PSYCH 4630 - Exam 3

balance theory

a state of balance if the product the signs is positive

a state of imbalance if the product is negative

balance occurs when…people agree with someone they like, people disagree with someone they dislike

balance theory (political application)

we tend to assume our friends share our politics and that our enemies have opposing political views

we tend to change our political views to agree with our partners and close friends (or, we simply break up with them)

vicarious dissonance

others’ hypocrisy makes us feel similar levels of dissonance

vicarious dissonance (experiment)

procedure: tape was a counter-attitudinal argument about raising tuition

manipulations: the speaker was

• ingroup (same dorm)

• outgroup (differnt dorm)

who was believed to have:

• high choice (decided to speak on this topic)

• low choice (forced to speak on t opic)

findings: attitudes toward tuition became most positive for ingroup, high choice

persuading the powerful

who was MOST affected by argument quality?

• low power (employee) or high power (manager)

answer: low power

why? managers have action orientation (not deliberating about high quality arguments)

public conformity

openly agreeing with groups even when we privately disagree

attitudes (or in this case, beliefs) do not change

informational social influence

using others to disambiguate our environment

private acceptance

conforming to others’ beliefs and believing in it

informational influence

• occurs in ambiguous situations

• does not involve arousal or discomfort

• results in belie or attitude change

normative influence

• occurs in unambiguous situations

• involves some arousal or discomfort

• does NOT result in belief of attitude change

polarization

a growing division between social groups, leading to intensification of opposing attitudes

why does polarization happen?

persuasive arguments

social comparison

outgroup derogation

persuasive arguments

group members develop arguments to convince the others within their group

social comparison

adopting the majority opinion and becoming more extreme to maintain a sense of uniqueness/individuality

outgroup derogation

dreaming/looking down on other groups too feel justified in one’s own position

types of polarization

1. political attitudes

2. attitudes within religious organizations

3. lifestyle polarization

4. gender polarization

believing in conspiracy theory

conspiratorial beliefs are driven, in part, by a desire to

belong balanced with a desire to be unique (optimal distinctiveness theory)

optimal distinctiveness theory

we are motivated to balance belonging and uniqueness

majority influence

the numerical majority opinion can influence attitudes

“if everyone says so, it must be true”

minority influence

the numerical minority opinion can influence attitudes

“what is that person saying? Maybe they have a point”

majority v. minority influence

when not elaborating, people mostly ignored argument quality

instead they used consensus as a cue

when elaborating, people used argument quality

but they also used majority or minority opinion

what happens with “moderate” relevance

when the attitude object was of moderate personal relevance, it’s unclear which path people will take

if the message is surprising, engaging, or challenging, then this will put them down the central path

but if the message is expected then this will put them down the peripheral path

main effects

the influence of an independent variable on the DV, when controlling for others IV’s

main effect (argument quality)

when the argument was highly relevant, those in the strong argument condition were more persuaded compared to those in the weak argument condition, regardless of majority v. minority