Social Psychology Flashcards
1
Q
Information Processing Model
A
- McGuire (1965, 1985)
- Person must go through 5 steps for successful persuasion:
∙ Attention
∙ Comprehension
∙ Yielding (accept message)
∙ Retention
∙ Behaviour
2
Q
Cognitive Response Model
A
- Greenwald (1968)
- Listener active in persuasion process
∙ Creates list of pros and cons
∙ Made rationale choice - Strong messages should be more persuasive
- Persuasion is an effortful process
- Distraction influences persuasion
∙ Unable to create favourable and unfavourable responses
∙ Effect of attitude strength likely to be reduced
3
Q
Cognitive Response Model
A
- Petty et al. (1976)
- Participants either given
∙ Strong or weak arguments in favour of a rise in tuition fees - Distracted participants by asking them to record number of flashes on a screen while listening to the message
∙ Low distraction (0 flashes), medium distraction (4 flashes), or high distraction (12 or 20 flashes) - Measured agreement with message
- When low distraction stronger messages more persuasive than weaker messages
- Little difference with high distraction
∙ Stops you from creating arguments
4
Q
Cognitive Response Model
A
- Are we always logical?
- Eagly & Chaiken (1993) suggest we use numerous shortcuts (or heuristics) to guide persuasion
∙ Trust experts
∙ Persuaded by people we like
5
Q
Elaboration Likelihood Model
A
- Petty & Cacioppo (1986)
- Persuasive appeal → maintained and high processing ability → central → careful → depends on quality of arguments
- OR - Persuasive appeal → unmotivated or low processing ability → peripheral → heuristics → depends on heuristics
6
Q
Elabortation Likelihood Model
A
- Petty el al. (1981)
- Students exposed to strong or weak message about changes to the college system
- Proposed by expert or non-expert
- Changes were also either going to take place
∙ Next year (relevant to student)
∙ 10 years time (irrelevant to student)
7
Q
Behaviour predict attitude
A
- Can behaviour change attitudes?
- Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger, 1957)
∙ Cognitive dissonance is the feeling of unease produced by having two opposing cognitions - Change one cognition to make them match
- Easier to change attitude than behaviour to reduce dissonance
- Change attitude to make it match behaviour
8
Q
Behaviour predict attitude
A
- Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)
- Participants completed dull tasks for an hour
- Asked to tell the next participant the experiment is interesting
∙ $20 (low dissonance)
∙ $1 (high dissonance)
∙ Not asked (control group) - $1 condition creates greater dissonance than $20
∙ For $20 (but not $1) can justify based on money
∙ Rated how interesting study was
∙ $1 rated the tasks as more enjoyable than the $20 or control group
9
Q
Compliance
A
- Compliance is changing one’s behaviour in response to a request by another individual
- Numerous strategies used
- Reciprocity
- Motivated to help others who have helped us in the past
∙ Greater compliance when received help from others
10
Q
Compliance
A
- Reciprocity principle
- Regan (1971)
- Participants told that they were going to complete a task in pairs
- Partner disappeared for part of the experiment
- Returned with either:
∙ A soft drink for the other person (reciprocal condition)
∙ Nothing for the other person (control condition) - At the end of the study confederate asked participant to buy raffle tickets
- Participants bought more tickets when received soft drink
11
Q
Compliance
A
- Door-in-the-face: Someone agrees to a smaller request after refusing larger request
- Cialdini et al. (1975)
∙ Control group – no initial request
∙ Experimental group – First asked whether they would volunteer as a counsellor at youth offenders centre
✳︎ Almost everyone refused - Later asked whether they would chaperone offenders on a trip to the zoo
∙ 17% of control group agreed
∙ 50% of experimental group agreed
12
Q
Compliance
A
- Foot-in-the-door
∙ If someone agrees to a smaller request they will be more likely to agree to a larger request later - Freedman and Fraser (1966)
∙ Control group – No initial contact
∙ Experimental group – First contacted people in their homes to ask a few initial questions about soap - Later asked same participants whether they could make inventory of all household products
∙ 22% agreed when no initial contact
∙ 53% agreed when they received earlier contact - Foot-in-the-door technique increase compliance
13
Q
Compliance
A
- Low-ball: People remain committed to something after they learn of hidden costs
- Cialdini et al. (1978)
∙ Control – asked to attend at 7am
∙ Experimental – one committed, then told started at 7am (low-balled) - 31% of control group agreed
- 56% of experimental group agreed
- Experimental group also more likely to attend
14
Q
Conformity
A
- “A change in a person’s behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a person or a group of people” (Aronson, 2008)
15
Q
Conformity: Sherif, 1936
A
- Participants placed in a dark room
- Small stationary light in distance (5 metres)
- Half participants made first judgement alone
∙ On later days repeated task in group of 2-3 people - Other half made first judgement as group
∙ Three group sessions, then final session on own
16
Q
Conformity: Asch, 1956
A
- Need clear correct answer
- Participants completed task with 6-9 other people
- Other people were confederates
∙ On first trial gave correct answer
∙ On later trials gave wrong answer - Asked to state answer aloud
∙ Participant second to last person to give their answer - 75% conformed at least once
∙ 5% conformed on all 12 trials
17
Q
Conformity: influences
A
- Informational influence: Influence based on accepting information from others as reflecting reality
- Normative influence: Influence due to people wanting to meet positive expectations of others
18
Q
Conformity: Cialdini et al, 1990- Others also influence us via social norms (rules on how to behave)
A
- Car park either
∙ Covered in litter (social norm – OK to litter)
∙ No litter (social norm – not OK to litter) - Found leaflet on windscreen
∙ Did they drop this on the floor?
= around 10% = clean
= around 40% = litter
