Social Psychology Notes 2

Assessment Updates

  • GTAs finalizing marking of assignments, including late submissions.
  • Review process to follow GTA marking.
  • Aiming for mark release on Friday afternoon, assuming no major issues.
  • Test marking has begun.

Lecture Content Adjustments

  • Pace of first lecture deemed acceptable by students.
  • Fourth learning objective removed to ensure adequate detail without time pressure.
  • Lecture content split into two parts on Canvas:
    • Lecture one (up to cognitive dissonance).
    • Lecture b (attribution theory slides).

Labs and IATs (Implicit Association Tests)

  • Labs this week include practical exercises with IATs, not online but using table tapping.
  • Exploration of explicit measurements in conjunction with IATs.
  • IAT research often examines national identity and connections between stimuli.
  • IAT indicates learned associations, not necessarily racism or sexism.

Dibos and Banje Study: National Identity

  • Examined how people associate national identity with different racial groups in America.
  • Participants categorized American vs. non-American symbols and black vs. white athletes.
  • Measured implicit attitudes (IAT) and explicit attitudes (questionnaires).

Method

  • IAT involving categorization of American/non-American symbols and athletes.
  • Explicit questions about identifying athletes as American.
  • Athletes included:
    • Michael Jordan
    • Kobe Bryant
    • White American athletes
    • Asian American athletes

Findings

  • Explicitly, participants quickly identified black athletes as American.
  • Implicitly, showed a stronger bias associating white athletes with American identity.
  • Follow-up studies tested white European vs. Asian American athletes, reinforcing the "whiteness = American" association.
  • Demonstrates a disconnect between explicit beliefs and implicit biases.

New Zealand Values and Attitudes Study Replication

  • Replicated Dibos and Banje study in New Zealand to examine similar attitudes.
  • Researchers: Chris Sibley and Jim Lou.
  • Explored how New Zealanders connect images with national identity (Pakeha, Maori, Asian).

Methodology

  • University students completed IATs categorizing New Zealand symbols.
    • New Zealand flag
    • Kiwi (bird/logo)
    • Haka
    • Silver fern
    • Kiwi pie
  • Faces of Maori, Pakeha, and Asian individuals were categorized as "New Zealand" or "not New Zealand."
  • Measured explicit attitudes towards nationality.
  • Later studies included ethnic group differences and famous athletes (Maori/Pakeha All Blacks).

Results

  • Explicitly, Pakeha and Maori were equally seen as representative of New Zealand.
  • Explicitly, Pakeha and Maori are seen as more connected to New Zealand compared to Asian individuals.
    Explicit Bias:
    Pakeha \approx Maori > Asian
  • Implicitly, participants were quicker at associating Pakeha with New Zealand symbols compared to Maori. People are faster at associating Pakeha and Maori images to new Zealand over asian images.
    Implicit Bias:
    Pakeha > Maori > Asian
  • Ethnicity of participants influenced results:
    • Pakeha and Maori participants showed stronger implicit bias.
    • Asian participants showed less strong, but still existing connection between the Maori identity to be more of a New Zealand image.

Fourth Study: Athletes

  • Examined associations with famous Maori/Pakeha All Blacks.
  • Explicitly, black All Blacks were quickly identified with New Zealand identity.
  • Implicitly, bias towards Pakeha athletes was observed.
  • Explicit vs Implicit Score:
    • Implicit: Pakeha > Maori
    • Explicit: Maori,Pakeha≈NewZealandidentityMaori, Pakeha \approx New Zealand identity

Implications

  • Reveals implicit biases impacting who is seen as representative of New Zealand.
  • Highlights the distinction between explicit beliefs and implicit associations.
  • IATs can be used to identify biases in sensitive topics that ppl wouldn't be aware of as well as cultural associations and personal endorsements.

Attitudes and Social Development

  • Attitudes are continually around us from social development
  • Attitudes have affective, behavioral, and cognitive components.
  • Explicit attitudes may differ from implicit attitudes.
  • Looking at things such as measuring driver behavior.

IAT Benefits and Considerations

  • IATs assess learned associations, not outright prejudice.
  • Useful for sensitive topics (racism, sexism, gender, national identity).
  • IATs measure learned connections.
  • IAT use is beneficial because it's a reflection tool

Flag Change Referendum Study (Sibley & Lou)

  • Examined attitudes towards the New Zealand flag change referendum.
  • Assessed voting preferences of National and Labour party supporters.

Findings

  • Initial opposition to flag change:
    • 45.9%45.9\% of Labour voters and 59.2%59.2\% of National voters.
  • Post-referendum:
    • Labour voters against flag change increased to 59.5%59.5\%.
    • National voters against flag change decreased to 43.7%43.7\%.

*Changes in values align to decrease attitude conflicts. We don't people feeling of conflict and we start to make changes about our attitudes to lessen that dissonance.

Cognitive Dissonance: Definition

  • Unpleasant psychological state when attitudes and behaviors are inconsistent.

Everyday Examples of Attitudes in Conflict

  • Enjoying chocolate despite awareness of unethical labor practices.
  • Buying fast fashion despite concerns about fair labor.
  • Purchasing apple products knowing about illegal mining of the product materials.
  • Consuming alcohol despite health risks.

Cognitive Dissonance: Resolution

  • Cognitive Dissonance Definition: unpleasantness you experience when your values + actions don't align. You might have to shift belief/action to alleviate unpleasant sensation.

  • Strategies to reduce dissonance:

    • Change belief: Justify actions (e.g., unethical labor is still providing funds/jobs).
    • Change action: Stop supporting the conflicting behavior (e.g., stop eating certain chocolate).
    • Change action perception: Minimize the impact (e.g., 'my little act doesn't make a difference').

Festinger and Carlsmith Experiment

  • Classic study on cognitive dissonance with boring tasks.

Method

  • Students performed boring manual tasks.
  • Asked to tell the next participant the task was enjoyable.
  • Paid either $1 (≈ $13 today) or $20 (≈ $261 today) for telling the lie.
  • A third group wasn't asked to do that.

Results

  • Participants paid $1 liked the task MORE than those paid $20.

Explanation

  • $20 group: justified the lie with the high payment, no dissonance.
  • $1 group: insufficient justification, reduced dissonance by convincing themselves the task was enjoyable.

Necessary Conditions for Cognitive Dissonance

  • Awareness of inconsistency:
    • Be aware you're lying.
  • Inconsistency has negative consequences
    • The next person coming may not enjoy the task.
  • Having to take Responsibility of those consequences
  • Psychological arousal: experiencing a sense of discomfort.
  • Attributing arousal to the act.

Brehm Study: Post-Decision Dissonance

  • Concerns dissonance AFTER making choice about something/s.

Methodology

  • Participants rated household products 1 - 8 on usefulness.
  • Three trial conditions.
    • Trial one: Participants ranked the products only.
    • Trial two: Participants ranked the products, and chose a highly valued task
    • Trial three: Participants ranked the products, but a chose two least valued projects.
  • Given more product information (relevant or irrelevant).
  • Re-evaluated products.

Findings

  • Low cognitive dissonance group:
    • Chose low value objects. No significant change in evaluation on the ones not chosen.
  • High cognitive dissonance group:
    • Chose high value objects from one another. Re-ranked values. Strengthened commitment of object chosen. Devalued the ones that were not chosen. Relieving any value conflict to one another. Decreasing the chance for anxiety of maybe choosing wrong.

Dissonance in Real-Life Scenarios

  • Jobs. You may not love or be at your dream job. After a while. You just choose to commit to it.
  • Politics. Candidate results before and after elections. You have a shift in ideology on how good your preferred candidate after the actual voting result

Resolving Cognitive Dissonance (Alcohol Example)

  • People have pre-existing bias or knowledge of how good the task is to participate, you can adjust this through cognitive dissonance in the following ways.
  • Change our beliefs: shift how bad or good how much you drink is actually bad. I.e glass a day to keep the heart good. There is a research to state so anyway.
  • Change your Behavior: Stop drinking by July.
  • Changing to think about our behavior. i.e you may state I don't drink too often. Everyone drinks more than me.

Effort Justification (Harrison and Mills Study)

  • If you put a lot of effort into something. You should value it, then if you didn't put much effort to it that at all.

Method

  • Examined if women who worked hard to join a group discussion valued the discussion more.
  • Participants:
    • Students from a woman's university.
    • Used Male experimenters taking place.
  • Conditions:
    • Control: Participants watched a sex discussion and filled out a value or how their contribution to the participant involved.
    • Mild hazing: Students had to read 5 sexual words but not obscenes to a male experimentor.
    • Severe hazing: students had to read 12 obscene words.
  • All participants listened to the same group discussion.

Results

  • The more Severe obscene words that a participant had, they actually ranked the discussion as the more enjoyable, as the participant also had enjoyment with the researchers there. High ranking as 97.6%97.6\%. Which is a significant value on the other scores there. They are in essence re-adjusting themselves after committing to such act, by re-evaluating the discussion as if it was more positive.