Psych - attitudes and stereotypes

Attitude

A learnt, stable and relatively enduring evaluation of an attitude object that can affect an individuals behaviour

implicit attitudes

involuntary, uncontrolled or unconscious attitudes that individuals may be unaware them, even though they may influence their behaviour

explicit attitudes

attitudes that individuals are open about and align with their behaviour

Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance

the theory that a person will try to maintain an internal consistency between their beliefs and behaviours by altering one of their beliefs to match their behaviour or vice versa

magnitude

a subjective measure of the level of discomfort a person feels, when they experience cognitive dissonance

effort justification

a phenomenon whereby people come to evaluate a particular task or activity more favourably when it involves something that is difficult or unpleasant

attribution theory

the theory that people have an innate need to understand behaviour, causing individuals to make inferences about the causes of events or behaviours

social identity theory - Tajfel and Turner

the theory that groups are apart of our identity and self esteem through three processes; social categorisation, social identification, social comparision

social categorisation

Assembling simular objects and people so that we are able to better understand them

social identification

A process where people alter their behaviour, beliefs and attitudes to match the group they belong to

social comparison

Comparing our in-group with other groups to confirm our identity

Stereotype

An oversimplified belief about an out-group

function of stereotypes

Helps us organise our knowledge of people quickly, especially when meeting new people

Prejudice

a negative attitude towards an out-group formed in advance to interactions with the out group

Causes of prejudice

Social influence, intergroup competition, social categorisation, just world phenomenon

Social influence

Any change in an individual’s thoughts, feelings, or behaviours caused by other people

Intergroup competition

Involves groups competing against other groups

Social categorisation

people unconsciously identify individuals that are part of their in-group, and those that are apart of an out-group

Just-world phenomenon

The assumption that everything happens for a reason

Contact hypothesis (reducing prejudice)

The theory that proposes social contact between groups is sufficient to reduce intergroup prejudice, including intergroup contact, superordinate goals, mutual interdependence, equal-status contact

Intergroup contact

Interactions between the holder of the stereotype and the target of the stereotype

Superordinate goals

shared goals that groups or individuals cannot achieve alone or without the other person/group

Mutual interdependence

Depending on one another to meet each person’s goals

Equal-status contact

Social interaction that occurs at the same level, without obvious differences in power or status