Social Psychology Exam 2 Flashcards
Chapter 7
Attitudes, Behaviors, and Rationalization
Influence of Attitudes on Behaviors
Weaker than most people suspect
Influence of Behaviors on Attitudes
Stronger than most people suspect
Attitude
Evaluation of an object along a positive-negative dimension.
Involve Affects (emotion)
Involves Cognition (Thoughts that reinforce a person’s feelings)
Involves Behaviors (Rewarding objects we should approach and punishing objects we should avoid)
Likert Scale
Lists a set of possible answers with anchors on different extremes (for example, 1- Strongly Disagree, 7-Strongly Agree). Very limited, as they don’t capture depth of people’s beliefs
Accessibility of Attitude
How readily attitude comes to mind. To measure this a person’s response latency- the time it takes a person to respond to an attitude question- is tracked. Shorter amount of time to answer a question about something typically means stronger attitude
Centrality of Attitude
Variety of measures within a particular domain are measured and their strength when compared to attitudes of other things in that domain are calculated. (For example, measuring someone’s attitude on abortion then measuring their attitude on sex education in school)
Implicit Attitude Measures
More discreet ways of taking measurements when people seem unable to give self-reports. Used to tap into people’s nonconscious attitudes. Two methods used, affective priming and implicit association test.
Physiological Indicators of Attitudes
Another way to measure attitudes, for example sweat on palms or brain patterns
LaPiere’s Study: Do attitudes predict behavior?
Toured US with young Chinese couple in 1930s. Only turned away by one establishment but when asking afterwards whether they would serve Asians 90% of restaurants said no. Shows that attitudes don’t really predict behavior that well.
Other determinants may affect behavior rather than attitudes
Like it says, for example social circumstances or other reasons. (Maybe the Asian couple in LaPiere’s study weren’t turned away because the restaurant owners were worried about the scene it would cause)
Study about evaluating person you’re dating
A study was conducted in which people were placed in two groups, either give an overall evaluation of the person you’re dating, or give reasons why you feel the way you do then give an overall evaluation. Nine months later the people in the first group were more accurate predictors. Coming up with all the other bullshit can mislead us in terms of our full, true attitude
Introspecting about reasons for attitudes
Undermine how well those attitudes guide our behavior. We find easy things to list off instead of considering the real reasons we like or dislike something
Generality vs Specificity of Assessing Behaviors
If you want to determine a specific type of behavior accurately, you have to measure people’s attitudes towards that specific behavior
John B the gay guy
Study where people weren’t willing to show John B around campus only if he fit their stereotype of a gay man, if he didn’t then they were cool with it
Cognitive Consistency Theories
Maintain that the impact of behavior on attitudes reflects powerful tendency we have to justify or rationalize our behavior and minimize inconsistencies between our attitudes and actions
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Theory that an aversive emotional state is aroused when there is an inconsistency between two cognitions. We will typically expend psychological cognitive energy to restore consistency
Dissonance and decision making
Before making an irreversible decision, people are more likely to try and reduce dissonance. An example of this is with horse betting. While waiting in line to bet, people mostly rated their horse as having a ‘fair’ chance of winning, others rated their horse as having a ‘great’ chance at winning. Can take place both before and after a decision is made.
Effort justification
Expending mental energy to justify something you just did. For example if you bought something super expensive and it turned out to be shit, you’ll try to convince yourself that it was worth it
Sex group discussion experiment
Experiment where groups of women were told they would be engaging in a discussion about sex. Before the ‘discussion,’ they had to do a screening. Three separate groups, one repeated innocuous words to the experimenter, one group repeated mildly embarrassing sexual words, and the third more severe group read straight up porn and shit. After the super ‘boring’ discussion about sex, the group that underwent the more severe condition reported more favorably of the discussion, meaning they tried to reduce dissonance more.
Induced (Forced) Compliance
If people are induced into performing a behavior they typically wouldn’t engage in, their original cognitions towards that thing will be changed to favor it.
Forced Compliance Experiment
Participants did boring shit on one condition then were told to rate it. Obviously they said it was boring. Then told to tell the next participant that the task is super fun. Either offered $1 or $20. People who were offered $20 had external justification and therefore still thought their task was boring, but people with $1 had dissonance because of a low reward and had to internalize that shit and believed that the experiment was actually fun.
Severe vs mild punishment and experiment.
Kids were told to not play with toy, either experimenter would be annoyed or the experimenter would beat their ass. The kids who got the mild threat, when they returned, actually didn’t like the toy as much because of dissonance. Whereas the kids who received the severe threat either didn’t have changing opinions on it or liked it more.
Four factors that cause cognitive dissonance
Behavior was freely chosen.
Behavior wasn’t sufficiently justified.
Behavior had negative consequences.
Negative consequences were foreseeable.
Self-affirmation
By bolstering yourself in one area, you can take a bigger hit in the other. “Sure I killed seven people, but I donate five dollars to the church every year.” Helps get rid of dissonance.
Crux of self-perception theory
We use whatever cues we have available to us to figure out what we think and how we feel, including knowledge of the surrounding context and how we’ve acted.
Body movements and attitude
Body movements that mean ‘yes’ make you have a more positive attitude towards something, for example nodding your head up and down or pulling/flexing your arm towards you.
System Justification theory
The world is or should be fair can generate some ideological dissonance. Give ideological support to the status quo.
Terror management theory (TMT)
What people do with the knowledge that they will inevitably die. Denial, next generations, etc.
Elaboration likelihood model (ELM)
Some types of persuasive appeals are more effective when people’s minds are on ‘autopilot,’ others work better when they’re more attentive.
Central route to persuasion
People think carefully about the content of whatever is being persuaded. Logic, strength, facts of argument. More likely to follow this when motivation is high and ability is high.
Peripheral route
Tangible but easy to process factors in persuasion, such as attractiveness of person doing the persuading
Elements of persuasion
Who, what, to whom.
Sleeper effect
Attitude change occurs gradually and a message has been detached from its source
Identifiable victim effect
Vivid messages more persuasive than matter of fact ones. For example, messages with a single identifiable victim are more compelling
Characteristics of an audience that make the message more persuasive
need for cognition, mood, age
Metacognition
People’s thoughts about their thinking which can play a powerful role in persuasion
Self validation hypothesis
When people have greater confidence in their thoughts, they are more persuaded in the direction of their thoughts
Body movements and confidence
Body movements, such as head nodding or shaking, can indicate the level of confidence people have in their thoughts about an attitude, issue, or object.
Media and agenda control
Media is most effective in agenda control, persuading people by changing how much they see something on media or some shit like that
Thought polarization
Movement towards extreme views that can be hard to change
Three types of social influence
Conformity: Change in person’s attitudes in response to illicit or explicit pressure from others.
Compliance: Going along with explicit requests made by others
Obedience: Submitting to the demands of a dominatrix
Conformity Vocab
The next terms are for conformity
Mimicry
Conscious or unconscious imitation of someone else’s behavior
Why people conform
Informational social influence: View the actions of others as informative of what is correct or proper
Normative social influence: Conform with others to avoid disapproval and shit like that
Conforming and culture
People from interdependent cultures conform more than people from independent cultures
Norm of reciprocity
I did something for you so you feel inclined to do something for me back
Negative state relief
Complying may reduce some sort of negative feeling like guilt
Norm-based approaches to compliance
Descriptive norms: how people behave in specific contexts
Prescriptive norms: How people should behave in various situations
