social perception Flashcards
what is balance theory ? (external)
people prefer (is more pleasant) when elements within a cognitive system are consistent with their interpersonal relationship
ex: my friend likes new girl, I like new girl so we are in balance
ex: I hate the office, my friend like it (imbalance)
what is cognitive dissonance?
an unpleasant psychological state resulting from inconsistencies between our behaviour/belifs and cognitive system (beliefs that we should follow)
we are motivated to reduce the unpleasant feeling
balance=behaviour+belif
how do we reduce dissonance?
text while driving(i belive is wrong/but i still do it)
- change our beliefs(reasoning)
- text while driving is bad > I don’t feel so bad about text while driving - change our behaviour
-stop texting - adding new cognition(justification)
- is not that dangerous, I can still pay attention
what was the cognitive dissonance study and who made the study
Festinger & Carlsmith’s
- boring task
- two groups (one receive $20 for lying about the activity before being fun and the other group receive $1for the same thing)
what was found: the people who would receive the larger amount of money felt no dissonace (no internal struggle) due to their behaviour being justified by the big prize so they felt no need to change
the people that would receive less felt more dissonace and so they had to make changes:they had to convince themselves that it was fun(changing their beliefs) to keep the balance between their behaviour(saying it was fun) and their beliefs (knowing it was not) ,
what is insufficient justification learned in the cognitive dissonance study ?
when extric motivation is low ($1) > the dissoance increase>motivation to reduce the dissoance by finding an intrinsic motivation for behaviour appears
HIV/AIDS campaign
-students had to reflect on their condome use before doing a speech about that topic
-result in 3months studentswho were more mindful about their lack of use later one used more condoms
what is effort justification ?
when people like more a particular activity after a certain level of difficulty
ex: getting liking more the fraternity more after experiencing haze
study:group discussing about sex
what is persiossion ?
a social influence that involves attitudes,belifs or emotions
what are the two routes of persuassion
1.central processing (logic based)
-careful
-slow
-scrutinizing the quality of message
-good points,reverse psychology,funny
2.peripheral processing (superfical based)
-faster
-not focused on argument features
ex:celebrities,repetition,big words
how do we decide which one to use ?
it depends on the motivation /relevence
and in the ability to process the information/time/lack of mental resources
how do we resist persuacion
1-knowing what to resist(with awarness it is easier to reflect)
2-motivation to resist(ex: not spending money)
3-attitude inoculation(arguing against weak messages helps us establish counter argument)
what is social perception?
using others behaviour to create an opinion about them (about their motives,attitudes,values)
first impression is
initiall perception of an individual,typically involving a positive o negative evaluation as well as an a sense of their physical and psychological characteristics based on a first encounter
ex:quick dates
top down processing (additive process) vs top-up processing(configural model processing)
top-up: adding traits together to form a clear understanding of a person
ex:intelligent+funny+friendly+extrovert=maria
top-down: we have an idea of a person(overall impression) first and then we specify their traits
maria(seems nice)=accomedating+funny+frendly
what is thin slice judgments
small samples(like 5min) of behaviour that are used to make judgments of individuals that are relatively accurate
