week 6: social psychology Flashcards
what is social psychology?
the scientific study of how individuals think, feel and behave in a social context
levels of social behaviour
attitudes: attitudes and behaviours, persuasion, cognitive dissonance
social cognition: attribution, prejudice
social influence: conformity, obedience
what is an attitude?
a positive/negative/mixed reaction to a person, object or idea expressed at some level of intensity
why are researchers interested in attitudes?
attitudes can predict behaviour
what influences behaviour?
- attitude toward the behaviour (what i think of performing the behaviour)
- subjective norms (what important other think of the behaviour)
- perceived behavioural control (how easy it is to perform the behaviour)
what is persuasion?
the process by which a person’s attitudes or behaviour are influenced by communications from other people
what are the 2 routes to persuasion?
central route
peripheral route
what do persuasion routes depend on?
- how much people think about a persuasive message
- based on motivation and ability
what are the central route persuasion elements?
- person thinks carefully about message
- influenced by the strength/quality of message
- stronger attitudes
- long-lasting impact on behaviour
what are the peripheral route persuasion elements?
- person does not think critically about the contents of a message
- influenced by superficial cues
- weaker attitudes
- temporary impact on behaviour
what is the elaboration likelihood model?
a theory about the thinking processes that might occur when we attempt to change a person’s attitude through communication
- (how likely we are to think hard/critically about a decision or change)
1. central processing
2. peripheral processing
central route persuasion example
a TV ad that presents laboratory findings to demonstrate the effectiveness of an acne treatment
peripheral route persuasion example
- having a popular athlete advertise athletic shoes or
- watching a political debate on TV and the best-dressed candidate seems the most convincing to you
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
mental conflict that occurs when a person’s behaviours and beliefs do not align
what is an individuals options for cognitive dissonance?
- change their behaviour eg. stop smoking because its bad for them
- justify behaviour by changing one of the dissonant cognitions eg. smoking being bad for health so only smokes socially
- justify behaviour by adding new cognitions eg. its ok that i smoke because i go running
Cognitive Dissonance Theory experiment
- The experiment was seeing how much participants enjoyed the boring task.
- participants were offered $1 or $20 to lie to the next participant by saying the boring task was enjoyable.
- Participants who were given $1 rated the tasks enjoyment the highest out of the participants who were given $20 and the participants who were given nothing and weren’t told to lie.
what were the IV and DV of the Cognitive Dissonance Theory experiment?
IV: amount of money, whether participant is to lie or not
DV: how much participants enjoyed the boring task
why did the participants who were given $1 ranked the task enjoyable in the experiment?
Because the reward ($1) was too little to justify lying to other participants so they $1 participants convinced themselves mentally that they enjoyed the task to avoid cognitive dissonance. This didn’t happen with the $20 group as the reward was large enough to justify the lying.
what can influence attitudes?
- Persuasive communication (influence)
- Desire for consistency (avoiding cognitive dissonance)
what is social cognition?
the way people process, remember, and use information in social contexts to explain and predict their own behaviour and that of others
concepts associated with social cognition?
attribution
prejudice
what are schemas
mental structures that organise our knowledge about the social world