Social Psychology Exam 2

Question 1

Chapter 7

Answer 1

Attitudes, Behaviors, and Rationalization

Question 2

Influence of Attitudes on Behaviors

Answer 2

Weaker than most people suspect

Question 3

Influence of Behaviors on Attitudes

Answer 3

Stronger than most people suspect

Question 4

Attitude

Answer 4

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)

Question 5

Likert Scale

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Accessibility of Attitude

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Centrality of Attitude

Answer 7

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)

Question 8

Implicit Attitude Measures

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Physiological Indicators of Attitudes

Answer 9

Another way to measure attitudes, for example sweat on palms or brain patterns

Question 10

LaPiere’s Study: Do attitudes predict behavior?

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

Other determinants may affect behavior rather than attitudes

Answer 11

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)

Question 12

Study about evaluating person you’re dating

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Introspecting about reasons for attitudes

Answer 13

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

Question 14

Generality vs Specificity of Assessing Behaviors

Answer 14

If you want to determine a specific type of behavior accurately, you have to measure people’s attitudes towards that specific behavior

Question 15

John B the gay guy

Answer 15

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

Question 16

Cognitive Consistency Theories

Answer 16

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

Question 17

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Dissonance and decision making

Answer 18

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.

Question 19

Effort justification

Answer 19

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

Question 20

Sex group discussion experiment

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

Induced (Forced) Compliance

Answer 21

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.

Question 22

Forced Compliance Experiment

Answer 22

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.

Question 23

Severe vs mild punishment and experiment.

Answer 23

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.

Question 24

Four factors that cause cognitive dissonance

Answer 24

Behavior was freely chosen.
Behavior wasn’t sufficiently justified.
Behavior had negative consequences.
Negative consequences were foreseeable.

Question 25

Self-affirmation

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

Crux of self-perception theory

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

Body movements and attitude

Answer 27

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.

Question 28

System Justification theory

Answer 28

The world is or should be fair can generate some ideological dissonance. Give ideological support to the status quo.

Question 29

Terror management theory (TMT)

Answer 29

What people do with the knowledge that they will inevitably die. Denial, next generations, etc.

Question 30

Elaboration likelihood model (ELM)

Answer 30

Some types of persuasive appeals are more effective when people’s minds are on ‘autopilot,’ others work better when they’re more attentive.

Question 31

Central route to persuasion

Answer 31

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.

Question 32

Peripheral route

Answer 32

Tangible but easy to process factors in persuasion, such as attractiveness of person doing the persuading

Question 33

Elements of persuasion

Answer 33

Who, what, to whom.

Question 34

Sleeper effect

Answer 34

Attitude change occurs gradually and a message has been detached from its source

Question 35

Identifiable victim effect

Answer 35

Vivid messages more persuasive than matter of fact ones. For example, messages with a single identifiable victim are more compelling

Question 36

Characteristics of an audience that make the message more persuasive

Answer 36

need for cognition, mood, age

Question 37

Metacognition

Answer 37

People’s thoughts about their thinking which can play a powerful role in persuasion

Question 38

Self validation hypothesis

Answer 38

When people have greater confidence in their thoughts, they are more persuaded in the direction of their thoughts

Question 39

Body movements and confidence

Answer 39

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.

Question 40

Media and agenda control

Answer 40

Media is most effective in agenda control, persuading people by changing how much they see something on media or some shit like that

Question 41

Thought polarization

Answer 41

Movement towards extreme views that can be hard to change

Question 42

Three types of social influence

Answer 42

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

Question 43

Conformity Vocab

Answer 43

The next terms are for conformity

Question 44

Mimicry

Answer 44

Conscious or unconscious imitation of someone else’s behavior

Question 45

Why people conform

Answer 45

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

Question 46

Conforming and culture

Answer 46

People from interdependent cultures conform more than people from independent cultures

Question 47

Norm of reciprocity

Answer 47

I did something for you so you feel inclined to do something for me back

Question 48

Negative state relief

Answer 48

Complying may reduce some sort of negative feeling like guilt

Question 49

Norm-based approaches to compliance

Answer 49

Descriptive norms: how people behave in specific contexts
Prescriptive norms: How people should behave in various situations