Social Cognition And Behaviour Change Flashcards
Social psychology
What do they examine + 3 main components
Examines the influence of social pressures on the way people think, feel and behave.
Thoughts = cognition Feelings = emotions Behaviour = actions
Attitudes
What is it? What it involves? 3 components (with examples)
An attitude is an association between an act or object and an evaluation.
Involves positive or negative impressions.
Involves 3 components:
• cognitive - exams assess knowledge
• emotional - I get anxious about exams
• behavioural - I studied hard for my exam
Dimensions of Attitudes (7)
hint: S, I, A, A, C, A, C
- Strength: durability and impact
- Importance: personal relevance
- Accessibility: ease of activation
- Awareness: implicit vs. explicit
- Complexity: specific vs. General
- Ambivalence: negative and positive feelings
- Coherence: internal consistency
Instances where you can predict behaviour from attitudes (6)
- the attitude and behaviour are specific
- environmental reinforcement matches attitude
- important others share the same attitude
- attitudes are implicit (unconscious)
- attitude is strong
- attitude has developed from personal experience
Persuasion
Refers to the deliberate attempt to change an attitude held by another
Components to successful persuasion (5)
- persuasive SOURCES are credible, attractive, likeable, powerful and similar to the recipient
- persuasive MESSAGES match the recipients level of consideration of the topic
- persuasive CHANNELS of delivery are personal (eg. Face to face)
- CONTEXT - messages should be delivered at the right time and right place (attitude inoculation)
- persuasion is more likely if the RECEIVER has weaker attitudes and/or is attending to the message
Processes of persuasion:
The Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion
(2 routes)
Central route: induce recipients to consider arguments carefully to change attitudes
Peripheral route: appeal to emotions by…
Classical conditioning of an object with an emotional response.
Simple repetition of a message to alter attitude change.
Cognitive dissonance
- what is it
- what it motivates (3)
Refers to a perceived discrepancy between an attitude and a behaviour (or an attitude and new piece of information) that results in a state of psychological tension similar to anxiety.
Motivates the individual to reduce tension by:
• changing the behaviour
• changing the attitude
• changing the perception of the inconsistent information
Self perception theory
What is it? + example
Suggests attitudes change in dissonance experiments due to people observing their own behaviour.
E.g. An individual knows that speeding increases risk of car accidents (attitude) yet speeds regularly (behaviour)
= results in cognitive dissonance
In order to reduce the tension the individual may: • change behaviour • change attitude • change perception
Social cognition
+ models used in social cognition.
The process by which people make sense of themselves, others, social interactions and relationships.
Cognitive models are used to understand social phenomena:
• schemas as organising principles
• connectionist models and parallel processing
Factors when perceiving other people: (5)
First impression (‘halo effect’ = tendency to assume that positive qualities cluster together)
Schemas
Stereotypes
Prejudice
Attribution
Schemas (definition)
Why they’re beneficial
+ 4 types of schemas
A pattern of thought that organise our experiences/knowledge.
Allow us to enter new situation with how we and others are to act.
- Person schemas: represent specific types of people (librarians, extroverts, students)
- Situation schemas: represent different social situations (formal vs. informal)
- Role schemas: represent expectations for social roles (parent, student, professor)
- Relationship schemas: represent expectations about self and others in unique relationships (siblings, couple)
Stereotypes and prejudice:
Where schemas are rigid and prone to error (3)
- Stereotypes: represent characteristic assigned to persons based on their membership in a specific group
- Prejudice: involves judging others based on a stereotype
- Discrimination: acting negatively towards a person
Stereotypes - why we use them
Stereotypes are necessary - we do not have the cognitive resources necessary to analyse every new situation we encounter.
Not all stereotypes are negative.
E.g. - Asians are good at mathematics, women are maternal, older adults are wise.
Racism (definition)
+ schemas that create components of racism (3)
+ roots of racism
Racism reflects a negative attitude towards members of a racial group.
Stereotype is the COGNITIVE component.
Prejudice is the EMOTIONAL component.
Discrimination is the BEHAVIOURAL component.
Roots of racism may lie in personality:
The AUTHORITARIAN personality includes the tendency to hate people who are different.
This personality is associated it’s a dominant, stern father and submissive mother.
Explicit and implicit racism
Explicit: involves the conscious use of stereotypes and the expression of prejudice
Implicit: is the unconscious influence of stereotypes towards members of a racial group.
In ambiguous situations, whites tend to:
• be less helpful towards blacks than other whites
• believe in stiffer legal penalties for black criminals
Roots of Prejudice (2 points + ‘functional prejudice’)
Prejudice reflects socialisation proceeds from parent to child.
In Australia, children from minority and majority subcultures express preferences towards the majority subculture by the pre school years.
Prejudice is functional: the notion that prejudice preserves the interests of dominant classes.
Inter Group Hostility
(3 points)
+ reducing group hostility
- in group versus out group: persons who belong to your group or not
- persons not in your group are perceived as more similar than they really are
- positive actions of the out group are explained away, while negative behaviours are attributed to internal causes.
Reducing hostility requires contact and cooperation among the group members. (Superordinate goals)
Attribution:
External and internal attributions of behaviour (+ examples)
Affiliation (definition)
“We are intuitive scientists”
External attributions: behaviour that is due to the situation
E.g. - the boss yelled at me because it is April 15th and his taxes aren’t done.
Internal attributions: behaviour reflects the person
E.g. - the boss yells at everyone because he is a hostile person
Affiliation refers to the process of inferring the causes of mental stages and behaviours of yourself and others.
Issues with Attribution
Internal or external attributions depend on:
(3 things + examples of instances deemed as internal or external attributions due to those 3 things)
Consensus: the extent to which a behaviour is operative in a group.
E.g. - if many people behave the same way, you are likely to make an EXTERNAL attributions.
Consistency: the extent to which a person responds reliably to a stimulus.
E.g. - if behaviour is consistent, you are likely to make an INTERNAL attribution.
Distinctiveness: the extent to which a person responds to a different stimuli.
E.g. - if behaviour is distinctive, you are likely to make an EXTERNAL attribution.
Processes that Affect the use of effective Attribution (3)
Discounting: a person downplays the role of a variable because of the influence of another variable.
Augmentation: an increase in an internal attribution for certain behaviour.
Attribution style: person’s habitual manner of assigning causes to behaviours or events.
Errors of attribution (2)
Fundamental attribution error:
Tendency for observers, when analysis another’s behaviour, to underestimate the impact of external factors and to overestimate the impact of internal factors.
Self serving bias:
Tendency to attribute OUR successes to internal factors and our failures to external factors. Tend to see ourselves in a more positive light than others see us.
Faulty cognition results from:
3 things + examples
- cognitive bases - e.g. Heuristics
- motivational bases - e.g. Schemas are influenced by wants, needs and goals.
- interaction of cognition and motivation - e.g. Confirmation bias
The self
Self concept
Self esteem
The self is the person, including mental processes, body and personality characteristics.
Self concept is the schema that guides thinking and memory relevant to the self. (Cognitive component.)
Self esteem is an individual’s evaluation of the self and how much he/she likes and respects the self. (Affective component.)
Approaches to understanding The Self. (2)
hint: P & C
Psychodynamic: self representations are mental models or representations of the self that play a key role in personality.
Cognitive: self schema guide the way we think about and remember information relevant to ourselves.
The self and culture.
2 Types of cultures - C & I
The self is viewed differently in collectivist and individualistic cultures.
Collectivist cultures (eg. Asian cultures): view the self as INTERDEPENDENT and define the self in terms of social relationships. (E.g. Mother, employee)
Individualist cultures (eg. Australia and New Zealand): views the self as INDEPENDENT and define the self in terms of personal attributes. (E.g. Intelligent, funny)
Motives that guide the perception of Self (3)
Self esteem: the way an individual feels about themselves.
Self consistency: the motive to interpret information to fit the way one already sees self.
Self presentation: the process by which people try to control the impressions that others form of them.
