LECTURES 9, 10, 11 / SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY FINAL

Attitude

A summary evaluation of a specific attitude object (e.g., self-esteem, prejudice) that always implies an evaluation .

Attitude Change

The process through which attitudes are formed and changed by associating positive or negative information with the attitude object.

Persuasion

Deliberate attempts to bring attitude change through communication.

Non-Attitudes

Occur when people lack a genuine, stable opinion on a topic but still provide an answer when asked in a survey.

Knowledge Function (Mastery Motivation)

Once formed, an attitude helps organize, summarize, and simplify our experience of an object, orienting us to its important characteristics .

Instrumental Function (Mastery Motivation)

Guides our approach to positive objects and our avoidance of negative objects.

Social Identity / Value Expressive Function (Connectedness)

Expresses our important underlying values and signals which social groups we belong to .

Impression Management Function (Connectedness)

We tend to express attitudes we think we are expected to express or that others want to hear .

Cognitive Information

The facts people know and the beliefs they hold about an object, which are not emotionally charged.

Affective Information

People's feelings and emotions about an object, which often come first and can be genetically determined.

Behavioral Information

All the previous behavioral experiences we had regarding the attitude object.

Key Factors in Attitude Formation

Self-relevant and highly accessible information carries more weight; negative information has a stronger effect due to the negativity bias; and people often gather information one-sidedly .

Strong Attitudes

Extremely positive or negative evaluations that are confidently held, persistent, and resistant to change.

Ambivalent Attitudes

Attitudes formed from conflicting positive and negative information.

Peripheral Route of Persuasion

Relies on mental shortcuts rather than conscious analysis, changing attitudes through new associations.

Persuasion Heuristics

Mental shortcuts used to make quick decisions about whether to agree with a message, relying on simple rules of thumb (e.g., "experts can be trusted") instead of carefully analyzing facts .

Evaluative Conditioning

A form of classical conditioning where an attitude changes because a neutral object is repeatedly paired with a positive or negative stimulus.

"How do I feel about it? “ Heuristics

Making rapid judgments based on immediate emotions rather than logically weighing facts.

Familiarity Heuristics (Mere Exposure Effect)

Preferring things simply because they are familiar and easier to process, which can be enhanced by repeating arguments or using metaphors .

Attractiveness Heuristics

An unconscious bias where physically attractive individuals are falsely judged to have other positive traits, making them more persuasive (boosted by mimicry or the mirroring effect) .

The Expertise Attitude

Accepting a claim based on the communicator's competence and trustworthiness (like a fast-speaking pace) rather than the message itself .

Message-Length Heuristics

Assuming a message is valid simply because it is long or features a lot of numbers and diagrams.

The Ben Franklin Close (Balance Sheet Method)

A sales closing technique that involves creating a pros and cons list with a hesitant customer to logically weigh the benefits of a purchase against its drawbacks.

Systematic Information Processing (Central Route)

Consciously evaluating the quality and strength of arguments through critical thinking, which leads to strong, stable, and resistant attitudes.

McGuire Attitude Change Model Steps

1. Attending to information; 2. Comprehension; 3. Reacting (Elaboration/metacognition); 4. Accepting or Rejecting .

Boomerang Effect

When relying on weak arguments backfires, leading to more negative attitudes.

Elaboration Likelihood Model Requirements

Using systematic processing requires two things: Motivation and Cognitive Capacity.

Motivation for Systematic Processing

Driven by Mastery/Accuracy (decisions with self-relevant consequences) or Connectedness (understanding the viewpoint of a liked other) .

Capacity for Systematic Processing

Requires ability and concentration; distractions, complex arguments, or substances prevent it, which weakens strong arguments and strengthens weak ones .

Emotions and Systematic Processing

Works best at a medium arousal level; the Affect as Information Model suggests negative emotions signal "something is not OK", prompting systematic processing .

Ignorance & Reinterpretation (Assimilation Effect)

Protecting attitudes by ignoring data or misinterpreting inconsistent information so we believe it aligns with our original attitude.

Biased Processing

Accepting supportive evidence at face value while counter-arguing inconsistent information and selectively forgetting strong, inconsistent arguments .

Inoculation

Protecting attitudes from persuasion by gathering strong counter-arguments in advance when you know someone is trying to persuade you, acting like a vaccine against influence

Stereotype Consequences

Stereotypes directly impact emotions, information processing (perception and inferences), and behavior (leading to discrimination). This process is activated by visual or social cues regarding a person's category membership.

Stereotype Activation

Socially categorizing someone automatically activates a network of related elements, including specific expected emotions, characteristics, and behavioral intentions. Multiple people are not needed to trigger this; a single person can do it.

Automatic Stereotyping

Once activated, a stereotype's content directly dictates social judgments. Activating one element primes the others and forces attention onto them while inhibiting unrelated associations, which strengthens existing biases.

Police Officer's Dilemma

A video game simulation testing split-second shoot/don't shoot judgments based on race, which demonstrates how automatic stereotyping takes over in high-stakes environments.

Cognitive Load and Stereotypes

People rely heavily on stereotypes when under time pressure or dealing with a heavy cognitive load.

Emotions and Stereotypes

High emotional arousal significantly increases stereotyping.

Power and Stereotypes

How power affects stereotyping has contradictory results, depending entirely on the specific goals of the powerful person.

Implicit Association Tests (IAT)

A psychological tool designed to measure automatic, non-conscious stereotypic associations by having users rapidly sort words and faces.

Criticisms of the IAT

The IAT's results are easily biased by the test-taker's current situation, and many rapid associations are just cultural products rather than signs of genuine internal prejudice.

Implicit vs. Explicit Attitudes

Implicit attitudes control spontaneous, non-conscious behavior (like nonverbal communication), while explicit attitudes dictate conscious behavior (like verbal communication).

The Suppression Backfire

Conscious suppression of stereotypes only has a temporary effect and often causes a "backfire effect" where the bias comes back stronger.

Motivation for Correcting Prejudice

Having a high internal and low external motivation profile is the most efficient way to correct prejudiced behavior.

The Over-Correction Risk

Forcing a conscious positive attitude to replace a negative one carries the risk of establishing a positive attitude without a realistic base.

Best Method to Reduce Prejudice

Actively activating counterstereotypical information and building real associations between those positive characteristics and the outgroup.

Stereotyping & Systematic Information Processing

People spot and memorize confirming examples to validate stereotypes, use different standards for different information, and constrain evidence to fit the stereotype (self-fulfilling prophecy).

Stereotype Threat

When someone belongs to a negatively evaluated group, anxiety over the awareness of that stereotype can undermine their performance.

Contact Hypothesis (Gordon Allport, 1954)

Certain types of direct contact between hostile groups will reduce prejudice, but only if there is equal status, mutual goals, cooperation, and approval of the broad social environment.

Explaining it Away

A mechanism for defending stereotypes that involves making an external attribution to justify why a person acted differently. It can be cured by consistent contradictory behavior across different situations.

Creating Subtype Categories

Defending a stereotype by creating a specific subtype for exceptions, allowing the higher-level outgroup stereotype to remain intact. It can be cured if there is prevalent contradictory behavior demonstrated with the out-group.

Contrast Effect

A cognitive bias where a contradictory group member is considered an extraordinary exception and an individual rather than a group member. It can be cured by emphasizing the person's typical characteristics to reintegrate them into the group perception

Behavior Shaping Attitudes

Behavior can also form/change attitudes (e.g., adapting to a new job positions and career choices).

LaPiere's Study (1930s)

Surveyed American hotels, restaurants, and clubs about allowing Chinese people to enter, and all responded negatively. However, when he visited these establishments with a Chinese couple, they were welcomed without issue, highlighting the difference between stated attitudes and actual behavior.

Behavior-Attitude Associations

Our movements can influence whether we accept a message or refuse it (e.g., leaning forward while reading increases the chance of acceptance).

Self-Perception Theory (Bem, 1965)

Says that when internal cues are weak or ambiguous, people infer their own attitudes and emotions by observing their freely and actively chosen behavior and the context around it. This is the basis for foot-in-the-door methods, but only works for attitudes that are not important to us and we have no prior knowledge about them.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger, 1957)

Individuals experience an unpleasant state of mental discomfort (dissonance) when holding conflicting beliefs, or when they are aware of an inconsistency between important attitudes and their actions. This discomfort motivates people to reduce the inconsistency by changing their behavior, justifying their actions, or ignoring conflicting information to restore internal consistency.

Preconditions for Cognitive Dissonance

1. Perceiving the action as internally inconsistent. 2. Perceiving the action as freely chosen, rather than forced by external factors. 3. Experiencing uncomfortable physiological arousal (discomfort or guilt). 4. Attributing that uncomfortable arousal directly to the inconsistency between your attitude and action.

Insufficient Justification Effect

When offered a small reward or weak incentive to perform a behavior that contradicts their beliefs, individuals internally justify that behavior by adopting a positive attitude toward it.

Effort Justification Effect

People place a higher value on outcomes that require significant effort, time, or sacrifice to achieve. This helps individuals justify their actions, ensuring that labor feels worthwhile even if the results are mediocre.

Justifying Decisions

Making a choice means accepting the disadvantages of the chosen option and sacrificing the benefits of the non-chosen alternative.

Post-Decisional Regret Effect

The negative emotion and self-blame experienced after making a choice that leads to a poor outcome or when realizing an alternative option was superior.

Minimizing the Inconsistencies

Trivializing the behavior or adding cognitions to make it consonant (e.g., calling a large cake a "reward" for a week of dieting).

Minimizing Perception of Free Choice

Using external attribution and saying that someone forced the behavior.

Attributing the Arousal to Something Else

Suppressing the discomfort, such as using drugs or alcohol to numb feelings.

Reaffirming Self-Worth Integrity

Focusing on integrity to reduce dissonance (e.g., saying "I'm a good doctor").

Changing Future Behavior (The Hypocrisy Effect)

A psychological phenomenon where individuals feel compelled to change their behavior to match their stated beliefs, typically induced after they publicly advocate for a behavior they have failed to practice.

Dissonance and Culture

People from individualistic cultures tend to experience cognitive dissonance more frequently, and in collectivist cultures, there is a high level of tolerance for dissonance.

The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA, Fishbein & Ajzen, 1967/1980)

Posits that a person's behavior is determined by their intention to perform it, which is driven by their attitude toward the behavior and subjective norms. It suggests people consider consequences before acting, focusing on voluntary behaviors.

Attitude Accessibility

The influence of an attitude is affected by self-monitoring, self-awareness, and attitude strength (how frequently activated, well-established, and self-relevant it is). It can also be oppressed by other aspects, like social norms or habits.

Attitude Correspondence

The target and behavior need to be exactly the same, requiring an appropriate level of specificity and object-behavior target correspondence.

BelTheory of Planned Behavior, Ajzen, 1991)

Emphasizes that a person needs the ability and opportunity to act; for example, loving Ferraris won't influence purchasing behavior if you cannot actually afford one