Social Psych Exam 2 kms

Process by which people think about themselves and make sense of other people, themselves and social situations

Social Cognition

What are some assumptions about social cognition?

Motivated to make sense of the world by seeing ordered patterns

Social world loaded with information

Limited capacity (Attention and info processing)

Cognitive miser

What are the three types of simplification strategies?

1. Dispositional inference biases

2. Confirmatory biases

3. Cognitive heuristics

Attributing someones behavior to their personal qualities rather than the situation

Dispositional inference

Bias toward dispositional ( person based ) inferences

Fundamental attribution error

What was the jones and harris experiment?

- Shown debaters pro/anti Castro essays

- Told that debater freely chose/was forced to write essay

- Rated debaters actual attitude toward castro

Behavior of others is due to personality; my behavior is due to the situation. Bias in language.

Actor-observer bias

Reasons for actor-observer bias

Cognition (difference in perspective: Observer = other person is salient and Actor = situation is salient) and motivation (protect positive self view)

Seek to verify existing beliefs

1. Interpret confirmatory info

2. Seek confirmatory info

3. Create confirmatory info

Confirmatory biases

Darley and Gross Study: Interpreting Confirmatory Info

Procedure

1. Evaluate potential of a 9 year old girl

2. Received high/low expectation manipulation

3. Rated girl immediately or after watching her perform at an average level

Darley and Gross results Dependent variable

Grade assigned by participant

Results of Darley and Gross

People who watched the girl perform at an average level rate her higher/lower depending on whether they have a positive/negative confirmatory bias

Snyder and Swann, Seeking confirmatory Info

Procedure

1. Assigned interviewer/interviewee roles

2. Extravert/introvert manipulation

3. Told to select a list of possible questions

Snyder and Swann, Results of introvert condition

chose introvert-oriented questions

Snyder and Swann, Results of extravert condition

Chose extravert-oriented questions

Inaccurate expectation leads to expectation-consistent behavior

Self fulfilling prophecy

Snyder, Tanke, and Berscheid Study

1. Males told to have phone convo with female

2. Shown picture of attractive/unattractive partner

3. Females responses coded for openness and warmth

Snyder Tanke and Berscheid results

Attractive females responses were coded as more open and warm than unattractive females.

mental shortcut

adaptive but can lead to mistakes

Cognitive heuristic

What are four types of cognitive heuristics?

Anchoring and adjustment heuristic

Representativeness heuristic

Availability heuristic

Straightness heuristic

Strategy of basing likelihood judgements on stereotypes

Representatives heuristic

When the combination of two events is thought to be more likely than two independent events - This is an example of the _____

Conjunction error, example of the representativeness heuristic

A belief that the onset of a certain random event is more or less likely to happen following the occurrence of a prior random event

Gamblers Fallacy

In sports, the belief that if people succeed several times in a row they get "on a roll"

"Hot Hand" Phenomenon

When likelihood estimates are based on how easy examples come to mind

Availability heuristic

The tendency to overestimate others agreement with us

False consensus effect

Tendency to "tidy up" untidy realities to make more in line with "prettier picture"

Straightness heurisitic

Bottom Line about _____: Generally adaptive because of necessity to be cognitive misers, speed/accuracy trade off, studying errors teach us how people typically process information

heuristics

Tendency to mispredict the intensity and duration of emotional reactions to future events

Caused in part by focalism and immune neglect

Affective forecasting errors

The tendency to overestimate how much we will think about an event in the future

Focalism

The tendency to ignore automatic psychological processes that help us "cope" with emotional events

immune neglect

Information that is more easily retrieved is more likely to be used

Accessibility

Temporarily increasing accessibility of a concept by presenting a related stimulus

Priming

Higgins, Rholes, and Jones Study Design

1. Memory Task - shown lists of words to memorize for later recall test

2. Adventurous (brave, bold) list and reckless (foolish, careless) list

3. In second experiment, read paragraph about "Donald" and rate Donald on positive characteristics

Higgins, Rholes and Jones Experiment Results

Adventurous prime rated donald more positively than reckless condition

Accessibility influenced impression formation

Murphy and Zajonc Experiment Design

1. Shown chinese ideographs for 2 seconds each

2. Prior to each, shown a happy face, angry face, or neutral polygon for 4 milliseconds

3. Rate each ideograph on 1 (do not like at all) to 5 (like quite a bit) scale

Murphy and Zajonc Results

Happy face = more positive ranking, Unhappy face = more negative ranking

Holland, Hendriks, and Aarts Study Design

1. Complete filler questions in no smell condition or citrus scent condition

2. Go to another lab room and eat a biscuit

3. How clean do people keep the table? (rated via hidden camera)

Holland, Hendriks and Aarts Study Results

People cleaned up better in the citrus scent location (more crumbs cleaned up)

An unfavorable or favorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone

Attitude

Consciously accessible - What type of attitude?

Explicit attitude

Unconscious association between object and evaluative response - what type of attitude?

implicit attitude

Univariate

One dimension with two endpoints

Bivariate

Two independent dimensions

Univariate attitude structure

You rate something positively or negatively

Implies that positive or negative attitudes are mutually exclusive - you cannot have both

Bivariate attitude structure

Attitudes are a joint function of two dimensions (positivity and negativity, low to high)

Can evaluate something both positively AND negatively

Explicit Attitude Measurement

Self report (just ask)

Bogus Pipeline

Implicit Attitude Measurement

Indirect measures

e.g. Modern Racism Scale

Implicit Association Test

Implicit and Explicit Attitudes are from seperate measures

Dual processing theories

Do implicit and explicit attitudes always agree?

no

More exposure leads to more positive feelings

Mere exposure effect

Zajonc Experiment Design

1. Shown Chinese ideographs, 2 seconds at a time

2. Ideographs presented at different frequencies

3. Guessed whether ideographs good or bad in Chinese

Initially neutral stimulus begins to evoke a reaction after repeated pairings with another stimulus

classical conditioning

Rewards + Punishments -> Attitudes and Behavior

Instrumental Conditioning

Attitudes form rationally, by thinking through and weighing information

Cognitive Appraisal

We infer our internal states from our behavior

Self perception theory

_____ _______ can produce attitudes

Similar to self-perception, except not conscious

Physical Movement

Wells and Pettty Experiment Design

1. Listened to taped editorial w headphones on

2. Asked to test sound quality of headphones by moving head: half told to move up and down, half told to move back and forth

3. Rated persuasiveness of editorial

Wells and Petty Results

Up and down condition rated editorial more positively

Brain and body are deeply intertwined and influence each other

Embodied cognition

LaPiere Study Design

1. Traveled w Chinese couple during time of prejudice against Asians

2. Stopped at 250 hotels/restaurants; only one refused service

3. Wrote letter to each place: Would responses to letters be consistent with behavior encountered on trip?

LaPiere Results

Half did not respond. Of respondents, 92% said no

Conclusion: Attitudes and behaviors are unrelated

Attitudes are predictors of behavior when there is a ___ of situational constraints

absence

Attitudes are predictors of behavior when they are both at the same level of ____

specificity (if the attitude and behavior are similar in theme, then the attitude will be a stronger predictor of behavior)

Attitudes are predictors of behavior when the attitude is ___

strong

Attitude is a predictor of behavior when the ___ is formed through direct experience

attitude

Regan and Fazio Experiment Design

1. Housing shortage forced some students onto dorm cots; others get permanent rooms

2. Students surveyed on attitude and willingness to collect signatures

Results of Regan and Fazio

All had strong negative attitude

Most on costs agreed to collect signatures; few in permanent housing agreed

Attitude is a strong predictor of behavior when the attitude is assessed shortly before ____

behavior

Attitude is a strong predictor of behavior for low ___ monitors

self

Attitude is a strong predictor of behavior when people are made ___

Self-conscious

When ____ , people behave more in line with their attitudes and beliefs

self-conscious

People desire consistency among their cognitions and behavior

A perceived inconsistency -> dissonance

Dissonance is unpleasant

We seek to reduce dissonance through various means

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Counter-attitudinal Behavior, Festinger and Carlsmith Study

1. Performed dull peg turning task

2. Subject is asked to set expectation for next subject

3. Conditions: Control: tell the truth, Insufficient justification = $1 to lie, Sufficient justification = $20 to lie

4. Set expectation for other subject

5. "How much did you enjoy the peg turning task?"

Festinger and Carlsmith Experiment Results

Lower dissonance = $20 reward so sufficient reasoning for lie. High dissonance = Had to make themselves believe the task was actually interesting to justify lying

Counterattitudinal behavior

acting in a way that runs counter to one's private belief or attitude

Spreading of alternatives

Alternatives are seen as more different (the one we chose as better, the one we rejected as worse) after we choose compared to before

Effects of effort expenditure

higher/more severe initiation (revealing highly personal info) = Higher rating for the discussion group

What way to reduce cognitive dissonance is this an example of - "I actually like smoking - I dont need to quit"

Changing attitudes

What way to reduce cognitive dissonance is this an example of - "Smoking relaxes me and keeps my weight down, which benefits my health"

Adding consonant cognitions

What way to reduce cognitive dissonance is this an example of - "It is more important to stay relaxed and slim than to worry about maybe getting cancer 30 years from now"

Altering the importance of the discrepancy

What way to reduce cognitive dissonance is this an example of - "I have no choice but to smoke. I have so much stress in my life now that smoking is one of the only ways to calm my nerves"

Reducing perceived choice

What way to reduce cognitive dissonance is this an example of - "im going to stop smoking again"

changing behavior

Dissonance theory suggests that we like people not for the favors they have done us but for the favors we have done them

Ben Franklin Effect

- Attitude change due to behavior is not actually driven by dissonance

- When we are unsure of our attitudes, we just infer them from our behavior

- Attitude change is a rational, emotionless process

- People figure out attitude from their behavior

Self perception theory

Bem (1965) Study Design and Results

- Subjects read Festinger and Carlsmith procedure (lying for money task), and were asked to guess results

- Reasoning: If "observers" can predict results, actual subjects probably inferred attitude from behavior

- F and C Results: "observers" successfully guessed resutls

Impression Management Theory Explanation

What looks like attitude change is not

People dont want to BE consistent, they want to APPEAR consistent

F and C results: People are trying not to look bad in front of experimenter

Self-affirmation Theory Explanation

Key is maintaining general positive view of oneself - inconsistency threatens this

People do ANYTHING to restore positive view of self (need not to be related to inconsistency)

F and C Results: If people given chance to self affirm, no attitude change is needed

Steele (1988) Study Design

Asked to write counter-attitudinal essay - favoring increased tuition

Given choice (high dissonance) or no choice (low dissonance)

Some participants self affirmed by completing a questionnaire that emphasized their values - others did not

Measured attitude toward tuition increase

Steele (1988) Experiment Results

Change in attitude was higher in the no self-affirmation condition

Self-affirming is an important value eliminating the effects of dissonance on attitudes

What is the key question addressed by the Elaboration likelihood model?

What makes a message persuasive?

Elaboration Likelihood Model - 2 ways to attitude change

Central and Preipheral Route

Central Route to Attitude Change

Systematic Thinking, Influenced by argument strength

Peripheral Route to Attitude Change

Heuristic thinking, influenced by cues irrelevant to content

ELM: What determines the Route to Attitude Change?

1. Motivated? If yes -> Central Route

2. Able (time, cog. ability?) If yes -> Central Route

Need yes on both questions for central route

What two elements influence the extent of attitude change?

Source and Message Characteristics

Source Characteristics

Credibility (expert, trustworthy) and Likeability (physical attractiveness, fame, similarity)

Message Characteristics

Amount of information: More = better

Repetition: More = better

1 vs 2 sided: It depends

Reason v Emotion: It depends

Positive and negative emotion (more positive = better, Fear appeals - moderate amount)

When are one sided arguments more effective?

More effective if the audience is initially on your side or unaware of both sides

When are two sided arguments more effective?

More effective if the audience is initially opposed to you or aware of both sides