Social Psychology- Heather

Front 1

Understand the difference between an attitude and a belief

Back 1

- Attitudes are global evaluations toward some object or issue. positive, negative or mixed reaction to a person, object, or idea. For example, you like or dislike something. Attitudes are for choosing.

- Beliefs are pieces of information (facts or opinions) about something. If you think it is cloudy outside that is a belief. Beliefs are for explaining.

Front 2

Identify the circumstances which give way to a positive attitude, negative attitude, indifference and a dual attitude/ambivalence

Back 2

- Dual attitudes/Ambivalence: different evaluations of the same attitude object: an implicit attitude and an explicit attitude. It is based on the notion that a person can have different, competing attitudes in the conscious as opposed to the automatic parts of the mind.

- Implicit attitudes: are automatic and non-conscious evaluative responses.

- Explicit attitudes: are controlled and conscious evaluative responses. Implicit and explicit attitudes can conflict.

- Indifference: no reaction, doesn't matter really.

- High positive reaction and low negative reaction = Positive attitude

- High positive reaction and high negative reaction = dual attitude/ambivalence

- Low positive reaction and low negative reaction = indifference.

- Low positive reaction and high negative reaction = negative attitude.

Front 3

Compare and contrast explicit and implicit attitudes and the ways in which social psychologists measure them

Back 3

- Explicit attitude: controlled and conscious.
- Measured by asking how they feel about the person, what they think of something.
- Problems with this include: person could be lying to make themselves feel better.

- Implicit attitudes: automatic and non-conscious, outside of your awareness.
- Measured by: facial electromyograph (facial expressions), implicit association test (connect image to word, tells if we have unconscious bias), microexpressions (facial expressions).

Front 4

Understand how attitudes are formed according to your text and lecture

Back 4

- Mere exposure: tendency for novel stimuli to be liked more after the individual has been repeatedly exposed to them. i.e. mom had a honda so you buy a honda.

- Conditioning: repeated pairing of an unconditioned stimulus with a conditioned stimulus, until the conditioned stimulus elicits a response similar to that elicited by the unconditioned stimulus. i.e. you see happy people drive a car on a commercial, so you buy that car so you can be happy also.

- Operant conditioning: a type of learning. people are more likely to repeat behaviors that have been rewarded and are less likely to repeat behaviors that have been punished.

- Social learning: the type of learning in which people are more likely to imitate behaviors if they have seen others rewarded for performing those behaviors, and are less likely to imitate behaviors if they have seen others punished for performing them.

Front 5

Understand what polarization is and the three reasons for why it happens

Back 5

- Polarization: peoples attitudes become more extreme as they reflect on them.

- This happens due to:
1. Confirmation bias
2. The act of making a public declaration.
3. The desire to be perceived favorably.

Front 6

Understand Heider’s P-O-X and cognitive dissonance theories of consistency

Back 6

- Heider's P-O-X: Understanding of whether our attitudes towards persons or objects are balanced or not.
- Contains 3 elements:
1. P (Person)
2. O (Other person)
3. X (Object)
- These elements can either be balanced or unbalanced.
- Balanced theory states that balanced states are preferred over unbalanced states, and that unbalanced states motivate people to change them to balanced states (people prefer and seek consistency).

- Cognitive dissonance theories of consistency: discrepancies between attitudes and behaviors produce psychological discomfort, which causes people to rationalize their behavior so as to bring their attitudes into line with their actions.

Front 7

Describe and identify the various ways we justify our attitudes, effort and choices in order to reduce cognitive dissonance. Be able to refer to research examples discussed in the text and/or lecture

Back 7

- Justifying attitudes: based in large part on insufficient justification. Unless you deny your actions, you'll feel pressured to change your attitude. i.e. people who were paid a small amount to lie came to change their attitudes to believe their own life; people who were paid a large amount did not lie because they must really like it if they say it for cheap.

- Justifying choices: Post-dissonance experienced after making a difficult choice. reduced by downward attractiveness of rejected alternatives and upward attractiveness of chosen alternative. When choosing a school made one look bad and the other look good.

- Justifying effort: people want to convince themselves that all their hard work and efforts are worthwhile. i.e. people who worked harder to get in fraternity enjoyed it more than those who didn't work hard.

Front 8

Describe the conditions in which attitudes seem to predict behavior and vice versa (found in both text and lecture)

Back 8

- Attitudes predict behavior best if any or all of the following conditions are met:
1. attitudes are specific
2. when social influence is minimal
3. when it is believed that the behavior can be easily performed
4. attitudes and consciously prominent and influence how the person thinks about the choices he faces.

- Behavior predicts attitude: saying/doing changes attitude:
1. social movements
2. role playing (behavior influencing attitude)

Front 9

Understand the three main assumptions/beliefs that enable people to cope

Back 9

1. The world is benevolent: people are nice, life is safe, and one can count on good things happening most of the time. The opposite belief is that the world is a dangerous place full of evil and untrustworthy people.

2. The world is fair and just. People generally get what they deserve. If you follow the rules and treat others with fairness and kindness, you can expect the same.

3. I am a good person. I am someone of value therefore deserve good things to happen to me

Front 10

Describe the disadvantages of holding irrational beliefs

Back 10

- People who hold irrational beliefs are:
1. more anxious
2. cope less well with terminal illness
3. more likely to become depressed
4. have lower levels of self-esteem
5. people who think they are lucky are more likely to gamble money away

Front 11

Understand the two types of social influence

Back 11

- Normative influence (being liked): involves going alone with the crowd in order to liked and accepted.

- Informational influence (being correct): involves going along with the crowd because you think the crowd knows more than you do.

Front 12

Identify, describe and provide examples of each of the techniques of social influence (including those based on reciprocation and scarcity)

Back 12

1. Commitment and consistency: view ourselves as consistent and committed:

- Foot in the door: small requests gain eventual compliance with larger requests. Ex: ask a person what cleaning product they use first, then a week later ask if you can come look through their kitchen and see what other products they use.

- labeling: assigning a label to an individual then making a request that is consistent with that label. Ex: saying you are generous, then asking them to donate money.

- Low ball: secure agreement, but them increase the size of the request by revealing hidden costs. Ex: college students asked to participate in a class, only 30% said yes when told it starts at 7am first, but 60% complied when told it starts at 7am later.

- Bait and switch: comply with a request they would have dismissed if it had been offered first. Ex: go to sears to buy a tv thats a good deal, but when you get there you find out there are no tvs left, so you buy a different one because you are already there.

- Legitimization of paltry favors: requester makes a small amount of aid acceptable. Ex: in a speech Obama says he gets a donation for $3.02 so you think your $5 donation will be acceptable.

2. Reciprocation: if you take care of me I will take care of you

- Door in the face: starts with an inflated request and the retreats to a smaller request. Ex. buy this $1000 vacuum, no, ok well what if i throw in an extra one for free? includes: perceptual contrast: big distinct request to a smaller one. reciprocal concession: you feel like the persons request came down so you feel like you have to comply. it does have limitations: when the first request is too extreme the second one will not work, and when requests are made by different people: first request made by one person and second request is made by a different person.

3. Scarcity: rare opportunities are more valuable then plentiful opportunities.

- "Rare" - valuable. Ex: tickle me elmo

- limited number and fast approaching deadline: only so many made which makes it rare and you only have a little time to get it

- Capturing and disrupting attention: stand out and disrupt the national mind. Ex: homeless person with sign says why lie I need a beer.

Front 13

Understand the following characteristics regarding persuasion: the source (including the sleeper effect), message and audience. See Table 8.1.

Back 13

1. Source
- Credibility: use someone with experience in order to persuade someone. most important when we think someone isn't trying to sell us something.
- likability: if we like the person, especially if they are like us, attractiveness adds more to it, we usually like something more if the person is attractive and likable.
- Both depend on:
1. Personal relevance: does this persuasive topic apply to me or does this product apply to me.
2. Time: source becomes less important because overtime we forget who said it, but we still remember the message.
- The sleeper effect: the finding that, over time, people separate the message from the messenger.

2. Message:
- Strategies:
1. Informative: using information, usually drastic, in order to persuade you.
2. Emotional: using images, music, etc to trigger an emotional response to persuade you. Ex. humor: we remember the humor and message, but forget the source. fear: uses scary situations in order to trigger fear and persuade you. you forget message and source but remember your response.
- Timing: when you hear the message.
- Message discrepancy: how much the message impacts your attitude. too little= no response, too much= we reject message.
- Stealing thunder: revealing potentially incriminating evidence
- Repetition: tag phrases, etc

3. Audience
- Receptivity: are you getting the message, are you paying attention
- Yielding: how accepting one is of the message, how able are you to be persuaded.
- Need for cognition: are they interested in information and knowledge.
- Self-monitoring/Self-consciousness: always monitoring behavior, so they are receptive to ads that promise to improve self.
- Age: teens, early 20's: easily persuaded, middle-aged: less likely to be persuaded, old age: likely to be persuaded.
- Distraction: people more willing to be persuaded when they think they aren't being sold something. Ex movie placement
- Intention of message: when you don't think they intention is to sell you something you let down your guard.

Front 14

Understand the elaborate likelihood model of how we come to be persuaded or not

Back 14

- Theory that posits two routes to persuasion, conscious or automatic processing.

- central route: the route to persuasion that involves careful and thoughtful consideration of the content of the message (conscious processing)

- Peripheral route: the route to persuasion that involves some simple cue, such as attractiveness of the source, automatic processing

Front 15

Describe the boomerang effect

Back 15

- Doing exactly the opposite of what one is being persuaded to do.

Front 16

Describe how one can defend oneself against influence techniques

Back 16

- Do not feel obligated to be tricked into being consistent.
- Make public commitment to your position.
- Favors are to be repaid with favors not tricks repaid with favors.
- buy something cuz you really want it not because its scarce.
- eliminate disraction so you can process the message.