, so we don’t feel
dissonance
Induced (forced) compliance
inducing dissonance in someone by having the person behave in a way counter to their beliefs/attitudes, this dissonance leads the person to change their attitude (because they can’t
change their past behavior)
Cognitive dissonance in western cultures
Seen when choices are made for oneself; don’t experience much dissonance when making choices for others
Cognitive dissonance in Asian cultures
More cognitive dissonance when making choices for others; none when making personal choices
Bem’s self-perception theory
Attitudes are formed by our behavior; one is the observer of oneself
Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance vs. Bem’s Self-perception Theory
Evidence that people experience arousal when they hold competing cognitions or behaviors; Weak attitudes may be inferred from behavior
System Justification theory
People are motivated to see existing sociopolitical systems as desirable, fair, and legitimate; Easier to maintain the status quo than effect change; use of stereotypes and victim blaming when system is threatened
Terror management theory
We are motivated by the fear of death, people don’t want to die and want to leave legacy behind when they do die; Fear of death motivates individual behaviors and ‘cultural
worldview’
Cultural worldview
Relates to self-esteem by considering how much a person contributes to their society and are important members of that society
Elaboration likelihood model
2 routes of persuasion: Central or peripheral; Many factors contribute to which route we use to process persuasive messages
Central route
Controlled processing; careful, deliberate thought
Peripheral route
Automatic processing; superficial, easy to process thinking; what is apparent; requires less time and energy
Source characteristics
Traits of the person communicating the message: attractiveness, credibility, confidence/certainty
Message characteristics
The content of the message effect how persuasive it is: quality, vividness, use of fear
Identifiable victim effect
Presenting audience with an example of a person (or animal) is more persuasive than statistics
Audience characteristics
Audience characteristics effect persuaded the audience will be: mood, age, desire to think things through
Need for cognition
preferring to think deeply, liking to solving problems, considering both sides
of an argument
Metacognition
Thoughts about our thoughts
Primary cognition
The first thought we have
Secondary cognition
the thought we have reflecting on the first thought; these cognitions can influence persuasion
Self-validation hypothesis
Feeling confident about our thoughts further validates those thoughts and those thoughts are more likely to be endorsed
Shared attention
when people know other people are also watching an event simultaneously,
they exhibit more controlled processing
Agenda control
media sources can manage what information we get and how that information is
interpreted
Resistance to Persuasion
Selective attention and selective evaluation
Selective attention
pay attention to information that confirms our attitudes
Selective evaluation
Evaluate and discount the validity of information counter to our attitudes, less critical of information that confirms our
attitudes
Thought polarization hypothesis
the more thought given to an attitude, the more entrenched and extreme the attitude becomes
Resistance
Publicly expressing one’s attitudes makes people less likely to change those attitudes; People with more knowledge about an attitude object are less likely to be persuaded
Attitude inoculation
when people who endorse an attitude are faced with a mild attack on that attitude that they can refute, the next time the attitude is strongly attacked they are less persuaded by the attack compared to if the
attitude was never mildly attacked before
Social influence
How people affect one another’s behaviors and attitudes
Conformity
Changing one’s behaviors or attitudes as a result of pressure
Compliance
fulfilling an explicit request made by another person