Social Psychology Created by David Silverman Attitude Formation

Social Psychology Created by David Silverman

Attitude Formation and Change One main focus of social psychology is attitude formation and change. An attitude is a set of beliefs and feelings. The entire field of advertising is devoted to studying people’s attitudes. The mere exposure effect states that the more someone is exposed to something, the more that person will come to like it. The central route to persuasion involves a persuasion method that focuses on the facts of the message a person is receiving. If a television ad shows scientific facts to support its product, it is using the central route to persuasion. The peripheral route involves other aspects of the message to persuade. The attractiveness of the presenter, background music, or anything else not related to the actual content of the message.

Attitude and Behavior Knowing a person’s attitude does not always predict their behavior. Richard La. Piere- Conducted a study in 1934 concerning racial discrimination. During the 1930’s, Asians were highly discriminated against in the United States. Richard traveled to hotels and restaurants with an Asian couple to study how they were treated. Surprisingly, there was only one instance of the couple being treated poorly due to race. He then sent a follow up survey to the same places, and 90% said they would not serve Asians in their responses. Cognitive dissonance theory is based on the idea that people are motivated to have consistent attitudes and behaviors. When they do not, they experience mental tension or disturbances.

Compliance Strategies The foot-in-the-door phenomenon suggests that if you can first get people to agree to a small request, they will be more likely to agree another request that is much larger. The door-in-the-face strategy argues that if people refuse a large request, they are more likely to agree to a smaller request. Once your friend agrees to let you borrow $5, he or she will be more likely to give you more money in the future. After refusing to lend you $100, your friend might feel bad so instead she lends you $20. Another common strategy involves using norms of reciprocity. People seem to think that when someone does something nice for them, they should do something nice in return.

Attribution Theory Attribution theory tries to explain how people determine the cause of what they observe. If your friend Davey told you he got a perfect score on his math test: you might think that Davey is just very good at math. In that case, you have made a dispositional or person attribution. If you conclude that Davey has always been a math whiz, you have made a person attribution, and a stable attribution (or a person-stable attribution). if you think that Davey studied a lot for this one test you have made a personunstable attribution. if you feel that Ms. Mahoney (Davey’s math teacher) is an easy teacher, you have made a situation-stable attribution. If you think that Ms. Mahoney is a tough teacher who gave one easy test, you have made a situation-unstable attribution.

Harold Kelley proposed a theory that explains the kind of attributions people make based on three factors: Consistency means how similarly a person acts in the same situation over time. Distinctiveness refers to how similar this situation is to other situations in which we have watched Charley. Consensus means to factor in how others in the same situation have responded. Self-fulfilling prophecy- the idea that the expectations we have about others can influence the way others behave.

Attributional Biases When people make errors they often make the same type of errors. When looking at the behavior of others, people tend to overestimate the importance of dispositional factors (what our personalities are genetically predisposed to be like) and underestimate the role of situational factors. This tendency is known as the fundamental attribution error. You might be having a bad day when you meet someone because you got in a fight with your parents. The person you are meeting is likely to think you’re an unfriendly person, even if this is not the case.

Cross-cultural psychologists have argued that the fundamental attribution error is less likely to occur in collectivist cultures than in individualistic cultures. In an individualistic culture, (America) the importance and uniqueness of the individual is stressed. In more collectivist cultures, (Japanese, North Korea) a person’s link to various groups is stressed (family, companies). Research suggests that people in collectivist cultures are less likely to commit the fundamental attribution error.

The tendency for people to overestimate the number of people who agree with them is called the false-consensus effect. Self-serving bias is the tendency to take more credit for good outcomes than for bad ones. If Jamal dislikes horror movies, he probably thinks that most other people share his aversion. A basketball coach would be more likely to emphasize her or his role in the team’s championship win than in their first-round tournament loss. Research has found that people tend to think that bad things happen to bad people (you deserve it!). People are unemployed because they are lazy.

Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination The ideas we formulate about members of different groups, and how we interact with members of these groups are called Stereotypes can be either negative or positive and can be applied to virtually any group of people Prejudice is an undeserved (mostly negative) attitude toward a group of people. Stereotyping can lead to prejudice when stereotypes (those rude New Yorkers) are applied to all members of a group (she is from New York, therefore she must be rude). While prejudice is an attitude, discrimination involves an action. If I dislike New Yorkers, I am prejudiced, but if I refuse to hire New Yorkers to work in my company, I am discriminating. Ethnocentrism is the belief that your own culture is superior to others, which is a specific kind of prejudice. People become so used to their own cultures that they see their culture as “normal” and use their own culture to compare and judge other cultures. Many people look down on other cultures that don’t dress the same, eat the same foods, or worship the same God the same way that they do.

People tend to see members of their own group (known as the in-group) as more diverse than members of other groups (out-groups). This is often referred to as out-group homogeneity. For example, growing up in Detroit, I know that while some people from Detroit are dangerous, most are not. While we all have experience with members of our own groups, we aren’t as familiar with other groups and tend to view them as more similar. In addition, research has shown a preference for members of one’s own group (ingroup bias). In-group bias is thought to originate from people’s belief that they themselves are good people.

The Origin of Stereotypes and Prejudice Some psychologists have suggested that people naturally magnify differences between their own group and others as way to categorize. By taking into account the in-group bias, this idea suggests that people cannot avoid forming stereotypes. Social learning theorists suggest that stereotypes and prejudice are frequently learned through modeling. Children raised by parents who express prejudices may be more likely to share those prejudices themselves. On the other hand, this theory suggests that prejudices could be unlearned by being surrounded by different models.

Combating Prejudice One theory about how to reduce prejudice is known as the contact theory. The contact theory states that contact between hostile groups will reduce the tensions between them. However, this can only be accomplished if the groups are made to work towards a goal that benefits all groups. Such a goal is called a superordinate goal. Muzafer Sherif’s (1966) conducted a series of experiments at a summer camp (also known as the Robbers Cave study). He first divided the campers into two groups and arranged for them to compete in a series of activities. This competition created negative feelings between the groups. Once prejudices had been established, Sherif staged several camp emergencies that required the groups to cooperate. The superordinate goal of solving the crises greatly improved relations between the groups. A number of educational researchers have attempted to use the contact theory to reduce prejudices between members of different groups in school.

Aggression and Antisocial Behavior Instrumental aggression is when an aggressive act is intended to secure a particular end. If Davina wants to hold the doll that Carol is holding and she kicks her and grabs the doll. Hostile aggression has no such clear purpose. If Davina is just angry or upset and then kicks Carol, her aggression is hostile aggression. Freud linked aggression to Thanatos, the death instinct. Sociobiologists suggest that the expression of aggression is adaptive in certain situations. frustration-aggression hypothesis suggests that the feeling of frustration makes aggression more likely. Another common theory is that the exposure to aggressive models makes people aggressive This research was conducted by Bandura, Ross, and Ross’s (1963) classic Bobo doll experiment

Prosocial Behavior While social psychologists have devoted a lot of time and effort to studying antisocial behavior, they have also studied factors that make people more likely to help one another. This helping behavior is termed prosocial behavior. Most of the research in this area has focused on bystander intervention The conditions under which people nearby are more and less likely to help someone in trouble.

The vicious murder of Kitty Genovese in New York was committed within view of at least 38 witnesses, and none of the bystanders intervened. led John Darley and Bibb Latane to explore how people decided whether or not to help others in distress. Counterintuitively, the larger the number of people who witness an emergency situation, the less likely any one is to intervene. This finding is known as the bystander effect. One explanation for this phenomenon is called diffusion of responsibility. The larger the group of people who witness a problem, the less responsible any one person feels to help. People tend to assume that someone else will take action so they don’t need to. Another factor contributing to the bystander effect is known as pluralistic ignorance. People seem to decide what determines appropriate behavior in a situation by looking to others. So if no one in a classroom seems worried by the black smoke coming through the vent, each person decides that taking no action is the best way to handle each situation.

Attraction Social psychologists also study what factors increase the likelihood people will get along. Research shows that we like others who: Are similar to us in terms of background, attitude, and interests. Opposites don’t attract (according to research). We around the most (closeness in proximity) Mere exposure effect- the more you are around someone the more you’ll like them Who returns our positive feelings. Talking a lot to a person helps you identify similarities, which makes you feel closer to that person. The more someone likes you the more you will like them (most of you anyway) because nobody likes being rejected.

Physical attraction is always a plus. Research has shown that “good looking people” get additional benefits: Perceived as having positive attributes Better personalities Greater job competence Love is difficult to explain, although research seems to show the emotion of “love” is different than “like” self-discloses occurs in most studies involving liking and loving. This is when one shares a piece of personal information with another. Close relationships with friends and lovers are often built through the process of self-disclosure

The Influence of Others on Behavior A major area of research in social psychology is how one person’s behavior can be affected by another’s actions, or even by another person’s presence. A number of studies have proved that people perform tasks better in front of an audience than they do when they are alone. This is known as social facilitation. However, other studies found that if what was being observed was a difficult task (rather than an easy well-practiced skill), being watched by others actually hurt performance This is known as social impairment.

Conformity has been an area of much research as well. Conformity is the tendency of people to go along with the views or actions of others. “Solomon Asch (1951) conducted one of the most interesting conformity experiments. He brought participants into a room of confederates and asked them to make a series of simple perceptual judgments. Asch showed the participants three vertical lines of varying sizes and asked them to indicate which one was the same length as a different target line. All members of the group gave their answers aloud, and the participant was always the last person to speak. All of the trials had a clear, correct answer. However, on some of them, all of the confederates gave the same, obviously incorrect judgment. Asch was interested in what the participants would do. Would they conform to a judgment they knew to be wrong or would they differ from the group? Asch found that in approximately one-third of the cases when the confederates gave an incorrect answer, the participants conformed. Furthermore, approximately 70 percent of the participants conformed on at least one of the trials. “

Most studies have suggested that conformity is most likely to occur when a group’s opinion is unanimous. However, studies have shown that groups larger than three do not significantly increase the tendency to conform. While conformity involves following a group without being explicitly told to do so, obedience studies focus on an individuals willingness to do what another asks them to do. Stanley Milgram (1974) conducted the classic obedience studies. (The shocking experiments we studied earlier this year)

Group Dynamics All groups have norms, which are rules about how group members should act. Within groups is often a set of roles. The lawyers at a firm may have rules governing appropriate work dress. On a baseball team the players have different roles. Such as pitcher, shortstop, and center fielder. Sometimes people take advantage of being part of a group by social loafing. Social loafing is when individuals don’t put in as much effort when they are in a group as they do when they are alone. One explanation for this is that when we are alone, an individual’s efforts are more easily noticed than when in a larger group. Therefore, in a group, a person may be less motivated to “put on a show”. Being part of a group might also encourage members to take advantage of the group effort without expending energy unnecessarily.

Group polarization is when a group makes more extreme and radical decisions than the group members would make individually. In a group, individuals may be exposed to new ideas and arguments they had not thought of on their own. An individual might feel less responsibility for an extreme decision within a group’s many members. Groupthink (coined by Irving Janis) describes the tendency for some groups to make bad decisions. Groupthink occurs when group members don’t express their reservations about the group’s ideas. This creates a kind of false unanimity, and flaws in the group’s decisions are frequently overlooked. Tightly knit cohesive groups that make a lot of risky decisions seem to be at a greater risk for groupthink. Sometimes people get swept up by a group and do things they never would have by themselves (rioting, looting, cult activities).

The loss of self-restraint can occur when group members feel anonymous and are aroused by a situation. This is known as deindividuation. One famous experiment that showed how such conditions can cause people to deindividuate is Phillip Zimbardo’s prison experiment (which we also studied earlier this year). Zimbardo assigned a group of Stanford students to either play the role of prison guard or prisoner. The students took to their assigned roles too well, and the experiment had to be ended early because of the cruel treatment the guards were inflicting on the prisoners.

References This powerpoint presentation was adapted using the information from the Barron’s AP Psychology 5 th edition prep book. Weseley, Allyson, Robert Mc. Entarffer, and Robert Mc. Entarffer. AP® Psychology. Hauppauge, N. Y. : Barron's Educational Series, 2014. Print.