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Attitudes and Social Cognition – Chapter 20 Comprehensive Notes

Attitudes

  • Definition

    • An attitude = association between an act/object and an evaluation.

    • Classic ABC (or CAB) model:

    • Affective (feelings)

    • Behavioural (past/present action tendencies)

    • Cognitive (beliefs/thoughts)

    • Example: Alcohol → “dangerous drug” (negative evaluation).

  • Role in Predicting Behaviour

    • Broad/global attitudes = weak behavioural predictors.

    • Specific attitudes toward specific acts (e.g., recycling) predict specific behaviours better.

    • Behaviour also shaped by situational reinforcement, social norms, habits, implicit processes.

  • Key Dimensions & Variations

    • Attitude strength = durability + impact.

    • Durability ⇒ resistance to change & time stability.

    • Impact ⇒ influence on thinking/feeling/acting.

    • Attitude importance = personal relevance. ↑ importance ⇒ ↑ strength.

    • Attitude accessibility = ease/speed of retrieval from memory. ↑ accessibility ⇒ ↑ behavioural impact.

    • Implicit vs explicit attitudes.

    • Implicit: automatic, unconscious; measured via IAT; often better predict spontaneous behaviours (e.g., drug use, discriminatory acts).

    • Explicit: conscious, reportable; predict deliberate, reflective behaviours.

    • Cognitive complexity = number & intricacy of beliefs surrounding object; extremists show lower complexity.

    • Attitudinal ambivalence = high positive + high negative evaluations; may ↑ cognitive processing & sometimes predict intentions better.

    • Attitudinal coherence = congruence between cognitive & emotional components.

  • Attitudes & Behaviour: Key moderators

    • Specificity match (attitude ↔ behaviour).

    • Social support/ingroup endorsement.

    • Habit strength/implicit procedures.

    • Attitude strength, accessibility & personal experience (direct experience ⇒ stronger attitude–behaviour link).

  • Persuasion

    • Components (expanded Aristotelian rhetoric)

      • Source: credibility, expertise, trustworthiness, attractiveness, similarity, power.

      • Message: one- vs two-sided, fear appeals (effective only if efficacy info provided), logical vs emotional framing.

      • Channel: face-to-face, media, images, SMS; chosen to fit message/target.

      • Context: background cues (music, crowd), competing messages, order (primacy effect), attitude inoculation (weak counter-arguments).

      • Receiver: need for cognition, existing attitude strength, mood, motivation, bias-preservation processing.

    • Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)

      • Central route ⇒ high elaboration: quality of arguments matter; requires motivation plus ability.

      • Peripheral route ⇒ low elaboration: cues like number of arguments, source attractiveness, repetition, conditioning.

      • Strategy: assess likelihood of elaboration and tailor appeal.

    • Conservation Psychology Example

      • Climate change framed as behavioural problem.

      • APA (2009) six guiding questions (risk perception, behavioural drivers, psychosocial impacts, coping, barriers, interventions).

  • Cognitive Dissonance

    • Definition: perceived discrepancy between (a) two cognitions; or (b) cognition & behaviour → tension → motivation to reduce.

    • Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)- n=71 participants, dull task, paid 1 or 20 to say it was fun; 1 group changed attitude more (insufficient justification).

    • Reduction routes- Change attitude, change behaviour, add consonant cognition, distract/reduce arousal.

      • Influenced by perceived choice & incentive magnitude.

    • Extensions/Alternatives- Self-perception theory (Bem): infer attitudes from behaviour without tension.

      • Self-presentation & self-esteem preservation accounts.

      • Culture: individualists experience dissonance for personal choices; collectivists when social harmony threatened.

  • Social Cognition

    • Definition: mental processes used to understand self, others, interactions.

    • Identity- Personal, social, cultural layers; context-dependent; can compartmentalise (e.g., sexuality vs religion).

  • First Impressions

    • Form quickly; create interpretive frame.

    • Soloman Asch & Luchins order effect (“Jim” paragraph study: 78% vs 18% friendly judgements).

    • Halo effect of attractiveness ⇒ lighter sentences, higher salaries, academic grading bias; may differ by culture (individualistic vs collectivist trait assumptions).

  • Schemas

    • Organised knowledge structures for people, roles, situations.

    • Guide attention (schema-relevant & schema-incongruent info remembered best), encoding, retrieval.

  • Stereotypes, Prejudice & Racism

    • Stereotype: attribute set assigned to group members; cognitively economical but often inaccurate.

    • Prejudice: evaluative judgement (usually negative) based on stereotypes.

    • Discrimination: behaviours emanating from prejudice.

    • Racism: system-level prejudice plus belief in ethnic hierarchy.

    • Subtle/Modern Racism: symbolic attitudes, ambivalence, implicit biases (e.g., IAT-amygdala activation to outgroup faces).

    • Authoritarian Personality: harsh-parenting → displaced hostility toward outgroups (Adorno et al.).

    • Ingroup vs Outgroup Dynamics

      • Outgroup homogeneity effect.

      • Social Identity Theory: self-esteem partly from group; ingroup favouritism more common than outgroup derogation.

      • BIRGing with group success (sports fans & self-enhancement).

    • Reducing Prejudice

      • Contact ↑ tolerance only with: equal status, common goals, cooperation, personal interaction, supportive norms (Sherif’s “Robbers Cave” superordinate goals).

      • Perspective-taking & stereotype-suppression (mirror studies) mitigate but may rebound.

      • Intergroup contact meta-analyses: knowledge, anxiety reduction, empathy mediate effects.

    • Ostracism

      • Being ignored/excluded; threatens belonging, self-esteem, control, meaning; adolescents & emerging adults most sensitive.

  • Attribution

    • Process: infer causality for behaviours.

    • Kelley’s Covariation Model- Consensus, Consistency, Distinctiveness combine to decide internal vs external cause.

    • Discounting & Augmentation- Discount personal cause when strong situational cause present; augment personal cause when behaviour occurs despite strong situational constraints.

    • Attributional Styles- Optimistic vs pessimistic (internal-stable-global for bad events → depression risk).

      • Fatalistic attributions reduce earthquake preparedness (NZ studies).

    • Cultural Patterns- Collectivists: more external attributions; take longer before assigning cause.

  • Biases

    • Fundamental Attribution Error / Correspondence Bias: over-attribute others’ acts to disposition, under-weight situation.

    • Self-Serving Bias: attribute success internally, failure externally; prevalent in individualist cultures; situationally moderated (e.g., elite athletes).

    • Confirmation Bias: seek info confirming prior belief; stronger under low motivation/cognitive load.

    • Motivational & Cognitive Roots: heuristics (availability, representativeness), goals (self-enhancement, prejudice preservation).

  • The Self

    • Conceptualisation

      • Self = total person (mind, body, traits).

      • Self-concept = self-schema; cognitive representation guiding processing of self-relevant info.

      • Self-esteem = affective evaluation of self.

      • William James: “I” (subject/knower) vs “Me” (object/known).

    • Psychodynamic View

      • Multiple, affect-laden self-representations (conscious/unconscious). Implicit & explicit self-esteem may diverge.

    • Cognitive View

      • Self-schemas hierarchical; core attributes plus context-specific selves.

      • Information processed faster when self-relevant (self-reference effect).

    • Motives

      • Self-enhancement (positive self-view)

      • Downward social comparison.

      • Self-handicapping (e.g., golfers practising less under stereotype threat).

      • Implicit egotism (preference for things related to self).

      • Basking in Reflected Glory (BIRGing): “We won!”

      • Self-consistency: prefer feedback that confirms self-concept (even if negative; seen in depression).

    • Self-Esteem Across Lifespan & Culture

      • Trajectory: rises through midlife, peaks 50-60 years, declines in later age.

      • Cis-men score slightly higher than cis-women; patterns cross-cultural.

      • Transgender/non-conforming adults: self-esteem decreases with internalised transphobia; increases with social connectedness (online/offline support).

    • Self-Presentation (Impression Management)

      • Goal-directed control of others’ impressions: can aim for favourable or intimidating images.

      • Actual vs Ideal vs Ought selves guide presentation.

      • High self-monitors = social chameleons; low self-monitors = consistent across contexts.

      • Online platforms (Facebook) boost self-esteem via curated profiles; real-self presentation increases with high identity clarity & self-esteem.

      • Self-presentational predicaments → embarrassment; coping via apologies, humour, distancing.

  • Social vs Non-Social Cognition: Key Contrasts

    • Data Ambiguity: internal states hidden → heavier inference.

    • Emotion Infusion: judgements laden with affect.

    • Cultural Saturation: categories & causality theories culture-specific.

    • Reciprocity: targets respond to perceivers, creating feedback loops.

  • Numerical / Statistical References & Examples

    • COVID-19 vaccination: AU & NZ around 90% of eligible adults (2 doses, 2022).

    • Conspiracy belief survey: n=1000, 20% believed 5G harms; 10% believed fluoride mind-control.

    • Australia Indigenous discrimination: 43% reported disrespect; 37% racist abuse (Dunn et al., 2009).

    • Implicit Association Test correlations: implicit stereotypes > implicit attitudes in predicting discriminatory acts (Rudman & Ashmore, 2007).

  • Ethical, Practical & Philosophical Implications

    • Public health messaging must balance fear appeals with efficacy info to avoid disengagement (e.g., anti-smoking, vaccine hesitancy).

    • Stereotype & bias training essential even for experts (clinicians, jurors) – biases persist despite knowledge.

    • Conservation psychology positions climate action as behaviour change, demanding interdisciplinary synergy (psychology, economics, policy).

    • Social media’s double-edge: platform for self-enhancement & social connection but potential for false-self presentation & comparison-based distress.