Psych Unit Exam 4

The source of communication

Who

The nature of the communication

What

The nature of the audience

Whom

How the message is received

Channel

Attractiveness and Credibility

Example of a Who are?

Attractiveness

Having qualities that appeal to an audience.

Creditability

Perceived experites, speaking style and perceived trustworthiness.

Sleeper Effect

A delayed impact of a message that occurs when an initially discounted message becomes effective, such as we remember the message but forget the reason for discounting it.

Example of Sleeper Effect

You see an ad for a perfume that was made by Diddy. You don’t like Diddy, so you don’t buy the perfume. Weeks later you see the perfume in stock, you remember that this perfume was indorsed but forgot who said it, the message starts to influence your opinion.

Good Feelings, Fear Arousing Communications

Examlpes of the What

The Good Feelings Effect

This enhance perusoain due to a psotive thinking and partly linking this with the message.

Fear Arousing Communications

An example of this is smoking causes cancer. People no longer want to smoke.

Leventhal, Watts, & Pagano (1967)

An experiment in which

Smokers watched a graphic film about lung cancer (or not)

• Read a pamphlet (or not) with instructions on how to quit

smoking

• DV: # of cigarettes smoked late

Foot in door Phenomenon, Lowball Technique and Door in face Technique

Example of the What

Foot in Door Phenomenon

Tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request

Low Ball Technique

Salesperson pitches a low cost, customer agrees to purchase, but then the claims an error and raises the price. Customer agrees to the inflated price.

The Door in Face Technique

After someone first turns down a large request, the same requester counteroffers with a more reasonable request.

Primary Effect

Other things being equal, information presented first usually has most influence.

Recency Effect

Information presented last sometime has the most infleunce. This is less liekly that primary effects.

Maccoby 1980

Personal message tend to outwigh media sources

Forewarned is forearmed, Distraction, and Involvement

Degree of Thoughtfulness

Two-step flow of communication

The process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who in turn influence others.

Life Cycle Explantion

The process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who in turn influence others.

Generational Explanation

The process by which media influence often occurs through opinion leaders, who in turn influence others.

Counterargument

Thinking of reasons why a persuasive message might be wrong.

Need for Cognition

The motivation to think and analyze. Assessed by agreement with items such as “The notion of thinking abstractly is appealing to me” and disagreement with items such as “I only think as hard as I have to.”

Attitude Inoculation hypothesis

Exposing people to weak attacks upon their attitudes so that when stronger attacks come, they will have refutations available.

MCQuire (1964)

• Ps hear a message about teeth brushing:

– Weak arguments against (inoculating defense)

– Strong argument against (attack only)

– Arguments in favor (supportive defense)

– No initial argument

• Days later, all participants hear a strong argument against

brushing teeth

• DV: 1-15 scale, agree that “brushing teeth is good”

Actively Defending our Attitudes

We are active in making counterarguments against opinions

that challenge our own

– Which helps reduce the impact of a persuasive message

• But, we must be aware of the message

– Product Placemen

Group

Two or more people who interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as “us.”

Triplett (1898) fishing line study and Zajonc (1969)

Social Facilitation

Social Facilitation

The presence of others increases the likelihood that dominant responses will occur

Zajonc, et al .(1969)

Cockroach Study: Cockroaches placed in simple maze and must escape bright light

– IV: Alone or with audience

– DV: Speed to escape

Social Loafing

The reduction of individual effort when working with others on additive group tasks

Deindividuation

Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad.

Negative, Postive

Deindividuation leads people to obey group and

situational norms

– If negative norms  ________ behavior

– If positive norms  _________behavior

Process Loss

Any aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving

Group Think

The mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.

Preventing Group Think

Be impartial.

– Encourage critical evaluation.

– Occasionally subdivide the group, then reunite to air

differences.

– Welcome critiques from outside experts and

associates.

– Before implementing, call a “second-chance” meeting

to air any lingering doubts.

Leadership

The process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group.

Transformational Leadership

Enabled by a leader’s vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence.

Contingency theory of leadership

Leadership effectiveness depends on the situation

Task Leadership

Organizes work, sets standards, and focuses on goals.

Social Leadership

Builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support.

Prosocial Behavior

Any act performed with the goal of benefiting another person

Altruism

A motive to increase another’s welfare without conscious regard for one’s own self-interests

Why do people help?

. Social exchange theory

• Social Norms

• Evolutionary psychology

• Empathy-altruism hypothesis

Social Exchange Theory

The theory that human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one’s rewards and minimize one’s costs.

Social Exhange Theory

Rewards & Emotions

• Do-good/feel-good effect

• Feel-bad/do-good effect

– Exceptions: Anger & Grief

• Happy people more likely to help

Norm of Reciprocity

The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future

Social Responsibility Norm

An expectation that people will help those needing help.

Kin Selection

Altruism toward one’s close relatives increases survival of mutually shared gene.

Reciprocity

Helping others increases chances of survival.

Group Selection

Helping the group increases changes of group surviving.

Empathy

Feelings of compassion, tenderness, sympathy toward other created by perspective taking

Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis

Batson et al. (1989)

• Ps asked to help “Katie” who was raising her siblings

after parents killed in a car crash

Diffusion of Responsibility

Individual bystander’s sense of responsibility to help decreases as the number of witnesses increases.