SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (Ch 5)

Subliminal advertising

may encourage more vigorous behavior when people are already motivated to behave in a certain way

What are the two routes to persuasion? Give examples of each.

1. central route to persuasion: occurs when people think carefully about a communication and are influenced by the strength of its arguments 2. peripheral route to persuasion: occurs when people do not think carefully about a communication and instead influenced by cues that are irrelevant to the content or quality of the communcation

Know the types of attitudes.

1. implicit attitudes: are activated automatically from memory often without awareness and are gut level evaluations of attitude objects 2. explicit attitudes: are consciously held and involve much more thoughtful and deliberate evaluations 3. dual attitudes: simultaneous possession of contradictory implicit and explicit attitudes towards the same object 4. reference groups: people orient themselves can change people's attitudes to become more like those of the group (standards to judge themselves and the world) 5. mere exposure effect: tendency to develop more positive feelings towards objects and individuals the more we are exposed to them

What are primacy, recency and ordering effects? When is each one effective in persuasion?

1. primacy: means that we remember best what we see or hear first; 1st impression. 2. recency: can be described as you remembering best the items that come at the end of the list.; short-term memory. 3. ordering effects: refer to differences in research participants' responses that result from the order.

What are the three components of an attitude?

Affective (feelings), Behavior (past behavior), and Cognitive (beliefs) processes

What is the relationship between attitudes and behaviors? Know research to support this.

Automatic thinking shapes attitudes and behavior. Zajonc found that exposing people to a particular object increases their liking of it, or a more positive attitude towards the object. Attitudes influence behavior.

How are attitudes studied? What techniques do researchers use to study attitudes?

By using the ABC model of attitudes: Affective (feelings), Behavior (past behavior), and Cognitive (beliefs) processes, are thought of as determining attitudes.

Describe McGuire's inoculation hypothesis.

He noted that people become vulnerable to propaganda when they are raised in a society that overprotects them from hearing things that attack culturally shared beliefs. People are taught to resist messages through inculcation, which promotes counterarguments.

What situations elicit dissonance?

People are more likely to feel dissonance when they have freedom of choice and feel a need to justify their effort at some task. People can engage in immoral behaviors while having very moral attitudes. In these cases people engage in efforts to justify their self perceptions of being moral people. After they make a choice between alternatives, their evaluation of the chosen alternative increases. This is because of post decisional dissonance and results in an increased evaluation of the chosen alternative.

When are high fear appeals effective?

These appeals are effective at changing attitudes, intentions and behaviors. They are persuasive messages that emphasize the potential danger and harm that will befall individuals if they do not adopt the messages' recommendations. While these types of messages are commonly used in political, public health and commercial advertising campaigns

When will attitudes predict behavior?

When classical conditioning influences attitude formation by pairing a previously neutral attitude object (conditioned) stimulus with another object (unconditioned stimulus) that evokes a response

When will we engage in high elaboration?

When combined with a specific image. It refers to the degree to which people will carefully analyze and evaluate persuasive messages and it involves the central route to persuasion.

What is cognitive dissonance and what are the ways to reduce it? Understand the research.

a feeling of discomfort caused by performing an action that is inconsistent with one's attitude. The theory states that when you hold 2 cognition that are inconsistent, you experience discomfort, but to resolve it, Festinger suggested adding a 3rd cognition to make their attitude behavior inconsistency less inconsistent. Or, change their attitude about the task. This will either motivate people or eliminate the dissonance.

When is a positive mood important?

a positive mood can enhance creativity and problem solving.

How influenced are we by subliminal messages?

are messages (phrases and images) that operate below the level of conscious awareness and delivered in a way to be perceived from the subconscious mind. They are presented so fast or faintly that they were just below the absolute threshold for conscious awareness.

How are attitudes acquired?

attitudes can form from various types of learning, such as classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and subliminal conditioning----skinner

What functions do attitudes serve?

attitudes influence change in facial expression, head movement, and body posture

What makes a communicator credible?

based on perceptions of expertise and trustworthiness. Persuaders who have both, have high credibility.

Operant conditioning affects attitude formation largely because of its influence on the _____ component of attitudes

behavioral

The classic studies of the attitudes of Bennington College women over time have found that

changes in one's reference group can change one's attitudes

When classical conditioning is used to influence the formation of an attitude toward a new product, the product is the ____.

conditioned stimulus

What makes speech powerful?

consider the audience: You have to be prepared to speak to a particular audience on a particular occasion. Catch the audience's attention: You need a great hook.

Persuader credibility is highest when the messenger is percieved to posses both ____ and _____.

expertise; trustworthiness

All three components of attitudes need to be present for an attitude to occur

false

Cognitive dissonance is more likely to occur when behavior is forced on someone than when the behavior is freely chosen

false

More cognitive dissonance occurs in collectivist than in individualist cultures

false

People cannot behave immorally is they have moral attitudes

false

People will experience more cognitive dissonance if they are given $20 to lie than if they are given $1 to do so

false

Simply being around an attitude object a lot does not influence one's evaluation of the object

false

The observation of role models does affect attitude formation

false

When classically conditioning a response to a new attitude object, the object is called the unconditioned stimulus

false

People are most likely to indicate that inconsistencies between attitudes and behavior bother them when they

have a high preference for consistency

Studies of fear appeals have generally found that

high fear appeals often produce so muchg anxiety that people are unable to process the arguments

An attitude that is activated automatically from memory, often without the person's awareness that he or she processes it is called

implict

A communicator's attractiveness is heightened by his or her

likability

What is the sleeper effect?

occurs when people receive a message from a low credibility source eventually forget what they heard, and are then influenced by the message content alone.

When is a one-sided message effective? When is a two-sided message effective?

one-sided messages involves persuading others with a message in favor of the position while avoiding opposing arguments. two-sided messages involves acknowledging the opposing arguments and then refuting them. Two sided messages are effective when persuading not only those who initially disagree, but people who are either well informed on the topic and are going to be exposed to opposing viewpoints in the future.

The facial feedback hypothesis suggest that ____.

people are aware of their expressions and infer that they must have attitudes

Two sided messages tend to work better that one sided ones when

people are well informed on the topic

Cognitive dissonance is most likely to occur when

people choose from several options and must justify their choose

Of the following, the one that is not a component of the tricomponent model of attitudes is

perceived control

Research has found that mere exposure for faces increases liking through activation of the ____ of the brain

right hemeisphere

_______ suggest that we learn our attitudes by examining our behavior.

self perception theory

The _____ occurs when low credible sources become more persuasive over time

sleeper effect

Dual attitudes will most likely develop for issues that are

socially sensitive

What is the mere exposure effect?

the tendency to develop more positive feelings towards objects and individuals, the more we are exposed to them

What is self-monitoring and what is its relationship to consumer behavior?

the tendency to use cues from other people self presentations in controlling one's own self presentations. People with high self monitoring have high social cues and are better able to communicate and discern the meanings of emotions and behaviors.

Even when people have a negative attitude toward smoking and believe that their reference groups oppose the habit, they still have difficulty quitting. The theory of planned behavior would suggest that the reason for that is that _____.

they do not believe that they can perform the behavior

Implicit attitudes are activated automatically from memory

true

People have emotional attachments to reference groups and use them for guidance about attitudes to have

true

Self perception theory suggests that evaluation of one's behavior determines one's attitudes

true

Shaking one's head produces a more negative evaluation of an attitude object than does nodding

true

The amygdala of the brain's limibic system operates in an immediate primitive good-bad emotional assessment of an attitude object.

true

The mere exposure effect might be explained by an evolutionary adaptive tendency to favor familiar objects, because they are unlikely to pose a danger to our saftey or health

true

The theory of planned behavior indicates that one's behavioral intentions are determined by one's attitude toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control

true

Studies of moral hypocrisy have shown that

used by people to appear moral while avoiding the cost of being moral

Elaboration likelihood is highest when

we are highly motivated to think about a set of arguments about a topic