Week 7: Influencing & Persuading Others Flashcards
Attitude
Evualtions of ourselves and others, which drives our interaction and expression in the world. Expressing the relationship
Why are attitudes of interest to social psychologists?
Attitudes are changed by…
Persuasion, or changing behaviour.
ABC’s of social psychology
Affect, behaviours and cognition
Attitude consistency: The principle of attitude consistency
Changes to the attitude will likely cause the rest of the ABC’s to follow. Attitude changes mean behaviour and cognitive changes.
Attitude objects
social psychologists reserve the term attitude to refer to our relatively enduring evaluation of something, where the something is called the attitude object. The attitude object might be a person, a product, or a social group
Where are attitudes constructed?
-Genetically inherited
-Imparted through direct and personal experience
-Indirect experience through media and friends.
Some attitudes are shared and some are not.
Attitude strength
-How quickly it comes to mind, think the IAT.
-Also, how often it is used, cognitively accessible.
-Direct experience.
-Self-concept. Literally the entire chapter for memory.
How do our attitudes guide behaviour?
The theory of planned behaviour: Attitude and behaviour relationship
a) Attitude towards behaviour
b) Subjective norms
c) Perceived behaviour control (self efficacy belief)
This model is particularly effective for dietary and physical health habits.
Attitudes predict behaviour well when…
-The attitude and behaviour both occur in similar social situations
-The same components of the attitude (either affect or cognition) are accessible when the attitude is assessed and when the behavior is performed.
-Attitudes are specific, rather than general. (self concept?)
-Low self-monitor (not driven by a self conscious desire to belong in society)
Changing attitudes through persuasion
Persuasion is effective communication
Effective communication is…
Effective message
Relevant and receptable recipient.
Expert communicator traits
Self-confidence and those who develop a positive association
Similarities
Trustworthy
Quickly and confidently, discounts any arousal of counterargument
What is the sleep effect?
Someone who we perceive to be an untrustworthy communicator, we often select their information and attempt to discount it from our minds. Unfortunately, this means we unconsciously retrieve it repeatedly and as a result remember it more than the information we’d like to believe. We detach the content from the source, in our attempts to forget.
Effective process
Get their attention
Understand it
Accept it
Apply it to their self-concept
Two types of message processing
Spontaneous, often uses affective meaning to persuade. Other names include; peripherally or heuristically
Thoughtful, often uses cognitive elaboration to persuade or remember. Other names include; centrally or systematically
Cognitive dissonance and our need for closure is spontaneous message processing
Quick, fast and affective. Our memory capacity is already full. They create an emotional response. Personal anecdotes.
Fearful messages, however, have the capacity to create such an aversion that action is also avoided. Unless self efficacy is already strong, it is good to offer plans for action.
Thoughtful message processing
Careful consideration, and whether it matches with what you’ve come to know. Often takes more effort to consider.
When a message may be too complex, we rely on…
Spontaneous message processing. Even weak messages can be processed effectively, or rather spontaneously.
Different motivations
High personal relevance found were not influenced by the expertise of the source, but were influenced by the quality of information presented.
Low personal relevance found these students were influenced by the ‘sleeper effect’. The quality of the argument found no leverage for persuasion in those with low personal relevance.
Preventing persuasion
Forewarning: Serve a reminder that the person may also
Inoculation: Feign an attack that helps the individual build counterarguments. Think vaccines.
Psychological reactance
Forewarning and inoculation can create a strong emotional response, causing the individual to become ‘set in their ways’. The prominence of authority feels like an insult on the character?
Subliminal advertising
The consumer is unaware that a message was presented. Effective, as it does not disrupt the consumers attention and escaping the consumer’s attention, it cannot be counterargued.
Although meta-analyses discount it’s effectiveness.
Changing attitudes by changing behaviour
Self-perception
We examine our behaviour for traces of thoughts and emotions not within our conscious spectrum.
To meet a goal, self-concern and other-concern.
Insufficient justification
Is the impact of external threat or reward in changing our behaviour, which we do not perceive as pivotal to our behaviour.
They reason that the cause of their behaviour was internal changes, but in actual fact, it was the external happenings. Insecurity? Why would we avoid looking at it this way?
Balance of reinforcement and overeinforcement
We should provide the smallest reward/punishment that targets the attitude and not the behaviour.
Which is why intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are so relevant. As it targets attitude, so behaviour can follow.
Cognitive dissonance
Self-awareness theory: discomfort that occurs when we behave in ways that we perceive as inconsistent (we fail to live up to our own expectations).
The discomfort of cognitive dissonance manifests physically as
Anterior cingulate cortex
Dissonant thoughts:
Consonant thoughts:
…uncomfortable thoughts
…pleasant thoughts
$1 vs $20 experiment
The $1 group had to rely on internal reward for the experiment.
The negative feeling from dissonance
The negative feelings from cognitive dissonance occur from the distance between our attitude and behaviour. Also, when there is a significant contrast between behaviour and the perception of ourselves as good people. Good to ourselves, and others.
Reducing the prevalence of dissonance by doing either of the two:
Decreasing dissonant cognition
Increasing consonant cognition
Group women example
Justify the effort of initiation, that was used to attain entry into a group.
Postdecisional dissonance: Buyer’s remorse
The regret we feel after making an important decision.
The irony…
The irony of diminishing our immoral behaviour, also leads to more immoral acts.
Collectivist vs Individualist cultures
Canadians displayed a higher spread of alternatives when confronted with negative feedback on their self-esteem.
Foot-in-the-door technique
First agreeing to a small commitment, then revealing a larger request.
Low ball technique
Causes the consumer to experience a little taste of what they most desire, something better than it seems. Then offer them the reality, the cost.
Bait-and-switch technique
Already commited and interested in a purchase, only to find it is not there. They will likely switch to a more expensive product to account for the effort exerted.
Make them commit to the feeling and imagine.
Several potential paths to persuasion
Commitment and consistency: Commit orally, in writing and in public.
Reciprocity: We feel obligated to return a favor.
Social Proof: We tend to follow what others are doing.
Authority: We tend to obey authority figures.
Liking: We are more easily persuaded by people that we like.
Scarcity: Opportunities are more valuable to us when they are less available.
Door-in-the-face technique
Make an impossible request followed by a realistic request. Reciprocity. Quell the disappointment they have seemingly caused.
Pre-giving technique
Give something before asking for the request. People feel obliged to give.
Commitment vs reciprocity techniques
Social media
A concern is quickly turned into a debate, instead of common action. Politics is introduced followed by binary positions. Better off educating and engaging in solutions.
Tactics of persuasion
- Call out disagreement
- Find commonality
- Focus on the issue and not the person
- Accept the possibility of being wrong
- Use solid facts, when you have them
- Know when to exit.
