Lecture 5 Flashcards
(14 cards)
1
Q
What is the Self-perception theory?
A
- Individuals know their attitudes by inferring them from their own behaviours: might be times when we think about our attitudes = we see what we have done that is relevant and then inferring
- When internal cues are weak (weak attitude or unfamiliar) = likely to infer attitudes from behaviour = same as someone on the outside judging you
2
Q
What was a study looking at self-perception?
A
1) Tested whether manipulating the perceived prevalence of one’s religious behaviour would impact ppts attitude toward religion: pro-religious condition, and anti-religious condition (making people feel religious/not)
- Gave people series of statements and indicate whether statement is true of you or not = created in a way to make you feel like you go to church often or not etc.
- Found that when inferring attitude, they looked at relevant behaviours
2) Looked at attitude strength as a moderating variable
- Created study about env and recycling: pro-env, and anti-env
- Effect of people in pro-salient condition reported more positive attitudes, strong attitudes = manipulation has no effect = with weaker attitudes = more likely to infer attitudes based on behaviour, specifically for pro-salient attitudes
3
Q
What was a study looking at imagining behaviour?
A
- Some people believed they performed behaviours that supported/opposed policy
- Even if they imagine themselves performing that behaviour = more likely to support if the behaviour was supportive, and more likely to oppose if behaviour was not = change in attitude
4
Q
What is vicarious self-perception?
A
- Can we infer our own attitudes when we see someone else performing a behaviour?
- Yes when we believe the person freely chose to perform the behaviour and we perceive we have a shared identity with the person
5
Q
What is a study looking at consumer self-perception?
A
- What happens if people have to actively search for a product: easy or hard to find
- Ppts like a product harder to find more than a similar product that did not require an active search
6
Q
What is cognitive dissonance?
A
- When we have an attitude and behaviour that do not align creates arousal that we want to reduce = dissonant
- Some attitudes and beliefs are consonant = align
- Some are irrelevant = attitudes do not link
- Amount of arousal depends on importance of issue personally, and proportion of thoughts that are misaligned
- If we feel dissonant, we can add consonant elements and reduce importance, or change dissonant element e.g smoking = if I stopped I would eat chocolate all the time (creates alignment), or could say it doesn’t matter
7
Q
What is post-decisional dissonance?
A
- Occurs when a decision is made between alternatives that are close in overall value and the decision cannot be revoked or changed
1) Ppts rated appliances, choose between 1 of 2 products to have, 20 mins after they had to rerate all products - Found an increase in attitudes toward the chosen alternative and decrease in attitude toward rejected alternative = like product you picked more and vice versa
2) Spreading of alternatives have been found among 4yo children and among monkeys - People change current preference to fit with past decisions, to enhance what they selected, and derogate what they did not
3) The spreading effect serves an action orientation to help us move on rather than deliberate.
8
Q
What is effort justification?
A
- Occurs when people endure hardship without obvious reward = should induce dissonance
1) Ppts endure initiation before being able to participate in a discussion group on sex - Initiation was mild or severe, then hear very boring group discussion about animal secondary sex characteristics
- DV = attitudes toward the discussion group
- Severe initiation = boring but hardship = dissonance created, so convince self it was interesting = more misalignment = causes a more positive attitude.
2) Replicated study 1 with weight loss: low or high effort initiation and followed for one year = strong initiation = stronger commitment = lost more weight if it was more effort in the initiation
9
Q
What is the IKEA effect?
A
- Do people prefer products they’ve built themselves?
- Ppts had to assemble products selves or given product, and asked how much they would want it
- Ppts preferred products they assembled = sense of ownership impacts attitude
- If product is not completed or disassembled the effect disappears = effort makes the value
10
Q
What is counter attitudinal advocacy?
A
- Ppts completed boring tasks for an hour
- Ppts told to describe experiment positively to next person
- Ppts were asked to rate the extent to which they enjoyed the tasks and would participate in a similar experiment
- Either given in/sufficient justification = $20, or $1 or control
- In 20 dollar = attitude is neg, in 1 dollar = dis cannot be reduced so convince self that you enjoyed task = more pos attitudes
- More incentive does not necessarily cause more favourable attitude
11
Q
What is the physiological arousal of dissonance?
A
- Some ppts write essay for ban on uni campus = counter-attitudinal
- Some of ppts were led to believe they had some choice to write this and others do not
- Ppts skin conductance was higher during post-essay rest period than before this period but only for ppt in choice condition
12
Q
What is the misattribution of arousal?
A
- Ppts given pill and told it would let them relax, aroused, or no effect
- Ppts choice in writing counter-attitudinal essay was either made salient or was not
- Asked about topic they wrote about
- Freely write counter-attitudinal essay = changed attitude
- When arousal pill = misattribute arousal from essay to pill = do not need to change attitude
- When relaxed pill = people should change their attitude more because they are ‘over aroused’
13
Q
What elicits dissonance?
A
- Hypocrisy: publicly endorse one behaviour but do the opposite
- Study looking at uni students convincing teenagers to perform safe sex
- Some people making public commitment or writing essay shown to students, others were asked to think about when they did not engage in safe sex
- Looking at number of condoms taken from fishbowl, 3 mo later proportions of times using condom
- More preventative behaviour in hypocrisy - 83%, and safe sex = 92%
- Effects of hypocrisy looked at discrimination, recycling and smoking
- Amount of discomfort from hypocrisy is associated with amount of behaviour change
14
Q
When is hypocrisy most successful?
A
- Dissonance should be more harmful for high Self-esteem individuals
- Ppts are all cigarette smokers: had to complete measures of self-esteem and intentions to stop smoking
- Hypocrisy works but not in people with low SE
