Week 10 Flashcards
Social psychology
- The study of human social behaviour
- Identify regularities in social behaviour
- Study various aspects of interaction between individuals, between and within social groups, and between individuals and social systems, small or large
Attitudes
A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour
Three components of attitudes:
► Affect
► Behavioural dispositions
► Cognition
Attitudes vary in
► Valence (positive -> negative, can be ambivalent)
► Strength (weak -> strong)
► Complexity (simple -> complex)
► Accessibility (implicit -> explicit)
Attitude formation
- Experience/”mere exposure”
- Operation conditioning: reward + punishment
- Classical conditioning: association
- > Spreading Attitude Effect
- Social learning/modelling
- Self-Perception Theory
- > Infer our attitudes from our behaviour
Attitude Change Yale Model
FOUR FACTORS:
- Source/communicator
- Recipient/audience
- Message
- Channel
Source/Communicator - Attitude Change Yale Model
- Credibility (e.g. expertise, trustworthiness) ^
- Similarity ^
- Attractiveness? ^ under certain conditions
Recipient/audience - Attitude Change Yale Model
- Gender and age: mixed results
- Intelligence - decrease
- Pre-existing attitude strength - decrease
Message - Attitude Change Yale Model
- Amount, clarity, complexity, comprehensibility
- Balance: two-sided arguments for well-informed audiences
- Fear? ^ under certain conditions…
Channel - Attitude Change Yale Model
- Audio/visual for easy messages
- Written for difficult messages
- In person better
Attitude Change - Attractiveness
DEBONO & TELESCA (1990)
Method
- Attractive vs. unattractive woman selling product
- Strong vs. weak message
Results
- Attractive woman more persuasive, but only for strong message
Attitude Change - Fear
JANIS & FESHBACH (1953)
Method
- Intervention on school children
- Varied the extent of fear in message about dental hygiene (low fear vs. high fear)
- Change in dental hygiene practices recorded
Results
- Participants given high fear message less likely to report better dental hygiene habits (28% vs. 50%)
Opposing Research for Attitude Changes with Fear
Protection motivation theory
► Fear works best if coupled with information on how to effectively respond
Inverted U-curve between fear & attitude change:
► Fear has to be optimal to be most effective (backfires if extreme)
Elaboration likelihood model
When are we likely to elaborate on the quality of the message itself rather than be swayed by such cues as attractiveness or fear?
- look up image
- look up routes image
Attitudes and Behaviour LAPIERE (1934)
LAPIERE (1934)
Travelled US with Chinese couple – visited 251 establishments
► Only 1 establishment turned them away
Sent letters to all establishments asking “Would you accept members of the Chinese race as guests in your establishment?
► 28 establishments replied
► 92% said NO
Differences in attitudes and behaviours explanations
- Competing attitudes
Attitudes towards sedentary behaviour outweigh attitudes towards exercise - Self-efficacy/perceived behavioural control
Attitudes towards a career are outweighed by perceived ability to achieve - Social norms & groups
Attitudes towards clothing is outweighed by social normative attitudes - Habit
Attitudes towards behaviour is outweighed by longstanding habit
Cognitive Dissonance
- What happens when you remind someone their attitude is inconsistent with their behaviour?
- Inconsistency between cognitions/behaviours results in an aversive psychological state called dissonance
Reducing Cognitive Dissonance
► Changing one of the cognitions/behaviours
► Reducing importance of one of the cognitions/behaviours
► Adding additional consonant cognitions/behaviours
Cognitive Dissonance Study
FESTINGER & CARLSMITH (1959)
Method
Participants completed simple motor task for 1 hour
Randomly allocated into three groups:
► No dissonance/control: left the experiment after
► Low dissonance: paid $20 to tell next person task was fun
► High dissonance: paid $1 to tell next person task was fun
Rated the enjoyability of task
Low dissonance - Festinger and Carlsmith 1959
- Cognition of thinking task is boring conflicts with the behaviour of saying task was fun
BUT…behaviour of saying task was fun, could be justified because of the high reward associated with it - Rated the task as low enjoyment
High dissonance - Festinger and Carlsmith 1959
- Cognition of thinking task is boring conflicts with the behaviour of saying task was fun
- Behaviour of saying task was fun CANNOT be sufficiently justified by reward – too low!
- Justify behaviour by changing cognitions about task
- Rated task as higher enjoyment
Social Cognition
The aspect of cognition that concerns thinking about other people, about interpersonal relations and about social institutions
Schemas
- Schemas are cognitive structures that represent knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus
- Formed on the basis of past experience (both direct & indirect)
- Schemas are like theories
Types of Schemas
Self schema Person schema Role schema Social group schemas Event schemas/scripts
Self Schema
knowledge structures about the self
Person Schema
knowledge structures about specific people
Role Schema
knowledge structures about role occupants
Social Group Schemas
knowledge structures about social groups (when widely shared -> stereotypes)
Event Schemas/Scripts
knowledge structures about events
Impression Formation
- The process through which people observe other people, interpret information about them, draw inferences about them and develop mental representations of them
- Forms the basis for the way we think, feel, and behave towards others
- Not objective and not necessarily accurate
Primacy Bias - Impression Formation
Primacy:
Information presented first disproportionately influences impression (stronger & more common)
► Central traits that affect interpretation of later traits?
► More attention given to first trait?
Recency Bias - Impression Formation
Recency:
Information presented last has more impact than earlier information
► When distracted
► When little motivation to attend
Primacy and Recency Study
Order effects: Asch (1946)
- Participants given list of traits describing a person
1. intelligent-industrious-impulsive-critical-stubborn-envious
2. envious-stubborn-critical-impulsive-industrious-intelligent - Then asked to rate the person on other traits(e.g. generous, wise, happy, good-natured, reliable)
- Rated lower on positive traits when beginning with envious
Positive Valence Affects - Impression Formation Bias
Positive impressions typically formed in absence of any negative information
► Halo effect
► Easily changed in light of subsequent negative information
Negative Valence Affects - Impression Formation Bias
Negative impressions formed when there is any sign of negative information
► Difficult to change in light of subsequent positive information
► We are biased towards negativity
-> Unusual & distinctive, attracts our attention
-> Signifies potential danger, detection has survival value
Valence Study
Valence effects: Asch (1946)
- Participants given list of traits describing a person
- List contained either “warm” or “cold”
- Then asked to rate the person on other traits(e.g. generous, wise, happy, good-natured, reliable)
- Rated lowly for positive traits except for reliable (rated higher) when “cold”
Stereotypes - Impression Formation Bias
- We often pre-judge others who belong to certain groups
► Assume that their membership in that group confers certain traits - Related to social group schemas
- Often oversimplified and inaccurate
- Basis of prejudice and discrimination
Heuristics
- Cognitive shortcuts that provide adequately accurate inferences for most of us, most of the time
- Less time consuming & less effortful, yield quick solutions
- Most of the time, they serve us well
Sometimes inaccurate, misapplied, inadequate
Examples:
► Representativeness heuristic
► Availability heuristic
Representative Heuristic
Judging the likelihood of an event by how much it resembles a prototype/schema
As a result, we sometimes ignore base-rate information
Example: Tom likes reading the newspaper, is interested in politics and can usually be seen in a business suit. Is Tom more likely to work in Queensland or Canberra?
Availability Heuristic
Judging the likelihood of an event by how quickly or easily instances come to mind
Frequency of event is not the only thing that influences the ease with which events come to mind
► How salient/noticeable the event is
► How recent the event is
Example: Are you more likely to die travelling by car or plane?
Attribution
- The processes by which people infer the causes of their own and others’ behaviour
- We don’t just passively observe behaviour
- Social perception motivated by need to predict and control the environment
Attribute behaviour to either…
► Internal, dispositional factors: individual personality characteristics
► External, situational factors: environmental influences, context
Attribution - Kelley’s Covariation Model
Covariation principle: People attribute a behaviour to the cause with which it covaries most closely over time Assumes we have 3 types of information: ► Consistency ► Distinctiveness ► Consensus
Kelley’s Covariation Model - Consistency
whether or not this person’s behaviour is the same across time and context
► low consistency – person’s behaviour doesn’t happen all the time -> SITUATION
► high consistency – person’s behaviour happens all the time -> PERSON/TARGET
Kelley’s Covariation Model - Distinctiveness
► low distinctiveness – person behaves like this toward any target -> PERSON
► high distinctiveness – person behaves like this toward this target alone -> TARGET
Kelley’s Covariation Model - Consensus
► low consensus – no one else behaves like this toward this target -> PERSON
► high consensus – everyone else behaves like this toward this target -> TARGET
Attribution Errors
Psychologists have implied that attribution is a highly rational process But there is evidence of bias What errors do we often make? ► Fundamental attribution error ► Actor-observer bias ► Self-serving bias
Fundamental Attribution Error
Tendency to attribute other’s behaviour to internal, dispositional qualities rather than to external, situational factors
Actor-Observer Bias
Tendency to attribute
- Others’ behaviour to internal, dispositional qualities rather than to external, situational factors
- Own behaviour to external, situational factors rather than to internal, dispositional factors
- Extension of fundamental attribution error
Self-Serving Bias
Tendency to attribute:
- Successes -> stable, internal factors
- Failures -> temporary, external factors
Why?
► Self-presentation: make us look better to other people
► Enhance self-esteem: make us feel better about ourselves
- Some people have a pessimistic attribution style (flipped)
► Prone to depression
