Psychology of Behavior and Attitudes | Lecture

Behavior and Attitudes  Consider Smoking Bans  Smoking rates are down across the country.  Which do you think is the more effective reason:  Increased public awareness of the health risks of smoking…  …or the increased hassle associated with smoking bans, higher taxes and public di...

Behavior and Attitudes  Consider Smoking Bans  Smoking rates are down across the country.  Which do you think is the more effective reason:  Increased public awareness of the health risks of smoking…  …or the increased hassle associated with smoking bans, higher taxes and public disapproval?  Which Comes First?  Do we act based on our attitudes…  …or do we infer our attitudes from our behaviors?  “We are good at finding reasons for what we do, but bad at doing things we have reason to do.”  Attitudes  Favorable or unfavorable evaluations  The attitude-behavior complex has three dimensions; ABC:  Affect—feelings  Behavioral tendency  Cognition—Thoughts  For Example…  Consider the attitude of prejudice.  Cognition—stereotypes  Affect—prejudicial dislike  Behavior—discrimination  Do Our Attitudes Predict Our Behavior?  In a word, no.  Moral hypocrisy—when behaving in accordance with our attitudes comes at a cost, we don’t do it.  You can rarely change behavior by changing attitudes.  Sometimes It Does Work  Attitudes ARE likely to predict behavior when:  Social influence/fear of criticism is minimal  When situational influences are minimal  When the attitude is very specific to the behavior  When attitudes are made immediate and powerful  The Riddle of Implicit Attitudes  Implicit attitudes are those that we may not be aware we have.  Sometimes they are completely different from our explicit attitudes.  For example, many people are explicitly against racism.  However, we may have ingrained implicit racist attitudes that we have absorbed without knowing it.  The Riddle of Implicit Attitudes  Implicit attitudes appear linked to the amygdala, which governs emotional reaction.  The Implicit Association Test can reveal implicit attitudes.  However, both the IAT and the entire idea of implicit attitudes are controversial and not completely accepted.  Usually, Behavior Comes First  We do something, and then come up with a reason for it.  Role playing—we feel compelled to play our social roles  After the fact, we justify those roles.  Not everyone falls into social roles, or will fall into all roles.  The most dangerous and seductive roles are power-based ones.  Saying Becomes Believing  We often change what we say to please our audience.  We then end up believing the thing we just said.  You can manipulate people’s attitudes by getting them to agree to something.  The Foot-in-the-Door  To get people to do a big favor for you…  …start by asking for a small one.  Once the person has behaved that way for you before, they will develop the attitude that your cause is a just one.  The Lowball Technique  Someone lures you in with a low-cost option or attractive incentive… ...once you agree…  …they remove the incentive or raise the cost.  You continue to comply, because you have already initiated the behavior.  Your Best Counters?  Commit to nothing “on the day”.  Even if you intend to agree or comply, wait a while.  Changing your mind doesn’t make you a flake, a mooch, or unreliable.  Evil Begins with a Whisper  You can even get some people to commit immoral acts if you build up to it.  You can also manipulate liking this way.  If we do something bad to people we like, it starts to make us dislike them.  The more harm you do, the easier it becomes to do more.  Fortunately...  The reverse works as well.  Once you have internalized a “moral” stance, you stay that way.  Mild deterrents actually work better than severe ones, because they force the person to internalize the belief.  Doing nice things for people also increases liking.  Legislating Morality  Smoking bans, forced desegregation, court-ordered gay marriage, enforced speed limits…  Can you force the behavior to get the attitude shift?  Why Does it Work This Way?  Three major theories of attitudes  Self-presentation theory—we try to always remain consistent, even when it would be stupid to do so.  Self-justification theory—we match attitudes to behavior because not doing so makes us uncomfortable  Cognitive Dissonance  When we hold two conflicting cognitions, it makes us feel bad.  For instance, a behavior that goes against our previous attitude.  One of the two must give.  Since the behavior is already done, the attitude usually loses.  Cognitive Dissonance  Selective exposure—avoiding information against our attitudes  We also change our justifications after the original ones are proven misguided.  We also create justifications if the behavior doesn’t have sufficient ones.  Cognitive Dissonance  When faced with a tough decision, we experience dissonance.  Once we choose, we lessen the dissonance by doubling down on our choice.  Why Does it Work This Way?  Self-perception theory—we don’t know ourselves well, so we use our behaviors as evidence  “I’m doing the thing again, so I must like the thing.”  Beware Overjustification  Beware of offering someone an unnecessary reward for doing something they already enjoy.  That makes it work, and they might lose their intrinsic motivation.  In Sum…  Behavior and attitudes have a complicated relationship.  Repeated behavior leads you to adopt the appropriate attitude.  This can be used to manipulate you.  Attitudes have multiple parts.  You must change all three to create true attitude change.