Midterm 2: Attitudes and Persuasion
"Attitude" definition
Evalution of something resulting in a goodness or badness judgement
Made out of:
Affective/emotional quality
Cognitive thought
Behaviour
"Affects" definition and dimensions
Anything in our mental life with a positive/negative distinction
Made out of:
Sensations, emotions, attitudes
"Socialist Intuition Model of Moral Attitusides"/"Pineapple on Pizza Effect"
People develope moral attitudes based on their instictual flashes of emotion. You use thoughts to justify the opinions/judgements instead of forming your judgements based on logical thought.
Trolley-Switch Delimma and it's concept
Decide whether you want to pull on the lever/push a person to kill one and save others.
Concept: Pineapple on Pizza Effect
Somantic Marker Hypothesis
We use our bodily reactions as cues to form attitudes/judgements about things.
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
Test used to measure implicit attitudes by looking at how quickly people associate things with certain lables.
Implicit Egotism
Implicit attitudes about ourselves colours our judgement. We behave and make decisions in our everyday life that implies a bias for ourselves.
Name-Letter Test and it's corresponding concept
People asked to rate how much they like the letters of the alphabet and they liked the letters that their first name began with mote than the others.
Concept: Implicit egotism
Worthiness Face Rating Test and it's corresponding concepts
A set of faces were ranked by participants from most to least trustworthy. Their own faces were meshed with the most trustyworthy and untrustworthy faces. When asked which is more like them, participants will choose the face that is their's combined with the trustworthy one.
Concept: implicit egotism
Endowment Effect
Something seems to have more worth just becuase of the face that we own it.
Mere Ownership Effect
Simply calling something "our's" would make something seem more valueable, even if we don't actually own it.
Object Value Experiment and it's corresponding concept
People are directed to call a presented item "their's". When asked how much they like those items along with other items that weren't "their's", the items that were "their's" was generally more well-liked.
Concept: mere ownership effect
2 drives for evalutation
1. To be right
2. To feel good
Factors that colour the affective values you assign to things
1. Evolution
2. Personality
3. Culture and social norms
4. Early and recent experiences
Brain structures involved in the assignment of affective values
Amygdala identifies what is relevent or irrelevant to us emotions and what should be let into the conciousness and what shoudl be ignored.
Nucleus accumbus assigns rewards to stuff that you like, allowing you to decide whether something is good/bad because it makes you feel good/bad.
Liking V.S wanting
Liking is enoyment from experiencing a rewarding stimulus, consummatory pleasure.
Wanting is the desire to experience a rewarding stimulus, anticipatory pleasure.
Cognitive dissonance
The idea that people generally like to be consistent with their cognitions, behaviours and attitudes.
How to reduce cognitive dissonance?
1. Add a new cognition
2. Change a cognition
3. Change behaviour
Justification of Effort
When you work hard on something, but did not enjoy it, so you feel cognitive dissonance. As a response, you unconciously increase liking for that activity.
The Ikea Effect
When you lead people to put effort into something, they will change their cognition to like it more.
Origami Experiment and it's corresponding concept
People are told to make an orgami and pay for it. Those who build the origami will pay more for it than those who didn't.
Concept: the Ikea Effect
Low/High Effort Do-It-Yourself Task Experiment and it's corresponding concept
People are made to put low effort to make a product and high effort to make another. When they choose one to buy, they will buy the high effort product, as well as being more willing to pay more for it.
Concept: Ikea Effect
Post-Decision Dissonance
When people are presented with equally desirable objects and forced to choose one, they will ease their dissonance by unconciously increasing their liking for the chosen option.
Free-Choice Paradigm Study and it's corresponding concept
People were asked to rank 6 pictures and asked to choose between the 3rd or 4th to take home. When they take home the 3rd and come back a while later to re-rank the pictures, the picture they took home are ranked higher while the other are ranked lower.
Concept: post-decision dissonance
Relationship between behaviour and attitude
Attitudes don't predict behaviours because behaviours are impacted by other factors along with attitude.
Conditions for which attitudes predict behaviour best
1. Other influences are kept to a minimum
2. Attitudes are sepcfic to that behaviour
3. Attitude is strong
Theory of Planned Beahviour
Attitude towards the behaviour, subjective norms, and percieved self-efficieny and self-control will create intended behaviour, which will spark action.
Subjective Norms
How people think others will feel about a behaviour.
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
Test used to study implicit attitudes by measuring reaction times to see how quickly people connect concepts.
What type of attitudes predict behaviour?
Both implicit and explicit attitudes, but implicit attitudes are the more reliable one out of them both. Still, both together is more accurate than any of them alone.
Role
A set of norms defining how people in a given position are supposed to act.
Norms
Rules for expected and accepted behaviour that describe what is appropriate behaviour.
Foot-in-the-door-phenomenon
The tendency for people to agree to do a large request after completing a smaller request first. The commit themselves to public behaviours, which results in a stronger belief in what they have done.
Low-ball Technique
A type of foot-in-the-door-phenomenon where people will agree to do something and still agree when people add more unwanted conditions to that request.
Door-to-the-face Technique
The tendency for people to be more likely to comply with a more reasonable request after denying a big, unreasonable one first.
3 reasons why actions affects attitudes
1. Self-presentation
2. Self-justification
3. Self-perception
Self-presentation Theory
People's actions affect their attitudes because we express attitudes to make us appear more consistent and in a certain way.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory (self-justification)
We have dissonance/discomfort from actions that differ from out conditionns. So behaviour is justified internally to get rid of this dissonance.
Self-perception Theory
When we look inwards at our behaviours for an explanation when we are unsure of our feelings.
The Overjustification Effect
People tend to see an activity as extrinsically appealing rather than intrinsically appealing if they are being bribed to do it because they feel as if they are only doing it for the award.
Self-affirmation Theory
People's self-image is threatened when they do undesirable behaviour so this threat is compensated with refocusing/doing good deeds on another aspect of their lives.
This reduces dissonance, which is why the action-to-attitude effect disappears.
Persuasion
The process in which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.
Routes to persuasion
1. Central route to persuasion occurs when people focus on the arguments, thinking systematically about the issue.
2. Peripheral route of persuaion occurs when people are influences by incidental cues and other non-logical factors that triggers acceptance without much thinking.
Credibility
The believebility that an expert and trustworthy communicator has when making an argument.
The Sleeper Effect
A delayed impact of a message occuring when people remember the message but not their reasons for discounting it.
How to seem like a credible, authoritative expert
1. Labeled smart by starting out with a statement the audience believes in.
2. Be seen as knowledgeable.
3. Speak confidently
How to be seen as trustworthy
1. Convince audiences that you are not trying to persuade them.
2. Argue against your own interest.
3. Talk fast.
When to use one-sided appeal vs two-sided appeal?
One-sided appeal is more persuaive when the person already agree.
Two-sided appeal is more persusive when the person don't already agree.
Primacy Effect
The information that is presented first is more effective than the information presented later.
Happens were messages are presented back-to-back, with a period of time before the response.
Recency Effect
Information that is presented the most recently is more effective because you remember it better.
Happens when there is a a gap of time between the 2 messages, and the response is given right after the 2nd message.
Channel of Communication
The way in which messages are delievered.
Two-step Flow of Communication
Where media influence opinion leaders, who will influence everyone else with personal contact.
2 characteristics of recievers of the message that will impact it's effectiveness
1. Age, younger people's attitudes change more easily.
2. Thoughtfulness, messages persuades more if it summones favourable thoughts instead of contrary arguments. Analytical people prefer the central route of persuasion. People with low need for cognition prefers the peripheral route.
What impacts the effectiveness of a message
1. communicator
2. Message content
3. Channel
4. Audience
Active vs passive channel of communication
Passive can be effective if the issue is not significant.
Cults
Groups with a distinctive ritual of devotion to a good/other person, isolation from surrounding culture anf a charismatic leader.
Certainty and when it is high
The level of subjective confidence and validity that people attach to their attitudes.
High when people clearly know what their attitudes are and that it is correct
Selective Exposure
The extent to which people's attitudes affect the information they ecpose themselves to.
Selective Attention
The extent to which people's attitudes affect how much of the information they pay attention to after they are exposed to it.
Selective Memory
The extent to which people's attitudes bias their ability to recall attitude-relevant information. They remember information more congruent with their beliefs.
Reactance
A motice to protect/restore our sense of freedom when people threaten it.
Attitude Inoculation
When weak attacks prompt counter-arguments that can be used against stronger attacks.
Poison Parasite Defence
Where a strong counter-argument is filled with retrieval cues that bring to mind your refutaitons.