Psychology Chapter on Attitudes

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Questions and Answers

What are the three components of attitudes known as ABC?

Affective, Belief, Action

Action, Behavior, Cognition

Agnostic, Belief, Cognition

Affective, Behavior, Cognitive (correct)

What characterizes explicit attitudes?

Subconscious and conditioned

Automatic and uncontrolled

Consciously endorsed (correct)

Less conscious awareness

What is a notable characteristic of implicit attitudes?

Easily shared with others

More susceptible to social desirability bias

Require introspection to access

Automatic and less accessible (correct)

What is a limitation of the Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT)?

It may reflect cultural associations rather than true attitudes. Signup and view all the answers

According to Gawronski's study, what is one factor influencing the correlation between implicit and explicit attitudes?

The motivation to respond honestly Signup and view all the answers

In the context of attitudes, what does the term 'social desirability bias' refer to?

Conforming responses to please others Signup and view all the answers

How are implicit attitudes typically measured?

Reaction time and response speed Signup and view all the answers

How can implicit attitudes differ from explicit attitudes according to the content provided?

They are influenced by different types of content. Signup and view all the answers

What is a characteristic of the cognitive miser approach to decision making?

Relying on heuristics to conserve cognitive resources Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following best defines illusory correlations?

Believing that two unrelated variables are connected Signup and view all the answers

What factor influences whether someone acts as a cognitive miser or a naïve scientist?

The time available before needing to respond Signup and view all the answers

What does the actor-observer bias refer to?

Internal attributions for personal behavior and external for others' Signup and view all the answers

Which statement accurately describes the naïve scientist approach?

It seeks to understand situations on an individual basis. Signup and view all the answers

How do our attributions affect our beliefs about why things happen?

They involve internal and external perspectives on events. Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following is a feature of the motivational tactician framework?

It suggests flexibility in choosing cognitive strategies. Signup and view all the answers

Why do cognitive misers tend to make quick decisions?

They aim to conserve cognitive resources. Signup and view all the answers

What is a key characteristic of self-serving bias?

Making external attributions for bad outcomes Signup and view all the answers

Which age groups exhibit a larger self-serving bias?

Children and older people Signup and view all the answers

How do Western cultures generally attribute their successes in competitive scenarios?

To internal dispositional factors about their abilities Signup and view all the answers

In the context of self-serving bias, how do children and older individuals perceive positive and negative outcomes?

Internal attributions for positive outcomes and external for negative outcomes Signup and view all the answers

What role does genetics play in the development of attitudes according to Eaves & Hatemis (2008)?

They play a role similar to personality traits. Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following factors is less significant in the development of attitudes according to the provided content?

Parental social learning Signup and view all the answers

Which cultural group is mentioned as having the highest self-serving biases?

USA, China and Korea Signup and view all the answers

How do individuals with anxiety and depression typically handle attributions according to the concept of self-serving bias?

They externalize successes and internalize failures. Signup and view all the answers

What is a schema primarily used for in everyday life?

To reduce cognitive load and save time Signup and view all the answers

What does representative heuristics refer to?

Judging how similar something is to an existing category Signup and view all the answers

What are availability heuristics most concerned with?

The ease with which an event comes to mind Signup and view all the answers

What can result from relying on availability heuristics for decision-making?

A skewed sense of commonality based on familiar events Signup and view all the answers

In the context of schemas, what is a script?

A fixed sequence of expected actions or events Signup and view all the answers

What was the outcome of Schwarz et al. (1991) regarding recall and belief?

Easier recall correlates with increased belief in the truth of the information Signup and view all the answers

What is one major limitation of using heuristics in problem-solving?

Heuristics simplify complex problems too much Signup and view all the answers

How do schemas assist individuals beyond just processing information?

They help in forming expectations about experiences Signup and view all the answers

What does Bandura's social learning theory emphasize about learning behaviors?

New behaviors can be acquired by observing and imitating others. Signup and view all the answers

How does classical conditioning affect attitudes according to Olson & Fazio (2001)?

Pairing positive stimuli with a neutral stimulus can change attitudes. Signup and view all the answers

What effect does repeated exposure to a new stimulus typically have on an individual's attitude?

Reduces fear and fosters a more positive attitude. Signup and view all the answers

What phenomenon increases due to repeated exposure, improving the ability to perceive an object?

Perceptual fluency Signup and view all the answers

According to Zajonc (1968), what happens to attitudes toward foreign words with increased exposure?

More exposure is linked to a positive happy meaning. Signup and view all the answers

How do self-perception theories suggest individuals infer their attitudes and feelings?

By observing their own behavior in a situation Signup and view all the answers

What is cognitive dissonance primarily associated with?

Discomfort from inconsistent cognitions Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following is NOT a strategy to alleviate cognitive dissonance?

Dismissing the behavior as insignificant Signup and view all the answers

According to research, what effect does selecting between two difficult choices have on the perceived desirability of the options?

It increases desirability for the chosen option only Signup and view all the answers

What is a common result of justifying one's own actions, according to cognitive dissonance theory?

Increased likelihood of repeating the justified behavior Signup and view all the answers

Which of the following best describes a consequence of cognitive dissonance when making choices?

Strengthening of positive feelings toward the chosen option Signup and view all the answers

Which study observed college students justifying their actions after participating in a boring discussion group?

Aronson & Mills' 1959 study Signup and view all the answers

What behavioral outcome might result from cognitive dissonance in social situations?

Distancing oneself from outperforming friends Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

Attitudes

Attitudes have three components: cognitive (thoughts), affective (feelings), and behavioral (actions).
An attitude is an evaluation of people, objects, or ideas.
Example: Behaviours: Pet the Puppy, Attitude Object: A puppy, Affect: Feeling of adorableness, Cognition: Belief of friendliness.

Types of Attitudes

Explicit Attitudes: We are consciously aware of them, endorse them, and can be influenced by social desirability bias (lying to please others). We are in control and can share them with others and use introspection.
Implicit Attitudes: Less accessible to conscious awareness, less control over them, and less susceptible to social desirability bias. They are a subconscious out of our awareness; we can't control them; they are automatic. They can conflict with explicit attitudes and are measured by reaction time and responses.
Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT): Measures speed of response, measures implicit attitudes outside our awareness.
Criticisms of the IAT: Validity issues, might just measure cultural associations and not actual attitudes. It might just be measuring the first thought that is conditioned into your mind but not actually reflecting how we think today; reliability issues, results vary with repeated testing.

Implicit and Explicit Test

Study by Gawronski (2019) found people are aware and can access their implicit attitudes.
There is low correlation between implicit and explicit attitudes because of motivation and opportunity influencing attitudes and different contents existing in both implicit and explicit attitudes.
Participants can predict their own scores, and individuals claim to be aware of their implicit attitudes.

Schemas

A schema is a mental representation of everyday things.
Mental blueprint of how we expect things to be or behave.
Scripts: Schemas that represent sequences of events (e.g., going to a restaurant).
Schemas reduce cognitive load, save time, and allow us to go beyond the given information.
Example: Feng Min knows she has to line up to order fast food because she's been to many fast food establishments before.

Heuristics

Heuristics are mental shortcuts used in decision-making and judgments.
Reduce problem-solving and form attitudes quickly.

Representative Heuristics

How similar something is to a category we already have.
Does an example belong to a particular group based on our mental representation of the category?
Ignores base rate statistics and facts.

Availability Heuristics

Judges the likelihood of something based on how easily it comes to mind.
The more common an event is, the easier it is to think of.
Less reliable for infrequent events.
Example: Meg believes there are more school shootings in the United States than in China.

Schwarz et al. (1991) Heuristics Assertive vs. Non-Assertive

German female students recalled words.
Easier to recall information, more you believe it to be true.
Challenging to recall information, less likely to believe it as true.
Manipulation check confirmed the difficulty of recalling examples affected belief.

Illusory Correlations in Heuristics

Believing there is an association between two things when there isn't; believing two things are connected when they are not.
Example: Yui believes that people act more strangely on full moons than other days.

Two Types of Thinking

Cognitive Miser: A way to process information and make decisions that conserve cognitive resources by using heuristics and schemas.
Naïve Scientist: Clear and reasonable explanations of what is happening and approaches each situation individually; analysis of information and evidence with flexible thinking and spending time to make decisions.

Attitude 3 Attributions

Attribution Theory: We like to know or attribute a course to why things occur; it's our beliefs about why things happen.
Attribution Theory: People seek to know why things happen (events).
Example: Bad mark on an assessment: I didn't study hard enough (external/situational). I'm not smart enough (internal/dispositional).

Attribution Errors

Actor-Observer Bias: External attributions for our own behavior (more info), internal attributions for others' behavior (less info).
Self-Serving Bias: Attributions to support a positive view of ourselves; good things are internal, bad things are external.

Attitude Origins

Origin of Attitudes look to the source of attitudes; some sources include experiences, direct experience or mere exposure, social learning, genetics, attitudes and classical conditioning, attitudes and operant conditioning.
Exposure to novel things initially produces fear but more exposure reduces it and fosters interest and greater positive attitudes.
Social Learning Theory new behaviors can be acquired by observing and imitating others.
Classical Conditioning stimulus that elicits emotion paired with a neutral stimulus, eventually neutral elicits emotion; positive or negative stimuli can change attitudes even without explicit awareness.
Operant Conditioning rewarded behavior becomes more frequent, punished behavior less frequent.

Cognitive Dissonance

Discomfort caused by holding two conflicting thoughts or behaviors.
We resolve dissonance by: changing behavior, changing thoughts, adding new thoughts/justifications.
Example: Cheating on an exam to justify behavior.

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Description

Explore the intricate components and types of attitudes in psychology. This quiz covers explicit and implicit attitudes, their definitions, and measurement methods like the Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT). Test your understanding of how attitudes influence behavior and cognition.