Social Psychology Flashcards
What components make up an attitude?
They include: cognition or beliefs, feelings, and behavioral predisposition. “I love Chinese food!” is an example of an attitude. Attitudes are typically expressed in opinion statements.
What do consistency theories state?
People prefer consistency, and will change or resist changing attitudes based on this preference. If a person hates cigarette smoking, but falls in love with a smoker, ther would be an inconsistancy. If the person is aware of this inconsistancy, the person would try to resolve it.
What does Franz Heider’s balance theory state?
This theory is concerned with the way 3 elements are related: the central person (P), some other person (O), and something else symbolized by (X). Balence is when all 3 fit together harmoniously. This is shown as in a triangle. Balence will exist in a triad if there are one or three positives. (pg. 20-21 in Kaplan).
What does Leon Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory state?
It suggests that it is uncomfortable for people to have beliefs that do not match their actions. After making a difficult decision, people are motivated to back their actions up by touting corresponding beliefs. Also, the less the act is justified by circumstance, the more we feel the need to justify it by bringing our attitude in line with the behavior.
What is cognitive dissonance?
The conflict that you feel when your attitudes are not in synch with your behaviors. Engaging in a behavior that conflicts with an attitude may result in changing one’s attitude so that it is consistent with the behavior.
In Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory, when does free-choice dissonance occur?
Occurs in a situation where a person makes a choice between several desirable alternatives.
What is an example of free choice dissonance?
Scott is involved with two women that he is equally fond of, but he feels he needs to choose between them. He selects one woman and tells the other they can’t see each other anymore. After that there will be dissonance because his cognition that he likes the other woman is dissonant with the choice not to go out with her anymore.
What principles of cognitive dissonance theory can be taken from Festinger and Carlsmith’s experiment in 1959? (The experiment with the extremely boring tasks)
- If a person is pressured to say or do something contrary to their privately held attitudes, there will be a tendency for them to change those attitudes
- The greater the pressure to comply, the less this attitude change. Attitude change generally occurs when the behavior is induced with minimum pressure.
In Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance Theory, when does forced-compliance dissonance occur?
Occurs when an individual is forced into behaving in a manner that is inconsistent with his or her beliefs or attitudes. Dissonance may occur when a child is forced to eat spinich even though this at odds with her attitude- that she doesn’t like spinich.
What was the result of the Festinger and Carlsmith experiment of 1959?
Students who only recieved $1 reported liking the boring task more than students who recieved $20 for it.
What was another theory used to explain the Festinger and Carlsmith experiment of 1959?
Daryl Bem’s Self-Perception Theory.
What is the basic idea of Bem’s Self-Perception Theory?
When your attitudes about something are weak or ambiguous, you observe your won behavior and attribute an attitude to yourself. People infer what their attitudes are based upon observation of their own behavior.
What is the key difference in Festinger and Carlsmith’s theory and Bem’s theory?
Bem doesn’t hypothesize a state of discomfort or dissonance; a person’s initial attitude is irrelevant in self-perception theory and there is no discomfort produced by behavior.
What is the theory called that if you reward people for something they are already doing, they may stop liking it?
Overjustification effect. This is one implication of self-perception theory.
What did Carl Hovland’s model deal with?
Attitude change as a process of communicating a message with the intent to persuade someone. Credible sources vs. not credible sources as an example.
What does Petty and Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood model of persuasion state?
There are two routes to persuasion: the central and peripheral routes. In the central route, the issue is very important to us and we will carefully evaluate the persuader’s argument. A strong argument may change our mind while a weak argument won’t. In the peripheral route, we don’t really care about the argument or are distracted. The strength of the argument doesn’ matter. What does is how, by whom, or in what surroundings the argument is being presented.
What did William McGuire study?
Resistance to persuasion. Used the analogy of innoculation against a biological disease.
What is a cultural truism?
Beliefs that are sledom attacked. William McGuire used them in his research.
What are refuted counterarguments?
The presentation of an argument against something and then refuting that same argument. For example, if the cultural truism is”It’s a good idea to brush your teeth after every meal if at all possible,” than a refuted counterargument would be that brushing wears away the tooth enamel and then refute it with info that this amount of wear is insignificant.
What did William McGuire find in his study of arguments that were innoculated against attack?
He found that people who were “innoculated” for the cultural truism “It’s a good idea to brush your teeth after every meal if at all possible,” were more able to defend their beliefs about it. Moreso than those who did not receive refuted counterarguments beforehand.
What is it called when people, under certain conditions, hold beliefs even after those beliefs have been shown to be false?
Belief perseverence
What is reactance?
When social pressure to behave in a particular way becomes so blatant that the person’s sense of freedom is threatened, the person will tend to act in a way to reassert a sense of freedom.
According to Leon Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory, why are we drawn to affiliate?
Because of a tendency to evaluate ourselves in relationship to other people.
Whose research showed that greater anxiety in people leads to greater desire to affiliate?
Stanley Schachter. Both anxiety and a need to compare oneself with other people may play roles in determining both when and with whom we affiliate.
What does the reciprocity hypothesis state?
We tend to like people who indicate they like us and we tend to dislike people who dislike us
Who proposed the gain-loss principle?
Aronson and Linder
What does the gain-loss principle state?
An evaluation that changes will have more of an impact than an evaluation that remains constant. Therefore we will like someone more if their liking for us has increased (gained) than someone who has consistently liked us.
What is the theory that assumes a person weighs the rewards and costs of interacting with one another?
Social exchange theory. The more the rewards outweigh the costs, the greater the attraction to the other person.
What theory proposes that we consider not only our own costs and rewards, but the costs and rewards of the other person?
Equity theory. If one person feels that he or she is getting less, or more, out of the relationship than the other, there’ll be an instability due to the perceived inequality.
What have researchers found about individual characteristics as they concern affiliation and attraction?
Certain individual characteristics such as similarity in intelligence, attitudes, education, age, religion, etc. are positively correlated with feelings of affiliation and similarity in others.
What does need complementarity suggest?
Opposites attract.
What is the tendency to attribute positive qualities and desirable characteristics to attractive people called?
Attractiveness stereotype
True or False:
Spatial proximity plays a role in attraction.
True.
What is the mere exposure hypothesis?
The idea that mere repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to enhanced liking for it.
Who primarily researched the mere-exposure hypothesis?
Robert Zajonc.
What did John Darley and Bibb Latane famously research?
Bystander intervention.
What is social influence?
The notion that the presence of other people affects an individual’s judgment about an event.
What is it called when a majority of group members privately reject a norm, but falsely assume that most others accect it?
Pluralistic ignorance. A bias about a social group, held by a social group.
