Attitudes

Bogus pipeline

lab procedure that fools people into disclosing their real attitudes Ex. lie detector test

Implicit Association Test

measures implicit attitudes by assessing the speed of associations between concepts in people's minds.

Cognitive dissonance

Inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviors may produce psychological discomfort which leads people to rationalize behavior or change attitudes

Example of cognitive dissonance

Smoking cigarettes while knowing that smoking causes cancer

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) - insufficient & suffcient justification

Participants performed boring tasks. Were paid an incentive to lie to get more participants.

• $1 group: Couldn’t justify lying for a dollar. To resolve the cognitive dissonance of lying, they altered their attitude to align with their behavior

• $20 group: Felt no cognitive dissonance. They knew exactly why they lied. They had a strong external reason. They didn’t need to change their mindset.

Effort justification

When suffering or working hard to make sacrifices, people convince themselves it is worthwhile

Example of effort justification

Participating in hazing in order to join a desirable group

Dissonance is more likely to occur when…

External justification for our behavior is insufficient, we have freedom of choice and we make difficult choices

Insufficient justification effect

Occurs when people downplay the reasons for their behavior to reduce cognitive dissonance.

Post-decision dissonance

After a decision is finalized, increasing the attractiveness of the chosen option and decreasing the attractiveness of the rejected alternatives.

Sufficient justification

Refers to having adequate reasons for a behavior, which helps to avoid cognitive dissonance and validates one's choices.

Why does attitude change occur?

To appear consistent to others

Attitudes will predict behavior when…

• We are in a novel situation

• We are more self-aware

Theory of planned behavior

a psychological model that links beliefs and behavior, suggesting that intention towards behavior is influenced by attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.

People’s attitude toward religion is a _____ predictor of whether or not they will attend a religious service next weekend

Poor

The IAT is used to measure _____ attitudes.

Implicit

The experience of hazing and the resulting behavior can be an example of.

effort justification

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) had participants perform a boring task but paid them to lie to tell a prospective participant that the task was enjoyable. Results showed that participants paid $_____ reported that the task was _____.

$1 interesting; enjoyable. (because they didn’t have external rationalization, so they had to change their attitude to match their behavior.)

The ____ states that inconsistencies between different attitudes or between attitudes and behavior may produce psychological discomfort.

Cognitive dissonance

Expressed attitudes

can predict average in behavior

Deliberate (explicit) attitudes

Controlled and conscious evaluation

Automatic (implicit) attitudes

Automatic, non-consious evaluations. attitudes people may be unaware of holding

Dual attitudes

explicit and implicit attitudes conflict