Chapter 7 Social Psychology

Operant Conditioning

- a type of learning in which people are more likely to repeat behaviors that have been rewarded and less likely to repeat behaviors that have been punished - e.g. students in a study received either an A or a D randomly on essays. Those who received an A reported more favorable attitudes on the topic than did students who received a D.

What is the relationship between belief and coping?

- assumptive worlds, a term that expresses the view that people live in social worlds based on their assumptions about how things operate 1. the world is benevolent. - people are nice, life is safe. 2. the world is fair - people generally get what they deserve 3. I am a good person - I am someone of value and therefore deserve good things to happen to me - if these are broken, people rely on coping strategies - a good way of coping is finding a reason, even if the person blames themselves for their misery (but the blame has to focus on their actions that caused the problem not focus on a negative image of the self) - worst way to cope is to not have any reason, or if a person does upward comparison - in sum, coping requires finding a way to make the trauma seem compatible or even consistent with those three beliefs

Polarization

- attitude polarization: the finding that people's attitudes become more extreme as they reflect on them - even just thinking about an issue can cause this effect - strong attitudes causes bias evidence confirmation, they prefer evidence that confirms rather than criticize their attitude. - people are ore accepting of evidence presented by ingroup members than by outgroup members

Why People Have Attitudes?

- attitudes are necessary and adaptive for humans - help us adjust to new situations - attitudes can influence whether people take health risks or engage in healthy behavior - attitudes are mainly used to sort things into good or bad, but typically bad is stronger than good - people immediately know whether they will like or dislike the stimuli, people have attitudes about everything - attitudes are also helpful in making choices, such as what to choose for your next course - attitude increases the ease, speed, and quality of decision making - e.g. students who entered college knowing their likes and dislikes on academically relevant issues experienced better health in the new college setting

Embodied Attitudes

- attitudes were formed due to bodily states - e.g. researchers had participants try out 6 headphones. as they listened to a persuasive message, they either nodded up and down, or moved their hide side to side. those who were nodding ended up agreeing with the message, and those who were shaking their had ended up disagreeing with the message.

Attitudes Versus Beliefs

- beliefs are pieces of information (facts or opinions) about something - attitudes are global evaluations toward some object or issue - attitudes are for choosing whereas beliefs are for explaining - both serve interpersonal functions

Classical Conditioning

- development of new behavior - meat powder (US) makes dog's mouth water (UR). the bell (NS) is first run with no response. after multiple pairings, the ring of a bell (CS) makes the dog's mouth water (CR) - e.g. word Dutch was paired with positive words whereas Swedish was paired with negative words. afterwards, participants rated Dutch more positively than Swedish. vice versa results when switched. - CC may aid in the development of prejudice against social groups that are frequently associated with negative information in the media such as Muslims being associated with terrorism. - e.g. advertisers use CC by linking their products with famous or attractive people

What is the difference and similarities between believing and doubting/disbelieving?

- doubting is separate from understanding whereas belief automatically accompanies understanding - automatic system automatically believes the information given but the deliberate system can override this belief by deciding that it is false - e.g. children first believe everything they are told, and only later learn to doubt and question - people end up believe things when they are distracted because it prevents them from taking the second step of further thinking - e.g. religious cults by making people believe their strange ideas by making sure people are tired

Dual Attitudes. What are the two attitudes? What is the IAT?

- dual attitudes are defined as different evaluations of the same attitude object: an automatic attitude and a deliberate attitude - automatic attitude are very fast evaluative, gut level, responses that people don't think a great deal about - deliberate attitudes are more reflective responses that people think more carefully about - IAT purports to measure attitudes and beliefs that people are unwilling or unable to report (measures automatic attitudes) - participants classify words or images into categories quickly, either pairing good and bad with young and elderly. - personalized IAT uses the pairs "I like" or "I don't like" (much more valid assessment)

Irrational Belief

- e.g. paranormal beliefs - people who hold irrational beliefs are more anxious, cope less well, are more likely to become depressed over time, and have lower levels of self-esteem - how do gamblers sustain their optimism. they have an irrational belief that their losses will eventually even out, known as 'near wins' even though statistically speaking, they always have a specific probability every time.

Mere Exposure Effect

- familiarity breeds liking - mere exposure effect is the tendency for novel stimuli to be liked more after the individual has been repeatedly exposed to them - if the individual barely liked or had a neutral attitude toward the stimulus, then the mere exposure effect will make them like it more - however, if the individual already dislikes the stimulus, then the effect will make them hate it even more - mere exposure effect can also influence attitudes toward oneself - e.g. participants like the mirror version of themselves because they have been exposed to it (we can't see ourselves the way others perceive us)

How do people justify choices? What is post-decision dissonance?

- post-decision dissonance, cognitive dissonance experienced after making a difficult choice, typically reduced by increasing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and decreasing the attractiveness of rejected alternatives. - if a decision was a close call, you can reduce dissonance afterward by deciding that what you chose was far better than what you rejected

Religious Belief

- religious beliefs help people cope with stress - e.g. people recover more quickly from being sexually assaulted if they use religion to cope - also less likely to fall back to ineffective coping strategies such as alcohol - the downside is that the road to religious belief sometimes contains stumbling blocks - e.g. people may feel anger at God when tragedies occur in their lives

What is belief perseverance?

- the finding that once beliefs form, they are resistant to change, even if the information on which they are based on is discredited - e.g. participants were either given success feedback or failure feedback as they guessed what were real or fake suicide notes. after, participants told that the feedback they received was random and bogus. however, participants that received success feedback thought they were more accurate and that they would be accurate in the future - e.g. people told that risk-taking people make better firefighters, and others read that cautious people make better firefighters. participants created a theory as to why, but then told that the fact was false and bogus. however, participants did not abandon their theories, even when they were discredited. - a way to remedy belief perseverance is to explain the opposite theory

What is effort justification?

- the finding that when people suffer or work hard or make sacrifices, they will try to convince themselves that it is worthwhile - e.g. "hazing" rituals in fraternities/sororities cause a stronger bonding because - e.g. people trying to get into an interesting group found that those who had a severe initiation ended up liking the group more.

What is cognitive coping?

- the idea that beliefs play a central role in helping people cope with and recover from misfortunes 1. belief that whatever happened could have been worse (downward comparison) 2. restoring self-esteem and control 3. all things have some useful or higher purpose - people with breast cancer learn to appreciate what was truly important in life

What is cognitive dissonance? What are the advances in this theory?

- the theory that inconsistencies produce psychological discomfort, leading people to rationalize their behavior or change their attitudes - dissonance is marked by an unpleasant arousal - e.g. people performed actions contrary to their attitudes. only people who felt discomfort were driven to rationalize - dissonance theory linked the reaction to the interpersonal sphere - e.g. people have a much stronger desire to be seen by other people as consistent (self-presentation) - e.g. writing an essay against beliefs doesn't cause discomfort if anonymous, but it does when your name is one it

What is the balance theory or POX theory?

- three elements (triads) - the person, the other person, and the attitude object. - may be either balanced or unbalanced - to determine if balance exists, multiply the signs together. if the outcome is positive = balance, if negative = unbalanced. - balance theory forms foundation for the unified theory of implicit social cognition - e.g. female college students had stronger automatic associated between self and female and between self and good, the stronger automatic association between female and good.

Is the drive for consistency rooted in nature or nurture?

1. culture has social pressures toward consistency. people get along better if the people understand each other, and understanding requires consistency 2. human thinking and reasoning processes seem designed primarily for arguing. so best to not contradict yourself. 3. most likely the drive toward consistency involves both parts of the duplex mind. automatic system can learn to detect inconsistencies and send out alarm signals, so the deliberate system then steps in and finds some resolution

Do attitudes really predict behaviors?

1. general attitudes and specific behaviors - difficult to determine if a general attitude (helping people) would predict behavior (donating blood). the more specific attitudes were better predictors. 2. behavior aggregation - combining across many different behaviors on different occasions - seeing general attitude toward helping others by measuring different helping behaviors 3. broad attitude in context - a general attitudes can help cause behavior, but only if they are prominent in the person's conscious mind and influence how the person thinks about the choices he or she faces - e.g. if you first caused the person to reflect on his or her attitude toward helping others, then when the request for a blood donation came along, the person would help. 4. attitude accessibility - accessibility refers to how easily the attitude comes to mind. - e.g. attitudes that are certain, stable, consistence, accessible, and based on direct experience are especially effective in predicting behavior 5. behavioral intentions - behavioral intentions refer to whether the person plans to perform the behavior in question - if a person intends to do a behavior, then it is likely that he or she will actually do it - also determined by subjective norms (person's perceptions about whether significant others think he or she could perform the behavior in question or not) and perceived behavioral control (refers to the person's belief about whether he or she can actually perform the behavior) - e.g. 27% of the variance in behavior is predicted by the theory of planned behavior - in conclusion: consistency is there to be found, but it is not as simple or as prevalent as many experts assumed

Social Learning

a type of learning in which people are more likely to imitate behaviors if they have seen others rewarded for performing them, and less likely to imitate behaviors if they have seen others punished for performing them - e.g. many teens learn what attitudes are acceptable by watching whether other teens are rewarded or punished for endorsing certain music, clothing styles, hairstyles, and convictions