Psych - Attitudes and Behaviors

Michelangelo phenomenon

concept of self is made up of both the intrapersonal self, the ideas that individuals have regarding their own abilities, traits, and beliefs

Demand characteristics

how participants change behaviour to match expectations of experimenter. Conformed because that’s what experimenter wanted them to do.

Yerkes-Dodson law of social facilitation

being in the presence of others will significantly raise arousal which enhances the ability to perform tasks one is already good at and hinders performance of less familiar tasks

Social facilitation

people naturally exhibit a performance response when they know they are being watched

Deindividuation

loss of one’s self-awareness in a group setting and the associated adoption of a more group oriented identity

Social loafing

tendency of individuals to reduce effort when in a group setting

Cognitive dissonance

simultaneous presence of 2 opposing thoughts or opinions, generally leads to internal state of discomfort which may manifest as anxiety, fear, anger, or confusion

4 things to reduce cognitive dissonance

1) modify cognitions, 2) trivialize, 3) add, 4) deny

Groupthink

social phenomenon where a desire for harmony or conformity results in a group of people coming to an incorrect or poor decision

Group polarization

tendency for groups to collaboratively make decisions more extreme than the individual ideas and inclinations of the members within the group

Subculture

groups of people within a culture that distinguish themselves from the primary culture to which they belong (based on race/gender/ethnicity/etc), can be perceived as negative

Counterculture

subculture group gravitates toward an identity at odds with the majority culture and deliberately opposes the prevailing social mores.

Strain theory

deviance as a natural reaction to the disconnect between social goals and social structure

Foot in the door

begins with a small request, and after gaining compliance, a larger request is made

Door in the face

large request made at first and if refused, smaller request is made

Components of attitude

affective, behavioral, cognitive

Affective (emotional)

we may feel or have emotions about a certain object, topic, subject. (i.e. “I am scared of spiders”)

Behavioral

how we act or behave towards object/subject (i.e. “I will avoid (action/behavior) spiders and scream (action/behavior) if I see one”)

Cognitive

form thoughts/beliefs and have knowledge about subject/topic that will influence and shape our attitude

Subjective norms

what we think others think about our behavior

Effort justification

an idea and paradigm in social psychology stemming from Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance. tendency to attribute a greater value (greater than the objective value) to an outcome they had to put effort into acquiring or achieving

Elaboration likelihood model

theory of attitude formation and attitude change that separates individuals on a continuum based on how they process persuasive information

Social cognitive theory

people learn how to behave and shape attitudes by observing the behavior of others