Social Psych: Attitudes

Attitudes

psychological tendencies that are expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor

What do the ABC’s of Attitudes stand for?

Affect, Behavior, and Cognition

Affect

how we feel 

Behavior 

what we do

Cognition

what we think 

Accessibility of Explicit Attitudes

highly accessible (easy to measure)

Accessibility of Implicit Attitudes 

less accessible (harder to measure)

Old-Fashioned Racism Scale

asks participants to openly endorse or reject beliefs in the biological inferiority of minority groups or support for segregation it directly assesses overt, blatant, and hostile forms of prejudice

Hostile Sexism Scale

outward and open distain for women, treating women as if they are inferior, pushing women into traditional roles

Benevolent Sexism Scale

a type of sexism that is well-intended, but problematic - women are thought of as fragile and precious and they need to be taken care of, more common 

Implicit Association Test

flower vs. insect, bad vs. good, black vs. white

Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test

asked how people feel about nonsense words (ie. belni) - people who had a negative experience before (ie. looking at cockroaches, losing at a game) are more likely to describe belni as a bad word

LaPiere (1934) Study

a study was done in the 1930’s a time when there was a lot of Anti-Chinese sentiment, researchers went to different hotels to ask if they would allow a Chinese person into the hotel and majority said no, but when a Chinese couple was sent to get a room only 6% were denied; result come come from a majority of factors (ie. they were paying customers, my hotel is struggling)

Reasons attitudes may not correlate with behaviors?

Instability of intentions, Intention-behavior incompatibility, Multidimensionality of attitudes

Instability of Intentions

if attitude changes from measurement to just prior to behavior

Intention-Behavior Incompatibility

measurement issue just because people say they don’t like something (ie. heroine) doesn’t mean they’ll act in that way 

Multidimensionality of attitudes

maybe attitudes are just too complex to be measured with a single score and then used to predict behavior, e.g., feelings toward mother may be positive, but you may have a lot of fights with her because your relationship and evaluations are complex

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

inconsistencies between our attitudes and behavior cause dissonance (discomfort) which we feel compelled to resolve through a change in attitudes or change in behaviors 

Dissonance Reduction

the psychological process individuals use to alleviate mental discomfort caused by holding conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. We reduce dissonance to appear consistent

Spreading of Alternatives

after we choose one of two options, we feel more positively about what we chose and more negatively about what we reject (attitudes become more polarized) 

Effort Justification

after exerting considerable effort on a task or on behalf of some other party, we feel more positively about that task or other party (ie. our attitudes become more positive)

Insufficient Justification

the punishment was not severe enough

Over-justification

when incentives and punishment are really enticing we don’t experience dissonance(ie. i did it for the $20) 

System Justification Theory

low power and ability to make change creates dissonance, we resolve this dissonance by justifying the status quo 

Example of System Justification theory 

“I support women working, but do we really want men taking care of our babies? Women are really essential to the proper functioning of the home, so maybe it’s okay that there’s this hiring gap.”

Terror Management Theory 

showing more commitment to in group and respect for cultural artifacts - we are more inclined to derogate or punish out-group members 

purpose of terror management theory

to connect with culture/groups that live after us and strive for symbolic immorality