Social Psych Exam #3

Attitude

Cognitive representation that summarizes an individual's evaluation of a particular person

How are attitudes measured?

Self-report questionnaires

Implicit Attitude Measurement

Self-report questionnaire

Simple yes-no questions or "Likert-type" rating scale

Problems with Self-Report questions

Framing

Context

Social Desirability Biases

Problems with Self-Report questions: Framing

Wording of the question can have an impact on whether someone agrees with you

Example: "government assistance to the poor"- 63% agreed

"welfare" - 19% agreement

Problems with Self-Report questions: Context

Surrounding context within which the question is asked can impact the reported attitude

Example: People asked to agree or disagree with "people should have the freedom to express their opinions publicly" were more likely to say "yes" if they had previously answered a question about the Catholic Church than the American Nazi Party

Problems with Self-Report questions: Social Desirability Biases

Due to the fact that people want to look good, they may not express their true opinions

Implicit Attitude Measurements

Generally based on reaction time designed to bypass problems with self-reports

Different Routes to Persuasion

Systematic processing

Heuristic Processing

Elaboration Likelihood Model

Different Routes to Persuasion: Systematic Processing

Giving effortful consideration to a wide range of info relevant to a judgment

Different Routes to Persuasion: Heuristic Processing

Relying on accessible information to make inferences or judgements while expending little effort in processing

Heuristic

Mental shortcut

Langer et al (1978: People are ________ likely to comply with a request to interrupt a copy machine if the phrase "because I have to make some copies" is added

more

Different Routes to Persuasion: Elaboration Likelihood Model

Model of persuasion that claims attitude change occurs through 2 different routes

Factors Relevant to Heuristic Processing

Source

- Credibility & Likeability

Message Content

- Message Length, “You get what you paid for,” Emotional Content

Audience Factors

- Motivation/Personal Relevance, Positive Emotions

Credibility

Does the source generally give us reliable info?

Keiman & Hovland (1953): Participants were ________ likely to agree with an argument favoring leniency with juvenile offenders if its source was a trial judge than a convicted drug dealer

more; a judge has more credibility than a drug dealer

What makes a source credible?

Competence: Source has some expertise or special knowledge

Trustworthiness: Source is viewed as having no ulterior motives

People are more often perceived as more trustworthy if

they argue for an unpopular opinion

Eagly et al (1978):

Participants are __________ likely to trust a political speaker accusing a large company of polluting a local river when ____________________.

The speaker was pro-business speaking to a company than pro-environmentalist speaking to an environmentalist group

Reveals that the individual has no ulterior motives if they voice the unpopular opinion.

Are we more or less likely to trust sources that we are aware are trying to influence us?

less likely

Walter & Festinger (1967):

People are _________ (more/less) influenced by persuasive communications if they simply overhear than by persuasive communication that they believe are intended to persuade

more likely

We are less persuaded if we are aware of persuasion

Likeability

How much we like the source

- Physical attractiveness

- Similarity

Chaiken (1979):

41% of the "attractive" experimenters' participants signed a petition, while 32% of the “slightly less attractive” experimenters’ participants did so. Why is this?

Physical attractiveness influences how much we like the source and therefore how likely we are the be persuaded by that source.

Message length

Sometimes people see more as better

- If the audience is processing systematically, they are more persuaded by more information ONLY IF it is good information
- If audience is processing heuristically, more is better

"You get what you paid for" Heuristic

Price = quality mental shortcut

Emotional Content: Fear

Sometimes emotions can work to persuade people

When is fear effective in persuasion?

When there is a way of avoiding the fearful outcome

Leventhal et al (1967): Anti-smoking films that explicitly explained to smokers how to quit worked better when?

When they showed gory pictures of lung-cancer than statistics

This is because of fear content in addition to a solution

Message Discrepancy: Are extreme arguments better?

Yes but only to a certain point; when opinions are too extreme, extremity is less effective

Relationship is curvilinear

Bochner & Insko (1966):
IV1: Amount of sleep advocated by essay
IV2: Essay written by expert or non expert
DV: Attitude change towards essay
Result?
Note extremity in this study

Both expert & non expert showed curvilinear relationship between extremity & persuasion

- Expert could be more persuasive with extreme arguments than non-experts

Perceptual Contrast Heuristic

Our attitudes towards an attitude object becomes worse if the object is paired with a highly desirable object and better if paired with a highly undesirable object

Scarcity Heuristic

Tendency to prize and value limited resources

Audience Factors: Motivation/Personal Relevance

People who are highly motivated because of personal relevance of the material are more likely to process systematically while those who are unmotivated will go with heuristic cues

Petty et al (1981)

Expertise heuristic had more influence on those who believed the persuasive message would NOT apply to them

When participants believed the message would apply to them, they ignored the expertise heuristic and were persuaded based on the strength of the argument

Audience Factors: Positive Emotions

When people are in a good mood, heuristic cues often take on added importance

Park & Young (1986): Popular music _____________ (inc/dec) the persuasiveness of TV commercials but only when the message is ___________________.

Increases; not really important to begin with

Norms

Beliefs and/or behaviors that are inconsistent with their attitudes by some portion of the population

Cognitive Dissonance

If people observe their own behaviors are inconsistent with their attitudes, oftentimes they will change their attitudes to match their behaviors

Cognitive Dissonance & Persuasion: Insufficient Justification

When people perform an attitude discrepant behavior for a small reward

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)

- Everyone did very boring tasks

- IV: Lie for $1 vs. lie for $20 vs. no lie

- DV: How much did they actually enjoy the experiment

Those who made $1 for the lie enjoyed the task the most as explained by insufficient justification

Cognitive Dissonance & Persuasion: Effort Justification Effect

When we work hard or suffer to obtain something, we’re more likely to have a positive attitude towards it

Cognitive Dissonance & Persuasion: Decisional Dissonance

Tension between the alternative persons have chosen and the attractive features of the alternative they have given up

- We resolved this by having a more positive attitude towards the thing that we chose

Heine & Lehman (1997):

- IV: Type of personality feedback

- DV: Attitude change toward liking the CD they chose & disliking the CD they rejected

Results?

The act of choosing something makes us like things more

Social Commitment & Persuasion

A common practice: asking people "how are you doing" increases subsequent sales

- commitment to purchase products for children

Foot in the door Technique

Increases compliance with a large request by first asking people to go along with a smaller request

Freedman & Fraser (1966):

- IV: Previous small request versus not

- DV: % who agreed to large request

Had not previously agreed: 17%

Had previously agreed: 76%

Low-ball technique

Influencer secures agreement with request but then increases the cost of honoring the agreement

Reciprocity Norms

The shared view that we are obligated to return to others the goods, services, and concessions they offer to us

Regan (1971):

- IV1: Favor vs. No Favor

- DV: Raffle tickets bought

Results?

Favor: 1.91

No Favor: 1.00

Effect of reciprocity norm is dependent on ____________?

Liking

Door-in-the-face technique

Influencer makes an initial request so large that it will be rejected, and it follows it with a smaller request that looks like a concession

Brehm & Cole (1966):

- IV1: Favor vs No Favor

Must remain objective

- DV: % help on boring task

Results?

No Favor: 42% help

Favor: 13% help

Reactance

motive to protect or restore a threatened sense of freedom

- objectivity makes us aware of the reciprocity norm

Hass & Grady (1975): When preceded by a phrase telling them they are about to be persuaded, people ______________.

disregarded the persuasive message

Inoculation effect

When people know exactly what position a speaker will take, they generate counterarguments & as a result are harder to persuade

Subliminal Persuasion: Greenwald et al (1991)

- IV1: Self esteem vs. memory improvement subliminal message

- IV2: Correct vs. incorrect label

- DV: Actual vs. perceived improvement Results?

No actual change occurred; perceived memory/self esteem changed by label, not content

Subliminal Persuasion: Silverman et al. (1985)

Subliminally presenting "mommy and I are one" to schizophrenics temporarily reduces their symptoms

Subliminal Persuasion: Dehaene et al (2001)

- IV1: Conscious vs. unconscious stimuli Results?

People guess unconscious stimuli at better than chance rates

Reasons why it is difficult to get subliminal ads to work (4)

1. You must be looking at the exact place

2. The stimuli must be fairly simple

3. Effects easily overridden by conscious thoughts/beliefs

4. Effects typically only last a short period

Alternative approaches to attitudes

Metacognitive theories

- Self validation theory Cognitive Rigidity Models

- Right of the Right

- Pennycook & Rand (2021)

Metacognitive theories

Focus on how people evaluate their own thoughts

Self-Validation theory

Meta-perceptions of thought validity can be manipulated by variables incidental to the content of the thought

Self-Validation theory:

Guyer et al (2023)

IV: Reading persuasive argument in high vs. low pitch

DV: Attitudes towards exam proposal

Results?

Arguments read in a low pitch were more persuasive as people viewed a low pitch as more confident

Cognitive Rigidity Model

Focus on factors that make people unlikely to consider new information

Right of the right (ROR)

Conservatives are especially unlikely to consider new information in attitude formation

- Largely domain specific: Conservatives are more rigid about some things, Liberals more rigid about others

According to research on ROR, _______ in both parties are more rigid.

extremists; extremists are often more difficult to persuade

Cognitive Rigidity Model:

Pennycook & Rand (2021)

- What is the best predictor of fake news discernment

- Does political agreement produce more or less discernment

Cognitive reflection; more discernment

Explicit Attitude

The attitude that people openly and deliberately express about an attitude object in self-report or by behavior

When a person suspects that their attitudes differ from what most other people think, they can control their explicit attitudes

Implicit Attitude

Automatic and uncontrollable positive or negative evaluation of an attitude object

Three kinds of info relevant to attitudes

1. Cognitive information includes the facts people know and the beliefs they have about an attitude object

2. Affective information consists of people's feelings and emotions about the object

3. Behavioral information is knowledge about people's past, present, or future interactions with the attitude object

Han & Shavitt (1993)

American ads emphasize rugged individualism, personal success, & independence with slogans like: "the art of being unique" or "you, only better"

Appeal to cultures and the values that are important to them

Strong Attitude

a confidently-held extremely positive or negative evaluation that is persistent and resistant and that influences information processing and behavior

Ambivalent Attitude

an attitude based on conflicting negative and positive information

Fazio (1995)
Strong attitudes are __________

Especially accessible

Evaluative Conditioning

The process by which positive or negative attitudes are formed or changed by association with other positively or negatively valued objects

Janis et al (1965)

Associating a sales pitch or an appeal for a donation with good food may well increase its persuasiveness
(Evaluative Conditioning)

Zajonc (1968)
Showed college students unfamiliar Turkish words and asked them to pronounce the word. When asked to guess how positive or negative each word was, people rated which words more positively.

The words they had seen more

Bushman (2005)
When is memory for products on TV better?

When it interrupts a nonsexual/nonviolent program than a sexual/violent show

The more attention viewer direct to television content, the less they seem to have for the persuassive appeals broadcast during breaks in programming

Elaboration

the generation of favorable or unfavorable reactions to the content of a persuasive appeal

Metacognition

Thoughts about thoughts or about thought processes

Elaboration likelihood model

A model of persuasion that claims that attitude change occurs through either a peripheral route or a central route that involves elaboration and that the extent of elaboration depends on motivation

Lord et al (1979)
Showed Stanford undergraduates who supported or opposed capital punishment two supposed research studies about the issue. What happened in this study?

Both the supporters and the opponents of capital punishment judged whichever study was consistent with their own views to be much more convincing than the other one

Supported = found essay supporting to be more convincing
(and vice versa)

Strahan et al (2002)
Students arrived at a study thirsty
IV: Drink or not
IV2: Subliminally exposed to words related or unrelated to thirst
All given water to drink afterwards
DV: Amount of water drank

Those who were thirsty and primed with thirst primes drank the most

However, thirst related primes had no effect on those who were not thirsty

The subliminal cues nudged participants to do what they already wanted to do, but had no effect on people who did not already have the goal

Burger & Caldwell (2003)
If attending religious services or donating to a cause is forced on you by parental insistence or by social pressure, you are…

Unlikely to infer that your actions really had implication for something about your own attitudes
- This goes against self-perception theory

Self-perception theory

people often infer their attitudes from their behavior

Fours steps to produce cognitive dissonance and attitude change

1. The individual perceives the action as inconsistent

2. The individual perceives the action as freely chosen

3. The individual experiences uncomfortable psychological arousal

4. The individual attributes the arousal to the inconsistency between attitude and action

Post decisional regret effect

attitude change that occurs to reduce the dissonance caused by freely making a choice or decision

Hypocrisy effect

change in behavior that occurs to reduce the dissonance caused by freely choosing to publicly advocate a behavior that one does not actually perform oneself

Fazio et al (1992)

- Participants indicated whether they liked or disliked a number of products

- Then allowed to chose 5 of those snacks as "payment" for participation in the experiment

Results?

Participants who had highly accessible attitudes about the snacks were much more likely to make choices consistent with their attitudes than were the participants who were uncertain of their likes and dislikes.

Intention

a commitment to reach a desired outcome or desired behavior

Theory of reasoned action

The theory that attitudes and social norms combine to produce behavioral intentions, which in turn influence behavior

Implementation intention

A plan to carry out a specific goal-directed behavior in a specific situation

Cialdini et al (1990)

- placed handbills on the windshields of cars parked

- IV: Environmental message or other message

- DV: How many papers thrown on the ground

Results?

Environmental message: 10%

Other message: 25%

Johnson & Downing (1979)

- Some participants dressed in robes and hoods designed to activate negative/aggressive norms

- Others dressed in nurse's uniforms designed to activate positive/helpful norms

- Some were anonymous, others not

- DV: Level of shock delivered to someone who failed a task

Result?

Anonymous

Nurse: lowest level of shock
Klanlike robes: highest level of shock

Non-Anonymous

Nurse: slightly decreased shock
Klanlike: increased shock nearly to anonymous level

Reinforces norm-driven behavior ideas

Deindividuation

The psychological state in which group or social identity completely dominates personal or individual identity so that group norms become maximally accessible

Three strategies to fend off unfair normative pressure

1. Question how norms are being used

2. Question claims about relationships

3. Question others' views of the situation