Social Psychology 2

Attitudes

• Attitude – learned tendency to evaluate some object, person or issue in a particular way– Can you predict behavior from attitude?

Sometimes our behavior is different than our attitude…

Sometimes our behavior influences our attitude…

Attitudes are made up of…

• 1. Cognitive component - beliefs, thoughts, ideas about the attitude object

• 2. Behavior component - predisposition to behave ina particular way

• 3. Emotional component - feelings and emotions about the attitude object

Attitudes have a strong impact on behavior when…

• (1) outside influences on what we say and do are minimal

• (2) the attitude is specifically relevant to the behavior, and

• (3) we are keenly aware of our attitudes.

Foot in the door phenomenon

• the tendency for people who agree to a small request to comply later with a larger one.

Cognitive dissonance theory

• Leon Festinger• people feel discomfort when their actions

conflict with their feelings and beliefs; they reduce the discomfort by bringing their attitudes more in line with their actions.

When do attitudes influence behavior?

• attitude specificity - very focused => influences behavior

• attitude strength - stronger => more influence on behavior

• attitude relevance - extent to which attitudes objects actually have an effect on the life of the person holding various attitudes - vested interest Ex. campaign against raising drinking age

Prejudice

• Prejudice: A negative attitude toward people who belong to a specific social group while stereotypes are clusters of characteristics that are attributed to people who belong to specific social categories

• - person perception + attribution + attitudes => explain prejudice

People have a strong tendency to see people as:

• In group - a social group to which one belongs• Out group - a social group to which one does not belong• Out-group homogeneity effect - the tendency to see

members of out-groups as very similar to one another• In group bias - tendency to judge the behavior of in-group

members favorably and out-group members unfavorablyWe succeeded because we worked hard, they succeeded

because they lucked out

Prejudice has an • emotional component - hatred, contempt,

fear• behavioral component - discrimination -

privately sneering at, physically attacking

• authoritarian personality - obedient toward their superiors and domineering toward subordinates,

• - projection - unwilling to accept own faults but willing to place them on members of other groups

• - ethnocentrism- favoring own groups, prejudiced against other groups

People with low self-esteem, weren’t allowed to talk back to parents - channeled toward others