Social Psychology Exam 2

Attribution Theory

how we explain or infer the causes of behavior

Internal Attribution

behavior is a result of an internal characteristic (attitude, personality)- if minimal data we tend to make this assumption

External attribution

deciding something in the situation/ external factors caused the behavior

(people often make internal over external attributions)

covariation model

you will examine multiple behaviors from different times and situations to answer this question of what explains their behavior - Looking at how multiple variables interact

covariation model: consensus

Do other people behave that way in that situation

High: most people behave like this

Low: not many people behave like this

covariation model: distinctiveness

Does the peron behavior occur only in this situation

High: they dont behave this way in other situation

Low: they behave like this in many other situations

covariation model: consistency

Does this person usually behave like this in this situation

High: frequently behave this way

Low: no perceived patter of behaving this way

Two step attribution process

1. Characterization- internal attribution (automatic)

2. Correction- we consider situational factors (controlled)

We don’t always engage in correction for reasons like cognitive load or distraction

Considering situational factors does mean we always make external attribution

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overestimate internal/dispositional causes (personality, traits) and underestimate situational causes when explaining someone else’s behavior.

• Example: Rosa Parks Tribute

• People sat in Rosa Parks’ reserved bus seat and were judged as selfish or disrespectful.

• The actual reason: many didn’t see the poorly placed signs.

Jones & Harris Study

• Students read essays supporting or opposing Castro

• Some writers chose their position; others were assigned a position (IV)

• Even when participants knew the writer had no choice, they still assumed the essay reflected the writer’s true beliefs.

• Lesson: People often fail to account for situational constraints- assignment

Perceptual salience

people give more attributional weight to the things that are the focus of attention- often a person

Self serving attributions

Refer to people's tendency to take credit for their successes by making internal attributions, but to blame the situation for their failures by making external attributions

• Sports example: 80% of the attributions for wins were to such internal factors. Losses were more likely to be attributed to external causes outside of the team’s control

Belief in just world

the assumption that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get

victim blaming

• People may blame victims of crimes or accidents to avoid accepting that bad things can happen randomly to anyone, including good and careful people.

• This is a defensive attribution that reduces anxiety about their own vulnerability.

Blind spot bias

the tendency to think that others are more susceptible to attributional biases than we are

• Study (Pronin, Lin, & Ross, 2002)

• Participants rated how susceptible they and the average American were to: Self-serving attributionsVictim blaming

• Self-serving attributions: Average American 7.4 vs. Self 5.2

• Victim blaming: Average American 5.3 vs. Self 3.5

• Participants consistently believed others were more biased than themselves.

Cultural perceptions

Western / North American Cultures

• Emphasize individual autonomy.

• People are viewed as independent and self-contained.

• individualistic

East Asian Cultures

• Emphasize group autonomy / social connectedness.

• People derive their sense of self more from their social group.

• collectivist

Self concept

overall set of beliefs that people have about their personal attributes

independent view of the self

which is a way of defining oneself in terms of one’s own internal thoughts, feelings, and actions

• Common in western world

interdependent view of the self

which is a way of defining oneself in terms of one’s relationships to other people and recognizing that one’s behavior is often determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions of others

• Thinking about themselves in more of a context

• More common in East Asian and other non-Western cultures.

Functions of self:

• self-knowledge is the way we understand who we are and formulate and organize this information

• self-control is the way we make plans and execute decisions

• impression management is the way we present ourselves to other people and get them to see us the way we want to be seen

• self-esteem is the way in which we try to maintain positive views of ourselves

introspection

Looking inward and examining our thoughts, feelings, and motives

self-awareness theory

when we are focused on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our current behavior to our internal standards and values

• Study: researchers asked high school juniors what they were thinking about at random points in their day and found that the more often people said they were thinking about themselves, the more likely they were to be in a bad mood

causal theories

• People have many theories about what influences their feelings and behavior and often use these theories to help them explain why they feel the way they do

• our schemas and theories are not always correct and thus can lead to incorrect judgments about the causes of our actions

Self-perception theory

When attitudes, feelings, or other aspects of self concept are uncertain, we infer their states by observing our own behaviors and the situations in which they occur

• Look at behavior as if you are a third person

fazio , effrein and falender (self perception)

• procedure/IV: Participants asked to respond to questions that tapped into introversion or extraversion verbally

• Split groups one was asked what they like about parties and what you don't like - random assignment

• DV: score on self assessment of introversion/extraversion

• Don't think about yourself as extrovert or introvert but are asked question tapping into this aspect of personality - if you like parties you must be pretty extroverted - primed from earlier activity

two-factor theory of emotion

We must first experience physiological arousal, and then we must seek an appropriate explanation or label for it

Misattribution of arousal

People's inference about the origin of their emotional response is faulty

• Associate the falling feeling of rollercoaster as pain

Dutton & Aron bridge study (misattribution of arousal)

Men who approached an attractive woman while crossing a scary bridge were more likely to interpret their arousal as attraction and contact her afterward

Intrinsic motivation

Engaging in an activity for enjoyment- not due to external pressure/ reward

• Stronger tie to self-concept

Extrinsic motivation

Engaging in an activity to gain external rewards or avoid punishment

• task-contingent rewards, meaning that people are rewarded simply for doing a task, regardless of the quality of their performance

• performance-contingent rewards are used, whereby the reward depends on how well people perform the task.

Overjustification effect

• External rewards can make people less intrinsically interested in an activity they already enjoyed.

• When people see their behavior driven by extrinsic reasons, they underestimate intrinsic reasons

Fixed mindset

Reached top threshold, cant do any better- beliefs and abilities cannot change

Growth mindset

• Abilities are malleable

• More motivated to see about continuing - pushing past difficulties

Social comparison theory

• We learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people

• People try to understand themselves by looking at other people similar to themselves and see how we compare

Lateral social comparison

we want to accurately evaluate the self

Upward social comparison

• comparing yourself to someone better than you.

• We are motivated to improve by setting an attainable standard of excellence

Downward social comparison

• Comparing yourself to someone worse off than you.

• We want to feel better about ourselves

Pyszczynski, greenberg, Laprelle (downward social comparison)

• Given a faux social sensitivity test - showing how good you are at understanding people in your social environment

• IV: score high/low

• IV2: other relative scores- better/worse than other people

• DV: % asking to see others relative scores - 70% of people who scored low wanted to see people who did worse than them

• Trying to feel better about themselves for low score- downward comparison

implementation intentions

in advance of a situation in which we will need to exert self-control, making specific plans about where, when, and how we will fulfill a goal and avoid temptations

impression management

which is the attempt by people to get others to see them the way they want to be seen

• happens a lot in politics

ingratiation

using flattery or praise to make yourself likable to another, often a person of higher status

self-handicapping

people create obstacles and excuses for themselves so that if they do poorly on a task, they can avoid blaming themselves

behavioral self-handicapping

people act in ways that reduce the likelihood that they will succeed on a task so that if they fail

• Ex. Deshapelles- made a living playing games, got older and worried about reputation, gave his opponent pawn and a move- handicapped himself

  
  

reported self-handicapping

Rather than creating obstacles to success, people devise ready-made excuses in case they fail

Berglas and jones (self-handicapping)

• pretest/ post test with drug administration in between (analogy and progression problems, choice of drug, analogy and progression problems)

• Iv: difficulty of logic problems- solvable / impossible

• Everyone was told they got 16/20 after pretest

• Had to choose drug in between- actavil (increase performance) or Pandocrim (decrease)

• Pandocrim - solvable: 13% impossible: 70%- didnt want to look bad so they take decrease of performance so they can claim bad score on drug - didn’t think they’d get that lucky again

Cognitive based attitude

• An evaluative judgment of people, things, or concepts (pros and cons)

• Based on thoughts/ beliefs

• Ex. choosing a favorite soda based on sugar content

Affectively based attitude

• An attitude rooted more in emotions and values than on an objective appraisal of pros and cons

• Ex. changing attitude on something depending on if the president who said it was republican or democrat

Classical conditioning

A stimulus that elicits an emotional response is accompanied by a neutral, nonemotional stimulus, and eventually, the neutral stimulus elicits the emotional response by itself

operant conditioning

behaviors we freely choose to perform become more or less frequent, depending on whether they are followed by a reward (positive reinforcement) or punishment

behaviorally based attitude

• Based on past behaviors or behavioral intentions

• Ex. saying Coke is your favorite soda because it was the only one available for a while

Explicit attitudes

ones we consciously endorse and can easily report

Implicit attitudes

Attitudes of which we are unaware- not realizing what made you feel a particular way about something

Lapiere

• During the trip service was denied to lapiere and the chinese people only once

• Months after he wrote letters to establishments asking “will you accept members of the chinese race as guests in your establishemtn?”

• Majority said no

• Overall finding: in some substantial ways peoples behaviors dont follow their attitudes

• Letter gives them time to think about it

• Guest approaches and asks; there is no time to deliberate

Attitude accessibility

strength of the association between an object and an evaluation of it, which is typically measured by the speed with which people can report how they feel about the object or issue

Predicting Spontaneous Behaviors

High accessibility: important, strong, personal experience

Theory of planned behavior

when people have time to contemplate how they are going to behave, the best predictor of their behavior is their intention

• Subjective norms, attitudes, behavioral intention, behavior

specific attitude

The more specific attitude the better the predictor

Davidson and Jaccard (specific attitude)

• examined the relationship between women’s attitudes about birth control and their actual behaviors

• The more specific the original question was about the act of using birth control pills, the better the attitude predicted actual behavior

• When trying to see if attitudes predict behavior, ensure you are looking into the exact attitude you are interested in

subjective norms

people’s beliefs about how others they care about will view the behavior in question

perceived behavioral control

people’s intentions are influenced by the ease with which they believe they can perform the behavior

• Is it physically possible/ practical for me to do it

Yale Attitude Change Approach

The approach argues that the effectiveness of persuasion depends largely on who says something, what is said, and who hears it.

communicator

who says it or the source

Parts of communicator

• Credibility: how believable one find the communicator to be

• Expertise: the amount of knowledge the communicator has relevant to the persuasive message

• Trustworthiness: the communicator's perceived intentions

• Self-interest: acting contrary to one's self-interest is a sign of trustworthiness- e.g., a senator voting against his own party to not get rid of the Affordable Care Act

• Intention: if we believe people are not intending to persuade us, they are more persuasive

• attractiveness: People are more persuasive if they are physically attractive

• Similarity: A source perceived as similar to the audience can be more persuasive- like you in important ways (race, gender, age)

Message

The strength and organization of the arguments matter. People are more persuaded by messages that do not seem to be designed to influence them

Sleeper effect

an initially disounted/ rejected persuasive message becomes more persuasive after a delay

• Requirements: think about message

• Given discounting cue

• Acknowledge inaccuracy

Pratkanis, greenwald, leippe and jbaumgardner (sleeper effect)

• Given a message on a 4-day workweek to read- read through twice and underline the main concept in each paragraph

• Other page editors note claiming new research refutes

• Asked if they found it persuasive, and most said no

• Then 6 weeks later, called up and asked about 4-day work week

• 50% remember message - 8% remember the note

• When you don’t think about it it doesn’t stick - remember what they learned more about- have to engage with the contrary opinion to be effective

Fear arousing communication

For fear arousing messages to be effective, they must:

• Arouse fear but not too much

• Offer means to avoid feared outcome

• Ex. brain on drugs and fried egg vs. president add with little girl and nuclear explosion

Audience

People who are highly involved in an issue may process persuasive arguments differently from those who are less involved.

elaboration likelihood model

Audience will follow different routes to persuasion depending on whether they are motivated and are able to listen to the message

central route to persuasion

If audience is motivated and able to follow message then message strnegth will determine outcome - attend to message in more practical sense

peripheral route to persuasion

If audience is either unmoitvated or unable to follow message then peripheral cues (status, attractiveness, etc..) will determine outcome; any hanges will be more fragile

Petty, Cacioppo & Goldman (elabpration likelihood model)

• nStudents heard arguments about requiring comprehensive exams for college seniors- read persuasive speech

• IV1: Personal relevance: exam required soon vs. possibly 10 years later

• IV2: Speaker expertise: prestigious Princeton professor vs. high school student

• IV3: Argument strength: strong vs. weak

High relevance: Argument quality mattered most → Central route

Low relevance: Speaker's prestige mattered more → Peripheral route

heuristic–systematic model of persuasion

when people take the peripheral route to persuasion, they often use heuristics

• emotions can themselves act as heuristics to determine our attitudes

• Sometimes hard to tell where emotions are coming from

Subliminal messages

words/images presented so quickly or subtly that people do not consciously perceive them

• They influence attitudes, judgments, or behavior without awareness

attitude inoculation

By considering “small doses” of arguments against their position, people become more resistant to later, full-blown attempts to change their attitudes

• A target is subjected to a weak persuasive attempt in favor of a position which allows them to develop counterarguments to it

• When target is later faced with stronger persuasive attempt they have counterarguments ready

reactance theory

When people feel their freedom threatened, they may respond by engaging in the proscribed behavior to push back against the threat