Review Session 5

Attitude Formation and Change Attitude- a set of beliefs and feelings

Evaluative- our feelings toward things are necessarily positive or negative

Mere Exposure Effect- the more one is exposed to something (or someone), the more one will come to like it

Attitude Formation and Change Persuasive Messages

Central route- deeply processing the content of the message

Peripheral route- involves other aspects of the message including the characteristics of the person giving the message

Attitudes and Behavior

The relationship between attitudes and behaviors in far from perfect.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory- people are motivated to have consistent attitudes and behaviors.When they do not, they experience

unpleasant mental tension or dissonance

Attitudes and BehaviorFestinger and Carlsmith

○ Participants performed a boring task and were asked to lie to a confederate to say they had enjoyed the task

○ Some paid $1, others paid $20○ Afterward, their attitudes toward the task were

measured○ Those who were paid $1 had more positive

attitudes

Compliance Strategies Used to get other people to comply with

our wishes Foot-in-the-door- get people to agree to a

small request and they will be more likely to agree to a larger follow-up request

Door-in-the-face- after people refuse a large request, they will look more favorably upon a favorable request that seems, in comparison, much more reasonable

Compliance Strategies

Norms of Reciprocity- people tend to think that when someone does something nice for them, they should do something nice in return

Attribution Theory How people determine the cause of what they

observeDispositional/Personal Attribution

○ “Evan is good at math.” “That salesperson is a total jerk.”Situational Attribution-

○ “It was an easy test.” “She must be having a stressful day.”Person-Stable Attribution

○ “He has always been so good at math.”Person-Unstable Attribution

○ “He must have studied really hard for this test”Situation-Stable Attribution

○ “His teacher always gives the easiest tests”Situation-Unstable Attribution

○ “This one test must have been very easy.”

Attribution Theory

Attribution Theory

People often have certain ideas of prejudices about people before they even meet them.These can affect the way someone acts

toward another person

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy- these expectations about others can influence the way those others behave

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968)

Randomly selected a group of children Told their teachers that they were ripe for

intellectual progress and would “bloom” over the school year.

IQ scores of the identified children increased more than their classmates.

Attributional Bias

Fundamental Attribution Error- when looking at the behavior of others, we tend to overestimate the influence of dispositional factors and underestimate the role of situational factorsOpposite when we explain our own

behaviorsMay be far less likely to occur in

collectivist cultures

Attributional Bias

False-Consensus Effect- tendency to overestimate the number of people who agree with us

Self-Serving Bias- the tendency to take more credit for good outcomes than for bad ones

Just-World Bias- Bad things happen to bad people (tendency to blame victims)

Stereotypes

Ideas about what members of different groups are like These expectations may influence the way

we interact with members of these groupsCan be positive or negativeRigid and difficult to change

Prejudice

An underserved, usually negative, attitude toward a group of peopleStereotypes can lead to prejudice when

negative stereotypes are applied uncritically to all members of a group

Ethnocentrism- a specific kind of prejudice○ The belief that one’s culture is superior to

others

Discrimination Involves an action

“We all have prejudices, but it should be our goal to keep our prejudices from becoming discrimination.”

Out-Group Homogeneity- people tend to see members of their own group as more divers than members of other groups

In-Group Bias- a preference for members of one’s own group

Origins of Stereotypes/Prejudice Some say that people naturally and

inevitably form stereotypes (in-group bias)A function of the cognitive process of

categorization

Stereotypes and prejudice can be learned and unlearned by parents, etc. (Social Learning Theory)

Combating Prejudice

Contact Theory- contact between hostile groups will reduce animosity, but only if groups are made to work toward a goal that benefits all (superordinate goals)

Aggression

Instrumental Aggression- intended to secure a particular end

Hostile Aggression- has no clear purpose

Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis- feelings of frustration make aggression more likely

Exposure to aggressive model makes people aggressive (Bandura)

Prosocial Behavior Bystander Intervention- the conditions

under which people nearby are more and less likely to help someone in troubleDiffusion of responsibility- the larger the

number of people who witness an emergency situation, the less likely any one is to intervene

Pluralistic ignorance- people seem to decide what constitutes appropriate behavior in a situation by looking to others

Attraction Similarity- we like those who are similar

No evidence that opposites attract Proximity- we like those with whom we have

frequency contactMere-exposure effect

Reciprocal liking- we like those who return our positive feelings

Physical attractiveness matters!

Close relationships are built through a process of self-disclosure

The Influence of Others

Social Facilitation- the presence of others improves task performance

Social Impairment- when the task being observed was a difficult one rather than a simple, well-practiced skill, it actually hurt performance

The Influence of Others

Conformity- the tendency to go along with the actions of othersSolomon Asch- vertical lines test; in about

1/3 of the cases participants conformed to the incorrect answer

Most likely to conform when the group opinion is unanimous

The Influence of Others Obedience Studies

Milgram- 60% of participants obeyed and delivered all the possible shocks○ Participants who could see the learners gave

fewer shocks that those who only could hear the learners

○ When it was the assistant of the experimenter giving the orders, obedience decreased

○ When other confederates in the room disagreed, obedience decreased

Group Dynamics

Norms- rules about how group members should act

Roles- exist within groups Social Loafing- individuals do not put in

as much effort when acting as part of the group as they do when acting alone

Group Dynamics

Group polarization- the tendency of a group to make more extreme decisions than the group members would make individuallyDiscussion matters- exposed to new

persuasive arguments

Groupthink- the tendency for some groups to make bad decisionsGroup members suppress their resignations

Group Dynamics

Deindividuation- the loss of restrain that occurs when group members feel anonymous and arousedLooting, riotingZimbardo’s Prison Study- students took to

their assigned roles so well that the study had to be ended early

Practice Questions 1) Which of the following suggestions is

most likely to reduce the hostility felt between antagonistic groups?Force the groups to spend a lot of time togetherEncourage the groups to avoid each other as

much as possibleGive the groups a task that cannot be solved

unless they work togetherSet up a program in which speakers attempt to

persuade the groups to get alongPunish the groups whenever they treat each

other badly

2) On Monday, Tanya asked her teacher to postpone Tuesday’s test until Friday. After her teacher flatly refused, Tanya asked the teacher to push the task back one day, to Wednesday. Tanya is using the compliance strategy ofFoot in the doorNorms of reciprocityCompromiseStrategic bargainingDoor in the face

3) In the Milgram studies, the dependant measure wasThe highest level of shock supposedly

administeredThe location of the learnerThe length of timeThe number of people in the groupThe instructions given by the experimenter

4) Your new neighbor seems to know everything about ancient Greece that your social studies teacher says during the first week of school. You conclude that she is brilliant. You do not consider that she might already have learned about ancient Greece in her old school. You are evidencingThe self-fulfilling prophecy effectPluralistic ignoranceConfirmation biasThe fundamental attribution errorCognitive dissonance

5) Janine has always hated the color orange. However, once she became a student at Princeton, she began to wear a lot or orange Princeton tiger clothing. The discomfort caused by her long-standing dislike of the color orange and the current ownership of so much orange and black striped clothing is known asCognitive dissonanceContradictory conceptsConflicting motivesOpposing cognitionsInconsistent ideas

6) When Pasquale had his first oboe solo in the orchestra concert, his performance was far worse than it was when he rehearsed it at home. A phenomenon that helps explain Pasquale’s poor performance is known asSocial loafingGroupthinkDeindividuationSocial impairmentDiffusion of responsibity

7) After your school’s football team has a big win, students in the halls can be heard saying, “We are awesome.” The next week, after the team loses to the last place team I the league, the same students lament that “THEY were terrible”. The differences in these comments illustratesThe fundamental attribution errorSelf-serving biasThe self-fulfilling prophecy effectThe false consensus effectConformity

8) Which of the following is the best example of prejudice?Billy will not let the girls play on his hockey

team.Santiago dislikes cheerleaders.Athena says that she can run faster than

anybody on the playground.Mr. Tamp calls on boys more than girls.Ginny thinks that all Asians are smart.