Social Psy Exam 2

Rosenberg’s tripartite model of attitude structure

affective (feelings and emotions), behavioral (past and future activity), cognitive (thoughts and beliefs)

self perception theory

sometimes people dont know how they feel until they reflect on their own behavior (typically occurs when the attitude is weak or ambiguous or there’s no other explanation for it)

implicit attitude

involuntary, uncontrolable

explicit attitude

attitudes we consciously endorse and can easily report

implicit association test (IAT)

attempts to measure the association between two or more concepts in a person’s mind

LaPiere’s (1934) study on attitude and behavior

overt racism was common in the 1930s, LaPiere traveled around the US with a Chinese couple, virually all hotels gave them a room. When LaPiere surveyed the hotel owners, the majority (90%) said they would not give a room to a Chinese couple

When do attitudes predict behavior

attitude measures that are well-constructed predict behavior. use multiple questions that assess specific attitudes

cognitive dissonance

discomfort when two cognitions (beliefs, attitudes) conflict, or when people are inconsistent with their self-concept

how to resolve cognitive dissonance

changing your behavior so that its no longer in conflict with your cognitions; changing a condition so that it no longer causes cognitive dissonance; thinking about new, consistent cognitions that make you feel better

self affirmation and cognitive dissonance

when we experience cognitive dissonance, we are experiencing a threat to our belief that we’re a good person who makes good choices. self affirmation theory describes an alternate method for people to reduce their cognitive dissonance. they don’t need to change their cognitions or behavior they need to find a way to affirm that they are a good person

self evaluation matienence theory and cognitive dissonance

addresses dissonance in close relationships. we experience dissonance when someone close to us outperforms us in an area that is central to our self esteem.

post decisional regret

dissonance after making a difficult decision. you chose the best option but also potentially rejected a good option which can produce dissonance.

spreading of alternatives

Participants were asked to make a difficult choice between two options. Before they choose, they rate the desirability of both options; then they choose, which causes post-decisional regret; they rate their options again. The chosen option is viewed as more favorable. The rejected option is viewed as less favorable

effort justification

dissonance after working extremely hard to accomplish something. You experience dissonance because you may be working hard for something that isn’t worth that level of effort. Solution: increase the perceived desirability of whatever your working toward

Aronson & Mills (1959) experiment on effort justification

• Cover story: study about psychology of sex

• IV: women were asked to join a discussion group, but had to pass the screening

  • Embarrassing (severe) initiation: read obscene sexual words out loud

  • Mild initiation: read neutral sex-related words (such as virgin)

• DV: how much the women liked the discussion group after joining

• Results: women who had the severe initiation experienced cognitive dissonance and needed to justify their effort

  • They did so by choosing to believe that this was a very good group to join

 Insufficient justification

dissonance with no good excuse

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) peg turning experiment

• Subjects were asked to do an extremely boring task for about an hour

• Afterwards, they were asked to tell the next subject that the task was really fun

• This lie should have induced cognitive dissonance

• IV: how much pts were paid to lie

  • Control condition: didn’t mislead and didn’t get paid

  • Low justification: misled confederate and paid $1

  • High justification: misled confederate and paid $20

• DV: ratings of how much pts enjoyed the experiment

• Results: High justification group: reported not enjoying the experiment, could blame their lie on being paid, they were honest about how boring the experiment was. Low justification group ($1): reported enjoying the experiment, had no excuse for their lie and experienced dissonance, changed their rating so that their lie was no longer a lie

Yale attitude change approach

 describes the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to a persuasive message

• Who said what to whom?

• Who: the source of the communication

  • Speakers appear to be more persuasive if they are attractive, certain (confident), and credible

• What: the nature of the communication

  • Messages are deemed more persuasive if they are high quality, explicit conclusion, vivid (memorable, interesting, and detailed information)

• Whom: the nature of the audience

  • People are more persuaded if they are 

    • Need for cognition: enjoyment of thinking

      • People high in NfC are more persuaded by high-quality informative messages

    • Matching mood: happy people are more likely to be persuaded by optimistic messages

    • Age: younger people are more persuadable than older people

sleeper effect

a persuasive message from a noncredible source that is initially discounted become less discounted over time

Identifiable victim effect

the tendency to be more moved by the vivid plight of a single individual than by a more abstract number of people

Fear appeals

fear increases vividness of a message, the goal is to scare people into changing their attitudes toward a behavior. Too much fear prevents persuasion, but fear can work when there is a moderate amount of fear

Automatic mimicry

we often imitate behaviors of others without realizing it (unconscious, automatic mimicry) Why? Desire to socialize, mood enhancement, relationship building

Conformity

changes in perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in ways that are consistent with group norms

Norms

explicit or implicit rules of conduct in a given context

informational social influence

conforming because you believe what others are doing is right,

Making the wrong choice could lead to negative outcomes

• Motive: seeking information

• People conform in ambiguous situations, when there’s an expert, and when there’s a crisis

normative social influence

conforming without believing in the correctness of others’ behaviors or perceptions

• The need to be accepted by our peers or other social groups, even unimportant groups

• Making the wrong choice could lead to painful social rejection

• Motive: seeking acceptance

Sherif (1937) autokinetic effect study

• In a completely dark room with no frame of reference, a stationary point of light will appear to “move” due to involuntary eye movement

• Alone, participants give widely varying estimates of the light’s movement

• What happens if you complete the task in a group?

  • Participants hear other’s estimates

  • Estimates start being similar

• Can this be manipulated?

  • Participant responses will start matching those of a confederate

  • The influence stays even if the confederate leaves the study

Asch (1955) line judging study

• 6-8 participants took part in each session

• Line length judging task

  • Target line presented 

  • Presented 3 comparisons

  • “Which line was similar in length to the target?”

• Each participant make the judgment in front of the others for each of 18 trials

• Only one person was a true participant

• On 12 trials, confederates uniformly made incorrect responses (out of 18 trials)

• In research using this paradigm, 50%-80% of participants yield at least once

Minority influence

the cases where a minority of group members influence the behavior or beliefs of the majority

• Small groups in the minority don’t have normative influence

• However they can have informational social influence that persuades people

• If minority members are not seen as acting out of self-interest, they are believed to have a reason for diverging from the majority opinion

• Just like with larger groups, a small group with a consistent, unified, unwavering postion can have social influence

• If other people join the group, the minority group’s influence will increase even more

reactance

when informational or normative influence is low

• We behave the opposite of what the influencer wants us to do

• We value feeling like were in control of our behavior

• Commonly referred to as “reverse psychology”

Obedience

when behavior influenced due to the direct commands of an authority figure

Milgram (1963) obedience study

• “Learning experiment” on punishment and memory

  • “Teacher” is participant

  • “Student” is a confederate, must memorize word pairs the teacher provides

  • “Student” mistakes must be punished with shocks that escalate in strength

  • Experimenter supervises

• Student was correct only 25% of the time

• Student kept expressing increasing agony

• If the teacher wanted to stop, the experimenter ordered that the participant continue

• Over 60% of participants shocked the student at the maximum voltage

Compliance

form of social influence in which one or more persons accepts direct requests from one or more others

Consistency technique

people who commit to a position are more willing to comply with requests that are consistent with that position

Foot-in-the-door technique

make a small request, and then ask for something larger

• Establishing a consistent pattern of behavior

Low-ball technique

get a person to commit to a purchase, then raise the cost

• People are uncomfortable going back on their commitments

Descriptive norm

behavior exhibited by most people in a given context

• People are more likely to comply if they feel similar others are also doing so

• Why? Heuristic for good choice and informational social influence

 Injunctive norm

how a person is supposed to behave in an injunctive context

• People are more likely to comply if they believe that they are expected to do

• Why? Heuristic for social acceptance and normative social influence

Reciprocity norm

 doing a favor for someone who may then feel required to do a favor for you in return

Door-in-the-face technique

if you make a concession in a previous request, people are more likely to comply to a follow-up

• Step 1: make a large request

• Step 2: make a smaller request

  • Looks better by comparison 

  • Done the person a favor

Pluralistic ignorance

individuals privately reject a group norm, belief, or behavior, yet publicly conform to it because they mistakenly assume that everyone else accepts it.