Exam 2 Flashcards
Serge Moscovici
Romanian psychologist who went against the prevalent idea of his time that the majority was the most important influence on people; one of the earliest to consider minority influence
describe the three primary varieties of conformity.
- Compliance: publicly acting in agreement with social pressure while privately disagreeing (sometimes called public compliance)
- Acceptance: acting in agreement with social pressure and believing it is right (sometimes called private acceptance)
- Obedience: acting in accord with direct orders
Give some reasons for why minority influence can be successful.
- minority is distinctive; draws our attention and is therefore considered more thoroughly
- a desire to understand why the minority is different leads us to focus on it
Describe Muzafer Sherif’s “Robber’s Cave” study and the type of conformity it shows.
Participants were in a dark room, watching a small light on the wall. They were asked to estimate how much this light dot was moving (it wasn’t moving, but due to auto kinetic effect it appears to). They did this alone, then out loud with others.
When done with others, estimates converged to an accepted norm. This demonstrates private acceptance.
Describe Solomon Asch’s line study and the type of conformity it shows.
A single participant and several confederates all call out which of three lines they believe is the same length as a target line. The confederates all call out a clearly incorrect answer.
Despite the correct answer being clear, participants often comply with the norm and give the wrong answer as well. This shows public compliance.
Describe Milgram’s Shock study and and the type of conformity it shows.
A “learner” confederate is tested on their memory by a “teacher” participant. When they give wrong answers they are given increasingly intense electric shocks.
Even when the participants become uncomfortable with administering these painful shocks, direct orders from an authority figure (experimenter in a lab coat) cause them to do it anyway. This is an example of obedience.
Attitudes
- evaluations of things like people, objects, or ideas.
- likes and dislikes.
Describe two ways we form attitudes.
- Cognition: attitude derived from relevant facts and what we know
- Affect: attitude derived from emotions, values, beliefs, etc
Explain when and how attitudes predict deliberate behaviours.
- Attitudes predict deliberate behaviour when there is an intention to do the behaviour.
- Specific attitudes predict specific behaviours; general attitudes predict general behaviours.
Explain when and how attitudes predict spontaneous behaviour.
- Attitudes have a greater impact on spontaneous behaviour when they are more accessible (potentially through priming).
- automatic attitudes usually predict spontaneous behaviour.
Persuasion
An attempt to change somebody’s attitudes or behaviour.
List some characteristics of a source/speaker that generally make persuasion more effective.
- credibility/expertise
- trustworthiness (lack of bias)
- prestige (success)
- attractiveness
Discuss the 4 main biases we use to determine who has prestige, ie who we copy
- Prestige bias: we copy those that get attention from others
- Success bias: “ who demonstrate success through cues (eg. expensive possessions)
- Skill bias: “ whose skill we can directly observe
- Pride learning bias: “ who display pride
Sleeper effect
The tendency to forget the credibility of a source before forgetting the message itself, leaving us with a message of unknown credibility. Results in a gradual decrease in persuasion after the fact if the source is credible, and a gradual increase if the source is not credible.
Balance Theory
Heider’s Balance Theory suggests that we are motivated to keep our attitudes consistent with one another.
Eg., if we like a person and they like some other person, we are likely to also like that person
Describe how and when others who are similar or dissimilar to yourself can be effective at persuading you.
- We are more persuaded by similar others when it comes to tastes, preferences, and opinions.
- We are more persuaded by dissimilar others when it comes to facts and objective truths (they are likely to be exposed to different information, and are not likely to be motivated to alter their information to maintain a friendship).
Describe how strength and number of points made in an argument affect persuasion
- Stronger points are often more effective than weaker ones.
- Having too many reduces persuasive effectiveness.
- no one simple answer; too many variables at play
Reactance theory
The pressure NOT to do a behaviour actually increases our likelihood to do it. Having our freedom limited creates an unpleasant state (called reactance), which is alleviated by disregarding the limitation and doing the behaviour anyway.
Romeo and Juliet effect
Based on reactance theory; the phenomenon of romantic attachment with a partner increasing the more your parents disapprove of the partner/relationship.
Differences in reactance for individualistic and collectivistic cultures
Reactance occurs in response to different types of threats. Ind. cultures have more reactance to limiting personal freedom, while col. cultures have more from threats to collective freedom
Reverse psychology
Essentially deliberate use of reactance theory; getting someone to do something by telling them not to
Elaboration likelihood model (ELM)
A dual process theory of persuasion developed by Petty and Cacioppo. Persuasion occurs through two routes:
Central route: info/arguments are carefully considered
Peripheral route: cues that are not relevant to the actual argument are used to form attitudes (eg. attractiveness)
Heuristic-systematic model
Chaiken’s dual process model of persuasion, very similar to ELM.
Systematic processing: swayed by logic
Heuristic processing: swayed by surface characteristics
In dual process models of persuasion, what routes are more likely to be used in what situations?
Central route (controlled, logical) is more likely to be used when topic is highly relevant to the listener’s interests. The quality of arguments are the top priority.
Peripheral route (automatic) is more likely used when the topic is irrelevant to the listener. The characteristics of the source (prestige, etc) are the top priority.
Define cognitive load, and its effect on persuasion
Cognitive load: how busy your mind is or how much your working memory is being used.
high cognitive load makes it more difficult to use controlled thinking (central route), so we use more automatic thinking (peripheral route).
Between attitudes formed through central and peripheral routes, which tend to resist change/decay more?
Attitudes formed thru the central route are more resistant to change due to their use of deeper processing. Peripheral attitudes are often formed thru very simple associations that are quickly forgotten.
Describe what circumstances are necessary for fear to be an effective persuasion tool
Fear can effectively change attitudes/behaviours if it is coupled with info on how to reduce the fear
Cognitive dissonance
Discomfort felt when attitudes do not align with behaviour. This discomfort can be alleviated by:
- changing either the behaviour or the cognition to bring them in line with each other
- trying to make one’s decision more appealing and the alternate decisions less appealing
- adding new cognitions
- affirming unrelated competences
Justification of effort
A tendency to like something more when you worked hard to get it
Persuasibility
How easy an individual is to persuade.
Affected by several variables, including:
- age (younger = higher)
- intelligence (smarter ppl rely more on their own knowledge, ie lower persuasibility, BUT are also more receptive to complex arguments)
Need for Cognition
A personality variable; the need to think critically + analytically.
Correlates with higher use of the central route.
