SOC-PSY 6 ATTITIDUES AND PERSUASION

Attitudes: An inner tendency to judge or evaluate something or someone either positively or negatively.”

Attitude object: The object, person, place, or idea an individual explicitly or implicitly evaluates and directs his or her attitude toward.

ex. hate racists so hate trump

Informational belief: A fact-based belief that includes no positive or negative judgment.

ex. santa lives in north pole (about santa)

Evaluative belief: A belief about an object, person, place, or idea that leads to or includes a positive or negative judgment.

ex. liking santa bc he is so generous

Dual attitudes: When an individual holds contrasting positive and negative beliefs about the same attitude object.

ex. resent someone and caring for them

Model of dual attitudes: A model for understanding attitudes that proposes that new attitudes override, rather than replace, old attitudes.”

• some small piece of opposing attitude may linger

• ex. former lovers amy fondly remember them even though had bitter breakup

two reasons

1. attitudes coem from

   1. affect (emotions)

   2. behavior

   3. cognititon

2. we may not be aware we have an attitude towards something bc we have both implicit and explicit attitudes

Implicit attitudes: Attitudes based on automatic, unconscious beliefs about an attitude object.

• me not realizing my resentment toward my mom

Explicit attitudes: Attitudes that are the product of controlled, conscious beliefs about an attitude object.

• me acknowledging I resent my dad

Uni-valenced decision: A decision based on an attitude about an attitude object that is either good or bad but not both.

attitudes sometimes predict behavior

you like waffles, you order waffles

however, its the exception not the rule^

ex students attitudes towards cheating did not predict whether they cheat

Specificity principle: Proposes that the link between attitudes and behaviors is strong when the attitude and the behavior are measured at the same level of specificity.

ex. low correlation of attitude adn beahvior when you ask general attitude towatd birth control but correlation grows stronge rmore speicifc quesitons you ask

Facial feedback hypothesis: The idea that individuals infer their own emotions based on the facial expression they are making.”

“Some attitudes are nothing more than impression management, a way of strategically trying to manipulate or influence how others perceive us (see Chapter 3; Steele, 1988). You may be able to relate to this if you’ve ever pretended to agree with a friend or share an attitude with a boss. Thus, sometimes expressed attitudes do not predict behavior because they are merely temporary or disingenuous beliefs designed to manage the impressions we make on others (Gordon, 1996; Higgins, Judge, & Ferris, 2003; Jones & Pittman, 1982; Yukl & Tracey, 1992).”

Self-affirmation theory: The idea that individuals try to impress themselves to preserve their sense of worth and integrity; they focus their thoughts and attitudes on what makes them feel good about themselves.

Theory of planned behavior: The idea that attitudes are only one of three categories of belief—attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control—that together predict behavioral intentions, which then predict behavior.

“This theory suggests that attitudes are only one of three categories of belief—attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control—that together predict behavioral intentions. These intentions, in turn, predict behavior”

“example, you may have a negative attitude toward cheating but be more likely to cheat if you perceive that cheating is the subjective social norm (“everyone else is cheating—so I might as well do it too”) and if you think that you can get away with it (perceived control).”

“example, the American problem with obesity has not, it appears, arrived in Durango, Colorado, where people have a very positive attitude toward fitness. But attitudes are not the only reason for a town full of healthy-looking people. In Durango, fitness is also the social norm, and it is fairly easy to control your fitness when opportunities for healthy recreation beckon around every corner and from every beautiful mountaintop. In the right setting, even someone with a relatively negative attitude about healthy living and eating might become fit if that person thinks (a) everyone else has a healthy lifestyle (subjective norms) and (b) it’s easy to get fit in a town full of outdoor activities and organic grocery stores (perceived control).”

attitudes + subjective norms + perceived control —> behavioral intention —> actual behavior

Assortative mating: The process by which organisms that are similar tend to mate with each other, meaning an individual is more likely to mate with someone who shares his or her features and interests (see similarity-attraction hypothesis).

Political orientation: An attitude held by an individual concerning matters of politics and government often characterized by the possession of liberal or conservative ideas.

Social learning theory: A model for understanding social behavior that proposes that we learn attitudes by observing and imitating others.

“Social learning theory proposes that we learn attitudes by observing and imitating others (Bandura, 1977; Perry & Bussey, 1979).”

Classical conditioning: A process that occurs when individuals learn to associate one thing in their environment with another due to personal experience.

Operant conditioning: A process that occurs when individuals learn to predict the outcomes of given behaviors based on the outcomes they’ve experienced for those same behaviors in the past.

Bogus pipeline: A fake lie detector machine used to circumvent social desirability bias”

“ we lie to them about our ability to detect when they are lying to scare them into telling us the truth

Self-justification: The desire to explain one’s actions in a way that preserves or enhances a positive view of the self.

Cognitive dissonance: A state of psychological discomfort that occurs when an individual tries to maintain conflicting beliefs and behaviors.

“ When the original prophecy failed, the believers could have resolved their cognitive dissonance by changing their attitudes to disbelief and leaving the group—and some did. But they also could resolve their dissonance by increasing their faith in the cult’s beliefs.”

Cherry-picking data: Occurs when people select only the data that support what they want to believe and ignore contradicting data.

Rationalization trap: Progressively larger self-justifications that lead to harmful, stupid, and immoral outcomes.

“ Extroverts can tolerate more dissonance than introverts (Matz, Hofstedt, & Wood, 2008), as do people with more symptoms of being a psychopath (Murray, Wood, & Lilienfeld, 2012).”

“we’re more likely to experience dissonance when we’re worried about being perceived as a hypocrite (Aronson, 1999) or when our self-concept is threatened (Steele, 1988).”

also cultural factors- lying is more culturally acceptable to certain cultures but in individualistic cultures rated less ok when lying to ingroup than outgroup

2 PATHS TO PERSUASION

Attitude inoculation: The process of building up resistance to attempts at persuasion.

“People can (a) think of examples from their own lives that contradict the message; (b) read counterarguments provided to them, to get them started down the path of resistance; and (c) generate their own counterarguments.”

Elaboration likelihood model (ELM): A model for understanding how an individual can be persuaded that proposes that there are two paths to persuasion: a direct, explicit, “central” route that requires deliberate, logical thinking and an indirect, implicit, “peripheral” route that relies on emotional appeals (see heuristic-systematic model).

Heuristic-systematic model (HSM): A model for understanding how an individual can be persuaded, which proposes that there are two paths to persuasion: a direct, systematic path and an indirect, heuristic path (see elaboration likelihood model).

Central path: A type of persuasion in which appeals are direct, elaborate, and systematic; requires close attention and careful evaluation of alternatives by the individual being persuaded.

liberal arguments

Peripheral path: A type of persuasion in which appeals are indirect, implicit, and emotion based; requires little effort by the individual being persuaded, leading to quick and easy conclusions.

conservative arguments

“The Communication-Persuasion Matrix.”

Communication-persuasion matrix: A model for understanding persuasion that proposes that there are six steps in the persuasion process—attention, comprehension, learning, acceptance, retention, and conclusion—which build on each other due to exposure to the four elements of persuasion—the source, the message, the recipient, and the context—resulting in attitude change.

Message-learning approach: The idea that there are four elements to the persuasion process: the source (who is doing the persuading), the message (the persuasive information), the recipient (who they are persuading), and the context (how they are persuading).”

Source variables ex: needs credibility, acctractiveness, social power

1. Source variables: Characteristics of individuals that make their message more or less persuasive, including their level of credibility, their attractiveness, and their social power.

2. Message variables: Characteristics of a message that can make it more or less persuasive, including whether the listener personally cares about the topic and how the message is presented.

   1. personal importance: emotionally tied to case in jury

   2. framing: how message presented

3. Recipient variables: Characteristics of the people receiving a persuasive message that make them more or less likely to be persuaded, such as their attitude strength, intelligence, personality, self-esteem, and need for cognition.

   1. attitude strength

   2. intelligence

   3. personality: stubborn or open to new ideas?

   4. self-esteem: similar effects to intelligence, higher self esteem more likely to look deeply into message, analyze it and come to sound conclusion. but also can have drawbacks if think opinion is superior and low self esteem persons can be persuadable if they judge others as more qualified to make decisions

4. Context variables: Characteristics concerning how a persuasive message is delivered that can make it more or less persuasive, including distraction, forewarning, and repetition.”

   1. distraction: lawyer telling juror how much catch up work they’ll have once trial is over, makes you less influenced by message bc it forces you to switch from central path to peripheral path

   2. forewarning: knowing the arguments that will come up

   3. repitition: is pesuasive, easy-to-understand persuasion technique

ways to change attitudes

commitment and consistency

the lowball technique: A persuasion technique where an incentive is offered at the beginning of a deal, such as a low price, but then is later removed due to the terms of the agreement being changed. Despite the change, cognitive and emotional commitment to the item from the original “deal often leads to acceptance of the new, less attractive deal.

Foot-in-the-door: A persuasion technique that occurs when agreeing to a small, initial request makes an individual more likely to later agree to a much larger request.

Norm of reciprocity: The idea that individuals respond in kind to courtesies and concessions from others.

Door-in-the-face: A persuasion technique that occurs when compliance is gained by first making a large request, which is usually refused, and then following it with a smaller request, which is usually accepted.

“Free is never free. The norm of reciprocity makes people more likely to fork over some money if they first have been given a small “gift.” In addition to sampling the product, we feel guilty about getting something for nothing, especially when it comes from a smiling and friendly person. ”