Social Psych Lecture Notes PDF

What is social psychology: The scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people (Allport, 1985) Also includes study of how people: Think about each other Feel about...

What is social psychology: The scientific study of the way in which people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people (Allport, 1985) Also includes study of how people: Think about each other Feel about each other Relate to each other Construal - the way in which people Why study social psych? perceive, comphend and interpret the social world Curiosity *All construals are chemas, not all People are fascinating! schemas are construals Desire to understand the self and others Some of the most important problems are social problems, and we can help solve them: Environmental issues Political issues Health issues Relationship issues Folk wisdom - founded in anecdotal experience and reasoning A few problems with relying entirely on folk wisdom or philosophy when trying to explain social behavior: Problem #1: Explanations are speculative; how do you determine if they are correct Problem #2: Explanations for the same process can contradict each other Social psych addresses limits of folk wisdom and philsophy using empiricism & real world observations Social psychologists believe it is most important to understand individuals’ construals of the social environment People often fail to recognize that others interpret situations differently than they do Popularity of decisions is often biased towards their own beliefs and choices When dealing with stressful events, people are more likely to cope well if they perceive: Setbacks as challenges rather than threats Their surrounding social relationships as supportive and positive Social Psychology vs. Sociology: Both are interested in how bheaviour is influenced by the social environment Difference 1: Level of analysis Sociology - how groups behave within society Social Psych - how individuals behave within society Difference #2: What they try to explain Sociology: General principals concerning how societies operate Social Psych: Who individuals tend to operate, regardless of social class, culture etc. Social Psychology vs. Personality Psychology: Difference 1: General variables of interest Difference #2: What matters for predicting behavior Personality Psych: What aspects of the person Personality psychology: Stable, internal personality makes people unique and different traits Social Psych: Psychological processes people Social psychology: Social situations (internal or have in common that can be influenced by the social world external)  Explaining Social Behaviour People often explain behaviour of others in terms of dispositional/personality factor Fails to account for situational factors that may be guiding the behaviour Fundamental Attributuon Error and/or Correspondence Bias Basic Human Motives What basic motives underlie our thoughts, feelings, and behaviour? Teh need to be accurate The need to feel good about ourselves The need to belong Other motives and needs Baumeister & Leary (1995) argue that motives and needs are considered fundamental when they: Have affective qualities and direct cognitive processing Yield bad outcomes when thwarted (e.g., poor health/adjustment) Influence a broad variety of behaviors Apply to all people (though it does not need to apply to all people equally!) The need to be accurate - one of the hallmarks of hemanity is the ability to reason. People are generally motivated to see the world as it is, but some limits: Limit 1 - We lack information or lack misinformation Limit 2 - We lack the time and energy The need to feel good about ourselves - people are motivated to maintain high feelings of self-esteem People often bend their perceceptions of reality to maintain their self-esteem e.g. justifying past behaviour The need to maintain selfesteem can sometimes explain why people do seemingly odd or surprising things The need to belong - the social world exists because people need to feel connected to others Frequent, non-aversive interactions with others Explains why we form enduring, close relationships Influences our construal and memory of social events Other motives and needs Biological needs (e.g. hunger, thrist, sleep) can be very motivating, esspecially when people are in a state of deprivation Fundamentally, people are motivaed by the need to survive and reproduce Conflicting motives - when fundemental motives pull us in different directions, things get especially interesting Summary Social psychology is the study of how other people influence our thoughts, feelings, and behavior Implications for important aspects of life and relevant social issues Social psychologists believe subjective situational factors are often key determinants of behavior Several basic human motives can help explain how people construe their social world  Porn mentions : Y 5 %5610 nich? Methodology Don't * scant I write - i second guess yourself Basic vs Applied Research Basic Designed : to improve theories and increase understanding Applied : Designed to help understand and solve real-world problem What is science?Constructs tests, , refining theories about observable world Theory : Orangized set ofprinciples that can be used to explain observable phenomena Hypothesis : A testable statement or idea about the relationship between 2 or more variables Science as a n iterative process of disproving theory a Science can be a deductive process where theories are used to inform hypo that a re tested with quantitative data If. hyp is confirmed, there is more confidence in theory. If not, theory must be modified or rejected Science as a generative inductive process Not all theories come from pre- existing theories. Theories are often developed inductively by recognizing patterns of association within observations and then speculation about why those patterns occur Research methods in social psychi 3 major research designs : 1. Observational. correlational 2. Experimental 3 studies - can use more than one What the methods have in common : Rep sample is key : Random Selection is ideal but convience is sampling more common - Also need operational definitions that specify how variables are measured & nanipulated Observational Method : Sometimes in observational studies, researchers ask two or more people to code the same data Interrater (interjudge) reliability is the level of agreement between the different coders Increases the trustworthiness and validity of the observational data Ethnography : Researchers observe a specific groug from the inside observation but usually involves participants also use interviews - can Archival studies : Researchers try to understand a group by observing accumulated documents of that group Correlational methods Goal: To systematically measure and assess the association (connection, relationship, etc.) between one variable and another variable. E.g. People who are high in anxious attachment tend to be low in self-esteem Goes beyond simply documenting thoughts, feelings, and behavior Allows you to test hypotheses You can understand the relation between Variables A and B by calculating a correlation coefficient (e.g., Pearson r) Correlation coefficients indicate the strength and direction of the association between two variables This allows you to mathematically “predict” the value of Variable A given the value of Variable B ' UNDERSTANDING CORRELATIONS: STRENGTH The strength of a correlation indicates the degree to which values on Variable A can be predicted from values on Variable B Strength ranges from 0 to 1 r =.00 r =.30-.50 r >.50 r = 1.00 UNDERSTANDING CORRELATIONS: DIRECTION The direction of a correlation indicates whether the association between values on Variables A and B trend in the same direction or in opposite directions Positive: A and B move in the same direction Negative: A and B move in opposite directions Combining strength and direction, correlations can range from -1 to 1 SURVEYS/QUESTIONNAIRES Researchers often use surveys/questionnaires when interested in correlations Advantage #1: Easy to design, administer, and score Advantage #2: Allow researchers to assess associations between variables that may be difficult to observe Disadvantage: Accuracy of participant responses Note...correlations can be calculated from any data (including observations), and questionnaires are often used in experiments too EXPERIMENTAL METHOD Goal: To determine causal relationship between two or more variables Experiments are the only method that allow researchers to conclude that changes in Variable A cause (influence, impact, affect, etc.) changes in Variable B To conduct an experiment, you must: Manipulate the independent variable(s) (IVs) Control extraneous variables (i.e., hold constant any variables that might yield a spurious association) Keep all individual and environmental conditions the same across conditions except the manipulated variable Randomly assigning participants to condition is often used for this purpose Observe the effect of the independent variable(s) on the dependent variable(s) (DVs) STUDY VALIDITY Internal validity reflects the extent to which conclusions about causal relationships are warranted Achieved by varying only the IV(s) and keeping everything else in the study the same Internal validity can be improved by random assignment such that all participants have an equal chance of ending up in any of the different experimental conditions Helps to evenly distribute different participants’ personalities, backgrounds, etc. External validity reflects the extent to which a study’s results can be generalized to other situations and other people Vital in order to figure out if results hold in “real life” A cover story can sometimes help by misdirecting participants from a study’s true purpose to increase the external validity of a study. Researchers try to make the often artificial setting of studies as realistic as possible Mundane realism: How similar a study is to a real-life situation? Psychological realism: How similar the psychological processes triggered in a study are to psychological processes triggered by a real-life situation?  Poru/sex mention 2 kinds of thinking : Low effort High effort - Automatic controlled -Fast Slow/effortful habits logical - - - emotional - reflection - impulses -problem solving values - Planning - Bargh's 1994 "Four Horsemen of Automaticity" - Awareness - Efficiency Intentionality - controllability - Awareness : Awareness can refer to a few different things: Awareness of a stimulus that triggers a response Awareness of potential influences on subjective states Awareness of a mental process (a chain of mental events) In automatic thinking people are typically unaware of things that guide their thoughts, feelings, and behavior Efficiency : Efficiency refers to how much a process depends on attentional resources Automatic thoughts and heuristics are considered very efficient People tend to trust categorizations, self-judgments, attributions, etc. quickly and with little effort Think “trusting your senses/intuition/gut” Intentionality : Intentionality refers to the degree to which people are in control of initiating processes Automatic thoughts, feelings, and behavior are triggered unintentionally controllability : Controllability refers to the degree to which people are in control of stifling or stopping processes When people lack motivation or ability, certain thoughts, feelings, and behavior are more likely to occur uncontrollably Note: Intentionality and controllability both have to do with how much people (believe that they) are in control of their thoughts, feelings, and behavior HOW DOES AUTOMATIC THINKING WORK? Often through the activation and use of schemas, which help us connect new situations to our prior experiences Schemas are mental structures that organize our knowledge about the social world Influence what we notice, think about, and remember, and they guide our behavioral responses Content is determined by lived experience (culture) Difficult to change (see self-fulfilling prophecies) WHY DO SCHEMAS EXIST? Help people organize and make sense of the world Fills gaps in knowledge (e.g. Kunda, 1997) Useful when people encounter brief, confusing, or ambiguous information Help people figure out what is going on WHICH SCHEMAS ARE APPLIED? Schemas must be “activated” to be applied! 1. Chronic accessibility 2. Current goals / motivations 3. Recent experiences (aka priming) people are not always aware that they have been primed HOW TO PRIME To prime, an experience has to be directly applicable to schema. Various tasks have been used to prime schemas: Sentence scrambles E.g., “steady hands the was boat” versus “unsteady hands the was boat” Words or pictures Others SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES People’s schemas/expectations about others can influence how they behave toward those others This, in turn, can lead others to act in a manner consistent with the original schemas/expectations, this is known as a self-fulfilling prophecy Many of the processes involved in self-fulfilling prophecies are automatic EMBODIED COGNITIONS? Bodily sensations might activate certain schemas because of mental connections underlying metaphors: Citrus Windex (morality schema: reciprocity, trust, volunteering) (Liljenquist et al. 2010) Physical warmth (friendliness of stranger) (Williams and Bargh, 2008) Instability (relationships expectation for celebrities / desired traits for partner) (Kille et al., 2012) MENTAL STRATEGIES AND SHORTCUTS Automatic thinking has also been investigated from the perspective of heuristics Heuristics: Mental shortcuts are used to make reasonably good judgments quickly and efficiently Helpful, but sometimes lead people astray Often happens outside of awareness AVAILABILITY HEURISTIC Judgments are made based on how easily things come to mind Unfortunately, availability does not always reflect representativeness E.g., news reports that over-represent violent crime influence perceptions of personal safety Both good and bad in most professions (e.g. doctors) REPRESENTATIVENESS HEURISTIC Classification of something based on how similar it is to a typical case People will tend to ignore base rate information if the case seems to very representative of some category Ties to stereotypes ANCHORING HEURISTIC Judgments are made based on an initial piece of information Can be a big influence in negotiations, marketing, etc. AUTOMATIC THINKING “STYLES” Cultural differences in automatic thinking: Analytic thinking: People focus on the specific properties of objects, without considering the surrounding context Holistic thinking: People focus on the overall context, particularly how objects relate to one another HIGH-EFFORT THINKING Controlled thinking is essentially the opposite of automatic thinking Conscious, deliberative, etc. Requires mental energy Limited capacity Controlled thinking can (sometimes) override automatic thinking or impulses Controlled thinking is absolutely essentially for Learning from the past COUNTERFACTUALS Mentally altering some aspect of a past event as a way of imagining what might have been Additive counterfactual: Engaging in something that didn’t occur originally (“If only I had done...”) Subtractive counterfactual: Removing something that occurred originally (“If only I hadn’t done...”) Can sometimes help people cope better in future situations but dwelling on counterfactuals seems to compound misery Counterfactual thinking is more likely to occur when we experience a negative event that could have been easily avoided (a “close call”), and the more counterfactual thinking we engage in following negative events the more distressed we tend to be. E.g., Earning a 48% versus a 25% on an exam Although an example of controlled thinking, counterfactual thoughts are not always intentional or controllable Rumination and depression MENTAL PRACTICE Envisioning engaging in a particular behavior, usually to help prepare for a task THOUGHT SUPPRESSION Trying not to think about something Monitoring (automatic) vs. operating processes (controlled) Ironically, sometimes the target thoughts become more accessible when trying to suppress them Cognitive load will disrupt the operating processes but not the monitoring processes! WHAT IS SOCIAL PERCEPTION? The study of how we form impressions of other people and make inferences about them In other words, how we observe and try to explain the behavior of others Why does this matter? Helps people understand and predict the social world Evolutionary perspective: Accurate social perception ensures our survival NONVERBAL BEHAVIOR We get a lot from what others say verbally, but accurately reading nonverbal behavior can be just as (or more) important Facial expression Body posture/movement Tone of voice Use of touch Gestures Eye gaze Nonverbal behavior can communicate emotions, attitudes, and personality Can also substitute for verbal messages People tend to mimic the nonverbal behavior of others May be “hard-wired”: mirror neurons Empathy: feeling what others feel FACIAL EXPRESSIONS People are not always accurate at figuring out facial expressions Context matters! Impressions of a target face are influenced by the faces around them. Social cues / information matter too. Affect blends where one part of the face registers one emotion but another part registers a different emotion can make it hard to decipher faces. Cultural display rules can prohibit the public expression of certain emotions, or strong emotions generally Interesting gender effect: People are faster and more accurate to judge anger in a male face and happiness in a female face Evolutionary and cultural reasons CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN NONVERBAL BEHAVIORS Some nonverbal behavior differs across cultures The interpretation of eye-gaze varies (interest vs. disrespect) The physical proximity we expect between strangers varies The meaning of some gestures (emblems) varies IMPLICIT PERSONALITY THEORIES People tend to make assumptions about the types of personality traits that go together (schemas) E.g., If someone is beautiful, they are also kind, intelligent, and more moral. Spontaneous trait inferences: Judgments of personality traits tend to happen automatically, with no conscious intention Low self-esteem Shy If you like X EXPLAINING BEHAVIOR Attribution theory: Seeks to explain how we infer the causes of our own and other people’s behavior People explain the causes of behavior in two ways: Internal / dispositional attribution: Behavior was caused by something about the person External / situational attribution: Behavior was caused by something about the situation Kelley’s (1967) covariation model takes attribution theory a step further We use different types of information (consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency) to decide whether Person A’s behavior toward Person B was caused by internal or external factors COVARIATION MODEL Consensus information: How do others behave toward Person B? When consensus is high (everyone behaves this way towards B), then it’s probably not something internal to A that makes A behave this way towards B. Distinctiveness information (unusualness): How does Person A respond to others? When distinctiveness is high (A only behaves this way towards B), then it’s probably not something internal to A that makes A behave this way towards B. Consistency information: How often does Person A’s behavior toward Person B occur across time and situations? When consistency is high... People make an internal attribution for Person A’s behavior if the behavior is low in consensus and low in distinctiveness. People make an external attribution for Person A’s behavior if the behavior is high in consensus and high in distinctiveness. When consistency is low, we can’t make a clear internal or external attribution We tend to make a “special circumstance” external attribution ATTRIBUTIONS IN TWO STEPS Step 1: We make an automatic internal attribution (e.g., a spontaneous trait inference) Step 2: We (sometimes) consider situational factors that may have played a role This can change the initial internal attribution into an external attribution REVISITING CORRESPONDENCE BIAS Correspondence bias: The tendency to infer that the behavior of others is caused by dispositional factors Also called the fundamental attribution error Occurs when we engage in Step 1 of the attribution process but not Step 2 Why do people engage in correspondence bias? People are salient, the situation is not One consequence of correspondence bias: People can (erroneously) believe that victims have control over their situation when the victim doesn’t. Such internal attributions result in less sympathy and sometimes overt hostility towards victims. Internal attributions for victimhood can also be form of motivated attribution: belief in a just world: beliefs that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people ACTOR/OBSERVER DIFFERENCE People tend to believe that others’ behavior is caused by dispositional factors, but their own behavior is caused by situational factors E.g., Exam performance The actor/observer tendency varies by culture Collectivistic cultures are less likely to make dispositional attributions of others Why does this exist? Perceptual salience Actors and observers have different information available to them Actors have more consistency and distinctiveness information about themselves SELF-SERVING ATTRIBUTIONS Our successes and failures engender different attributions Success: Internal, dispositional Failure: External, situational This tendency also varies by culture Very low or no self-serving bias in some collectivistic cultures The pattern can even reverse in some cultures! Why do we engage in self-serving attributions? The need to feel good about ourselves  Sex/Porn mention: ↓ The Self #5 04 : Self-Awareness Rouge Test Humans pass passed Dolphins 18-24 months Asian Elephants Apes Magpies Self-Schemas Self-Schemas/Self-concepts are organized bodies of knowledhe about the self, includingg attitudes, likes/dislikes & personality traits What we notice What we think about What we remember Self-Concept Clarity High S-C C if self-schemas are: Held with certainty (sure of who you are) Perceived to be consistent and stable Low S-C C (or sellf-concept confusion) lack firm knowledge of who you are Low self-esteem, depression prone, more neurotic, less aware of their own internal states, chronic self-analysis/ rumination Can be influenced by situational factors such as relationships Cultural Differences in Self-Knowledge In individualist cultures (Canada), people tend of have an independant view of self Defined by own thoughts, feelings, and behaviour Independance and uniqueness are valued In collectivist cultures (Japan) people tend to have interdependant view of the self Deinfed in terms of one's relationships to others Self is determined by the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours of other interdependence is valued (therefore less consistent/stable)  Lower self-concept clarity but linkage to self-esteem is weaker Knowing Ourselves How do we gain self-knowledge? At least four pruimary ways: Introspection Observing our own behaviour Social interaction Comparing ourwiths with others Introspection Involves looking inward and examining the "inside info" that only you have about yourself People doesn't rely on introspection as often as expected Helps to have trigger: mirrior reflections, video recordings, etc. Limited utility People not always consciously aware of the reasons for their thoughts, feelings, ans behaviour Self-awareness theory - when people become aware of themselves and evaluate themselvess by comapring their behaviour to their own personal standards Behaviour can conflict with personal standards, which causes discomfort This distress mptivates distractions and self-destructive behaviours Other times it can be pleasant by highlighting accomplishments Can remian us to follow moral codes Cultural Diff - collectivist cultures seem to be more "self-aware" While it is easy to identifyy how we feel right now, it is difficult to accurately remember how we felt retrospectively and to know why People reply on causal theories or schemas/beliefs about why they engage in particular behaviours or feel the way Observing Our Own Behaviour Self-perception theory - When our attitudes are uncertain or ambiguous we infer inner feelings by observing our behaviour and the situation in which it occures We evaluate whether our behaviour reflects how we truly feel or if something about the situation we're in makes us behave a certain way Related to intrinsic vs extrinsic motivations When people come to believe that they do something doe wxtrinsic rewards, they persist less in that behaviour and ultimately achieve less Social Interaction People have different "selves" that develop in response to different social situations Self-monitoring - a personality trait reflecting an ability to modify one's behaviour in response to situational pressures, opportunities, and norms People with high self-monitoring are mroe likely to regulate their expressive behaviour and self-presentation to better adapt to the situational expectations The looking-glass self - We see ourselves through the eyes of other people and incorporate their views into our self- concept Implication: who we think we are in general or in a particular situation is partially determined by the people around us Michelangelo phenomenon - the process through which close others can help us move closer (or further) from who we ideally want to be Three shaping methods: 1. Affirming - Helpful // Positive and encouraging (yet realistic) feedback 2. Failing to affirm - Neither particularly helpful nor particularly harmful // Irrelevant feedback 3. Disaffirming - Harmful // Negative or counter-ideal feedback Comapring Ourselves With Others Social-Comparision Theory - Learning about our abilties and attitudes by comparing ourselves with other people We socially compare when there is no objective standard to measure ourselves against It is usually the most informative to compare ourselves with others who are similar to us on the attribute or dimensions in question  Porn count +2 Self-Control The self allows us to self-regulate or act in accordance with our goals and direct our behaviour, choices, plans for the future, etc. Self-control is the capacity to self-regulate can help us uverride impulses and modify our behaviour Dispositional (trait) self-control Relatively stable amount of self-control State self-control Variable amount of self-control Self-regulatory resource modeal argues that self control is a limited resource susceptible to depletion (ego depletion) In general, low self-control (dispositional or state) yields negative outcomes such as: Less academic success Impaired ability to to control anger or agression Less healthy interpersonal relationship Tendency to be less helpful to strangers Tendenct to use porn in inappropriate places (work, school, etc.) Is low self-control ever good? Yes, low self-control can sometimes be adaptive and yiel prosocial outcomes If gut reaction to a situation is appropirate, high self-control can impaire or impede the expression of those feelings. Therefore low self-control can bypass our filters and our tendenct to overanalyze certain situations Bolstering self-control Make implementation intentions, or make specific plans regarding how you will obtain your goals and avoid distractions Remove distractions from your environment The ego depletion perspective aruges that just as people can strengthen their muscles, people can strengthen their self-control Use theor non-dominant hand in mundane tasks Regulate habitual speech patterns (avoid sentences that begin with the word I, say yes instead of yeah, etc.) Overcoming Ego Depletion Problems caused by ego depletion can be counteracted in many ways Humor, laughter or other psotive emotions Cash incentives Sugar sweetened lemonade Self-Evaluation Self-esteem - how we feel about ourselves Self-esteem has both cognitive and affective components Cognitive: Beliefs about self-worth Affective: Feelings towards the self High self-esteem is generally thought to be adaptive and healthy but correlation does not equal causation Potential consequences of the "Self-Esteem Movement" in education Self-Esteem Vs Narcissism Having high self-esteem is not the same thing as being narcissistic Meausring Self-Esteem Self-esteem can be measured both implicitly and explicitly Explict Self-esteem - influenced by self-presentation concerns Measured through self-report - e.g. Rosenberg's Self-Esteem Scale Implicit self-esteem - arguably more resistant to self-presentation concerns, and thought to better reflect our unconscious feelings toward ourselves Measured through implicit tests like name-letter tasks or the IAT Two Types of Self-Esteem High explicit self-esteem can manifest in two ways Secure self-esteem: High explict + high implicit Defensive self-esteem: High explicit + low implicit  Secure self-esteem is stable and resistant to threat, whereas defensive self-esteem is fragile and vulerable to threat Defensive self-esteem is an aspect of narcissism (which also invloves entitlement, lack of empathy, etc.) Social Comparisons Impact Self-Esteem Downward social comparison - Comparing yourself to someone who is worse than you Self-protective/self-enhancing strategy The worse-off someone can be a past self We feel good when making a DSC only if we don't feel vulnerable to the worse-off person's negative outcomes Upward social comparison - Comparing yourself to someone who is better than you Usually makes us feel worse about ourselfs (e.g. threatens our self-esteem) Can be motivating if we're focused on our "actual" or "usual" self (vs. our "best" self) Porn +1 Social comparison theory is why many people believe social media and porn is destroying our self-esteem and our relationships Exception - the effects of DSCs and USCs are reversed when the person we're comparing ourselves to is our romantic partner Close others become included in the Self-Esteem As A Function Of Social Evaluations Sociometer Theory - self-esteem is a gauge that monitors the extent of our social acceptance or rejection Low self-esteem individuals are more willing to join social interactions when they've been given positive feedback from a group Links to self-fulfilling prophecies Self-Enhancement Believing that our skills and attributes are better than average helps us to maintain high levels of self-esteem Describes the motivational tendency for people to hold unrealistically positive views of themselves Individualist culture thing People from collectivist cultures are more likely to engage in self-effacement, the tendency to have a negative view of one-self Failure feedback leads to more self-effacement in collectivist cultures than individualist cultuures Self-Verification People seek verification and confirmation on their sense of self, regardless of whether their self-views are positive or negative We're mtoivated to maintain consistent self-views Why do we want our self-views verified? It is unsettling and confusing to have our self-views "disconfirmed" S-C Clarity Awkward and uncofmrtable to interact with people who view us differently than we view ourselves Desire for self-verification can conflict with the desire for self-enhancement Self-Enhancement Vs. Self-Verification Ideally, we want both to align We want people to "get" us and to see us in a positive light The need for self-enchancement conflicts with the need for self-verification we seem to prefer self-enhancement feedback from "experts" when it comes to their domain of expertises, otherwise we tend to prefer self-verification feedback ATTITUDES AND ATTITUDE CHANGE WHAT IS AN ATTITUDE? Attitude - An evaluation of a person, object, or idea Can be positive, negative, or both (ambivalence) Can also be neutral Attitudes have three components (sources): Affective component: Emotional reactions Cognitive component: Thoughts and beliefs Behavioural component: Actions and observable behavior AFFECTIVELY-BASED ATTITUDES COGNITIVELY-BASED ATTITUDES Do not result from rational examination of issues Focus on objective facts/merits/properties, the pluses Not governed by logic and minuses, etc. Reasoned arguments don’t really have a big Attitude is determined by the balance of positives influence and negatives Can stem from important personal or moral values Can feel positively about something/someone (positive Trying to change affective attitudes can affective attitude), even if we have negative beliefs challenge people’s moral values about them (negative cognitive attitude) BEHAVIORALLY-BASED ATTITUDES E.g., Dating the “bad boy” Stem from people’s observations of how they behave toward something or someone TYPE OF ATTITUDE MAY BE RELATED TO THE VALENCE When attitudes are negative toward a particular group, they often have a stronger cognitive basis A group is believed to threaten a person’s value system; or is seen as competition for resources, etc. Immigrants and atheists displacing white Christians in US? When attitudes are positive toward a particular group, they often have a stronger affective basis Attitudes are typically a blend of all three EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT ATTITUDES Explicit attitudes: Consciously endorsed, easily reported Usually assessed with scales Implicit attitudes: Involuntary, uncontrollable, and more difficult to verbalize (unconscious?) Possible that we are aware of our implicit attitudes Usually assessed in other ways (body langues, IAT, physiological responses, etc. THE IAT Relies on cognitive interference from suppressing “incorrect” responses (like the Stroop effect) Categorizing judgments of words or images (5 blocks) Concept Judgments Attribute Judgments Liberal versus Conservative Good (e.g., marvelous, superb) Canadian versus Foreign Bad (e.g., tragic, horrible) Caucasian versus African-Origin Block 1 - Learn how to categorize a concept // easy visual diff like gay vs straight Block 2 - Learn how to make attribute judgments // easy word diff good vs bad Block 3 - Concept/Attribute judgement pairing // sort gay or good vs straight or bad Block 4 - Learn new location of the concepts // visual switched Block 5 - Concept/Attributes judgement pairing 2 // sort straight or good vs gay or bad Implicit attitude is found through the reaction time difference between Block 3 and Block 5 If you favor Straight people over Gay people you should respond faster to Block 5 (Straight people paired with good) than to Block 3 (Straight people paired with bad) Can also examine the rate of errors Commonly used to study implicit attitudes towards black Americans. What is it used to measure? Criticisms? Validity? Associations between concepts May be contaminated by It predicts behaviour (independent of and positive or negative valence familiarity explicit measures) Strength of unconscious Cultural knowledge vs. Particularly useful for predicting stereotypes personal endorsement behaviour in socially sensitive Implicit Self-Esteem contexts (e.g. discrimination) THE NAME-LETTER TASK Based on Name-Letter Effect People tend to favor letters in their name over other letters in the alphabet People rate each letter of the alphabet e.g. "How aesthetically pleasing is this letter?” The degree that you favor name initials over other letters in the alphabet predicts: Self-esteem Depression Romantic satisfaction and longevity (LeBel & Campbell, 2009)? WHEN DO ATTITUDES PREDICT BEHAVIOR? The theory of planned behavior claims that the best predictor of planned, deliberate behavior is intention Intentions are determined by: Specific attitude(s) toward the behavior Subjective norms Perceptions of the attitudes of others Perceived behavioral control Tophat Questions: It's Friday night and Gerald is going out with some friends. He has always wanted a Explict matches Conscious boyfriend and believes that approaching receptive men at the bar is one way to meet Implicit matches Involuntary people (he's obviously not on Grindr). His friends seem to have no problem with this and have always encouraged him to try his luck when they spot a cute guy in the crowd. Unfortunately, however, Gerald believes that he lacks the social skills and will only embarrass himself if he meets someone new. Gerald is not planning on talking to anyone new tonight because: d) He has low perceived behavioural control ATTITUDE CHANGE Even though attitudes don’t always predict our behavior, people will try to change our attitudes and hope that the behavior they want will follow Persuasive communication - Some medium of communication that advocates a particular point of view Ads provide an example of persuasive communication in everyday life The Yale Attitude Change Approach (1950s) suggests that whether people change their attitudes is a question of “Who said what to whom”: Source of the communication NATURE OF AUDIENCE The person or source delivering the communication is Listeners are often persuaded to a greater extent if they: more persuasive when they are perceived as: Are distracted during the communication Credible Have lower intelligence Trustworthy Have moderate self-esteem Attractive Younger (18-25) rather than older Likeable Nature of Communication: The communication itself is more persuasive when it: Does not seem to be designed to influence attitudes Is two-sided (i.e., represents both sides of an argument) and refutes the arguments of the side that opposes the view you’re advocating Is longer (more arguments) PROCESSING PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATIONS Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo) People can be influenced by: What is being said How it is being said Validity Credibility Logic Attractiveness Strength of arguments etc. Length of argument etc. The effectiveness of one type of persuasion as compared to the other varies depending on the motivation and ability of the audience to pay attention and process the persuasive communication  When motivation and ability are high people reflect on the merits of the argument Central Route (what is being said) When motivation and ability are low people use mental shortcuts and surface characteristics Peripheral Route (how it is being said) FEAR AND ATTITUDE CHANGE Sometimes persuasive messages will try to induce attitude change by arousing fear Too much fear is not ideal Fear works in moderate amounts Motivates people to pay attention Most effective when specific recommendations to enable change are included in the message ADVERTISING Many of us think that advertising works on everyone but ourselves But…when a product is advertised, sales tend to increase Must work on some level for large numbers of people However, the impact of advertising is generally small Media messages are much less impactful than real-world interaction It’s hard to make someone buy something they hate The type of ad that works best depends on the basis of the attitude For affectively-based attitudes, using emotion is best For cognitively-based attitudes, using rational arguments and personal relevance is best SUBLIMINAL MESSAGES Words or pictures, intended to persuade, that are not consciously perceived No empirical evidence supports the idea that subliminal messages in advertising in everyday life exerts influence over consumers’ purchases, but sometimes subliminally priming people with certain products can alter their behavior RESISTING PERSUASIVE MESSAGES Warn people in advance that someone is about to try to change their attitude Attitude inoculation: Make people immune to attitude change attempts by exposing them to “small doses” of weak arguments for that position and make them defend their position COGNITIVE DISSONANCE Feelings of discomfort caused by the realization that your behavior is inconsistent with your attitudes, or that you hold two (or more) conflicting attitudes Basically, dissonance is about feeling conflicted Often occurs when we do something that makes us feel stupid or immoral The discomfort of dissonance motivates us to try and reduce it REDUCING COGNITIVE DISSONANCE People try to reduce cognitive dissonance in a few ways: Change cognition(s) to be more in line with the dissonant behavior Change behavior to be more in line with the dissonant cognition(s) Add new (sometomes mistaken) cognitions POST-DECISION DISSONANCE Simply making a decision can trigger cognitive dissonance When this happens, we typically enhance the attractiveness of the thing we chose, and devalue the thing(s) we rejected The need to reduce post-decision dissonance is stronger when the decision is more permanent Post-decision dissonance can occur when making moral decisions If we choose to act immorally, we sometimes change our value systems to support that decision E.g., “Once a cheater always a cheater” JUSTIFICATION OF EFFORT We like things more because we put in effort to obtain them Wasting effort for little or no reward makes us feel foolish. To avoid dissonance, we tend to evaluate rewards more positively when we expend effort to get it. Serious implications for hazing. JUSTIFYING DISSONANCE Experiencing dissonance and motivation to reduce dissonance is partly a matter of attributions. External justification: Explaining our dissonant behavior in terms of things outside ourselves (e.g., to get a reward, to avoid hurting someone’s feelings) Does not contribute to unpleasant feelings of discomfort Internal justification: If we can’t find an external reason for dissonant behavior, we attribute it to ourselves and try to reducing discomfort by changing something about ourselves (e.g., attitudes, behavior) COUNTER-ATTITUDINAL ADVOCACY Occurs when we express an opinion or attitude that counters our private beliefs or feelings If we can identify external justification, we experience no dissonance and don’t change our attitudes If we can’t find external justification, we find or create internal justification To reduce the dissonance produced by the internal attribution we come to believe the counter-attitudinal opinion or attitude that we expressed THE POWER OF MILD PUNISHMENT Perhaps surprisingly, sometimes the key to lasting attitude change when you want someone to stop doing something is mild punishment Severe punishment provides too much external justification JUSTIFYING BAD DEEDS According to cognitive dissonance theory, when we hurt someone we sometimes come to dislike or hate that person more Justifies our cruelty E.g., Dehumanizing victims of war