Chapter 6: Attitudes, Behavior, and Rationalization

Match each example to the theory it best fits—terror management theory or system justification theory.

1. Evan, a lifelong Boston Celtics fan, instructs his family to have the team's logo engraved onto his tombstone when he dies. Correct label:terror management theory 2. After Lisa survives a serious health scare, she decides to vote for the candidate of the political party that is in power. Correct label:terror management theory 3. Bryan, who has only meager financial resources, tells people he is glad he is poor, since rich people don't know how to be happy with what they have. Correct label:system justification theory 4. Rose believes that it makes sense that her male coworkers with the same amount of experience are paid more than she is. Correct label:system justification theory

Match each method used by researchers to measure attitudes to the corresponding example.

1. To measure the accessibility of participants' favorable attitudes toward a truck brand, researchers ask them, "Do you think it is the best truck on the road?" and then record how long it takes participants to answer in the affirmative. Correct label:response latency 2. To determine attitudes toward voting, researchers have participants rank how important they think it is on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 is the least favorable answer ("not at all important") and 7 is the most favorable ("extremely important"). Correct label:Likert scale 3. Concerned that not all respondents will admit to prejudiced attitudes, or that some may have prejudicial attitudes of which they are not aware, researchers conduct an IAT.Correct label:implicit attitude measure

Which of the following statements about terror management theory (TMT) are accurate and which are not?

Accurate Statements: 1. Maintaining that it is only the physical body and this particular earthly existence that will come to an end helps some avoid anxiety over death. 2. People strive for symbolic immortality by cherishing a valued cultural worldview and deeming themselves to be living up to its standards. 3. People feel deep anxiety over thoughts of their own mortality. Inaccurate Statements: 1. People are less likely to strive to retain the status quo after they have been reminded of their mortality. 2. Mortality salience decreases striving for self-esteem.

Which of the following statements about introspection and reasons for attitudes are accurate and which are not?

Accurate: 1. The contaminating effect of introspection is limited to those times when the true source of our attitude is hard to pin down, such as when the basis of an attitude is largely affective. 2. Introspection can lead us to zero in on the easiest-to-identify attitudes about something, and these may not be the most important attitudes. Inaccurate: 1. When people are led to think about the reasons why they like someone, they are more likely to reflect on their true attitudes toward that person. 2. Introspection is always detrimental, and we should just go with our gut feelings when making a choice. 3. Introspecting about reasons for attitudes makes our behavior more consistent.

Complete the following passage about the efforts people make to justify their behaviors.

An uneasy emotional state may result when attitudes and behavior are inconsistent. Efforts to achieve dissonance reduction take different forms in different situations.One, effort justification, may occur when people expend energy toward a goal that turns out to be disappointing. By justifying the energy spent attaining this goal, people try to convince themselves that the goal was, in fact, worthwhile.

______________ theory is based on the idea that people experience discomfort when their attitudes and behavior are inconsistent. To ___________ this discomfort, people typically change their _____________ to make it more consistent with their _________________.

Cognitive dissonance; reduce; cognition; behavior

Which of the following statements are consistent with self-perception theory and which are not?

Consistent w/ Self-Perception Theory: 1. We infer our attitudes from our own behavior. 2. We come to understand some of our own attitudes the say way that we come to understand the attitude of others. Not Consistent w/ Self-Perception Theory: 1. We change our attitudes due to the impact of dissonance. 2. Lack of objectivity prevents us from being able to make inferences from our own behavior.

Fill in the blanks to complete the sentence about the conditions that will lead to cognitive dissonance when inconsistency occurs.

Dissonance occurs only when there is free choice (or the illusion of it) to engage in the behavior, when there is insufficient justification for the behavior, when the behavior has negative consequences, and when the consequences are foreseeable.

Which of the following are examples of induced compliance and which are not?

Examples: 1. A presidential candidate asks a tepid supporter to appear on their behalf on Meet the Press. After the appearance, the supporter becomes a fierce advocate for the politician. 2. The movers Howard hired ask him to post a positive Yelp review in return for a chance at winning a $5 gift card. While Howard initially wasn't impressed with the movers, writing the review increases his satisfaction of the movers' services. Not an Example: 1. An actor who thinks a certain auto manufacturer's cars are poor quality is paid millions to appear in commercials promoting the cars. After making the ads, the actor's opinion of the cars doesn't change, since they know they only did the ads for money. 2. After weighing the prospects of two opposing boxers, Arlen narrowly decides to bet on one over the other. But as soon as he bets, he has almost no doubt that his choice will win.

People who have had Botox injections, which smooth out wrinkles in the face by immobilizing facial muscles, find it more difficult to process sentences containing emotions such as happiness and sadness. Which of the following are explanations for this and which are not?

Explanations: 1. Attitudes, beliefs, and even abstract concepts are partly embodied in the physical movements associated with them. 2. Since people who have had Botox injections are unable to mimic the emotional expressions as they are reading, the very concepts of sadness and happiness are a bit harder for them to access and comprehend. 3. When people read a sentence about a happy person smiling or a sad person frowning, motor regions associated with smiling or frowning are slightly activated. Not Explanations: 1. Immobilization of facial muscles tends to create unpleasant and distracting emotional anxiety. 2. What our bodies are doing or how they are feeling can facilitate or impede the act of simulation, but has no influence on what we think and feel.

In the real-world application of cognitive dissonance theory, which of the following are factors that would make people evaluate a product differently, and which are not?

Factors: 1. availability of the product 2. form of payment used to purchase the produce 3. effort put into the product

In which of the following scenarios is an individual likely to experience cognitive dissonance? - Adrian, a nutritionist who knows the risks of excessive sugar intake, continues to experience pleasure when overindulging in desserts. - LaToya, a wealthy entrepreneur who never got a college degree, pushes her son to attend an expensive private university. - Jonathan, a substance abuse counselor, feels guilt about his own substance use because he chooses not to seek help for the significant negative effects of his addiction

Jonathan, a substance abuse counselor, feels guilt about his own substance use because he chooses not to seek help for the significant negative effects of his addiction

In order to increase nurses' willingness to work overtime, many nurse managers offer incentives based on the number of extra hours worked. As a result of these rewards, the nurses will probably be willing to work overtime. Based on the overjustification effect, once the nurses no longer find the rewards worth their time, which of the following outcomes are likely to occur and which are not?

Likely Outcomes: 1. Intrinsic interest in working overtime is likely to decrease with the incentives. 2. The nurses may lose interest in working overtime, because the decision to work overtime was due primarily to external rewards. Unlikely Outcomes: 1. The nurses may have begun to work extra hours with a limited interest in helping the unit; however, the sense of fulfillment they experience should further enhance their motivation. 2. The nurses will probably enjoy the comradery of working with other nurses, and this power of conformity should further promote their choice to work overtime.

Fill in the blanks to complete the passage about how people deal with dissonance.

People can reduce the effects of inconsistency and—more generally—the effects of threats to self-esteem in two ways: directly by dealing with the threat itself, or indirectly by engaging in self-affirmation, such as by taking stock of one's positive qualities and core values.

Identify the true and false statement(s) about system justification theory.

True Statements: 1. Believing that the world should be fair but seeing abundant evidence of unfairness can generate ideological dissonance. Compensatory stereotypes such as "people with low incomes may be poor, but they're happier than wealthy people" give ideological support to the sociocultural status quo. False Statements: 1. Economically disadvantaged people rarely defend their own disadvantage. 2. Many people strive for symbolic immortality through their offspring.

Identify the true and false statement(s) about the relationship between attitudes and behavior.

True Statements: 1. If a person exercises frequently, they are likely to have a positive attitude toward fitness. 2. Understanding key reasons that people fail to act on attitudes helps us know when attitudes are not likely to predict behavior. False Statements: 1. If people hold a positive attitude about something, they will behave in a manner consistent with their attitude. 2. It is not possible to understand the conditions under which attitudes are likely to predict behavior.

Identify the true and false statement(s) about the results and interpretation of the "forbidden toy" study.

True Statements: 1. Receiving a severe threat did not reduce the children's desire for the forbidden toy. 2. Receiving a mild threat reduced the children's desire for the forbidden toy. False Statements: 1. Dissonance occurred only in the children who received the severe threat. 2. Children who received the mild threat were less likely to play with the forbidden toy than children who received the severe threat.

Identify the true and false statement(s) about cognitive dissonance and culture.

True Statements: 1. There is evidence that people of Asian descent experience greater dissonance when choosing for a friend than when choosing for themselves. 2. Dissonance is experienced by people of all cultures. 3. There are cultural differences in the conditions under which people tend to experience dissonance. False Statements: 1. Americans tend to experience cognitive dissonance only when they believe their actions will affect or be observed by other people. 2. East Asians are generally unlikely to show dissonance effects in the free-choice paradigm if they are led to think about other people's possible reactions to their choice.

Calvin has a negative attitude toward TV shows about crime and the law, but he agrees to watch How to Get Away with Murder with his friends. Which of the following could represent valid explanations of why Calvin's attitude about this type of show does not predict his behavior, and which could not?

Valid: 1. Calvin's positive attitude toward Viola Davis, the star of How to Get Away with Murder, predicts his behavior better than his general negative attitude toward crime and law shows does. 2. Calvin's friend Georgiana wants to watch the show while Calvin and his friends are at her apartment, and Calvin wants to be gracious to his host. 3. Calvin is conflicted. He has a negative attitude about shows that misrepresent the reality of law enforcement, but he has a positive attitude about how fun they are to watch. Invalid: 1. Watching the show is a conscious behavior, whereas Calvin's attitude can only predict automatic behaviors.

Complete the following passage about the overjustification effect.

When we perform an activity only because it is intrinsically rewarding or only because of an extrinsic payoff, we have sufficient justification for doing it. But if we are given intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for performing the activity, the justification is overly sufficient. Since the extrinsic reasons alone would be sufficient to produce the behavior, we might discount the intrinsic reasons and conclude that we don't much like the activity for its own sake.

Researchers use a variety of approaches to gauge the strength and importance of people's attitudes. One way is to measure the ______________ of an attitude ---how readily it comes to mind. To do so, they measure the time it takes a person to react to a question about that attitude ---- its ______________. Another method is to determine the ___________________ of the attitude --- or how core it is to the person's belief system ---- by looking at how strongly it is linked to other, realted attitudes.

accessibility; response latency; centrality