WEEK 6 & 7: Attitudes, behaviour, rationalization, and persuasion

Attitude

A set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors toward a particular person, object, idea, or event.

Likert scale

A rating scale used to measure attitudes or opinions by asking individuals to select from an ordered range of options, such as strongly disagree to strongly agree.

Response latency

The amount of time it takes to react or respond after receiving a stimulus.

Implicit attitude measures

Indirect assessments designed to capture a person's automatic, unconscious evaluations or feelings without relying on direct self-reporting.

Cognitive dissonance theory

The psychological discomfort experienced when holding contradictory beliefs, values, or actions, motivating a person to reduce the conflict and restore mental harmony.

Effort justification

The psychological tendency to place a higher value on an outcome simply because a large amount of hard work or sacrifice was required to achieve it.

Induced forced compliance

where someone is subtly persuaded to act against their personal beliefs or attitudes, often leading them to change their beliefs to reduce cognitive dissonance.

Self-perception theory

The idea that people deduce their own attitudes and feelings by observing their own behavior and the circumstances around it.

System justification theory

A psychological perspective proposing that people are motivated to defend, bolster, and view existing social, political, and economic arrangements as fair, legitimate, and desirable.

Terror management theory

What people do to deal with the potentially Crippling anxiety they experience when they think about their own mortality

Elaboration likelihood model

A psychological theory explaining that persuasion occurs through two distinct paths: the central route (evaluating logic and evidence) and the peripheral route (relying on superficial cues).

Central route

Occurs when people think carefully and deliberately above the content of persuasive message

Peripheral route

A process where people are influenced by superficial cues, such as speaker attractiveness or emotional appeal, rather than the strength of the core argument.

Source characteristics

Characteristics of the person who delivers a persuasive message such as attractiveness credibility and certainty

Message characteristics

Aspects or content of a persuasive message, including the quality of the evidence and the explicitness of its conclusions

Identifiable victim effect

The psychological tendency to offer greater aid and feel stronger empathy for a single, specific individual in hardship compared to a large, abstract group facing the same issue.

Audience characteristics

Characteristics of those who receive persuasive message, including need for cognition, mood and age

Agenda control

Efforts by the media to emphasize certain events and topics there by shaping which issues and events people think are important

Hostile media phenomenon

The tendency for people to see media coverage as biased against their own side and in favour of their opponent side

Thought polarization hypothesis

The idea that simply thinking more about an issue causes a person's attitude toward it to become stronger and more extreme.

Attitude inoculation

Small attacks on our beliefs that would engage our pre-existing attitudes prior commitments and background knowledge and therefore counteract a larger attack