Social Psychology 2

Definition of Explicit Attitudes

Attitudes that we CONSCIOUSLY endorse and can be EASILY REPORT.

Product placement

A commercial product is incorporated into the script of a movie or television show.

Attribution theory

A description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other people's behavior.

Affect blend

A facial expression in which one part of the face registers one emotion while another part of the face registers a different emotion.

Examples of external attribution.

A father just yelled at his young daughter. If we conclude that he yelled because his daughter had just stepped into the street.

Examples of internal attribution.

A father just yelled at his young daughter. This means the father has poor parenting skills and disciplines his child in inappropriate ways.

What factors that decrease decoding accuracy?

Affect blend and culture.

Affectively based attitude definition

An attitude based more on people's FEELINGS and VALUES than on their beliefs about the nature of an attitude object.

Cognitively based attitude definition

An attitude based primarily on people's BELIEFS about the properties of an attitude object.

To Whom: The Nature of the Audience

An audience that is distracted during the persuasive communication will often be persuaded more than one that is not. People low in intelligence tend to be more influenceable than people high in intelligence, and people with moderate self-esteem tend to be more influenceable than people with low or h-igh self-esteem. Age 18-25 are more likely to change their attitudes. Beyond those ages, people's attitudes are more stable and resistant to change.

Definition of Implicit Attitudes

Attitudes that are INVOLUNTARY, UNCONTROLLABLE, and at times UNCONSCIOUS.

Two-Step Procession of Attribution

Analyzing another person's behavior first by making an automatic internal attribution and only then thinking about possible situational reasons for the behavior, after which one may adjust the original internal attribution.

The most effective means of changing cognitively based attitudes

Change it with emotional appeals.

The most effective means of changing affectively based attitudes

Change it with rational arguments.

Whom: The Source of the Communication

Credible speakers persuade people more than speakers lacking in credibility. Attractive speakers persuade people more than unattractive speakers.

Display rules

Culturally determined rules about which nonverbal behaviors are appropriate to display.

An example of consensus information

Do other people at work also yell at Hannah and criticize her?

An example of consistency information

Does the boss yell at and criticize Hannah regularly and frequently, whether the store is filled with customers or empty?

An example of distinctive information

Does the boss yell at and demean other employees in the store?

Hollistic thinking style

East Asia cultures have this. They focus on the "whole picture". The object and the context that surrounds that object, as well as the relationships thinking styles influence how we perceive other people.

Definition of attitude.

Evaluations of people, objects, and ideas.

Empirical example of fundamental attribution error (Jones and Harris).

Even when people knew that the author's choice of an essay topic was externally caused, they assumed that what he wrote reflected how he really felt about Castro. They made an internal attribution from his behavior.

Self-Serving Attribution

Explanations for one's successes that credit internal, dispositional factors and end explanations for ones failures that blame external situational factors. This happens when people's self-esteem is threatened.

Attitude innoculation to help young people resist peer pressure.

Expose people to small doses of arguments against their position, which makes it easier for them to defend themselves against a persuasive message they hear later.

Positive behaviors are attributed to blank, while negative behaviors are attributed to blank

External causes; internal causes

Examples of cross-cultural differences in nonverbal communication.

Eye contact and gaze; personal space and touching; hand and head gestures; the ok sign; the thumbs-up gesture; the hand purse gesture; nodding the head.

What are nonverbal cues

Facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and movement, the use of touch, and gaze.

What did the Landis study find?

Found that participants could not consistently identify emotions being experienced by people in photos. People do not have innate displays.

Who is the father of the attribution theory?

Fritz Heider

What does the covariation model focus on?

How behavior "covaries" across time, place, actors, and targets. Examines HOW perceiver chooses an internal or an external attribution.

Consensus information

How other people behave toward the same stimulus as the actor does.

Definition of Behavioral Component of attitude

How people act toward the attitude object.

Distinctive information

How the actor (the person whose behavior we are trying to explain) responds to other stimuli.

Condition under which fear appeals inhibit attitude change via the central route.

If they are so strong that they overwhelm people.

How fast do we form first impressions?

In less than 100 milliseconds.

Internal justification characteristics

Large reward or severe punishment; external justification (I do or think this because I have to); Temporary change.

People make self-serving attributions to...

Maintain self-esteem; how we present ourselves to others, we want them to admire us; the kind of information available to people.

Heider's attribution theory is also known as

Naive or commonsense psychology.

What did Darwin say about universal facial expressions of emotion?

Nonverbal forms of communication were species specific and not culture specific. They were once-useful physiological reactions.

Emblems

Nonverbal gestures that have well understood definitions within a given cultures.

What doe we focus on in the attribution process?

On people, and overlook the situation.

Internal justification

Reduce the dissonance of giving the speech by deciding that they believe what they are saying.

What: The Nature of the Communication

People are more persuaded by messages that do not seem to be designed to influence them. Two-sided messages work better, if you are sure to refute the arguments on the other side. It is better to go last in an argument due to the recency effect. Due to the primacy effect, people are more influenced on what they hear first.

Peripheral route of the elaboration likelihood model

People are swayed by surface characteristics, such as attractiveness of the speaker.

Why product placement is effective?

People do not realize that someone is trying to influence their attitudes and behavior. Our defenses are down.

Reactance Theory

People experience an unpleasant state called reactance when their freedom of choice is threatened.

Cognitive dissonance theory

People experience dissonance when they do something that threatens their image of themselves as decent, kind, and honest. There is no way they can explain away this behavior as due to external circumstances.

Condition under which fear appeals foster attitude change via the central route.

People who watched a scary film about the effects of smoking and had instructions about how to stop smoking decreased the number of cigarettes they smoked a day.

Definition of Affective Component of attitude

People's emotional reactions toward the attitude object.

Factors that increase people's motivation to pay attention to the arguments

Personal relevance to the topic; strength of the arguments presented; the prestige of the speaker; personality (need for cognition).

The role of fear-arousing communications in persuasion.

Persuasive message that attempts to change people's attitudes by arousing their fears. Can cause lasting attitude change if a moderate amount of fear is aroused.

External justification characteristics

Small reward or mild punishment; internal justification (I do or think this because I have convinced myself that it's right); lasting change.

Fundamental Attribution Error

The tendency to overestimate the extent to which people's behavior is due to internal, dispositional factors and to underestimate the role of situational factors.

Petty and Cacioppo's Elaboration Likelihood Model

Specifies when people will be influenced by what the speech says and when they will be influenced by more superficial characteristics.

What did the study by Ekman and Friesen prove when they worked with people from a tribe in New Guinea?

The ability to interpret at least the six major emotions is cross-cultural. It's part of being human and not a product of people's cultural experience.

Consistency information

The behavior between one actor and one stimulus is the same across time and circumstances.

Describe the Yale Attitude Change Approach

The effectiveness of persuasive communications depends on who says what to whom.

After a father yelled at his daughter, an internal attribution would be:

The father has poor parenting skills.

After a father yelled at his daughter, an external attribution would be:

The father was yelling at his daughter because she stepped out in the street without looking. Any parent would do that.

What do social psychologists focus on?

The impact of social situations on behavior, not internal factors.

Internal Attribution

The inference that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about the person, such as attitude, character, or personality.

External attribution

The inference that a person is behaving in a certain way because of something about the situation he or she is in; the assumption is that most people would respond the same way in that situation.

Distressed marriages example of attribution.

The partner's positive behavior is due to external attributions. Internal attributions make things worse.

Perceptual Salience

The seeming importance of information that is the focus of people's attention. Our visual point of view.

Identify a potential disadvantage of making people resistant to attitude change.

The stronger the prohibition, the more likely they will boomerang, causing an increase in interest in the prohibited activity. They feel like their choices are limited.

Social perception

The study of how we form impressions of others based on the slightest of cues.

Nonverbal communication

The way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words.

Evaluate the claim that subliminal messages are effective

There is no evidence that subliminal messages in advertisements have any influence on people's behavior.

Jones' and Harris' empirical example of the fundamental attribution error.

They had students read an essay by a fellow student that either supported or opposed Fidel Castro's rule in Cuba and then to guess how the author of the essay really felt about Castro.

What are the functions of nonverbal behavior?

They help us express our emotions, convey attitudes, and communicate our personality.

Satisfied spouse example of attribution.

They make internal attributions for their spouse's positive behaviors. They make external attributions for their partner's negative behaviors.

How does advertising impact stereotypes?

They subtly linking products with desired images (beer ads link beer consumption with sex). They also reinforce and perpetuate stereotypical ways of thinking about social groups (White heterosexual traditional families).

Taylor and Fiske Study

This is the seating arrangement for two actors and the six research participants in the Taylor and Fiske study. Participants rated each actor's impact on the conversation. Researchers found that people rated the actor they could see more clearly has having the larger role in the conversation.

Definition of Cognitive component of attitude

Thoughts and beliefs that people form about the attitude object.

Cognitive Dissonance with attitude.

To change an attitude try to get the person to find internal justification for giving the speech, whereby they reduce the dissonance of giving the speech by deciding that they believe what they are saying.

Encode

To express or emit nonverbal behavior, such as smiling or patting someone on the back.

Decode

To interpret the meaning of the nonverbal behavior other people express, such as deciding that a pat on the back was an expression of condescension and not kindness.

How can individuals resist being persuaded by product placement?

Warning people about an upcoming attempt to change their attitudes.

Analytic thinking style

Western cultures have this. They focus on the properties of objects while paying much less attention to the context or situation that surrounds that object.

Central route factor of the elaboration likelihood model

When people have both the motivation and ability to pay attention to a message, and pay close attention to the strength of the argument.

The role of "counter-attitudinal advocacy"in producing dissonance

When people publicly advocate something that is counter to what they believe or how they behave, they will feel dissonance. This has been used to change people's attitudes in many ways, from their prejudices to self-defeating beliefs and harmful practices such as bulimia.

The attributional processs of Heider

When trying to decide why people behave as they do, we can make either internal or external attributions. Internal attributions lead to more negative impressions.

Why do we fall prey to the fundamental attribution error?

When we try to explain someone's behavior, we focus on the person, not the surrounding situation. Situational causes are mostly unavailable and difficult to interpret accurately.

Subliminal advertising

Words or pictures that are not consciously perceived but many nevertheless influence people's judgements, attitudes, and behaviors.

What does covariation do?

You are able to reach a judgment about what caused their behavior.

An example of the covartiation model

You ask your friend to lend you her car, and she says no.

Conditions under which attitude change via cognitive dissonance is most likely.

You can use persuasive communication to change the attitude via cognitive dissonance.

Covariation model

You will examine multiple instances of behavior, occuring at different times and in different situations, to answer this question.

People are more likely to make an internal attribution when...

the consensus and distinctiveness of the act are low but its consistency is high.

People are more likely to make an external attribution when...

the consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency are all high.

We cannot make a clear internal or external attribution when...

the consistency is low.