Social Psych. Final Exam
Scientifically, why does skin color differ in the first place?
Has to do with natural selection and adaptation to the environment --too much UV light decreases folic acid, which is vital in fetal development, and can cause cancer. Darker skin protects against UV --too little UV light: not enough Vit D which can cause Ricket: softening of the bones
Learning theories of attitude formation
Attitudes can be learned by... -classical conditioning -operant conditioning -social learning and imitation -observing one's own behavior ---Bem's self perception theory, a theory of attitude formation ---Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory, a theory of attitude change.
Integrated model of racism
Modern-symbolic racists-->politically conservative Aversive racists-->politically liberal Truly non-prejudice-->politically moderate
Why does information often fail to change prejudice?
When people are presented with a few examples that seems to refute their existing stereotype, most of them do not change their general belief. --does not work with information because of the emotional aspect of prejudices. --must have repeated special contact with out group member.
Sang-pil and Shavitt (1990)
When people had cognitively based attitudes, cognitively based advertisements that stressed the utilitarian aspects of the product worked best. When people had more affectively based attitudes, affectively based advertisements that stressed values and social identity worked better
Ajzen and Fishbein's (1980) theory of planned behavior
When people have time to contemplate how they are going to behave, the best predictor of their behavior, is their intention, which is determined by 3 things: -their attitude toward the specific behavior -subjective norms, and perceived behavioral; control ---the more specific the attitude toward the behavior in question, the better their attitude can be expected to predict the behavior.
Hamilton and Gifford (1976)
To investigate illusory correlation of group size and negative behavior ---Two groups, one large Group A, and one small Group B (difference in size made a minority and majority group) -people had to listen to positives and negatives about the group -Group A had 18 positive statements and 8 negative, Group B had 9 positives and 4 negatives ---Participants judged that group B had more undesirable qualities than group A -Because group B was smaller, the negatives were more magnified
Hovland and Sears (1940)
found a correlation between the number of lynched African-Americans in 14 southern states of the US and the fortunes of the key cotton industry between 1882 and 1930. ---When economic conditions were bad, the number of lynchings increased; when conditions were good, the lynchings decreased. ---The researchers hypothesized that frustrated farmers, who really wanted to aggress against the economic factors that were hurting their industry, took out their frustration on another out-group.
Laswell's communication model, communicator, message, channel, and audience variables
Who says what by what means to whom ---Who: communicator variables: credibility, attractiveness, status ---What: message variables: fear appeal vs. facts, one-sided vs. two-sided, repetition ---By what means: channel variables: in person, on TV, via audiotape ---To whom: audience variables: intelligence, personality, pre-existing attitude, gender >>>Each type of variable could influence attitude change. The four variables often interact in complex ways to determine the degree of attitude change
Effectiveness of of fear appeals
Will only work if there is enough fear to motivate people to pay attention to your arguments, but not so much that people will tune out what you say. And make sure to include some specific recommendations about how to stop.
Illusory correlations
the co-occurrence of rare events can cause the perception of a relationship leading to stereotypes that have no basis in reality. Perceiving a relationship between two variables that does not exist.
The bases of attitudes and the ABC's of bias
---Affective component: Prejudice-biased feelings based on group membership ---Behavioral component: Discrimination-biased actions based on group membership. ---Cognitive component: Stereotype-biased beliefs based on group membership.
The elaboration likelihood model of attitude change
---Central vs. peripheral processing ---Central: Ps deliberate on the merit, logic, and content of the message. Gilberts controlled processing ---Peripheral: Ps do not deliberate, but just rely on surface cues (the attractiveness, likability, or credibility of the communicator) Gilberts automatic processing ---A key variable is how much the listener cares about the subject --Issue relevant-->Central --Issue not relevant-->Peripheral >>>Central route leads to more attitude change and lasting attitudes >>>Attitudes formed via the central route should predict behavior better than the peripheral route
Political orientation: liberal, moderate, or conservative
---Conservatives: traditional values, God and country, personal responsibility: people must rise above their circumstances, fiscal responsibility/low tax, equality of opportunity, small government, distrustful of government programs (especially federal), on a national level tend to be Republicans ---Moderates: 3 types: mixed: conservative on some issues, liberal on others, ambivalent: can see both sides on both issues, and apathetic: dont care about political issues. ---Liberals: forward thinking, progressive, personal responsibility, fairness and equality for all, equality of outcomes, taxes to promote positive changes, on a national level-tend to be Democrats.
The relationship between attitudes and behavior
---Conventional thinking before Festinger (1957): Attitudes--->Behavior ---After Festinger: Behaviors--->Attitudes. Change the behavior first and attitudes will follow (fake it till you make it). ---Contemporary view: Attitudes and behaviors are reciprocally related. Attitudes chase behavior Behavior-->attitude-->values-->destiny
Nail, Misak, and Davis (2004)
---IV: Ps were asked to imagine being stood up by a friend Chris (either a car wreck-sufficient justification, or another friend-insufficient justification) ---Second IV: measured self-esteem ---2x2 design: 2(justification: sufficient or insufficient) x2(self-esteem: high vs. low) ---DV: post ratings of chris as a friend Results: high self esteem Ps experience less dissonance after being stood up because they have more self resources to draw upon than low self-esteem Data favors self-affirmation theory by Steele
Petty Cacioppo and Goldman (1981)
---Issue: difficult comprehensive exam before graduating ---IV: quality of arguments (central variable) ---IV: source (peripheral variable) ---IV: relevance (high: implemented next school year->quality matters, low: implemented in 10 years->source matters
Hovland and Weiss (1951)
---Issue: the practicality of building nuclear powered submarines ---IV: who was the source of communication, a communicator variable? high credibility vs. low credibility ---IV: when was the attitude assessed? immediately or 4 weeks later ---DV: degree of attitude change >>>>source credibility theory. In the high credible case people forget the content and drop their opinion. In the other case they forget the source of the low credible data and thus have a better feeling for the information and thus change their opinion.
Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)
---P's are asked to load and unload spools from a tray for 30 minutes and then turn ornaments for 30 mins ---False debriefing: study concerns motivation and job performance "you were in the low motivation group" ---Might the P help the E out by telling the next P how fun and enjoyable the task was? ---IV: for payment of $1 or $20 ---DV: self reported rating regarding how interesting the task was ---The $1 group gave the task better rating >>>>>>people who had received an abundance of external justification for lying told the lie but didnt believe it, whereas those who told the lie without much external justification convinced themselves that what they said was closer to the truth
post-decision dissonance and dissonance reduction (the spread of alternatives)
---Postdecision Dissonance: dissonance aroused after a decision, typically reduced by enhancing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and devaluating the rejected alternative.
Prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes
---Prejudice: a prejudgement. an unjustifiable negative (or positive) attitude toward a group and its individual members. A negative (or positive) attitude toward a distinguishable group based solely on their membership to that group. Based on Race, Face, Lace(gender prejudice), Grace(religion).
The free choice paradigm
---Ps rated and ranked 10 CDs as a part of a marketing survey ---then were given the choice between their 5th and 6th ranked choice and then asked to re-rank the CDs ---DV: the post decision change in the ratings of the chosen and not chosen CDs
Nel, Helmreich, and Aronson (1969)
---Ps recorded a counter-attitudinal speech favoring the legalization of marijuana ---one IV: incentive 50cents or $5 ---second IV: the audience, high school students. audience was either for, against or undecided ---all groups experienced attitudinal/behavioral inconsistency, but dissonance was higher only in the 50cent/ undecided audience condition >>>>>>.the smaller the external incentive, the greater the attitude change.
Self consistency theory vs. self-affirmation theory and level of self-esteem
---Self-consistency theory: dissonance occurs when a cognition or related behavior is inconsistent with one's self-concept. The inconsistent behavior ... 1. is freely chosen 2. has little external justification 3. has been committed and is irrevocable 4. has important, unwanted consequences 5. and the consequences are foreseeable ---Self affirmation theory: Dissonance is caused by thoughts or behaviors that threaten one's self esteem or ego. ---These differ when it comes to high vs low self esteem individuals: Aronson believes the higher the self-esteem, the more dissonance bc higher self esteem creates standards that cannot always be reached. Steele believes the opposite
CHAPTER 6 ESSAY QUESTION: Compare and contrast Aronson's (1968, 2007) self-consistency theory of cognitive dissonance with Steele's (1988) self-affirmation theory. Which theory was supported by Steele, Spencer, and Lynch (1993, study 2) AND WHY?
---Self-consistency theory: dissonance occurs when a cognition or related behavior is inconsistent with one's self-concept. The inconsistent behavior ... 1. is freely chosen 2. has little external justification 3. has been committed and is irrevocable 4. has important, unwanted consequences 5. and the consequences are foreseeable ---Self affirmation theory: Dissonance is caused by thoughts or behaviors that threaten one's self esteem or ego. ---These differ when it comes to high vs low self esteem individuals: Aronson believes the higher the self-esteem, the more dissonance bc higher self esteem creates standards that cannot always be reached. Steele believes the opposite The theory that was supported by Steele, Spencer, and Lynch is the self-affirmation theory. -- the results of the study show that when self attributes were primed before the dissonance arousing choice, people with high self-esteem showed less attitude change
Theories regarding how prejudice is caused in the first place: socialization, group membership(realistic conflict), social cognition(categorization, illusory correlations, etc)
---Socialization: how people are raised. Normative conformity: prejudiced parents, teachers, ministers etc. produce prejudice children. social learning and imitation, many prejudices are regional, prejudice tends to change when people move to different regions. ---Group membership: competition between groups. Realistic conflict theory: competition for limited resources creates stereotypes, bias, and prejudice ---Social cognition: prejudice can be caused as a byproduct of the way people process information and attribute causes of behavior. Biased sampling, population unfamiliar, e.g. cities, minorities, and crime. Categorization. categorization leads to stereotyping ---Illusory correlations: the cooccurance of rare events can cause the perception of a relationship leading to stereotypes that have no basis in reality. Perceiving a relationship between two variables that does not exist.
The heuristic-systematic model of persuasion
---Systematic processing =central processing. —-attempts to explain how people receive and process persuasive messages. The model states that individuals can process messages in one of two ways: heuristically or systematically. ---heuristic examples: experts are usually right, intelligent people talk fast, click it or ticket ---all heuristics use peripheral processing, but not all peripheral processing is heuristic processing.
Counter attitudinal behavior paradigm
---The counter attitudinal behavior paradigm: P's are asked to load and unload spools from a tray for 30 minutes and then turn ornaments for 30 mins ---False debriefing: study concerns motivation and job performance "you were in the low motivation group" ---Might the P help the E out by telling the next P how fun and enjoyable the task was? ---IV: for payment of $1 or $20 ---DV: self reported rating regarding how interesting the task was ---The $1 group gave the task better rating
Theories of how contemporary racism is expressed: old fashioned, modern/symbolic, adversive racism
---Traditional racism or old fashioned: crude, blunt, direct, unambiguous (5%) ---Modern/ symbolic racism: prejudice is subtle and indirect, non-prejudiced self image, believe in equality and opportunity but not proactive in promoting equality, against affirmative action and busing, agrees that the media gives too much attention to race. (25%) ---Aversive racism: prejudice is subtle and indirect, fiercely non-prejudice self image, believes in equality of outcomes, disagrees that the media gives too much attention to race, but has automatic negative race based feelings, internal conflict is unpleasant or aversive.
Reactance theory
---in many cultures/settings people believe they have certain freedoms, when one of those freedoms is threatened, it establishes a drive-psychological reactance to restore the threatened freedom ---one way we can strongly restore a threatened freedom is to do the opposite of what the source of the threat advocates. ---leads to boomerang attitude change or anti conformity >>>reactance is an effective motive: a motive to reestablish effective control >>>an impression management motive: a motive to reestablish one's social status vis-a-vis the source of the threat.
Adorno et al. (1950)
---proposed that prejudice is the results of an individual's personality type. They piloted and developed a questionnaire, which they called the F-scale (F for fascism). ---argued that deep-seated personality traits predisposed some individuals to be highly sensitive to totalitarian and antidemocratic ideas and therefore were prone to be highly prejudicial. Those with an authoritarian personality tended to be: • Hostile to those who are of inferior status, but obedient to people with high status • Fairly rigid in their opinions and beliefs • Conventional, upholding traditional values >>>concluded that people with authoritarian personalities were more likely to categorize people into "us" and "them" groups, seeing their own group as superior.
The ABC's of attitudes
--Affective: an emotional or feeling component --Behavioral: observable actions or behavioral intentions --Cognitive: thoughts, beliefs, information, and perceptions
The effectance vs. the the self-presentational conceptualization of psychological reactance
--Effectance motive: the motive to reestablish effective control. should observe boomerang attitude change in either public or private settings. --an impression management motive: a motive to reestablish one's social status. boomerang attitude will only change in public. (boomerang: when persuasion backfires and they do the opposite)
Inoculation theory
A cognitive process model --an analogy between infectious disease and persuasive communication. Ill-persuaded, virus: persuasive communication, antibodies: counter argument --just like a whether or not someone will become ill based on the strength of the virus and the general health of the person, persuasion depends on the strength of the argument and their defenses. >>>>>>>> making people immune to attempts to change their attitudes by initially exposing them to small doses of the arguments against their position.
Festinger's proposed methods of dissonance reduction
1. changing our behavior to match the dissonant cognition 2. attempting to justify our behavior through changing one of the dissonant cognitions 3. attempting to justify our behavior by adding new cognitions 4. Distorting or decreasing the importance of dissonant cognitions (trivialization) and/ or finding social support
Festinger's (1957) original version of cognitive dissonance theory
Definition: The discomfort that people feel when 2 cognitions (beliefs/attitudes) conflict, or when they behave in ways that are inconsistent with their conception of themselves. ---Making one's view of the world fit with how one feels or with what one has done. ---Dissonance is an aversive, unpleasant psychological state that creates a drive toward reestablishing cognitive consistency(consonance)
Drive vs. information processing (purely cognitive) theories
Information processing assumptions: (1) information made available by the environment is processed by a series of processing systems (e.g. attention, perception, short-term memory); (2) these processing systems transform or alter the information in systematic ways; (3) the aim of research is to specify the processes and structures that underlie cognitive performance; (4) information processing in humans resembles that in computers. Drive theory is based on the principle that organisms are born with certain psychological needs and that a negative state of tension is created when these needs are not satisfied. When a need is satisfied, drive is reduced and the organism returns to a state of homeostasis and relaxation. According to the theory, drive tends to increase over time and operates on a feedback control system, much like a thermostat
CHAPTER 7 ESSAY QUESTION: Do fear-arousing messages work? A social psychologist would say "it depends" It depends on what?
It depends on whether the fear influences people's ability to pay attention to and process the arguments in a message. --If a moderate amount of fear is created and people believe that listening to the message will teach them how to reduce this fear, then they are more likely to be motivated to analyze the message carefully and their attitudes. --people are likely to tune out a message that raises fear but does not give them information about how to reduce it. must provide specific ways to help them reduce that fear. --will also fail if the fear arousing appeal is too strong that it overwhelms people. >>>>>.Try to create enough fear to motivate people to pay attention to your arguments, but not so much that people will tune out what you are saying. And make sure to include some specific recommendations about how to reduce it
La Piere (1934)
LaPiere embarked on a sightseeing trip with a Chinese couple. he was worried that the couple may be refused service, but out of 251 establishments only 1 refused service. -after the trip he wrote letters to each of the businesses they visited asking if they would serve a Chinese couple and only 1 said that they would. -the lack of correspondence between people's attitudes and how they actually acted was so striking that we might question the assumption that behavior follows from attitudes. --peoples attitudes can be poor indicators of their behavior.
Implicit vs. explicit prejudice
People may not be aware that they hold prejudices, the prejudice is hidden from them. this is implicit prejudice.
The authoritarian personality (cf. the school yard bully)
Prejudice comes from unconscious conflicts and emotions and defense mechanisms (projection, reaction, formation, and displacement) ---Hostility comes from parents, described as harsh, punitive disciplinarians ---Authoritarian personality=the school yard bully ---different types of prejudice coexist, authoritarian is indiscriminant and discriminant, hostilities do seem to surface as prejudice
Sherif and colleagues (1951)
Realistic conflict theory. The Robbers Cave experiment. ---Camp separated into 2 groups and fought for resources.
Nail, Harton, and Decker (2003)
Scenario: police officer physically assaults a motorist ---IV: white officer/black motorist, black officer/white motorist ---IV: political orientation of participants (all white) self reported liberal, conservative, or moderate. ---DV: did the case represent a violation of the double jeopardy clause? (1=def. no, 7=def. yes) ---Administered modern racism scale ---Hypotheses: if the integrated model of racism is correct then 1. liberals should show in favor of the black officer 2. conservatives should do the opposite. >>>>Liberals showed bias in favor of the black officer relative to the white as a defense against their own implicit racism. >>>>Conservatives showed bias against the black officer because they were unaware that racism was under surveillance >>>>Moderates showed no bias either way because prejudice could not be determined in this setting or there was no prejudice.
The self versions of cognitive dissonance of Aronson and Steele
Self-consistency (Aronson) Self-affirmation (Steele)
CHAPTER 12 ESSAY QUESTION: What is stereotype threat, why does it arise, and what are the consequences?
Stereotype threat is the apprehension of a group that their behavior might confirm a cultural stereotype. --arises because of economic, cultural, historical, and political differences. one major contributing factor is clearly situational and stems from the anxiety produced by negative stereotypes. --causes people to perform worse than they could, can confirm peoples biases or stereotypes, affects test performance,
Gender differences and stereotype threat
Stereotype threat: the apprehension experienced by members of a group that their behavior might confirm a cultural stereotype. ---relation to gender: when women are lead to believe that a particular test was designed to show differences in math abilities in men and women, they did not perform as well as men. but when they were told it had nothing to do with male-female differences, they performed as well as men.
Methods of reducing prejudice (the jigsaw classroom, recategorization, etc)
The answer of reducing prejudice largely depends on the basis of the prejudice and how deep seated it is (affect, behavior, cognition) --prejudice based on affect and early childhood is very difficult to change, requiring a change in personality. --if prejudice is not based on affect it can be reduced by: mutual interdependence, pursuit of common goals, equal status, friendly, informal, one-on-one interactions if that person is perceived as representative of their group, social support (jigsaw class room) ---recategorization: from different competing groups, to one, common subordinate group.
The rationalization trap
The potential of cognitive dissonance to produce a series of self-justifications that result in a chain of unhealthy, illegal, or immoral actions.
The fundamental and ultimate attribution errors
The fundamental attribution error can become the ultimate attribution error. --ultimate attribution error: making a dispositional attribution for a behavior to an entire group of people EX: A Hispanic american is out of work fundamental attribution error: He is lazy Ultimate attribution error: all Hispanics are lazy.
The Yale group
The study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages. This approach to persuasive communications was first studied by Carl Hovland and his colleagues at Yale University. ---The basic model of this approach can be described as "who said what to whom": the source of the communication, the nature of the communication and the nature of the audience. ------many factors affect each component of a persuasive communication. The credibility and attractiveness of the communicator (source), the quality and sincerity of the message (nature of the communication), and the attention, intelligence and age of the audience (nature of the audience) can influence an audience's attitude change with a persuasive communication.
The efficiency of a theory
Theoretical efficiency=amount explained/complexity
