Social psychology chapter 4

Vocab: 

• Attitude : Relatively enduring evaluation of something, where the something is called the attitude object. 

• Evaluations : This means making a judgment or assessment of something, typically involving a positive or negative value.

• Attitude object: This is the thing that the attitude is directed towards. It can be anything—a person, place, thing, idea, or event.

• Affective : relating to objects and feelings

• Cognitive : relating to mental processes, such as thinking, knowing 

• Behavioral : Relating to actions and observable responses

• Persuasion : The process of changing someone's attitudes or behaviors.

• Communicator : The person or source delivering a message intended to persuade.

• Message Recipient : The person or audience receiving the persuasive message.

• Self-concern : Focus on one's own well-being and positive self-image.

• Critical Evaluation : The process of carefully examining and assessing the validity of information or arguments.

• Endorsement : public approval or support of a product or service.

• Sleeper Effect : messages from untrustworthy sources become more persuasive overtime as the person forgets the source they learned it from.

• Spontaneous Processing: Processing method based on emotions and surface level cues.

• Thoughtful Processing : Processing method based on facts and logic. 

• Forewarning : The act of informing someone in advance aht they will be exposed to a persuasive message. 

• Inoculation  : A persuasion resistance technique that involves exposing someone to weak attacks on their attitudes to build defenses against stronger future attacks. 

• Psychological Reactance : The emotional response that arises when someone feels their freedom of choice is threatened. 

• Boomerang Effect :A persuasion attempt that backfires, causing the recipient to adopt a position opposed to the one intended. 

• Insufficient Justification : An external reward or punishment is just enough to lead a person to attributing their behavior to internal factors. 

• Overjustification : When someone attributes their behavior to external rewards instead of their intrinsic motivation.

• Dissonant Cognitions :  cognitions that are inconsistent or contradictory to one another 

• Consonant Cognitions  : Cognitions that are consistent or aligned with one another.  

• Cognitive Dissonance : The psychological discomfort that arises when one holds two or more conflicting cognitions.

•  : 

Exploring Attitudes  

• Attitudes are evaluations 

  • They express preferences (positive or negative) towards an "attitude object."

• Examples of attitude expressions

  •  "I like swimming," "I hate snakes," "I love my parents."

• Attitudes and self-concept 

  • Attitudes are an important part of how we define ourselves.

• Variety of attitudes

  •  Individuals hold numerous attitudes on diverse topics 

• Uniqueness of attitudes

  • Each attitude has distinct characteristics and influences.

• Origins of attitudes:

  • Some attitudes are partly inherited (genetic).

  • Many are learned through direct and indirect experiences.

  • Media and social interactions also shape attitudes.

• Shared vs. individual attitudes

  •  Some attitudes are common (e.g., fear of snakes), while others are highly personal (e.g., music preferences).

• Components of Attitudes

  • Cognitive: Beliefs and thoughts (e.g., "recycling is responsible").

  • Affective: Feelings and emotions (e.g., feeling happy when recycling).

  • Behavioral: Actions and tendencies (e.g., regularly recycling).

• Variability in Attitude Formation:

  • Attitudes can be primarily based on one component or a mix.

Example: Chocolate ice cream (affective), toothbrush (cognitive), note-taking (behavioral).

• Different Reasons for Similar Attitudes:

  • People may hold the same attitude for different reasons (e.g., voting based on policy vs. persona).

  • Affective components often play a strong role, even in seemingly cognitive decisions like voting.

Changing Attitudes Through Persuasion

• Effective Persuasion Requires:

  • Gaining attention 

  • Delivering an effective message

  • Ensuring desired message processing

    • Considering cognitive, affective and behavioral aspects to ensure the message is conveyed in an effective way

  • Understanding the recipient’s motivations and goals

• Persuasive Communicators

  • Effective communicators enhance the recipient’s self-esteem

  • Attractive communicators create positive associations and good moods

  • Offering personal benefits increases responsiveness (self-referential effect)

  • Similarity between communicator and recipient enhances persuasion

• Liking and Trust

  • Attractive and similar communicators are liked

    • This can be physical or personality attractiveness

    • We also tend to like people who are similar in values, opinions and backgrounds. 

    • Liking creates an emotional response, making us more receptive to their messages

  • Liked communicators are trusted 

    • Trusting reduces the critical evaluation.  

  • Personal connection is a powerful tool

  • Celebrities are used to communicate due to their perceived trustworthiness 

  • Trustworthy communicators reduce critical evaluation of the message

• Experts

  • Experts are persuasive because they have knowledge

  • Advertisers use experts relevant to the product

  • Communicating Expertise

    • Confidence, speed, and directness enhance perceived expertise.

    • Faster speech can be more persuasive.

    • Faster speech can reduce counterarguments.

  • Perceived Bias

    • Experts may be distrusted if they appear to be influenced by external factors

    • Can be increased by arguing against self-interest or presenting only one side of an issue

• The sleeper Effect 

  • Initially discounted messages from untrustworthy sources can become persuasive over time. 

  • We remember the message content but forget the source. 

Non-expert gets more persuasive overtime as the recipient forgets where the message source came from. 

Creating Effective Communicators 

• Message Processing

• Spontaneous Processing (Peripheral/Heuristic Route)

  • Characteristics:

    • Rapid and automatic.

    • Relies on simple cues and heuristics (mental shortcuts)

    • Driven by emotions and feelings

    • Requires minimal cognitive effort

  • How it works:

    • People focus on the surface-level message

    • They make quick judgement based on these cues without critical evaluation

    • Emotional responses play a significant role

  • Examples:

    • Buying a product because a celebrity endorses it.

    • Supporting a political candidate because they have a friendly smile.

    • Being swayed by a message that uses vivid imagery or emotional appeals.

• Thoughtful Processing (Central/Systematic Route)

  • Characteristics:

    • Deliberate and effortful

    • Involves careful analysis of the message’s content 

    • Relies on logic and reasoning 

    • Requires significant cognitive effort

  • How it works:

    • People carefully consider the arguments and evidence presented in the message 

    • Evaluated based on validity and relevance

    • Attitudes formed based on argument strength

  • Examples:

    • Reading a detailed report on the benefits and risks of a medical procedure.

    • Comparing the features and prices of different products before making a purchase.

    • Analyzing a political candidate's policy proposals.

PREVENTING PERSUASION

• Strengthening attitudes

  • Strong attitudes are harder to change

  • Developing strong negative thoughts and feelings about undesirable behaviors can help (smoking)

• Forewarning

  • Giving people warning that they’ll be targeted by persuasive messages

  • Allows them to prepare counterarguments and resist influence

  • Especially effective for attitudes we care about

• Inoculation

  • Exposes someone to a weak persuasive message to build “mental immunity”

  • How it works:

    • Weak Attack:

      • You're presented with a mild, easily refutable argument that challenges your existing attitude.

      • This weak attack isn't meant to change your mind; it's meant to raise awareness of potential challenges.

    • Counterargument Generation: 

      • The key is that this weak attack prompts you to generate counterarguments—reasons why the attack is wrong or flawed.

      • You actively think about why you hold your current belief and come up with defenses for it.

    • Strengthening Defenses:

      • By generating counterarguments, you reinforce your existing attitude and build up a "cognitive arsenal" of defenses.

      • When you encounter a stronger, more persuasive attack in the future, you're better prepared to resist it because you've already practiced defending your belief.

• Psychological Reactance

  • The feeling of resistance when one’s freedom of choice is threatened

  • Can lead to “boomeranging” - doing the opposite of what is indented

  • Overly directive attempts to prevent behavior can backfire

• Subliminal advertising

  • Has weak, limited effects

  • Real world influence is likely minimal. 

Changing Attitudes Through Behavior

• Behavior influences attitudes

• Engaging in a behavior can change attitudes

SELF PERCEPTION INVOLVES INFERRING OUR BELIEFS FROM OUR BEHAVIORS

• Self perception

  • We use our own behavior to infer our thoughts and feelings, especially when we’re unsure

  • Similar to how we interpret others’ behavior

• Aronson and Carlsmith experiment

  • The experiment demonstrated that when external justifications for behavior are weak, people are more likely to infer their attitudes from their behavior, leading to attitude change.

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CREATING INSUFFICIENT JUSTIFICATION AND OVERJUSTIFICATION

• Insufficient justification 

  • Occurs when an external reward or punishment is just enough to make someone do or avoid something

    • Not enough for them to attribute their behavior to that external factor

  • People then attribute their behavior to internal factors

  • Leads to attitude change because people miss attribute their behavior to internal reasons

• Overjustification 

  • Occurs when people attribute their behavior to external rewards instead of intrinsic motivation. 

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE CAN CREATE ATTITUDE CHANGE

• Cognitive Dissonance

  • The discomfort we experience when our behaviors contradict our self-concept

• Festinger and Carlsmith Experiment:

  • Objective:

    • To demonstrate how behavior discrepant from beliefs creates dissonance and changes attitudes.

  • Method:

    • Participants performed a boring task.

    • They were asked to lie and tell the next participant the task was enjoyable.

    • Manipulation: Some were paid $1, others $20, to lie.

  • Results:

    • $20 group: Rated the task as very boring (external justification).

    • $1 group: Rated the task as more enjoyable (internal justification).

  • Interpretation:

    • $1 group experienced more dissonance (lying for little reward).

    • They reduced dissonance by changing their attitude about the task.

• Festinger’s Theory

  • Explains how we strive for cognitive  consistency and how we deal with the discomfort of cognitive dissonance 

  • Cognitive elements 

    • Cognitions: any pieces of knowledge, beliefs or opinions about oneself or the environment 

    • Relations:

      • Consonant 

        • Cognitions are consistent with each other (e.g., "I value my health" and "I exercise regularly").

      • Dissonant

        • Cognitions are inconsistent with each other (e.g., "I value my health" and "I smoke cigarettes").

      • Irrelevant

        • Cognitions are unrelated to each other (e.g., "I like chocolate" and "The sky is blue").

  • Cognitive Dissonance 

    • When a person holds two or more dissonant cognitions, they experience cognitive dissonance 

    • The greater the dissonance the greater discomfort 

  • Dissonance Reduction: 

    • People are motivated to reduce cognitive dissonance 

    • Ways to reduce:

      • Change one or more of the dissonant cognitions:

        • This often involves changing one's attitudes or beliefs to align with their behavior. (ex. "smoking isn't that bad for you")

      • Add new consonant cognitions:

        •  This involves finding new information or justifications that support one's behavior or attitudes. (ex. "smoking helps me relax")

      • Reduce the importance of the dissonant cognitions:

        •  This involves minimizing the significance of the conflicting beliefs. (ex. "my health isn't the most important thing in my life")

      • Change behavior 

  • Factors Affecting Dissonance

    • Importance

      • The more important the dissonant cognitions are , the greater the dissonance

    • Magnitude 

      • The greater the discrepancy between the dissonant cognitions, the greater the dissonance 

    • Choice 

      • Dissonance is more likely to occur when people feel they have  freely chosen to engage in a behavior that contradicts their beliefs 

• When we engage in behaviors that contradict our attitudes, we experience cognitive dissonance

• To reduce this discomfort we change our attitudes to align with our behaviors 

• When someone has high self-esteem, they are less likely to experience cognitive dissonance