Chapter 13 Part II Psychology Notes Social Psychology Attitudes and Beliefs Attitudes Social Psychologists are interested in attitudes and beliefs Attitudes are evaluations towards people place and things Attitudes however are not set in stone Social psychologists study attitude formation and attitude change Implicit vs Explicit Attitudes Attitudes can be implicit or explicit Implicit Attitudes Implicit Association Test Implicit attitudes are evaluations beliefs feelings that happen below conscious awareness Psychologists attempt to measure implicit attitudes with what is called the implicit association test or IAT Example of Implicit Association Test People views may think whites are bad and blacks are good but others may think the opposite It predicts the behavior is some contexts but explicit attitudes predict behavior in others These are our conscious belief and evaluations of a person place or thing Attitudes are affected by experience familiarity personality and culture Due to the mere exposure effect just being exposed to a stimulus can make us like it more The more we hear a fact the more likely we are to believe it Cultures have rules about what is right or wrong good or bad acceptable behavior and unacceptable behavior Some of our attitudes come from our culture Some people are naturally more open Some people are more anxious Some people dislike ambiguity All of these traits affect attitude formation Conflicting Attitudes People can hold conflicting implicit and explicit attitudes about something Explicit Attitudes Attitude Formation Familiarity Culture Personality What about Our Attitudes towards Other People We will cover 2 topics 1 Attitudes about individuals 2 Attitudes about groups Attitudes about Individuals We tend to commit was is called the fundamental attribution error The Fundamental Attribution Error We tend to assume other people s actions are due to internal characteristics and underestimate We also tend to blame circumstances for our own failings but attribute success to our own the influence of the environment ability 1 The Just World Hypothesis We believe people deserve what happens to them 2 Salience Our attention is so focused on the action of the other person that it can be hard to be aware of the circumstances Attitudes about Groups Stereotypes Prejudice Prejudice is a generalized negative attitude about a group Stereotypes are beliefs about the characteristics of a group Stereotypes can be positive or negative conscious or unconscious and accurate or inaccurate Positive Accurate Stereotypes Harvard students are good at standardized tests Negative Inaccurate Stereotypes These tend to be racist classist sexist etc beliefs demeaning another group Why do Negative Attitudes Towards Others Exist In group bias There is a tendency to like people who are similar to us Out of the group homogeneity There is a tendency to overestimate how similar people in our 1 Scapegoating The tendency to blame out groups when bad things happen 2 3 Conformity If prejudice is common in a society may conform Just World again out groups are Other Reasons Attitude Change 1 Cognitive Dissonance 2 Persuasion Cognitive Dissonance Persuasion When our behavior doesn t match our beliefs there is an uncomfortable tension People tend to change their behavior to bring it in line with their attitudes in order to bring then in line with their behavior Attitudes can also be changed due to persuasion A lot of persuasion research started with sales techniques Techniques Foot in the Door Techniques Door in the Face Make a small request After someone commits ratchet it up Start with a large request that is likely to be refused Then make a smaller one Example Boxes marked with the biggest amount first and another box where they will donate a little less Quote a price below the actual price Then charge more for optional add ons Reminding people they can say no to a request makes them more likely to comply A lot of these techniques change behavior first The attitude often changes later as a result of cognitive dissonance Central Route A persuasive message makes a direct argument Peripheral Route Superficial characteristics influence whether one trusts the messenger Techniques Low ball Techniques But You are Free Cognitive Dissonance Elaboration Likelihood Psychology Part III Notes Social Situations are Subtle Others and social situations can affect our behaviors in ways that are very subtle and often outside of our conscious awareness Social Facilitation In 1897 Norman Triplett did a study in which he found that bicycle racers were faster when they raced each other than when they raced the clock Weirdly enough this effect doesn t just happen with humans Robert Zajonc did a study in which he found that cockroaches trained to run a maze ran faster when other cockroaches were present Zajonc found evidence of this with everything from fish to insects The presence of others is physiologically arousing When a task is easy extra arousal helps a person or animal perform extra well The opposite is social disruption When a task is hard the extra arousal makes it harder to do the task The graph shows the performance level on the y axis and the level of arousal on the x axis For a difficult task the performance level is high with low arousal For an easy task the performance level is high with high arousal When we are solely responsible for a task we tend to put a lot of effort into it When people work in groups however each individual puts in a little less effort than a single Why does it happen One explanation is diffusion of responsibility But we will come back to Social Disruption Yerkes Dodson Law Social Loafing individual does this question Social Loafing Examples When people are asked to yell as loud as possible they yell louder when alone When asked to lift with a rope and pulley people apply ore force when they are alone Diffusion of Responsibility Weirdly enough and misreport led to a real discovery Kitty Genovese was attacked and murdered in New York About a dozen neighbors heard yells but only a couple called the cops The newspapers misreported the story as 38 people witnessing the attack and coldly ignoring it Darley and Latane were two psychologists horrified by the report They did a study in which people were led to believe that someone was having an epileptic seizure The more other people participants believed were around the less likely they were to help Even if the Genovese story was wrong