Social psychologySocial psychology::Attitudes, social cognitionAttitudes, social cognition

16th November 200716th November 2007

Social psychologySocial psychology

Study how people’s thoughts, Study how people’s thoughts, feelings and actions are feelings and actions are affected by affected by othersothers

AttitudesAttitudes

Learned predispositions to respond in Learned predispositions to respond in a favorable or unfavorable manner to a favorable or unfavorable manner to a particular person, behavior, belief a particular person, behavior, belief or thing.or thing.

ABC model of attitudesABC model of attitudes• Affect componentAffect component• Behavior componentBehavior component• Cognition componentCognition component

Do you like oranges?Do you like oranges?What do you think about oranges?What do you think about oranges?

A: I like them. I like A: I like them. I like the taste…the taste…

B: I try to eat at B: I try to eat at least one daily…least one daily…

C: Oranges are C: Oranges are healthy, contains healthy, contains lot of vitamin C…lot of vitamin C…

Forming and maintaining attitudesForming and maintaining attitudes

Classical conditioningClassical conditioning

Forming and maintaining attitudesForming and maintaining attitudes

Operant conditioningOperant conditioning• Can we maintain attitude others don’t Can we maintain attitude others don’t

share?share? Observational learningObservational learning

• Children pick up prejudices of their Children pick up prejudices of their parents…parents…

• Learning attitudes through mediaLearning attitudes through media

Persuasion: changing attitudesPersuasion: changing attitudes

One sidedversus two

sided argumentsFear producing

Central versusperipheral

route processing

AttractivenessExpertise

Trustworthiness

Message source

Message characteristics

Recipient(target)

of message

Message source: attitude Message source: attitude communicatorcommunicator

Greatest attitude change:Greatest attitude change:• physical and social attractivenessphysical and social attractiveness

• expertise and trustworthinessexpertise and trustworthiness

The messageThe message

One sided One sided argumentsarguments

Two sided Two sided argumentsarguments

Fear producing Fear producing messagesmessages

Characteristics of the recipientCharacteristics of the recipient

intelligence???intelligence??? gender differences???gender differences???

central route processingcentral route processing (careful (careful perceiving, thinking about the content)perceiving, thinking about the content)

peripheral route processingperipheral route processing (other (other factors than content)factors than content)

age, race, religion, income, marital age, race, religion, income, marital status…status…

Attitudes and behaviorAttitudes and behavior

consistency between attitudes and consistency between attitudes and behavior is likelybehavior is likely

people tend to be consistent in people tend to be consistent in different attitudes they holddifferent attitudes they hold• liberalismliberalism• vegetarianism…vegetarianism…

How our behavior shapes our How our behavior shapes our attitudesattitudes

Leon FestingerLeon Festinger’s theory of ’s theory of cognitive cognitive dissonancedissonance• the conflict that arises when a person the conflict that arises when a person

holds contradictory cognitionsholds contradictory cognitions• this dissonance must be reducedthis dissonance must be reduced• can be done by changing attitudescan be done by changing attitudes

Two contradictory cognitions1. “I smoke.”

2. “Smoking leads to cancer.”

Dissonance

Modifyingone or bothcognitions(“I really

don’t smoketoo much”)

Changingperceived

importance ofone cognition

(“The evidenceis weak that

smoking causescancer”)

Addingadditionalcognitions

(“I exercise somuch that it

doesn’t matterthat I smoke”)

Denying thatcognitions are

related(“There is no

evidence linkingsmoking

and cancer”)

Social cognitionSocial cognition

= How people understand others= How people understand others

What other people are like…What other people are like…• Schemas about people and social Schemas about people and social

experiencesexperiences Impression formationImpression formation

• Central traitsCentral traits

What have you What have you mentioned at first mentioned at first glimps?glimps?

How do you feel How do you feel about him?about him?

Why is he soWhy is he so

fed-up?fed-up? Is he good Is he good

goalkeeper?goalkeeper? What you don’t What you don’t

like about him?like about him?

Attribution processAttribution process

Why is he so fed-up?Why is he so fed-up?

1.1. Is the cause situational or Is the cause situational or dispositional?dispositional?

Biases in attribution:Biases in attribution:• Fundamental attribution errorFundamental attribution error• Hallo effectHallo effect• Assumed similarity biasAssumed similarity bias

Thank you for your Thank you for your attention!attention!