Unit 5: Attitudes, Conformity, Compliance, Obedience

attitude

individual evaluation of something, typically favorable or unfavorable

cognitive dissonance

psychological discomfort that arises from discrepancies between attitudes or beliefs and behaviors

justification of effort

we value goals and achievements that we put a lot of effort into

persuasion

process of changing our attitude toward something based on some kind of communication

Yale Attitude Change Appraoch

a model that describes the conditions under which people tend to change their attitudes

Elaboration Liklihood Model

identifies two main routes for attitude change

central route

direct path to attitude change, or persuasion, that is logic driven and sets out data/facts to convince people

peripheral route

indirect way of changing attitude by associating it with positive messaging i.e. celebrity endorsement, product placement in a popular show over facts/logic

foot-in-door

getting the person to agree to smaller request and building to a larger request

confederate

someone in a research study who behaves in a certain way as part of the research

conformity

the change in a person’s behavior to go along with the group

Asch effect

the influence of the majority on an individual’s judgement

normative social influence

when people conform to the group in order to fit in

informational social influence

when people conform to the group believing that others may be more competent or have correct/more information

obedience

the change of an individual’s behavior to comply with a demand from an authority figure

groupthink

the change in opinions of members of a group to align with what they believe the group consensus is

group polarization

the tendency for a group’s opinion to grow stronger (perhaps more extreme) following discussion of that viewpoint

social loafing

a reduction in individual output on tasks with pooled effort

deindividuation

situations where a person may feel an increased sense of anonymity and therefore reduction in accountability and sense of self among others