Social Psychology Chapter 7

According to reactance theory, which of the following public service messages would be least likely to get people to wear seatbelts? A) "Wear your seatbelt to save lives." B) "Buckle up your children—you might save their lives." C) "It's the law—you must wear your seatbelt." D) "Please wear your seatbelt every time you drive."

"It's the law—you must wear your seatbelt."

Cameron and Mitchell want to convince their daughter to stop leaving her toys scattered all around the floor, so they leave her a sign by her toy box. According to reactance theory, which of the following signs would be most effective? A) "Please try to remember to clean up your toys when you are done with them" B) "Do not leave toys lying around!" C) "All toys MUST be put away after they are used" D) "Your job is to clean up after yourself"

"Please try to remember to clean up your toys when you are done with them"

Wendy is a member of a political group on your campus and is interested in finding out how many students plan to vote in the next presidential election. According to the theory of planned behavior, which of the following attitude questions Wendy could ask would be the best predictor of whether or not a particular student will vote in the next presidential election? A) "What are your attitudes about voting?" B) "What are your attitudes about U.S. politics?" C) "What are your attitudes about voting in the next U.S. presidential election?" D) "What are your attitudes about former U.S. President George W. Bush?"

"What are your attitudes about voting in the next U.S. presidential election?"

Why do attitudes change?

1) Social influence 2) Cognitive Dissonance

Sleeper Effect

An effect that occurs when messages from unreliable sources initially exert little influence but later cause individuals' attitudes to shift

Attitudes

-Evaluations of people, objects, and ideas -Are important because they often determine what we do

Advertising

-A concerted effort to change the way that consumers think about and act toward a certain product.

Central Route to Persuasion

-Under certain conditions people are motivated to pay attention to the facts in a communication, so the more logically compelling those facts are, the more persuasion occurs.

Subliminal Advertising: RATS Incident

-A man in Seattle was watching a political advertisement on television that looked like a run-of-the-mill political spot in which an announcer praised Bush and criticized Gore. -But the viewer thought that he noticed something odd. He videotaped the ad the next time it ran and played it back at a slow speed, and as the announcer said, "The Gore prescription plan: Bureaucrats decide ..." the word RATS flashed on the screen very quickly. -The alert viewer notified officials in the Gore campaign, who quickly contacted the press. Soon the country was abuzz about a possible attempt by the Bush campaign to use subliminal messages to create a negative impression of Al Gore.

Persuasive Communication

-A message advocating a particular side of an issue

Classical Conditioning

-A stimulus that elicits an emotional response is repeatedly paired with a neutral stimulus that does not, until the neutral stimulus takes on the emotional properties of the first stimulus -EX: When you were a child you experienced feelings of warmth and love when you visited your grandmother. Her house always smelled faintly of laundry detergent and chicken soup. Eventually, either of those smells alone will trigger the emotions you experienced during your visits, through this process

Explicit and Implicit Attitudes: Robert

-A white college student who genuinely believes that all races are equal and abhors the very idea of any kind of racial bias. This is Robert's explicit attitude, in the sense that it is his conscious evaluation of members of other races that governs how he chooses to act. -Consistent with his explicit attitude, Robert recently signed a petition in favor of hiring a more diverse faculty at his university. Robert has grown up in a culture in which there are many negative stereotypes about minority groups, however, and it is possible that some of these negative ideas have seeped into him outside of his awareness. -When he is around African Americans, for example, perhaps some negative feelings are triggered automatically. If so, he has a negative implicit attitude toward African Americans, which is likely to influence those behaviors he is not monitoring or attending to, such as whether he makes good eye contact or how nervous he appears to be

Implicit Attitudes

-Attitudes that exist outside of conscious awareness, involuntary, uncontrollable, and at times unconscious evaluations -One way to measure is using the Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Affectively Based Attitudes

-Based more in feelings and values(basic religious and moral beliefs) than than in an objective appraisal of pluses and minuses -EX: Sometimes we simply like a car, regardless of how many miles per gallon it gets. -Can result from a sensory reaction, such as liking the taste of a certain food, or an aesthetic reaction, such as admiring a painting or the shape and color of a car.

Behaviorally Based Attitude

-Based on observations of how one behaves toward an object -According to self-perception theory, under certain circumstances people don't know how they feel until they see how they behave.

Cognitively Based Attitude

-Based primarily on people's beliefs about the properties of an attitude object -Allows us to classify the pluses and minuses of an object so that we can quickly determine whether we want to have anything to do with it -EX: A vacuum cleaner; Your attitude is based on your beliefs about the objective merits of various brands, such as how well they clean up dirt and how much they cost—not on more emotional considerations such as how sexy they make you feel.

Operant Conditioning

-Behaviors we freely choose to perform become more or less frequent, depending on whether they are followed by a reward or punishment -EX: A 4-year-old White girl goes to the playground with her father and begins to play with an African-American girl. Her father expresses disapproval, telling her, "We don't play with that kind of child." It won't take long before the child associates interacting with African Americans with disapproval, and therefore adopts her father's racist attitudes. -Attitudes can take on a positive or negative affect through either classical or operant conditioning

Explicit Attitudes

-Consciously endorse and can easily report -They are what we think of as our attitude when someone asks us a question like "What is your opinion on affirmative action?"

The success of various attitude-change techniques

-If an attitude is cognitively based, your best bet is to try to change it with rational arguments -If it is affectively based, you're better off trying to change it with emotional appeals

Peer Pressure

-Linked to people's values and emotions, playing on their fear of rejection and their desire for freedom and autonomy. -Many critical changes in attitudes and behaviors occur not in response to logic but via more emotional appeals. One possible defense is to extend the logic of McGuires inoculation approach to more affectively based persuasion techniques such as peer pressure

Emotions

-Our emotions can themselves act as heuristics to determine our attitudes. -Influence the way that people think about persuasive messages

Attitude Change with the Body

-Our physical environment and even our body posture play roles in the process of attitude change -EX: Sitting in a soft, cushy chair at the computer store just might make you more comfortable with the idea of spending more on your new laptop than you had originally budgeted.

Yale Attitude Change Approach

-People are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages, focusing on the source of the communication, the nature of the communication, and the nature of the audience -They studied "who says what to whom," looking at the source of the communication (how expert or attractive the speaker is), the communication itself (the quality of the arguments, whether the speaker presents both sides of the issue), and the nature of the audience (whether the audience is hostile or friendly to the point of view in question). -Useful information on how people change their attitudes in response to persuasive communications. -As the research mounted, however, a problem became apparent: Many aspects of persuasive communications turned out to be important, but it was not clear which were more important than others—that is, it was unclear when one factor should be emphasized over another.

Peripheral Route to Persuasion

-People are not motivated to pay attention to the facts; instead, they notice only the surface characteristics of the message, such as how long it is and who is delivering it. -People are swayed by things peripheral to the message itself

Why does Product Placement work?

-People do not always realize that someone is trying to influence their attitudes and behavior. -Our defenses are down; As a result, we don't generate counterarguments -Children are especially vulnerable.

Perceived Behavioral Control

-People's intentions are influenced by the ease with which they believe they can perform the behavior—perceived behavioral control. -If people think it is difficult to perform a behavior, such as remembering to use a condom when having sex, they will not form a strong intention to do so. -If people think it is easy to perform the behavior, such as remembering to buy milk on the way home from work, they are more likely to form a strong intention to do so.

Theory of Planned Behavior

-People's intentions are the best predictors of their deliberate behaviors, which are determined by their attitudes toward specific behaviors, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control -The best-known theory of when and how attitudes predict deliberative behaviors -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 three things: their attitude toward the specific behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control

Heuristic-Systematic Model of Persuasion

-Persuasive communication can cause attitude change: either systematically processing the merits of the arguments or using mental shortcuts or heuristics -Peripheral route to persuasion - A heuristic is a simple rule people use to decide what their attitude is without having to spend a lot of time analyzing every detail about the topic.

Fear-Arousing Communication

-Persuasive message that attempts to change people's attitudes by arousing their fears -EX: Showing pictures of diseased lungs and presenting alarming data about the link between smoking and lung cancer.

Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion

-Specifies when people will be influenced by what the speech says (the logical arguments) and when they will be influenced by more superficial characteristics (who gives the speech and how long it is)

Attitude Accessibility

-The strength of the association between an attitude object and a person's evaluation of that object, measured by the speed with which people can report how they feel about the object -When accessibility is high, your attitude comes to mind whenever you see or think about the attitude object.

Reactance Theory

-When people feel their freedom to perform a certain behavior is threatened, an unpleasant state of resistance is aroused, which they can reduce by performing the prohibited behavior -People do not like feeling that their freedom to do or think whatever they want is being threatened. When they feel that their freedom is threatened, an unpleasant state of reactance is aroused, and people can reduce this reactance by performing the threatened behavior (smoking, dating the person your parents told you to stay away from). -EX: Your server warns you, "careful, that plate is hot," but you decided to touch the plate anyways

Subliminal Messages

-Words or pictures that are not consciously perceived but may nevertheless influence people's judgments, attitudes, and behaviors -Are not just visual; but auditory as well such as messages to help people lose weight, stop smoking, raise self-esteem, and even shave a few strokes off their golf game.

Does forewarning people that someone is about to try to change their attitudes an effective tool against product placement, or persuasion more generally?

-YES -Alerting people about an upcoming attempt to change their attitudes makes them less susceptible to that attempt. When people are forewarned, they analyze what they see and hear more carefully and as a result are likely to avoid attitude change. -Without such warnings, people pay little attention to the persuasive attempts and tend to accept the messages at face value

Persuasive communication can change people's attitudes in two ways

1) Central Route 2) Peripheral Route

Three Components of Attitude

1) Cognitive: the thoughts and beliefs that people form about the attitude object 2) Affective: emotional reactions toward the attitude object 3) Behavioral: actions or observable behavior toward the attitude object.

Affective way to use Fear-Arousing Communication

1) Create enough fear to motivate people to pay attention to your arguments, but not so much fear that people will tune out what you say. 2) Include some specific recommendations about how to stop smoking so people will be reassured that paying close attention to your arguments will help them reduce their fear, then they are more likely to be motivated to analyze the message carefully and their attitudes via the central route

Once an attitude develops, it can exist at two levels.

1) Explicit- rooted more in their recent experiences. 2) Implicit- rooted more in people's childhood experiences

Where do Attitudes Come From?

1) Genes (temperament and personality) 2) Social experiences 3) Social Influence 4) Conditioning

The behavior we are trying to predict is by

1) Spontaneous 2) Planned

People infer their attitudes from their behavior only under certain conditions.

1st- Their initial attitude has to be weak or ambiguous. If your friend already has a strong attitude toward exercising, she does not have to observe her behavior to infer how she feels about it. 2nd- People infer their attitudes from their own behavior only when there are no other plausible explanations available. If your friend believes she exercises to lose weight or because her doctor has ordered her to, she is unlikely to assume that she runs and works out because she enjoys it.

Predicting Deliberative Behaviors

According to the 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 three things: There attitude toward the specific behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.

All of the following are true about attitudes except one. Which one is false? A) Attitudes rarely change over time. B) Attitudes are related to our temperament and personality. C )Under the right conditions attitudes predict people's behavior. D) Attitudes can be changed with persuasive communications.

Attitudes rarely change over time.

Affectively based attitudes grouped into one family

Because they: 1) Do not result from a rational examination of the issues 2) Are not governed by logic 3) Are often linked to people's values, so that efforts to change them challenge those values

A debate breaks out at the town hall meeting over whether local real estate taxes should be raised in order to pay for a new public school building. Which of the following individuals is most likely to process the persuasive information raised during this debate through the peripheral route? A) Michael, who is a real estate executive whose business is affected by local tax rates B) Lindsay, whose daughter still has 3 years left of public school C) Gob, who has no school-aged children of his own and owns no real estate D) Buster, a local teacher, who is working in a temporary classroom because the current school building is too small for the number of students enrolled

Gob, who has no school-aged children of his own and owns no real estate

On a survey, Marquel reports that he agrees with wearing a seatbelt. According to the theory of planned behavior, which of the following would be the best predictor of whether Marquel will wear a seatbelt on a given day? A) His best friend, Trevor, who is always talking about how important it is to wear a seatbelt, is in the car with him. B) Marquel believes that it is hard to remember to wear his seatbelt. C) His attitude toward seatbelts is not very accessible. D) He generally agrees that safe driving is important.

His best friend, Trevor, who is always talking about how important it is to wear a seatbelt, is in the car with him.

Which of the following is true regarding cross-cultural comparisons of advertising? A) Korean ads are more likely than American ads to portray women and men in a state of complete or partial undress. B) Korean magazines have fewer ads than American magazines. C) Korean ads are more likely than American ads to focus on family and concern for others. D) Korean ads are more likely than American ads to focus on utilitarian products like shoes.

Korean ads are more likely than American ads to focus on family and concern for others.

You are trying to sell a new electronic toothbrush at the airport to busy, distracted travelers. Which of the following strategies is least likely to be successful at getting people to buy a toothbrush? A) Put up a large banner featuring a picture of your friend who looks like Brad Pitt posing with the toothbrush. B) Make a large sign that says, "9 out of 10 dentists recommend this toothbrush!" C) Stop people and say, "Do you know that this is the toothbrush that is used the most by Hollywood stars?" D) Make up a flier that gives convincing reasons why the toothbrush is so good.

Make up a flier that gives convincing reasons why the toothbrush is so good.

Which of the following is the best example of a deliberative behavior? A) Telling a salesman who calls you on the phone that you aren't interested in the item he's selling B) Making a decision regarding where you want to travel over your next vacation break C) Deciding at the last minute to skip a class because your friends just told you that they're going to a movie you want to see D) Buying a candy bar from the rack next to the check-out line at the grocery store

Making a decision regarding where you want to travel over your next vacation break

Subjective Norms

People's beliefs about how others they care about will view the behavior in question. Knowing these beliefs can be just as important as knowing the person attitudes when it comes to trying to predict someones intentions

Predicting Spontaneous Behaviors

Sometimes we act spontaneously, thinking little about what we are about to do. Attitudes will predict spontaneous behaviors only when they are highly accessible to people

Which of the following is the best explanation for why product placement can be effective at changing attitudes? A) It usually leads to a reactance response. B) It tends to operate via the central route to persuasion. C) Cognitively based efforts at persuasion tend to have longer-lasting effects. D) The audience is often unaware that an effort at attitude change is occurring.

The audience is often unaware that an effort at attitude change is occurring.

Briñol and Petty (2003) conducted a study in which participants tried on headphones while listening to a persuasive editorial. Half of the participants shook their head side-to-side while listening; the other half nodded up-and-down while listening. Which group of participants expressed the greatest agreement with the arguments expressed in the editorial at the end of the study? A) The head-nodders who heard strong arguments in the editorial. B) The head-nodders who heard weak arguments in the editorial. C) The head-shakers who heard weak arguments in the editorial. D) The head-shakers who heard strong arguments in the editorial.

The head-nodders who heard strong arguments in the editorial.

Attitude Inoculation

The more people have thought about the pro and con arguments beforehand using this technique, the better they can ward off attempts to change their minds using logical arguments.

Specific Attitudes

The more specific the attitude toward the behavior in question, the better that attitude can be expected to predict the behavior.

The motivation to pay attention to the arguments

The personal relevance of the topic, because they are more willing people are to pay attention to the arguments in a speech and therefore the more likely they are to take the central route to persuasion.

When Fear-arousing communications fails

They but do not provide specific ways to help them reduce that fear;If they are so strong that they overwhelm people. If people are frightened, they become defensive, deny the importance of the threat, and unable to think rationally about the issue

Which of the following conclusions is the most consistent with research on the heritability of attitudes? A) We often inherit a temperament or personality that renders us likely to develop similar attitudes to those held by our genetic relatives. B) Our attitudes are shaped by our surroundings and do not seem to have any genetic component to them. C) Our attitudes are inherited and dictated by our genetic makeup, with little influence from environmental factors. D) Fraternal twins are just as likely to share attitudes as are identical twins.

We often inherit a temperament or personality that renders us likely to develop similar attitudes to those held by our genetic relatives.

When is attitude accessibility a particularly good predictor of behavior? A) When the attitude in question is general B) When the attitude in question is an unpopular one C) When the behavior in question is deliberative D) When the behavior in question is spontaneous

When the behavior in question is spontaneous

Suppose that while you are watching a film at a movie theater the words "Drink Coke" are flashed on the screen at speeds too quick for you to see consciously. According to research on subliminal perception, which of the following is true? A) You will get up and buy a Coke, but only if other people start to do so first. B) You will be less likely to get up and buy a Coke. C) You will get up and buy a Coke, but only if you prefer Coke to Pepsi. D) You will be no more likely to buy a Coke than if the subliminal messages were not flashed.

You will be no more likely to buy a Coke than if the subliminal messages were not flashed.

Fear-arousing persuasive communication is most likely to be effective when A) a plan for reducing the fear is provided. B) very high levels of fear are induced. C) very low levels of fear are induced. D) the target of the communication is a utilitarian or functional object.

a plan for reducing the fear is provided.

People's emotional reaction to a target is referred to as the ___________ component of attitudes A) behavioral B) operant C) cognitive D) affective

affective

The best way for an advertisement to change an affectively-based attitude is to use a __________ appeal. A) cognitive B) affective C) fact-filled D) behavioral

affective

Peer pressure effects tend to be linked most often to what type of attitude? A) affectively based attitudes B) cognitively based attitudes C) negative attitudes D) inoculated attitudes

affectively based attitudes

Research on public service ads designed to promote healthy behavior indicates that such efforts A) are more effective at changing the attitudes of men versus women. B) are most effective when they are subliminal. C) are more effective via television than print ads when their target is young people. D) almost always fail.

are more effective via television than print ads when their target is young people.

The concept of attitude inoculation indicates that we are better able to resist a later attempt to change our attitudes when we are first exposed to arguments that A) lead us to pay more attention to peripheral cues. B) are weakened versions of arguments we might hear later. C) support our existing attitude. D) prevent us from considering alternative viewpoints ahead of time.

are weakened versions of arguments we might hear later.

In trying to predict deliberative behaviors, what three considerations must we evaluate? A) attitude accessibility, explicit attitudes, implicit attitudes B) classical conditioning, operant conditioning, self-perception theory C) cognitively based attitudes, behaviorally based attitudes, affectively based attitudes D) attitude specificity, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control

attitude specificity, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control

Adults' tendency to experience happy, nostalgia-filled feelings when they hear the music of an ice cream truck can be best explained by the relationship of attitudes to A) classical conditioning B) self-perception C) values D) operant conditioning

classical conditioning

Which component of an attitude is most related to the process of examining facts and weighing the objective merits of a target? A) operant B) behavioral C) cognitive D) affective

cognitive

Paige wants to buy a puppy. She does some research and decides to buy an English Springer Spaniel rather than a Great Dane because they are smaller, more active, and good with children. Which type of attitude influenced her decision? A) affectively based attitude B) explicitly based attitude C) behaviorally based attitude D) cognitively based attitude

cognitively based attitude

Which of the following is not one of the three factors considered by the Yale Attitude Change Approach? A) message source B) nature of the communication itself C) fear D) nature of the audience

fear

All of the following are examples of ways to resist persuasion except A) making people immune to change of opinions by initially exposing them to small doses of arguments against their position. B) role-playing using milder versions of real-life social pressures. C) forbidding people to buy a product. D) warning people about advertising techniques such as product placement.

forbidding people to buy a product.

One way to change someone's attitude is to get that person to give a speech arguing against his or her actual viewpoint. This strategy can lead to attitude change through cognitive dissonance as long as _________ is/are present. A) insufficient justification for making the speech B) two-sided arguments C) a motivated audience that feels a sense of personal relevance C) peripheral cues to persuasion

insufficient justification for making the speech

Under which of the following conditions would people be most likely to vote for a political candidate? They A) know little about the candidate's policies but have positive feelings toward him or her. B) see television ads supporting the candidate while they are distracted by their children. C) see subliminal ads supporting the candidate on national television. D) like the candidate's policies but have negative feelings toward him or her.

know little about the candidate's policies but have positive feelings toward him or her.

Research on subliminal influence in advertising demonstrates that subliminal efforts at persuasion are A) more effective in individualistic versus collectivistic cultures. B) more effective in collectivistic versus individualistic cultures. C) more effective than people assume them to be. D) less effective than people assume them to be.

less effective than people assume them to be.

Serafina, an advertising executive, is trying to figure out the best way to market a product that does not evoke a strong emotional, personal response from people. Her most effective strategy would be to adopt a campaign that focuses on A) avoiding behavioral references. B) subliminal strategies. C) creating such an emotional connection. D) logical, fact-based arguments.

logical, fact-based arguments.

The major finding of LaPiere's (1934) classic study on attitudes and behavior involving prejudice and hotel/restaurant owners is that A) the less accessible an attitude is, the more likely it is to shape behavior. B) when it comes to racial prejudice, people's attitudes are particularly strong predictors of their behaviors. C) people are more prejudiced than their self-reported attitudes would lead us to believe. D) people's attitudes are not always reliable predictors of their behaviors.

people's attitudes are not always reliable predictors of their behaviors.

The physical attractiveness of the source of a persuasive communication would be best described as which of the following? A) systematic cue B) central cue C) rational cue D) peripheral cue

peripheral cue

Newman is currently overweight, but as a child he was quite thin. His current explicit attitude toward the overweight is likely to be more ______ and his current implicit attitude toward the overweight is likely to be more _______. A) cognitively based; behaviorally based B) negative; positive C) behaviorally based; cognitively based D) positive; negative

positive; negative

Which of the following concepts relates to the ironic research finding that the stronger the warning against a certain attitude or behavior, the more people sometimes wish to exhibit it? A) implicit attitude B) reactance theory C) peer pressure D) attitude inoculation

reactance theory

Emilia would be most likely to pay attention to facts about the danger of AIDS during a school assembly and remember the facts for a long time if A) the speaker emphasized statistical information about AIDS throughout the world. B) the speaker emphasized how the disease has spread in her community and there isn't anything distracting Emilia from listening. C) the speaker emphasized how the disease has spread in her community and at the same time Emilia's best friend is whispering to her about a big party that weekend. D) the speaker is a nationally known expert on AIDS.

the speaker emphasized how the disease has spread in her community and there isn't anything distracting Emilia from listening.

People will be most likely to change their attitudes about smoking if an antismoking advertisement A) uses success stories of how people quit smoking. B) uses graphic pictures of the damages of smoking on the body and then provides specific recommendations on how to quit smoking. C) uses extremely graphic pictures of how smoke can harm the body and warns of the risks of smoking. D) gives people subliminal messages about the risks of smoking as well as recommendations of how to quit.

uses graphic pictures of the damages of smoking on the body and then provides specific recommendations on how to quit smoking.