Social Psych Exam 2

Attitudes and Persuasion, and Conformity

Cognitive Dissonance

A situation in which two cognitions contradict each other producing an uncomfortable state of arousal or tension.

Example of Cognitive Dissonance

A person's behavior and beliefs do not complement each other or when they hold two contradictory beliefs.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Leon Festinger)

When a feeling of discomfort motivates people to try to feel better.

\- People may do this via defense mechanisms

Cognitive Dissonance Theory Example

When people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition)

The Psychology of Insufficient Justification

When we feel dissonance, we must justify our choice

External Justification

An explanation for dissonant behavior that resides outside the individual

Example of External Justification

The smoker might say that he only smokes socially and because other people expect him to.

Internal Justification

An explanation for dissonant behavior that resides within the person

Example of Internal Justification

The smoker may tell himself that smoking is not really that bad for his health.

$20/$1 Study (Festinger & Carlsmith)

* Participants required to do extremely dull tasks for one hour
* Asked to tell the next participant that the study was very interesting (i.e. lie)
* IV: Participant was paid either $20 or $1
* DV: Report Attitude - How interesting the experiment actually was for you
* To study Cognitive Dissonance

What was the result of the $20/$1 study and why?

The $1 group changed their attitude about the study.

\
They were forced to rationalize their own judgments and convinced themselves that what they were doing is enjoyable because they had no other justification. External Justification.

Initiation Study (Aronson & Mills)

* College students joined a group to discuss the psychology of sex
* To be admitted the volunteered to go through a screening procedure:


1. For 1/3, a screening procedure was demanding and unpleasant (reading obscene words)
2. For 1/3, it was only mildly pleasant
3. The final 1/3 were admitted without any screening
* For justifying effort

What were the results of the Initiation Study and why?

Participants who went through a severe initiation rated the group most positively because of **Effort justification**. When people have to work hard for a goal or exert a good deal of effort, they tend to ultimately place greater value on whatever goal they achieved

Persuasion

The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors

Examples of persuasion

Super bowl ads

Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo)

* Two routes to persuasion
* Choice of route depends on amount of thought (elaboration) given to the message

Two routes to persuasion

1. Central Route
2. Peripheral Route

Central Route

Use __high elaboration__ - thinking about and scrutinizing arguments

Examples of Central Route

Coming up with pros and cons, thinking about whether the source is credible

* If argument is strong - will be persuaded
* If argument is weak - will not be persuaded

Factors that lead to Central Route

Route leads to long-lasting attitude change

* Personal relevance of the message
* Our knowledge of the issue
* If we are responsible for action

Peripheral Route

People use low elaboration - focus on superficial cues from the message

Examples of Peripheral Route

* Agreeing with experts or celebrities
* Being swayed by attractive sources
* Counting arguments

Factors that lead to Peripheral Route

Route leads to changeable attitudes

* Unmotivated or do not have ability to listen
* Distracted, tired, busy, not relevant

Two Routes to Persuasion Study (Petty, et. al)

Exposed participants to a message favoring senior comprehensive exams

* Everyone had plenty of time to process a message
* Assessed participants’ need for cognition (elaboration was either high or low)
* Low elaboration = Peripheral
* High elaboration = Central
* IV: Participants were exposed to a strong or weak message favoring senior comprehensive exams
* Second Study (IV): exposed participants to 3 weak arguments or 9 weak arguments

Elements of Persuasion

May forget about credibility (or lack thereof) with time, but will still remember message

Sleeper Effect

* Delayed increase in the persuasive impact of a noncredible source
* Over time you forget the source wasn’t trustworthy. Then you might later share it, forgetting the credibility

\- Element of persuasion

Example of sleeper effect

Getting news from Tiktok and retaining the info and later spreading it

Message Vividness

* More persuasive than “cold” logical facts
* Colorful, interesting, and memorable
* Can be used deceptively by giving an anecdote that is an outlier

\- Element of persuasion

Identifiable victim effect

* Tendency to be more moved by story of one victim than abstract number of people

\- If someone turns purple you’re gonna remember that other than the 100 people who didn’t

\- Element of persuasion

Fear Appeals

Persuasive messages that attempt to change attitudes by arousing fear of unwanted consequences

Low levels of fear

It has little or no effect

Extreme levels of fear

We shut out the message

Moderate levels of fear

Create the most attitude change

For fear appeals to effective

Must offer a realistic solution for avoiding the bad outcome

\- Realistic solution: most likely your product or something to benefit you

\- Fear + Instructions

Social Influence

The ways in which people are affected by the real or imagined presence of others

Conformity

The tendency to change our perceptions, opinions, and behavior in ways that are consistent with group norms

\- Changes in behavior happen through implicit social information

Norms

Explicit or Implicit “rules” of conduct in a given context

Informational Influence

Influence due to the belief that others are behaving correctly

\- You do not know the norms

\- Does not involve arousal or discomfort - you may not even know you’re doing it

Where does informational influence occur?

In the presence of ambiguity

Example of Informational Influence

You go to a foreign country and don’t know the norms so you follow what everyone else is doing

Informational influence leads to

Private conformity

Private Conformity

We truly accept the position taken by others

\- in your mind you have accepted this as the norm

The Sherif Study

Subjects brought into a lab to judge a visual effect involving a moving light

* Asked to judge distance light travels - no right answer

On day 1: They make judgments alone (baseline day)

On day 2-4: They make judgments in group (say # out loud, as time goes on they create their own group norm (#))

On day 5: Make judgments alone again

\- Informational Influence

\- Know its private conformity when they say group # alone bc they believe it

Learned from Sherif Study

* Tend to find norms or averages when in a group
* These norms can be powerful (even though wrong) and will persist with time

Autokinetic Effect

Light looks like it’s moving (dot of light 15 ft away in dark room) - but really bc eyes are slightly moving and brain can’t differentiate

Normative Influence

* Influence due to the fears of negative social consequences of appearing deviant (different)
* You think other people are wrong and the task is unambiguous

\- Involves arousal and discomfort

\- You know the norms

Example of Normative influence

Drugs and drinking

Normative influence leads to

Public conformity

Public conformity

Superficial change in overt behavior, without change in true behavior, produced by real or imagined group pressure

\- Doesn’t believe it

Asch Study

* Subject walks into a room of other subjects (actually all are confederates)
* Told it was a visual perception task - they would be judging the lengths of lines
* Everyone goes around the room and makes the wrong judgment
* It’s up to the subject to conform, or give the correct answer and stand apart from the group

Asch Study results

* 75% had at least some trials where they went along with the group
* Only 25% never conformed on a single trial
* In variations where subjects privately wrote down their answers, or in which one confederate said the correct answer: almost no one conformed

\- Gives support to normative influence

Compliance

The tendency to change our behavior in response to direct requests from other people

Foot-in-Door Technique

Two-step technique:


1. Get the person to agree with an initial trivial request
2. Then ask for a bigger one

* People will feel pressure to be consistent with past behaviors

\- It’s hard to immediately walk away if you’ve already said yes once

Household rating study

* Telephoned homemakers and asked if they would answer a few questions about household products (very quick)
* Three days later, called and asked if men could come look through their houses for 2 hours and take inventory of their products

\- 53% consented if they were called originally

\- 22% consented if not called before

\- Foot-in-door technique

Low- Balling technique

Secure agreement with request, then increase request with hidden costs

* The hidden costs are necessities like house utilities

Door-in-the Face Technique

Two-step technique:


1. Ask for large (possibly huge) request
2. When refused, then ask for smaller request (which is what you truly wanted)

* Creates ‘perceptual contrast’ - Request seems smaller
* Creates ‘reciprocal concessions’ - Other person compromised so you should too

Student Volunteer Study (Cialdini)

* First asked college students if they would volunteer to work with juvenile delinquents once a week for the next 2 years - participants said no
* Then asked if students could just take the juveniles on a 2 hour field trip to the zoo

\- 50% said yes (if heard first request)

\- 17% said yes (if did not hear first request)

\- Door-in-the Face Technique

That’s not all!! Technique

Solicitor makes an unreasonable offer, then makes a better one before you have a chance to refuse the first one

Obedience

When behavior is influenced due to the direct commands of an authority figure

\- Most extreme form of yielding to social influence

Stanley Milgram: Obedience to Authority

Experiments conducted during the time that Adolph Eichmann was on trial for his Nazi war crimes

The Milgram Paradigm

* Participant told that this is a learning experiment - participant is ‘randomly’ assigned to be the teacher
* Participant must shock other person every time he gets an answer wrong (increasing the volts)
* Cannot see other person, but can hear him complaining and screaming in pain (actually hearing a recording)
* Told by experimenter that he must continue the experiment no matter what happens

\- Everyone went until at least 300 volts before they stopped (the learner complains of heart problems at 150 volts)

\- About 65% of participants continued to the end of the dial

Variations of Milgrams experiment

* Gender had no effect on level of obedience

\- A replication with female subjects also found 65% of them used the full range of shock
* In an office instead of lab

\- 47% used full range of shock - bc participants are in a familiar context
* When victim in same room

\- 40% went full range - learner is humanized, gas chambers created for this reason
* When participants ad to touch victim

\- 30% went full range - learner is humanized
* When experimenter was far away

\- 20% went full range - authority is not as imposing
* When experimenter was ordinary person

\- 19% went full range - authority is not as imposing, white lab coats, uniforms, titles help increase obedience
* When two confederates rebelled

\- 10% went full range - role models for defiance, norms are changed

Why did people follow

Socialization of obedience

Gradual escalation

Socialization of Obedience

* Parents, military, law, religion, corporate arena, even college

Gradual Escalation

* Similar to foot-in-the-door technique; 15-volt increments
* The sooner Ps resisted, the more likely they were to defy the orders and to terminate the experiment.

Social Facilitation

How the presence of other people affects our behavior?

Robert Zajonc suggested

* presence of other people - increases arousal - increases dominant response
* With familiar or simple tasks - leads to better performance
* With unfamiliar or complex tasks - leads to poor/unsuccessful performance
* Possibility of judgement is a big part of this

Dominant Response

Default, muscle memory, easy response

Zajonc’s Solution

Presence of another person or member of the same species

|

Increased arousal

|

Strengthened dominant response

| |

Correct response Incorrect response

Performance Enhancement Performance impairment

\- Social Facilitation

Pool Player Study

* Examined the performance of pool players

\- Pool players were either below or above average

\- Pool players were either observed by others or not

* Above average pool players played better when they were observed
* Below average pool players played worse when observed

Why Social Facilitation occur?

* Mere Presence
* Evaluation Apprehension Theory
* Distraction-Conflict Theory

Mere Presence

The mere presence of others is sufficient to produce social facilitation because they heighten alertness/vigilance

Evaluation Apprehension Theory

Others must be seen as potential evaluators for facilitation to occur

Distraction-Conflict Theory

Others must distract attention needed to perform the task for facilitation to occur

What happens when we work as a group?

Social Loafing

Social loafing

People exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal

\- When efforts are pooled, your individual contribution to the group can’t be determined

Example of social loafing

When people are clapping in a big crowd, you are less likely to give a lot of energy, when clapping in a small crowd you will be giving the most energy

When are people less likely to social loaf?

* Individual performance can be evaluated
* Task is challenging
* When others in situations are friends
* In collectivist cultures

Groupthink

Faulty thinking by group members in which scrutiny of issues is undermined by pressure to reach consensus

\- People are motivated to agree with each other

\- Solution to a task is what will make the group cohesive, not what is the best decision

Characteristics of Groupthink

* High cohesiveness
* Group structure
* High stress

High cohesiveness

Group is close and wants to maintain itself

Group structure

* Group members are similar
* Group is isolated from others
* Directive leader

High stress

The group is threatened

Group Polarization

The tendency of group decisions to be more extreme than those made by individuals

\- Whichever way the group is leaning, discussion pushes them farther in that direction

Examples of Group Polarization

* Toward greater risk if tendency is to be risky
* Toward greater caution if tendency is to be cautious