Social Psychology Exam 2

How does the media endorse stereotypes

People who watch more tv tend to endorse more racially prejudiced attitudes, assume that women have more limited abilities than men, and overestimate the prevalence of violent crime

What kind of persuasion works for immediate acquisence of an audience

Peripheral route- they are not very motivated or attentive

Audience characteristics definition

Characteristics of those who receive a persuasive message, including need for cognition, mood, and age

When ability to process something is low what happens

(arguments in a persuasive message are being presented too quickly or are hard to comprehend- we're more apt to rely on easy-to-process, peripheral cues associated with the message, such as the credentials of the message source

Placed in stressful social situations, people with friends feel

Showed a milder stress-related cardiovascular response to the challenging tasks

Elaboration likelihood model definition

A model of persuasion maintaining that there are two differing routes to persuasion- the central route and the peripheral route

What might a peripheral route argument do in relation to a red meat argument

A person might argue "an expert says its bad to eat" or "there are many arguments agaisnt it" or "a lot of people dont eat it"

Peripheral route definition

A route to persuasion wherein people attend to relatively easy-to-process, superficial cues related to a persuasive message, such as its length or the expertise or attractiveness of the source of the message

Central route definition

A route to persuasion wherein people think carefully and deliberately about the content of a persuasive message, attending to its logic and the strength of its arguments, as well as to related evidence and principles

Credibility of a message's source can sway opinions under what circumstances and example

Circumstances that promote the peripheral route to persuasion- when the topic is of low personal relevance to the audience or the audience is distracted

Guilt seems to lead to an enhanced persuasion when

So long as the communication offers people a way to alleviate some of their guilt

People with low need for cognition do what

Are persuaded more by easier- to-process peripheral cues

How does fear play into persuasion

Fear- eliciting persuasive messages that provide information that can be acted on can be highly effective

High personal relevance did what for the argument and what route of persuasion

Made participants be persuaded by the strength of the arguments (the central route to persuasion)

What helps us respond to short term stress- immediate threats to survival

Activation of the HPA axis and the accompanying release of cortisol into the bloodstream

What is a problem with advertising

Advertising can be directed at young children

Sleeper effect definition

An effect that occurs when a persuasive message from an unreliable source initially exerts little influence but later causes attitudes to shift

Message characteristics definition

Aspects, or content, of a persuasive message including the quality of the evidence and the explicitness of its conclusions

How are attractive people persuasive

Attractive sources are particularly persuasive when the message isn't personally important to the people haring it and when those people don't have much knowledge of the domain

People who are low in motivation or ability will

Be unlikely to discern the strength of the arguments because they're only noticing peripheral cues of the message- so whether of not they change their attitudes is less affected by the argument strength

Short= term stressors can what

Become chronic, triggering, excessively high levels of cortisol that damage our health

Sources who express their views how are more persuasive

Certainty and confidence

Source characteristic definition

Characteristics of the person who delivers a persuasive message, such as attractiveness, credibility, and certainty

What are aspects of the peripheral route arguments

Cues, such as the communicators expertise or credibility can be a form of evidence when processed. Persuasion occurs when the person is swayed by these cues without engaging in much thought

Recent studies have found what pertaining to the sleeper effect

Delayed persuasion by a credible source who is initially linked to a weak message but down the road is dissociated from it

People with a weak need fro cognition do that

Don't find thought and contemplation that much fun

Example of listening selectivley

During presidential elections people are more inclined to subscribe to and read newspapers, blogs, and websites that support their preferred candidate and avoid those that support opposition

Agenda Control definition

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

The Elaboration likelihood model tries to get you to think about how the message will make the responder...

Elaborate on it- think deeply about the message or process it mindlessly

Advertisements play into persuasion how-so

Even if specific advertisements don't succeed at getting us to buy specific products, they could still sway us to believe that personal happiness lies in materialistic pursuits

How does social media play into persuasion

Even though social media is not the first thing you think of about persuasive arenas, persuasion may as well be occurring more subtly while people are using such forms of media for other purposes

People respond to stress more effectively if they

Have an increased sense of control and they also had a more optimistic outlook and engaged in better health practices

When we connect to people we are what

Healthier

David Spiegel did what

His study is probably one of the most dramatic evidence of the health benefits of social connection

Prior knowledge makes people engage how

Makes people engage with persuasive messages though the central route, thereby leading them to scrutinize those messages carefully

How do nonverbal cues play into persuasion

How confident (or not) we feel about the thoughts we have in response to a persuasive appeal can also come from nonverbal sources- whether our posture is upright or slouching, or our tone of voice is confident or uncertain

What is one way confidence can play into our thoughts

How confident we feel about our thoughts can also arise from our perceptions of the accuracy of a thought or just from how clear a thought is in our mind

What is a real-world application of the effect of persuasion in relation to age- in court

How seriously the courts should consider the testimony of young children is a major issue in light of the fact that their attitudes can be readily altered by clever attorneys interested in winning a case, not getting at the truth

What effects does cortisol have on the body

Increases heart rate and blood pressure, distributing blood to appropriate muscle groups involved in the fight- or- flight response to stress.

How do different cultures respond to ads

Individual-oriented ads were more effective with American participants and that the collective-oriented ads were more effective with Korean Participants Persuasive messages appeal to independence may be more effective among higher-class individuals, whereas messages conveying interdependence themes may be more effective among lower-class individuals

Attend selectively means to

Information that confirms their original attitudes- we tune into information that reinforces our attitudes, and we tune out information that contradicts them

How do you work with an audience to increase persuasion

It is important to match the characteristics of the persuasive message to characteristics of the intended audience

What elements of someones culture can...

Like social class, leading people from lower-class backgrounds to suffer more frequently from almost every kind of heath problem

People of lower socioeconomic status may have what

Lower heath and be more prone to health risks

People with a high needed for cognition do what

More persuaded by high-quality arguments and are relatively unmotivated by peripheral cues for persuasion

People with a greater deal of knowledge are

More resistant to persuasion, their beliefs and habits (and sometimes emotions) are tied up with their attitudes, and thus their point of view tends to be fixed

What determines whether we will engage in central or peripheral processing in response to a persuasive message? Two Factors

Motivation and ability

Ads that try to get people to shift their political allegiances

Must convince voters to abandon deep commitments

The self-validation hypothesis accounts for what finding

Nodding led students to feel greater confidence in the unfavorable thoughts they had in response to the weak arguments they were listening to, leading them to feel less favorable toward the headphones

What does nodding do to persuasion

Nodding while listening to the strong arguments led to greater confidence in the most favorable thoughts participants generated, leading to more favorable attitudes toward the people wearing headphones and nodding- in weak arguments condition, students who nodded their heads were actually less persuaded than those who shook their head side to side

Langer and Rodin preformed a study with elderly people and plants that did what

One group had plans they took care of, the other group had plants that the staff took care of- participants on the floor that emphasized personal control showed greater increases in happiness compares with those on the neighboring floors, they were more inclined to attend a free movie, ten times more likley to participate in a game proposed by the staff

There are two basic routes to persuasion what are they

One involving systematic elaboration for the persuasive arguments and the other characterized by less effortful processing of relatively superficial cues

What are social connections vital to

Our physical, mental, and emotional health``

Those with a strong need for cognition do what and example

People for a strong need for cognition like to think, puzzle, ponder, and consider multiple perspectives on issues- this is the kind of person you might observe on the subway reading Scientific American or working though sodoku puzzles on their smartphone

Some persuasive appeals will be more affective when...

People in certain contexts process persuasive messages rather mindlessly and effortlessly and on other occasions deeply and attentively

What does the elaboration likelihood model mean with two routes?

People in certain contexts process persuasive messages rather mindlessly and effortlessly and on other occasions deeply and attentively

How do jurors judge credibility

People judge how credible eyewitnesses are based on the confidence they express when they give their testimony

How does thinking about your thoughts effect persuasion

People thinking about their thoughts to have a fuller understanding of the dynamics of persuasion

What kind of persuasion involves long lasting attitude change

Persuasion through the central route- the end result is attitude change that is more enduring, more resistant to persuasion, and more predictive of future behavior

What does ability mean to persuasion

Process the message in depth: when we have sufficient cognitive resources and time, we're able to process persuasive messages more deeply, in general

How do attractive people promote change

Promote attitude change though the peripheral route

What is another connection between social class and health

Rank and power

What typically causes chronic stress

Rumination

Metacognition definition

Secondary thoughts that are reflections on primary thoughts (cognitions)

Our minds sometimes respond selectively to information in a way that maintains our initial point of view- broke down into two groups

Selective attention and selective evaluation

How does the media affect us

Several reviews suggest that the media have only a small effect on what we buy, whom we vote for, and whether or not we adopt healthier habits

Through rumination what happens

Specific stresses become chronic ones

How can pictures be powerful sources of persuasion

Vivid, flesh and blood victims are often more powerful sources of persuasion than abstract statistics

Thought polarization hypothesis definition

The hypothesis that more extended thought about a particular issue tends to produce a more extreme, entrenched attitude

Self-validation hypothesis

The idea that feeling confident about our thoughts validates those thoughts, making it more likely that we'll be swayed in their direction

Why do people process information through the central route

The issue has a great deal of personal relevance, they should be sensitive to the strength of the arguments- swayed when the arguments are strong but not when they're weak

Its easier to persuade someone when what

The person you're trying to woo is in the right mood- more successful when the mood of the message matches the mood of the audience

Psychological Stress Definition

The sense that challenges and demands surpass one's current capacities, resources, and energies.

Identifiable victim effect definition

The tendency to be more moved by the vivid plight of a single individual than by a more abstract number of people

Rumination definiton

The tendency to think about a stressful event repeatedly

Messages are higher quality when

They appeal to core values of the audience

What are aspects of central route aruments

They attend to the logic and strength of the argument and evidence presented in the message, they rely on relevant information and their own experiences, memories, and knowledge to evaluate the message

What do people with more sense of control have

They enjoy better health and well-being

What have studies shown about people who are more optomistic

They tend to have greater happiness and well-being and they enjoy better health as well.

Lower socioeconomic status individuals may construe their lives in terms of occupying positions of subordinate status...

This may be the construal that damages their health- ladder measure example

What can chronic stress lead to

Ulcers, heart disease, cancer, and even cell death in the hippocampus and consequent memory loss- high levels of cortisol damage different cells and organs in the body.

What happens when we have doubts about our thoughts

We might disregard the thoughts entirely or not even and up endorsing an opposing attitude

A highly credible source linked to a weak message does what

Weakness of the message will surely hurt persuasion initially, but the message can get dissociated from the credible source over time so that persuasion is ultimately effective in the long run solely because of the source's credibility

What does vividness to do a message

When information is vivid- colorful, interesting, and memorable- it tends to be more effective

Shared attention and what persuasion does it result in

When people perceive that they're attending to a stimulus- a televised political speech- with others they're inclined to process the stimulus more deeply, resulting in persuasion via the ELM's central route

How does going against self interest effect an argument

When someone argues for a position contrary to obvious self-interest, the source of the message is seen as more sincere

How are messages more persuasive and example

When sources argue against their own self-interest- a prison inmate advocating longer prison sentences is more persuasive than a message in which the same prisoner argued for shorter sentences-

When can source credibility be taken as a strong argument

When the audience happens to be highly motivated to be able to think carefully source credibility can be taken as a strong argument in favor of moving toward the position the credible source is endorsing

When did a student pay more attention to what was going to be on the test

When the message was personally relevant to the students- that is, when the exam was to be implemented the next year and these students would have to take it- they were motivated to pay attention to the strength of the arguments. When they wouldn't have to take the test themselves- the strength of the argument didn't matter as much

Thought polarization hypothesis example

When they stated their opinions about the same issue a second time, they routinely gave stronger ratings, both opponents and proponents became polarized

What happened in David Spiegel's study concerning emotional connection and breast cancer

Women with breast cancer engaged in a weekly session of emotionally supportive group therapy and other patients were assigned to a nonintervention control group- those in the group therapy condition survived 18 months longer than women in the other group

What is the stress hormone

cortisol

Perceptions of control and optimism can...

lead to a healthier life

Low personal relevance did what for the argument and what route of persuasion

led participants to be persuaded by the expertise of the source (the peripheral route to persuasion)

Our minds sometimes respond selectively to information in a way that does what

maintains our initial point of view

With each jump on the ladder of the class hierarchy people are....

more likely to enjoy better health

What does motivation mean to persuasion

to devote time and energy to a message: when the message has personal consequences- it bears on our goals, interests, or well-being- we're more likley to go the central route and carefully work through the arguments and relevant information

Psychologists propose that there are how many ways to persuade people

two

Attractiveness of a source is especially persuasive when

under circumstances that sway people to focus on peripheral cues

Carl Hovland and his colleagues conducted a study that broke down persuasion into three elements or three w's

who- source of the message, what- content of the message itself, whom- intended audience of the message