Social Psych - Chapter 4

Attitude

evaluative reaction towards someone or something; components ABC
A - affect (feelings)
B - behavior tendencies
C - cognition (thoughts)

Predicting Behavior from Attitudes:

do our attitudes predict behavior?
why can’t we tell?
when do our attitudes predict behavior?

Do our attitudes predict behaviors?

not really

Wicker (1969) and Batson, et al (1997, 2001/2)
moral hypocrisy
participants got an opportunity to do a fun task and get paid, yet the other person (a confederate) would get to do the boring unpaid job. Or they could take the boring, unpaid task and give the fun task to the other. In a survey, 5% said they would give the confederate the boring job, but when actually performing the opportunity, 80% took the fun job from the confederate.

Moral Hypocrisy

we appear to be moral when we actually aren’t

Why can’t we tell?

we as humans like to paint ourselves in a better light. we do not like to establish ourselves as selfish to others, so we lie about the behaviors we would commit, even if we’re just lying to ourselves.

When do our attitudes predict behavior?

minimal social influences
implicit association test (IAT)

a test where one side of the screen would say white and good while the other said black and bad. You would have an image pop up and have to associate the picture to either or. Once you cycled through the slideshow, you would have an intermission, and after that, the words black and good would be on one side, while white and bad would be on the other. They would measure the reaction time differences between the two trials to determine implicit bias (this example tests for racism), so if you had a slower reaction time, you’d be considered a racist.

DP = reaction time
association = attitudes

Facial Electromyography (EMG)

Cacioppo & Petty (1981) - facial movements

Disagree = movement in forehead
Agree = movement in cheeks

Milgram’s Lost Letter

created stamped envelopes to various organizations, how many letters got sent
Ex: Nazi Party P.O. Box

Specific Attitudes Evaluated

Ajzen & Fishbein (1977, 2005, 2010) - measured attitudes (specific)

Attitudes are Potent

Synder & Swan (1976) - collected participants’ attitudes towards affirmative action and participants made decisions based on their attitudes

Diner & Wallborn - timed test, students either continue or stop testing when the timer goes off; when mirror was added, only 7% of students cheated. Made them self-aware

Bogus Pipeline - lie to them so they don’t lie to us; augmented polygraph

Behavior Influences Attitude

Freeman & Fraser (1966) - ask participants to put a large billboard in front of yard to promote safe driving, 17% said yes, when asked about a small sign in yard, most said yes, asking the big sign again, 76% said yes.

Demonstrated foot-in-the-door phenomenon

Foot-In-The-Door Phenomenon

tendency for people who agreed to smaller requests to later comply to larger requests
opposite of door-in-the-face

Moral and Immoral Acts

engaging in moral behavior leads to moral acts; legislation and generational differences

Martens, et al (2007) - grinding up doodlebugs; engaging in immoral behaviors makes us more comfortable in immoral attitudes
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) - twisted nuts on bolts for 1 hours; looking at people’s expectations, $1 individuals enjoyed the task more; people who expect less from a task tend to enjoy the task more