Ch8: Persuasion, Ch9: Social Influence, Psych345 Ch7: Attitude, Behavior, and Rationalization, Psych345 Ch6: Emotion, Social Psych Exam 2 Ch5-9

Sherif's conformity experiment

-took advantage of the auto-kinetic illusion (In dark room, a light will appear to move) -participant alone in room report different length of movement -participants together converged estimate over time.

In the film "Inside Out" dramatizes two central insights about emotion

1. Emotions guide how we construe the social world. The five emotions in Riley's mind vie for control of the mind guiding how Riley construes her present circumstances. 2. emotions guide social behavior in immediate and powerful ways. Give rise to action

The social psychology of emotion attempts to answer the following 5 questions.

1. What emotions are universal? 2. What ways to emotions vary across cultures? 3. What roles to emotions play in social relationships? 4. How to emotions influence reasoning? 5. What is happiness?

Darwin's 3 hypotheses about emotional expression supporting universal emotion

1. all humans use the same facial muscles to communicate similar emotions in evolutionary past, people of all cultures should communicate in similar fashion 2. bc of evolutionary history with other animals, emotionally expressed behavior will resemble other species 3. blind people still show expression similar to sighted w/o cultural input showing encoded in evolution.

2 hypothesized functions for emotion

1. interpret circumstances. 2. prompt us to act. w/o = lost in thought. (ex: friend suffering, sympathy pushes us to altruistic action. Fear) Not every episode of emotion builds positive results but generally motivates and guides goal-directed behavior. Supports social relationships.

reasons for mimicry

1. principle of ideomotor action: thinking about behavior makes behavior more likely (ex: think about word and accidentally write it while trying to write another) 2. facilitate smooth interactions to foster good relationships. People tend to like who mimic them than those who don't. People who have been mimicked tend to engage in behavior that helps others. Good first step for harmony

Two conclusions for covariation principle after culminating consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency?

1. situational attribution- all 3 are high 2. dispositional attribution- consistency high, consensus and distinctiveness low. * consensus is less focused on than distinctiveness and consistency

Causal attribution

A construal process used to explain both their own and others' behavior Ex: student gives long answer to professor, professor says "good point" and moves on, you wonder "did prof think it was good point or just trying to encourage participation? or boos ratemyprof?" way you answer and construe meaning of prof behavior explains profs actions, future actions, and attribution affects own behavior toward professor in the future.

Influence of Exceptions vs. Routines

A determinant in how easy it is to imagine event not happening. When participant deviated from normal grocery store and was robbed, people gave $100,000 more than situation when he went to normal spot. The injuries were presumably more tragic because it was so easy to imagine the counterfactual event that would have left the man unharmed.

Attributions about controllability and applied ramifications

An individual's attributional style has a powerful effect on that person's long-term outcomes. Ex: attribution for failure: controllability (lack of effort, poor strategy) vs uncontrollability (tempting to give up). controllability makes it easier to persevere bc promotes hope and productivity making success more likely. applied ramification: train attributional tendency to improve performance.

Attitude and other determinants

Attitudes are just one determinant of behavior and can conflict with other determinants of behavior, not always winning. ex: attitudes about dieting and success sticking to diet. going to gym vs sticking to gym.

If you get an exam back, you're not simply delighted or dejected about the grade you received. If the grade is good, you might decide this is an example of your hard work or that it was luck and easy grading. If it was bad you might decide you're not good at the subject or the test was unfair. Different conclusions lead to different sets of emotional reactions and other consequences. This is an example of...

Causal Attribution

When you ask someone out for a date but they say "sorry, but I already have plans", you don't simply take the response at face value. You wonder if they actually have something else or is just giving you the brush off. This is an example of...

Causal Attribution

summarize the forbidden toy experiment

Children, 2 groups. One group told mildly not to play with toy. Other group told severely not to play with toy. Both groups did not play with toy. Severe group either had negative or positive attitude, mild group had negative attitude toward toy. Lesson: If you have severe threat, it will stop action but the person will want to do it in the long run

effect of audience characteristics on a message's persuasiveness

Cognition- degree to which one thinks deeply about things. High quality message for high cognition, low quality message for low cognition. Mood-match message to mood of audience ex pessimistic message to sad people, uplifting motivational to happy audience

Three covariation principle information types

Consensus- what most people would do in a given situation. The more an individual's reaction is shared by others, the less it says about the individual and the more it says about the situation Distinctiveness- what individual does in different situations. Is behavior unique to specific situation or the same in many situations? The more reaction is confined to situation (distinction is high) the less it says about individual and more it says about specific situation. Consistency- what an individual does in a given situation on different occasions. Behavior same over longitudinal study? The more individual reaction varies across occasions (consistency low), the harder it is to make definite attribution to person or situation and vice versa.

Ekman and Friesen study on Darwin's evolutionary theory on emotional expression

Cross cultural research. 3000+ photos of emotion. Papua New Guinea for no western exposure.

What does an ally do to the normative and informational social influence?

Decreases both. Informational because individual thinks maybe they are right and normative because individual thinks "I am not the only one"

actor-observer difference

Difference in attribution based on who is making causal assessment: actor (inclined to make situational attributions) or observer (inclined to make dispositional attributions) Ex: Bill gates. People make causal attributions because they need to draw inferences about others in order to make predictions about future behavior.

Conformity

Do action because others are doing it. Implicit or explicit.

Emotion vs mood vs emotional disorder

Emotion usually lasts seconds or minutes. Moods last hours or days. Disorders last weeks, months, or years

Knowing Our Place in Groups

Emotions can help us feel part of larger collective: awe in concert, religion, sports event, political rally, inspirational leader. More awe=feelings of stronger connectedness with people ID place in groups: emotion signals status in hierarchy. People who display pride nonverbally are more likely to imitated and followed by others. Anger can signal dominance, power, and status. lawyer adage "when you have the law on your side, you should argue the law; when you have the facts soon your side, you should argue the facts; and when you have neither on your side, you should pound the table!"

Emotions and social relationship

Emotions often determine quality and stability of relationships especially romantic ones. Maintaining wanted emotion like humor maintains relationship. (ex: man w/o emotion after car accident have issues with relationships with family and coworkers)

Affect valuation theory

Emotions promoting cultural values are valued. Thus seen more in a particular culture.

self-validation hypothesis

Feeling confident about our thoughts validates our thoughts making it more likely we'll be swayed in its direction

Explanatory style

Habitual way of explaining events, typically assessed along three dimensions: internal/external, stable/unstable, and global/specific

vividness

Hearing vivid stories can make people less receptive to factual information that is not flashy. For vividness to be persuasive, it has to be relevant to the position being advocated. In fact, details in persuasive messages that are irrelevant can backfire.

Our causal attributions, how we assess causes of behavior, follow predictable patterns that serve several purposes. Due to Kurt Lewin's statement that behavior is a function of both the person and the situation, theories of attribution is focused on what?

How people assess the relative contributions of these internal and external causes. However ID what is internal or external can be tricky at times.,

According to the overjustification effect, reinforcements that praise people tend to... intrinsic motivation; reinforcements that seek to control people tend to... intrinsic motivation.

Increase, Decrease it's common practice, for example, to reward children for reading books, getting good grades, or practicing the piano. That's fine if the child wouldn't otherwise read, study, or practice (in which case the praise increases intrinsic motivation). But if the child has some interest in these activities to begin with, the rewards might put that interest in jeopardy (in which case the praise acts as control and decreases intrinsic motivation).

Obedience

Influence via submission to command of someone more powerful

Explanatory style 3 dimensions and what they mean

Internal/External: due to self or external circumstance "there I go again" vs "that was the pickiest questions" Stable/unstable: present in future or not "I'm just not good at this" vs "it was the meds that made me groggy" global/specific: other areas of lives or just one "I'm stupid" vs "I suck at names"

Likert Scale

Lists answers set at 2 extremes.

Metacognition def

Metacogition aka secondary thoughts: the thoughts of about our thoughts. opposite of primary cognitions.

Characteristics of High-Quality Messaging

More persuasive generally especially with those with strong motivation and ability. Appeal to core values of audience straightforward, clear, logical show consequences of taking wanted actions explicit conclusion: moral of the story...takeaway message Refute opposition argument appears to be against own self interest. = more sincerity

How is conformity perceived in the west?

Negative. If someone called you a conformist you probably would take it as an insult rather than a compliment.

Emotions effect on reasoning on negotiators

Negotiators in positive mood are more likely to reach optimal agreement incorporating interest of both parties because positive mood allow opponents to think flexibly about positions and interest of other side.

Introspecting about reasons for attitudes

Often think about what is easy to access: identify, easy to justify, easy to capture in words and miss the real hard to grasp reasons misleading you. BUT if real reasons are easy to id and articulate there's not a downside to introspection. Contaminating effect occurs if source of attitude is hard to pin down.

Overall explanatory style (internal/external, stable/unstable, global/specific) is correlated with(blank)? Results are (blank)

Outcome of interest. Pessimistic explanatory style correlated with undesirable outcomes. Physical health: optimistic explanatory style during younger adulthood was significant predictor of good physical health in later life.

What are the various meanings of happiness in different cultures and different times in history?

Overtime the meaning has changed. Achieved by various means Classical Greek-ethical behavior Middle Ages, plague and wars: afterlife, communion with god. Enlightenment 18th century: hedonistic experiences and actions advancing the many (the greater good) Americans- personal achievement is main path to happiness. East Asians- harmonious interactions and fulfillment of duty

identifiable victim effect

People tend to be more moved by the vivid plight of a single individual than by a more abstract number of people. Recognizable victims are more likely to elicit empathy and the desire to help in most cases.

Compliance

Person responds favorably to an explicit request by another person. Blends into conformity when pressure is explicit enough.

Philosopher vs psychologist on emotion for decision making

Philosophers have argued that emotion, gut feeling, is not what we should rely on for important decisions. Leads to poor decision making. "madly in love" "blind with anger" Psychologists case: Yes can lead to bias, but also emotion is good for decision making. Emotion prioritize info quickly and adaptively

Gender and attributional style

Research shows that boys are more likely than girls to attribute their failures to lack of effort, and girls are more likely than boys to attribute their failures to lack of ability because of treatment in classroom. Girls are likely to suspect that praise may be unrelated to the intellectual quality of their performance, whereas boys learn that praise means their intellectual performance was excellent. If girls received feedback that boys got and vice versa, the results would be vice versa as well.

coordinating actions with others

Right kind of touch can prompt people to act collaboratively. Ex basketball correlation. More high fives, fist bumps, head slaps, hugs in one game at beginning of season, more likely to play better.

how does moral foundations theory explain the culture wars between political liberals and conservatives over issues like abortion, gun rights, same-sex marriage, and climate change?

Surveys show that liberals and conseratives look through different moral lenses. Liberals emphasize harm/fairness Conservatives emphasize purity, loyalty, authority, Framing environmental policy in terms of harm (vanishing species) and care (natural lands and oceans) is more compelling for liberals, Framing environmental policy in terms of purity (purity-violating images of toxic clouds, dirty drinking water, forests covered in garbage) is more compelling for conservatives and match liberal concern. Fun fact: research by Haidt (2009) shows that conservatives tend to recognize that liberals value fairness and avoidance of harm more than themselves and that liberals value other morals less, but liberals generally fail to realize that conservative views are the result of emphasis on the values of authority, loyalty, and purity.

source characteristics of persuasion

The characteristics of the person or venue delivering the message, such as expertise, knowledge, and trustworthiness

elaboration likelihood model

The core idea is that people in certain contexts process persuasive messages rather mindlessly and effortlessly and on other occasions deeply and attentively.

Covariation principle

The idea that behavior should be attributed to potential causes that occur along with the observed behavior. Other words: We try to determine what factor internal external or whatnot "Covaries" with the observation to find out the "why"

Broaden-and-build hypothesis

The idea that positive emotions broaden thoughts and actions of the world helping people build social resources whereas the opposite, negativity, narrows attentions on details of what we are perceiving.. ex: negative state narrow minded

hostile media phenomenon

The idea that supporters of a candidate or issue tend to feel that media coverage is biased against their position, regardless of whether coverage is actually unfair.

What is attribution theory?

The study of how people understand the causes of events. -cause of ones behavior -how understanding influences immediate emotional experience and following behavior

counterfactual thinking

Thoughts of what might have, could have, or should have happened if only something had occurred differently

Affect valuation theory of the united states

US likes excitement over peace and harmony. Biking, ragers, drugs, over poetry.

Social Influence

Ways people affect each other

shared attention phenomenon

When we believe others are simultaneously attending to the same persuasive message as we are, we process that message more deeply. (ex: watching political speech)

What tendency do humans have to focus on a. info on the person (distinctiveness and consistency) b. info on the context (consensus)

a

Emotion

a brief, specific response, both psychological and physiological, that helps people meet goals, including social goals

Terror management theory

a theory of death-related anxiety; explores people's emotional and behavioral responses to reminders of their impending death

Is conformity good, bad, neither, and why

all of the above. relatively beneficial. ex: good- eliminates conflict and makes human interaction smoother. imagine world where no ones conforms. neither- wearing loose pants vs tight pants (cultural change) bad-pressure to drive drunk

response latency

amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus, such as an attitude question ex: those with low response latency could have a strong attitude on topic than those who take longer to respond

Focal emotion

an emotion that is especially common within a particular culture. honor culture=anger, interdependent cultures=embarrassment shame

emotional amplification

an increase in an emotional reaction to an event that is proportional to how easy it is to imagine the event not happening

implicit attitude measure

an indirect measure of attitudes that doesn't involve a self-report. Used when there's reason to think people are unwilling or unable to report true feelings or opinions.

brain evidence for ideomotor action

brain regions for perception overlap with those responsible for action

Persuasion studies look at how to influence people's attitudes and behaviors using either (blank) or (blank). The two main factors in determining whether we will engage in one type of processing or the other are our (blank) to devote time and energy—such as whether we have a personal stake, and our (blank) to process the message in depth—such as whether we have sufficient cognitive resources to engage a message.

central processing, peripheral processing motivation, ability

3 types of conformity

conformity, compliance, obedience

display rules

culturally specific rules that govern how, when, and to whom people express emotion.

Asch's conformity experiment

demonstrated the degree to which an individuals own opinions are influenced by those of a majority group.

agenda control

efforts of the media to select certain events and topics to emphasize, thereby shaping which issues and events people think are important

Emotions effect on perception

emotion acts as prime to perceive world. ex: anger prime = neutral object seen as threat

Define attitude

evaluation of an object along positive-negative dimension that includes three components: affect (emotion. like or dislike object), cognitio (thoughts reinforcing persons feelings. knowledge, beliefs, memories or imagery), and behavior (approach vs avoid) (pg206)

factors affecting conformity pressure

group size presence of ally/unanimity anonymity expertise and status culture gender

group size on influence

group size: the greater the size the more normative social influence. likely the conformity until 3-4 people. conformity levels off with more people. 2 to 4 is more significant than 12 to 14 people.

normative social influence

influence resulting from a person's desire to gain approval or avoid disapproval (avoid criticism, shunned)

difference between normative and informational social influence on internalization

informational social influence can cause internalization whereas normative cannot.

Sherif's conformity experiment supports the idea of...

informational social influence. ambiguity for all participants were high, they weren't certain what was correct to influence of others was also high

sleeper effect

messages from unreliable sources exert little influence initially but over time have the potential to shift people's attitudes. The idea is that over time, people dissociate the source of the message from the message itself.

anonymity on influence

more anonymity decreases normative social influence.

automatic mimicry

non consciously mimic those around us.

Your social psychology professor shows an image of the target line and the three test lines and reports that although the right answer is B, the condeferates all say it's C. As your professor begins to move on, one student raises his hand and announces with conviction "but the right answer is C!" Everyone chuckles, making charitable assumption student was trying to be funny. But student continues to insist that the confederate answer was correct, chuckles turn to awkward nervous laughter, and everyone would turn toward the professor in an implicit plea to "make this awkward situation go away". Subsequent lectures, people avoid sitting by nonconformist, and lunch invitations, dating, and study group offers diminish. What type of influence is occurring in this situation?

normative social influence

selective evaluation

people like things that support their current attitudes and dislike things that contradict their current attitudes

why is the fundamental attribution error "fundamental"

problem of figuring out what someone is like from a sample of behavior is so basic and essential and the common tendency to attribute behavior to person while ignoring situational factors.

Informational social influence

reliance on other people as indication of what is likely to be correct. Influence is higher when we are uncertain to what is correct.

thought polarization

simply thinking about an issue tends to engage more extensive thoughts about a particular issue, which tends to produce more extreme, entrenched attitudes

attitude inoculation

small attacks on our beliefs that would engage our preexisting attitudes, prior commitments, and background knowledge and thereby counteract a larger attack

What is "one potent determinant of a person's action that can weaken the relationship between attitudes and behavior"

someones understanding of norms of appropriate behavior. ex: wanting to say something but its not the right time to say it

Richard LaPiere 1930s experiment

spent 2 years touring with Chinese couple visiting places. Many say they wouldn't serve "orientals" but they did suggesting attitude does not predict behavior well. Repeated with similar results by other scientists (pg 210)

selective attention

the ability to focus on only one stimulus from among all sensory input

social intuitionist model of moral judgment

the idea that people first have fast, emotional intuition to morally relevant events, and then rely on reason to arrive at a judgment of right or wrong Reason often follows immediate gut feeling rather than before to justify moral intuition from emotion. "Mark and Julie are brother and sister. They are traveling together in France on a summer vacation from college. One night they're staying alone in a a cabin near the beach. They decide it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the very least it would be a new experience for each of them. Julie was already taking birth control pills, but Mark uses a condom, too, just to be safe. They both enjoy making love, but they decide not to do it again. They keep that night as a special secret, which makes them feel even closer to each other." All college students say these actions are wrong in disgust. All cultures around the world view incest as immoral. People use the reasoning that it is dangerous to inbreed, but they were using contraception. They argue they can be hurt emotionally but they weren't harmed in any way. When all reasons have been refuted, people typically say, "I can't explain why, I just know this is wrong"

augmentation principle

the idea that people should assign greater weight to a particular cause of behavior if other causes are present that normally would produce a different outcome

discounting principle

the idea that people should assign reduced weight to a particular cause of behavior if other plausible causes might have produced it

self-serving attributional bias

the tendency to attribute failure and other bad events to external circumstances, and to attribute success and other good events to oneself. Motivated partly by maintaining self esteem, but also because success is more connected than failure to our intentions and effort. Can have rational basis

moral foundations theory

theory proposing that there are five evolved, universal moral domains in which specific emotions guide moral judgements. 1. fairness/cheating- anger 2. loyalty/betrayal- pride and rage 3. authority/subversion- pride, awe, shame, fear, embarrassment 4. purity/degradation- disgust 5. care/harm- suffering of others. sympathy

Studies have shown that our tendency to mimic others is particularly strong when...

we feel a need to affiliate with others and when others in question are well liked.

Robert Cialdini's concept of pre-suasion focuses on the - of persuasion, especially stressing the importance of the moment in time - a persuasive message is delivered. As such, he argues the best persuasion tactics will focus on influencing the - of the message recipient.

when, before, attention