Social Cognition

Question 1

What is the structure of attitudes?

Answer 1

ABC component model
Affective - feelings
Behavioural - actions
Cognitive - beliefs

Question 2

What is the function of attitudes?

Answer 2

Attitudes form for a range of reasons

• adaptive
• ego defensive
• self-expressive
• knowledge

Question 3

What is the adaptive function?

Answer 3

Maximise reward and minimise punishment from the world around them. Hence we develop positive attitudes towards what we like, and negative attitudes towards we don’t like.

Question 4

What is the ego-defensive function?

Answer 4

Helps people avoid admitting negative things about them or the harsh realities of the outside world. Its a defensive mechanism to protect out self-image in our own eyes.

Question 5

What is the self-expressive function?

Answer 5

Allows us to gain satisfaction from expressing our attitudes and values which are central to our concepts of ourselves. It allows us to gain positive feelings about ourselves and establish self-identity.

Question 6

What is the knowledge function?

Answer 6

People require knowledge in order to give structure to the world. They want to know about things that directly affect them or could potentially affect them. It helps us know how to act when we face people and situations. We use our previous knowledge to decide how we react to new situations.

Question 7

What are the factors affecting attitude and behaviour link?

Answer 7

Attitude strength, attitude specificity, attitude accessibility, ambivalence, social situation

Question 8

What is attitude strength?

Answer 8

Affects the link between attitude and behaviour. Strong attitudes have a stronger influence over behaviour, endure over time and are more resistant to change. Attitudes are strong when they result from a direct experience because we are more likely to think and talk about them.
–> Direct and Indirect experience

Question 9

What is attitude specificity?

Answer 9

Refers to the idea that an attitude can relate to a general concept or a specific aspect of the concept. E.g a person likes to jog rather than say they like to exercise = specific

Question 10

What is attitude accessibility?

Answer 10

How easy an attitude comes to mind. Highly accessible attitudes come to mind quickly and is influenced by attitude strength.

Question 11

What is ambivalence?

Answer 11

Refers to the idea that we can have both positive and negative responses to the same thing. DIFFERENT to a neutral attitude which consists of neither.
E.g. A person may have a positive attitude towards chocolate because they like the taste, yet try to avoid it because it will make them fat.
–> Does not lead to predictable behaviour

Question 12

How does social situation affect the link between attitude and behaviour?

Answer 12

Affects how freely we express our attitudes; in other words, we choose to not express our negative attitudes because we are concerned that we will present a negative image to others.

Attitudes are a better predictor of behaviour when social influences that conflict with the attitude are lessened.

Question 13

What is cognitive dissonance?

Answer 13

If we are aware of inconsistencies in our various attitudes, or when the way we actually behave is different from the way we believe we should behave, we can experience psychological tension or discomfort.

E.g. When people smoke even though they are aware that smoking is harmful to their health. When people experience cognitive dissonance, they want to reduce the discomfort, so they change their attitude or behaviour.

Question 14

What is self-perception theory?

Answer 14

People observe their own behaviour and use this observation to infer what their attitudes must be.

Question 15

What is attitude change?

Answer 15

Central route of persuasion

Peripheral route of persuasion

Question 16

What is the central route of persuasion?

Answer 16

About making the audience of the message think carefully about the message, so as to evaluate the information.

• most effective upon people who are more likely to think about the message presented and analyse it
• they need a message that is credible
• presented clearly and simply
• backed up by evidence
• persuaded by advertisements focusing on the quality of the product
• more likely to change the attitudes of audience as they have to carefully process information

Question 17

What is the peripheral route of persuasion?

Answer 17

About persuading people through ‘peripheral cues’

• requires little thinking
• uses images of beauty and pleasure
• young audience w/ low self-esteem and negative self-concept
• cartoons, images, people having fun and catchy jingles

Question 18

Source

Answer 18

Who conveys the message

• credibility –> more likely to invoke change
• trust-worthiness
• perceived or real expertise
• attractiveness / likeability
• experts is assumed to have more knowledge and valid reasons for the opinion that they are presenting, therefore, people are more likely to assume that an experts opinion is correct.
• fast talking doesn’t give audience time to process what they’re saying
• memory of an attractive person gives us something positive to link message to

Question 19

Message

Answer 19

• envoke strong emotions or strong processing in audience

*

Question 20

Fear in Advertisement

Answer 20

to be effective;

* set clear intention

Question 21

Audience

Answer 21

• more intelligent audience is more likely persuaded by a message if they have to think about it and draw their own conclusions about the best course of action

Question 22

Advertisement

Answer 22

Aim to change a persons behaviour by changing their thoughts and opinions about an issue
to be effective;
* set clear conditions and actions to be taken

Question 23

Fear in Advertisement

Answer 23

Fear creates arousal which is emotional tension. People change their behaviour to reduce the tension

• when some people reach a certain level of fear, they tune out from the advertisement and hence loses its effectiveness

Question 24

Ethics in Fear Advertisement

Answer 24

• deliberately creates fear and anxiety
• graphic images unethical
• no psychological and physical harm

Question 25

What is self-efficacy?

Answer 25

the belief that a person has in themselves that they can change their own behaviour

Question 26

What is Prejudice?

Answer 26

prejudgement of someone based on a negative attitude.

ABC MODEL

affective - i dont like them
behavioural - discrimination
cognitive - i believe they are different

Question 27

What is Verbal Communication?

Answer 27

what we say - paralinguistic cues, tones rather than what we say

Question 28

What is non-verbal communication?

Answer 28

how we look

Question 29

What is impression management?

Answer 29

non-verbal communication, verbal communication, self-handicapping

Question 30

How do we measure attitudes?

Answer 30

Behavioural observation
Self report methods
- rating scales or likert scale
- questionnaires, survey and interviews