PSYC 351 - Exam 2 Study Guide

Likert Scales

A numerical scale used to assess people's attitudes.

Public Opinion Surveys

Surveys that measure self-report surveys on attitudes towards certain subjects.

Attitude Formation

Characterized as being an automatic and implicit process.

IAT (1998) Study

The technique used for revealing subtle, nonconscious attitudes toward different stimuli, especially groups of people.

Tormala and Petty (2002)

Study where they explored the phenomenon of how resisting a persuasive message can actually strengthen one's initial attitude, and how people are more open to persuasion when they have a low attitude confidence.

Involved confronting university students about adding a new campus policy, which became more opposed as students resisted the change.

Cognitive Dissonance

Inconsistent cognitions that arouse psychological tension, which people become motivated to reduce.

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)

Study that investigated Insufficient Justification from Cognitive Dissonance.

Main takeaway is that persuasion should use smallest amount of incentive or coercion necessary.

Attitudes Predict Behavior

The link between a person's evaluation of an object (attitude) and their corresponding actions.

Availability

The process whereby judgments of frequency or probability are based on how readily pertinent instances come to mind.

Representativeness

Process where judgments of likelihood are based on assessments of similarity between individuals and group prototypes or between cause and effect.

Anchoring

The heavy reliance on the first piece of information offered when making decisions or judgments.

(Ignoring) base rate information

Information regarding the relative frequency of events or members of different categories within a population.

Rule et al. (1985)

Conducted research on Persuasion in Everyday Life, which examined the variety of things people attempt to persuade others about in their daily interactions.

What are We Most Likely to Persuade Others for Results

People are typically persuading others about matters related to:

• Obtaining information, an object, or permission;

• Getting someone to do a favor/help;

• Changing someone's opinion;

• Getting someone to engage in an activity;

• Buying or Selling something; Changing an existing relationship;

• Changing someone's personal habit(s);

• Helping a third party;

• Getting someone to do something against their self-interest (harm).

Central Route

One of two ways from the Elaboration-Likelihood Model where persuasive communication can cause attitude change.

Route wherein people think carefully and deliberately about the content of a persuasive message, focusing on the message’s logic and the strength of its arguments and related evidence.

Peripheral Route

Alternative route to attitude change from the Elaboration-Likelihood Model.

Case whereby people do not elaborate on the arguments in the persuasive communication, and are instead swayed peripheral cues.

Elaboration-Likelihood Model

A theory that explains how people are persuaded, focusing on central and peripheral routes. Found that when personal relevance is high, participants were persuaded by the quality of the argument.

Developed by Petty & Caciopo (1968)

Yale Attitude Change Approach

Research conducted by Carl Hovland that analyzes persuasion through the source, content, and audience of a message being delivered.

Primacy Effect

An order effect in judgment where the first information presented has a disproportionate influence on overall judgment.

Recency Effect

An order effect in judgment where the last information presented has a disproportionate influence on overall judgment.

Prejudice

Affective response defined as a hostile or negative attitude toward a distinguishable group based solely on their group membership.

Considered a negative feeling toward a group of people and involves prejudging others because they belong to a specific category.

Discrimination

Behavioral response defined as unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group because of their membership to that group.

Can be personal or institutional.

Stereotypes

Cognitive response defined as a belief about the personal attributes of a group, where most or all members are thought to possess those attributes.

Social Dominance Orientation

A personality trait reflecting support for socioeconomic hierarchy and belief that different groups should occupy higher and lower positions in society.

Often linked to outgroup dehumanization.

Realistic Conflict Theory

Theory explaining that group conflict, prejudice, and discrimination arise over competition for limited resources.

Frustration-Aggression Theory

A potential reason for the development of stereotypes and prejudice.

Posits that frustration, or being blocked from achieving a goal, can lead to aggression.

Robbers Cave Experiment

Study exploring ethnocentrism that resulted from intergroup competition, showing hostility can be reduced through cooperation.

Social Identity Theory

Theory explaining ingroup favoritism, stating self-concept and self-esteem are derived from group status and accomplishments.

Minimal Groups Paradigm Research

Experimental technique creating arbitrary groups to examine behavior, showing ingroup favoritism occurs even with trivial criteria.

Found that ingroup favoritism occurred even when groups were meaningless.

Stereotype Threat

Phenomenon where fear of confirming stereotypes about one's group impairs performance of marginalized group members.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Prophecy that describes how stereotypes can be self-reinforcing.

Social Influence

Concept that encompasses various types of influence individuals have on each other.

Conformity

A type of social influence defined as changing one's beliefs or behavior to closely align with those of others, in response to explicit or implicit pressure (real or imagined) to do so.

Compliance

A type of social influence that occurs when a person responds favorably to an explicit request from another person.

Obedience

A type of social influence that occurs in an unequal power relationship when a less powerful person submits to the demands of the person in authority.

Informational Influence

A type of conformity that arises from the reliance on other people's comments and actions as an indication of what is likely to be correct, proper, or effective.

Normative Influence

A type of conformity that is the influence of other people that leads individuals to conform in order to be liked, accepted, or not rejected.

Sherif (1936) Study

Experiment that demonstrated information social influence.

Experiment where participants would estimate the movement of a stationary pinpoint of light and would converge to a common shared group norm.

Asch (1951) Study

Experiment that involved participants performing a simple line judgment task in the presence of others who deliberately gave the wrong answer.

Demonstrated the effect of normative social influence in order to avoid disapproval.

Milgram (1961) Study

Experiment that investigated obedience to authority by forcing participants to punish a confederate who faked his cries of pain.

Found that most participants delivered the highest shock level to the confederate.

Innate Desire to work in Groups

The desire that human beings are group-living animals, influencing behavior and survival.

Social Facilitation

Term for the effect, positive or negative, of the presence of others on performance.

Social Loafing

The tendency to exert less effort when working on a group task in which individual contributions cannot be monitored.

Groupthink

Defined as faulty thinking exhibited by members of highly cohesive groups, in which the critical scrutiny that should be devoted to the issues at hand is subverted by social pressures to reach consensus.

Symptoms of Groupthink

Self-censorship, where individuals withhold information or opinions in group discussions, and suppressing or rationalizing dissent.

Compliance Strategies

Methods used to gain compliance (a favorable response to an explicit request).

Foot-in-the-door phenomenon

Strategy that involves making an initial small request with which nearly everyone complies, followed by a larger request involving the real behavior of interest.

Reciprocal Concessions Technique (door-in-the-face)

Strategy that involves asking someone for a very large favor that is certain to be refused, and then following that refusal with a request for a small favor.