Social Psychology Pearson Chapter 5

pluralistic ignorance

Erroneously believing that others have different attitudes than themselves. This can limit the extent to which their attitudes are expressed in public.

Attitudes

Can reflect evaluations of any aspect of the world, and thereby color our perspectives

Reference Groups

Groups which we belong to and value that can shape our attitudes.

Cognitive dissonance

—An aversive state that occurs when we notice discrepancies between our attitudes and our behavior. —Experiencing dissonance produces increased left frontal cortical activity and attitude change —Often occurs in situations involving forced compliance

Attitudes and food

—Attitudes about food and eating intake reflect modeling of others we perceive to be like ourselves.

Theory of Reasoned Action, and Theory of Planned Behavior

—Attitudes influence behavior through two different mechanisms. —When we can give careful thought to our attitudes intentions derived from our attitudes, norms, and perceived control over the behavior all predict behavior.

Situational Constraints and Norms on willingness to express attitude

—Attitudes toward a group, issue, or object do not always directly predict behavior. —Rather, there are situational constraints and norms that affect our willingness to express our true attitudes. —Concerns about what others, especially those with whom we identify, may think of us and can limit the extent to which our attitudes and behavior are consistent

Affect of Social comparison on attitudes

—Because we compare ourselves with others to determine whether our view of social reality is correct or not, we are often influenced by the attitudes that other hold. —As a result of this comparison, people tend to adopt the attitude position of those they see as similar to themselves but not of those seen as dissimilar.

Reducing dissonance

—Can be reduced directly (e.g. changing our attitudes) —Can be reduced with other methods for dealing with dissonance inclusing trivialization —Can be reduced also with indirect methods such as self-affirmation on some other dimension —Can be reduced through hypocrosy

Affect of social networks on attitudes

—Can shift as people enter new social networks composed of individuals with differing attitudes

Persuasion

—Efforts to change attitudes through the use of messages

Factors of attitude strength

—Extremity —Certainty —Degree of Personal Experience —Attitudes which are more extreme, more certain(in terms of attitude clarity and perceived attitude correctness), and based of personal experience or important values are more likely to be accessible and guide behavior than are less extreme, unclear, and indirectly formed attitudes.

Forewarning

—Increases resistance to persuasion —the knowledge that someone will be trying to change our attitudes

Fear appeals

—Messages that are intended to arouse fear —If too frightening, tend not to be effective, —Positively framed messages are often more effective persuasion devices

Reactance

—Negative reactions to efforts by others to reduce or limit our personal freedom, which can produce increased opposition to the message content

Social Learning

—Processes from which attitudes are acquired —Can involve classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, or observational learning, or observational learning,

Factors which contribute to our ability to resist persuasion

—Reactance —Forwarning —selective avoidance —counterargument

Factors which affect attitude strength

—Several factors affect the strength of the relationship between attitudes and behavior —some of these relate to the situation in which the attitudes are activated, and some to aspects of the attitudes themselves

Implementation Plan

—Specific actions that indicate how to translate our intentions into behavior —Is very effective because it involves delegating control of one's behavior to the situation

Caffiene and Persuasion

—Substances such as caffience can affect persuasion because of their effects on systematic processing of the information in the message

Attitude—to—behavior process model

—Suggests that attitudes can be automatically activated and influence behavior by shaping interpretation of the situation, which in turn dictates behavior.

Processing of persuasive messages (2)

—Systematic Processing/central route processing—involves careful attention to message content —Heuristic Processing/Peripheral route to persuasion—involves the use of mental shortcuts (e.g., "experts are usually right")

Individual differences in persausion

—There are also individual differences in the ability to resist persuasion. —Those include consciously counterarguing against messages we receive and bolstering our initial attitude position when confronted with a counterattitudinal message

How attitudes are conditioned

—WIthout our awareness —Via Subliminal messaging and mere exposure

Attitudes and targeted messaging

—When we identify with a group, we expect to be influenced by messages that are aimed at our group. —We do not expect to be influenced when we do not identify with the group to which the attitude-relevant message is aimed.

strong attitudes

—attitudes which we are committed to —typically have moral values to support them. —for this reason, they are more likely to be accessible at the time we take action and are particularly likely to influence behavior.

Most Persuasive messages

—come from communicators who are deemed credible —physically attractive —people we like already —and who offer a message that seems not to be designed to persuade All contribute to the most persuasive messages

Dissance and attitude change

—dissonance can lead to attitude change when we have reasons that are barely sufficient to get us to engage in attitude-discrepant behavior. —Stronger reasons(larger rewards) produce less attitude change—referred tp as the less-leads-to-more effect

Modern theories of persausion

—elaboration-likelihood model(ELM) —heuristic-systematic model —Research based on these models has sought to understand the cognitive processes that play a role in persuasion

Early Research of Persuasion

—focused primarily on characteristics of the communicator (e.g. expertise, attractiveness), message (e.g. fear appeals), and audience(e.g., friends who are like us).

Selective Avoidance

—increases resistance to persuasion —the tendency to avoid exposure to information that contradicts our views

Hypocrosy

—inducing indivudals to advocate certain attitudes or behaviors and then reminding them that their own behavior has not always been consistent with these attitudes —can be a powerful tool for inducing benfeicial changes in behavior

Ego-depletion and persuasion

—occurs from exerting effort on another task —can undermine our ability to self-regulate and resist persuasion —ego-depleted people are equally likely to be persuaded by both strong and weak messages. —as persuaders, the ego-depleted are less likely to be honest

Argument strength and persuasion

—only affects persuasion when more systematic processing is engaged —whereas peripheral cues such as features of the communicator's attractiveness or expertise only affect persuasion when more heuristic processing occurs

Forced Compliance

—situations in which we are minimally induced by external factors to say or do things that are inconsistent with our attitudes

Attitudes acquired through instrumentation conditioning

—stem from differential rewards and punishments for adopting particular views

Counter argument

—when we are exposed to persuasive messages that are contrary to our existing views, we actively counterargue against them —this is a critical means by which our resistance to persuasion is increased