Social Psychology Exam 2

Front 1

Attitude Inoculation

Back 1

Making people immune to attempts to change their attitudes by initially exposing them to small doses of the argument against their position; Providing initial exposure to arguments makes people more resistant to later (stronger) arguments

Front 2

Causal Theories

Back 2

Theories about the causes of one's own feelings and behaviors; often we learn such theories from our culture (eg. "absence makes the heart grow fonder")

Front 3

Cognitive Dissonance

Back 3

The discomfort that people feel when two cognitions (beliefs, attitudes) conflict, or when they behave in ways that are inconsistent with their conception of themselves

Front 4

Elaboration Likelihood Model

Back 4

A model explaining two ways in which persuasive communications can cause attitude change; centrally, when people are motivated and have the ability to pay attention to the arguments in the communication, and peripherally, when people do not pay attention to the arguments but are instead swayed by surface characteristics

Front 5

Introspection

Back 5

The process whereby people look inward and examine their own thoughts, feelings, and motives

Front 6

Intrinsic Motivation

Back 6

The desire to engage in an activity because we enjoy it or find it interesting, not because of external rewards or pressures

Front 7

Extrinsic Motivation

Back 7

The desire to engage in an activity because of external rewards or pressures, not because we enjoy the task or find it interesting

Front 8

Impact Bias

Back 8

The tendency to overestimate the intensity and duration of one's emotional reactions to future negative events

Front 9

Perceived Behavioral Control

Back 9

Theory of Planned Behavior

How easy would it be to perform the behavior? (eg. If people think it would be really difficult to use birth control pills, they won't do it)

Front 10

Overjustification Effect

Back 10

The tendency for people to view their behavior as caused by compelling extrinsic reasons, making them underestimate the extent to which it was caused by intrinsic reasons

Front 11

Performance-Contingent Rewards

Back 11

Rewards that are based on how well we perform a task

Front 12

Misattribution of Arousal

Back 12

The process whereby people make mistaken inferences about what is causing them to feel the way they do

Front 13

Self-Concept

Back 13

The overall set of beliefs that people have about their personal attributes; Our knowledge about who we are

Front 14

Self-Awareness Theory

Back 14

The idea that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their behavior to their internal standards and values

Front 15

Reasons-Generated Attitude Change

Back 15

Attitude change resulting from thinking about the reasons for one's attitudes; people assume that their attitudes match the reasons that are plausible and easy to verbalize; Decrease enjoyment or appreciation; Might cause regret later; Effects wear off relatively quickly

Front 16

Self-Perception Theory

Back 16

The theory that when our attitudes and feelings are uncertain or ambiguous, we infer these states by observing our behavior and the situation in which it occurs

Front 17

Task-Contingent Rewards

Back 17

Rewards that are given for performing a task, regardless of how well the task is done

Front 18

Social Comparison Theory

Back 18

The idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people

Front 19

Two-Factor Theory of Emotion

Back 19

The idea that emotional experience is the result of a two-step self-perception process in which people first experience physiological arousal and then seek an appropriate explanation for it

1. Experience physiological arousal, and then...
2. Seek an appropriate explanation for it

Front 20

Theory of Planned Behavior

Back 20

The idea that people's intentions are the best predictors of their deliberate behaviors, which are determined by their attitudes toward specific behaviors, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control

Front 21

Self-Awareness

Back 21

The act of thinking about ourselves

Front 22

Relational Interdependence

Back 22

Important to a woman's self-concept; Focus on close relationships (eg. how they feel about their spouse, their child, their friends)

Front 23

Collective Interdependence

Back 23

Important to a man's self-concept; Focus on membership in larger groups (eg. they are Americans, belong to a fraternity, Panther's football fans)

Front 24

Consequences of Increased Self-Awareness

Back 24

• Makes us conscious of our current behavior
• Influences our thoughts and future behavior

Front 25

Cultural Differences on Self-Awareness

Back 25

• For Americans, mirror-increased self-awareness and that increased discrepancy
  
• Did not happen with Japanese students (Japanese tend to be more self aware at all times)

Front 26

Order Effects

Back 26

When the order items are experienced affects judgements about the items

Front 27

Telling more than we know (problems with intuition)

Back 27

• People don't realize things that do influence their behavior
• People think things will influence them when they actually don't
• We aren't always wrong, but we think we are always right

Front 28

Why mistakes in intuition happen

Back 28

• We don't have access to our own cognitive processes
• We must make assumptions and inferences
• We apply after-the-fact causal theories
• We are good at coming up with plausible (but sometimes wrong) explanations

Front 29

Why reasons-generated attitude change can decrease liking or enjoyment

Back 29

1. Some things that come to mind might not be good
2. It could be difficult to come up with reasons (not because they aren't there, just hard to verbalize)
3. The easy to explain reasons might not be the most important

Front 30

When to use rewards and what kind is usually best

Back 30

Task-contigent rewards are good initially; Performance-contingent rewards are best long term; It is sometimes possible to combine both (leads to initial motivation and lasting motivation)`

Front 31

When do we engage in social comparison?

Back 31

When no objective standard exists

• Smart, friendly, generous, big, etc.
• Basketball ability, knowledge of psychology, driving ability
• Are you getting paid enough?

Front 32

Who do we compare ourselves to?

Back 32

Initially, anyone around

• Social comparisons happen automatically
• We then adjust for inappropriate comparisons

We compare ourselves to similar others

• Basketball skill: compare ourselves to a friend, not LeBron James
• Salary: compare to person with a similar job, not CEO of Google

Small (local) groups rather than large (global) groups

• My score on an exam=86%
• My friends got a 92% and an 89% (local info)
• Overall average was 76% (global info)

Front 33

Upward Social Comparison

Back 33

Know the best we can be: Comparing to people who are better

Front 34

Downward Social Comparison

Back 34

Feel better about ourselves: Comparing to people who are worse

Front 35

How is dissonance reduced?

Back 35

1. Changing behavior to be in line with our attitudes
2. Changing our attitudes
3. Justifying why our behavior doesn't match our attitudes (adding new cognitions)

• Focus on the positives of the chosen
• Focus on the negatives of the rejected

Front 36

When will dissonance lead to attitude change?

Back 36

1. When there is no or minimal external justification.
2. When we feel responsible for our actions.
3. When we can't change our behavior.
4. When we attribute our negative feeling (dissonance) to attitude-discrepant behavior.

Front 37

Attitudes

Back 37

Evaluations of people, objects, and ideas

Front 38

Source, message, audience characteristics (Who says what to whom?)

Back 38

Three components to a communicated message:

• Who: The source of the message (credibility, attractiveness, power)

• What: The message being communicated (comprehensibility, strength of arguments, one-sided vs. two-sided)
• To whom: The audience receiving the message (knowledge, interest, personal relevance, attentiveness)

Front 39

Central Cues

Back 39

The specifics of the arguments (the important stuff); Argument strength (strong vs. weak arguments); Specifications of a computer

Front 40

Peripheral Cues

Back 40

"Surface" characteristics associated with the message; Expertise of speaker, attractiveness of salesperson, number of arguments, "forced" associations

Front 41

Factors affecting motivation

Back 41

• Personal relevance
  
• Importance
• Incentives

Front 42

Factors affecting ability

Back 42

• Distraction
• Comprehension/knowledge

Front 43

Tradeoff Postulate

Back 43

First Postulate: When motivation and ability are high, people will pay attention to central cues

Second Postulate: Central cues most influential when people have motivation and ability to process the message (If lacking either, peripheral cues more influential); There's a tradeoff between influences of central and peripheral cues

Ability to Process information: ability high=central cues; ability low=peripheral cues

Front 44

Spontaneous Behaviors

Back 44

Behaviors that occur without much thinking (spur-of-the-moment decisions); Attitudes do not predict very well; Only highly accessible attitudes predict

Front 45

Deliberate Behaviors

Back 45

Behaviors that are the consequence of explicit thought; Need to know 3 things to predict someone's behavior (Theory of Planned Behavior)

1. Attitude towards the specific behavior
2. Subjective norms
3. Perceived behavioral control

Front 46

Subjective Norms

Back 46

Theory of Planned Behavior

What do most other people think about the behavior? (eg. If people think others have a negative view of BCPs, they won't do it)

Front 47

Does advertising work?

Back 47

• Split-cable market tests prove YES

1. Different TV ads are shown to different people
2. People use special ID cards so purchases are tracked
3. Overwhelming evidence that advertising works

Front 48

How advertising woks (5)

Back 48

• Increases awareness of products
  
• Associating brands with emotions or experiences
• Increases perceived personal relevance
• Influences subjective norms
• Increases accessibility of items

Front 49

Subliminal Advertising

Back 49

Subliminal Messages: Words/pictures that people can't report seeing but influence their judgements or behavior; No evidence it works in the real world

Front 50

Post-Decisional Dissonance (spreading of alternatives)

Back 50

• Post Decisional Dissonance: Dissonance aroused after making a decision, typically reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluating the rejected alternatives
• Spreading of Alternatives: Following a decision, individuals evaluate the chosen alternative more positively and the rejected alternative more negatively than they did before the decision
• Every time we make a decision, we feel dissonance

Front 51

Initiation and Dissonance

Back 51

• When people want and like things, they work hard to get them
  
• When people work hard tog et things. they really want and like them
• When we work hard for things, we have to justify our efforts. This can change our attitude (cognitions).