Flashcards in Week 5 Deck (118):
1
What is an attitude?
Attitude is a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols.
2
What are three examples of an object?
Coca cola, iPhone and pokie machine.
Three examples of events are:
3
What are three examples of groups?
University students, SES and Girl Guides
4
What are three examples of events?
Olympic games, ANZAC Day and Christmas
5
Have attitudes been a major interest of social psychologists for many years?
Yes.
6
Which social psychologist described atttitudes as the most important concept in social psychology?
Gordon Allport In the past social psychology had been defined as the study of attitudes.
7
What was the first point of the study of attitudes?
A concentration on attitude measurement and how these attitudes are related to behaviou
8
When was there a concentration on attitude measurement and how these relate to behaviour?
1920s and the 1930s.
9
What is the second point on a study of attitudes?
A focus on the dynamics of change in an individual’s attitudes
10
When was there a focus on the dynamics of change in an aindividual's attutudes?
1950s and 1960s.
11
When was there a focus on the cognitive and social structure and function of attitudes and attitude systems?
1980s and 1990s.
12
What was the third point in the study of attitudes?
A focus on the cognitive and social structure and function of attitudes and attitude system
13
What do theories of attitude structure generally agree on?
That attitudes are lasting general evaluations of socially significant objects (including people and issues).
14
What is the one component model of attitudes?
One component model is that an attitude consists of affects towards or against the evaluation of the object.
15
What is the two component model of attitude?
An attitude consists of a metal readiness to act. It also guides evaluative responses.
16
According to the three component model of attitude, what does an attitude consist of?
An attitude consists of cognitive, affective and behavioural components.
17
Why do attitudes probably exist?
Attitudes probably exist because they are useful as they serve a purpose and have a function.
18
How does an attitude save cognitive energy?
An attitude saves cognitive energy as we do not have to figure out from scratch how we relate to the object or situation in question.
19
What are the functions of an attitude?
• Knowledge: information
• Instrumentality
• Ego Defence
• Value expressiveness
20
When did cognitive consistency theories begin to emerge?
Late 1950s and the 1960s.
21
What are cognitive consistency theories?
Cognitive consistency theories are a group of attitude theories stressing that people try to maintain internal consistency, order and agreement among their various cognitions.
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What did cognitive consistency theories and their emphasis on cognition do?
Deal a fatal blow to simplistic reinforcement explanations.
23
How has attitude structure mostly been studied?
From a cognitive viewpoint.
24
What are two examples of cognitive consistency theories?
Cognitive dissonance theory and balance theory.
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What did cognitive dissonance theory and balance theory both suggest?
People strive to be internally consistent with their attitudes and beliefs.
26
Who is balance theory the theory of?
Fritz Heider.
27
What is balance theory?
Balance theory is that people prefer attitudes that are consistent with each other over those that are inconsistent. A person tries tooo maintain consistency in attutudes to, and relationships with other people and elements of their envirionment.
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According to balance theory, how does a person try to maintain consistency?
In attitudes and relationships with other people and attituides with other people.
29
Has research on balance theory been mainly supportive or not supportive?
Suportive.
30
What was Heider's theories (balance theory) grounded in?
gestalt psychology.
31
What is person in the balance theory?
P
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What is other people in the balance theory?
O
33
What is the environment in the balance theory?
X
34
What is balanced theory meant to look like?
An equilateral triangle.
35
What is the equialteral triangle in the balance theory called?
The triad.
36
What are the two kinds of triad in the balance theory?
There is a balanced and an unbalanced triad. A triad is consistenced if its balanced.
37
When is a triad consistent
If it is balanced.
38
Can we predict what would happen if the balance theory triad becomes unbalanced?
No.
39
What do people generally do if the balance theory triad becomes unbalanced?
Whatever is easiest.
40
What did Gestalt psychologists believe the human mind was?
A person’s cognitive field.
41
What is the sociocognitive model>
The sociocognitive modle is an attitude theory highlighting an evaluative component. Knowledge of an object is represented in a memory along with a summary of how to appraise it.
42
Do we perform cognitive algebra?
Yes according to information integration theory.
43
What do information processing approaches emphasise?
How complex it is to acquire knowledge and to form and change our attitudes.
44
What is information processing?
Information processing is the evaluation of information, in relation to attitudes, the means by which people acquire knowledge and form and change attitudes.
45
According to information integration theory, what do we use cognitive algebra to do?
Construct our attitudes from information we receive about attitude objects.
46
What is information integration theory?
Information integration theory is the idea that a peron’s attitude can be estimating by averaging across the positive and negative ratings of an object.
47
What is cognitive algebra?
Focuses on how people combine attributes that have valence into an overall position or negative impression.
48
Who suggested that people's attitudes are underpinned by implict and automatic judgements of which they are unaware?
Patrica Devine
49
When judgements are implicit and automatic they are less influenced by what?
Social desirability bias.
50
Are the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour interrelated?
Yes.
A
51
What do the interrelated theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour include?
The need to relate to a specific act to measure of the intention to the perform that act.
52
What are other variables that may affect predict behaviour?
Norms and the extent the individual has control over the act.
53
What does a strong attitude have?
A powerful evaluative association with the attitude object.
Beliefs, intention and behaviour
54
Is a strong or weak attitude more likely to be accessible in memory?
Strong attitude.
55
Is a strong or weak attitude more likely to be activated?
Strong attitude.
56
Can a more acessible attitude have a cost?
Yes.
57
What can high accessibility of an attitude lead to?
Insensitivity to change an object.
58
What did Fishbein argue?
Fishbein argued that attitudes can indeed predict behaviour.
59
According to Fishbein if the prediction concerns a specific act....
The measure of the attitude must also be specific.
60
How are attitudes learnt?
Socialization process.
61
How can attitudes develop?
They can be formed by direct experience, by conditioning, by observational learning and drawing inferences from our own behaviour.
62
What is attitude formation?
Attitude formation is the process for forming our attitudes-mainly from our own experiences.
63
Are attitudes learnt?
Yes.
64
What are many of the attitudes that people hold?
Products of direct experience with attitude objects.
65
How does direct experience help us form attitudes?
Provides us with information about the attributes of an object and help us shape beliefs on our view on that object.
66
What is the mere exposure effect?
Mere exposure effect is that repeated exposure to an object results in greater attraction to that object.
67
What is the spreading attitude effect?
The spreading attitude effect is a liked or disliked person may affect not only the evaluation of a second person directly associated with, but also others merely associated with, the second person.
68
What is observational learning based on?
Modelling.
69
What is modelling?
Modelling is the tendency to reproduce the actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real-life or symbolic mode.
70
What are two sources of learning attitudes?
Parents and the mass media.
71
What are values compared to attitudes?
A higher order concept thought to provide a structure for organizing attitudes.
72
What is an ideology?
Ideology imas a systematically interrelated set of beliefs whose primary function is explanation.
73
What is terror management theory?
Terror management theory is the notion that the most fundamental human motivation is to reduce the terror of the inevitability of death.
74
What are social representations?
Social representations is collectively elaborated explanations of unfamiliar and complex phenomena that transform them into a familiar and a simple form.
75
What are examples of attitude scales?
1) Thurstone scale
2) Likert scale
3) Guttman scale
4) Osgood’s semantic differences
76
What has the implicit attitude test proved particular popular for?
Valid measure of a socially sensitive topic.
77
What is attitude change?
Any significant modification of an individual’s attitude.
78
What does the persuasion process to change attitudes involve?
• The communicator
• The communication
• The medium used
• The characteristics of the audience
79
How can attitude change also occur?
Attitude change can also occur by inducing someone to perform an acts the runs counter to an existing attitude.
80
What is cognitive dissoannce?
Cognitive dissonance is a state of psychological tension produced by simultaneously having two opposing cognitions.
81
What happens when cognitive dissonance occurs?
People are motivated to reduce the tension, often by changing or rejecting one of the cognitions.
82
What is persuasive communication?
Persuasive communication is the message intended to change an attitude and related behavuour of an audience.
83
What was the Yale research program a major study of?
Communication and persuasion. It focused on three kinds of factors.
84
What did the Yale research program focus on?
The source of the message, the message itself and the audience.
85
Should we look at the three components of the Yale research program together or seperately?
Together.
86
Are people oblivious to persuasion attempts?
No. Two important areas of our lives that employ relevant principles from social psychological research:
1) Advertising
2) Political propaganda
87
What are two important areas of our lives that employ relevant principles from social psychological research on persuasion?
Advertising and political propagranda.
88
What is the third person affect?
The third person affect is that most people think that they are less influenced than others by advertisements.
89
What is
A communicator variable that has been studied in some depth is source credibility. A well research message variable is an appeal based on fear. There has been a renewed interest in the sleeper effect, according to which some messages gain impact after the passage of time.
90
Attitudes that are acessible are...
More likely to be acted on.
91
Do attitudes guide behaviour?
Yes.
Attitudes guide behaviour. This is known as automatic activation.
92
What is automatic activation?
According to Fazio, attitudes that have a strong evaluative link to situational cues are more likely to come automatically to mind from memory.
93
How can the prediction of behaviour from an attitude be improved partly?
By accounting for moderator variables (situational and personality factors).
94
How is public/private an attitude variable?
Whether it is expressed publicly or privately.
95
What is a moderator variable?
A moderator variable is a variable that qualifies an otherwise simple hypothesis with a view of improving its predictive power.
96
What are five examples of moderator variables?
• Situation
• Personality
• Habut
• Sense of control
• Direct experience
97
What components of the message may affect persuasion?
The is effect of repetition and also the terror management theory.
98
What is the terror management theory?
The terror measurement theory is the notion that the most funadamental human motivation is to reduce the terror of the inevitability of death.
99
What variables about the audience may affect persuasion?
• Self esteem
• Gender
• Age
• Individual differences
• Prior beliefs: disconfirmation bias
• Cognitive bias: third person effect
100
What are the dual models of persuasion?
Elaboration-liklihood model and heuristic model.
101
Who created the elaboration liklihood model?
Petty and Cacippo.
102
Who created the Hiurestic model?
Chaiken.
103
What does the elaboration liklihood model propose?
proposes that when people attend to a message carefully; they use a central route to process it; otherwise they use a peripheral route.
104
What does the heuirstic model propose?
Systematic model suggests that people use systematic processing when they attend to a message carefully; otherwise they use heuristic processing. The models are not in conflict.
105
Are the heuristic and elaboration liklihood model in conflict?
No, they are pretty much the same.
106
What is compliance?
Compliance is the superficial, public or transitory change in behaviour and expressed attitudes in response to requests, coercion or group pressure.
107
What are three techniques for increasing compliance?
Ingration, reciprocity, guilt arousal.
108
What are the multiple request techniques?
Multiple request techniques are tactics for gaining compliance using a two step procedure.
109
What are three multiple request techniques?
Foot in the door, door in the face and low balling.
110
What is the foot in the door?
Multiple request technique to gain compliance, in which the focal request is preceded by a smaller request that is bound to be accepted.
111
What is the door in the face?
Multiple request technique to gain compliance, in which the focal request is preceded by a larger request that is bound to be refused.
112
What is low balling?
Technique for inducing compliance in which a person who agrees to a request still feels committed after finding there are hidden costs.
113
What is action research?
The simultaneous activities of undertaking social science research, involving participants in the process and addressing a social problem.
114
What are three ways that cognitive dissonance may be brought about?
Effort justification, induced compliance and free choice.
115
What is effort justification?
Special case of cognitive dissonance: inconsistency is experienced when a person makes a considerable effort to achieve a modest goal.
116
What is induced compliance?
Special case of cognitive dissonance inconsistency is experienced when a person is persuaded to behave in a way that is contrary to an attitude.
117
What is free choice?
inconsistency is experienced in decision making
118