Attitude

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SOCIAL BELIEFS

Unit 3 & ATTITUDES


Importance of Social Beliefs

• Social beliefs play a crucial role in shaping perceptions, attitudes, and


judgments about oneself and others.
• These beliefs can influence behavior, decision-making, and
interpersonal interactions.
• Social beliefs encompass a wide range of constructs, including
stereotypes, prejudices, social norms, and cultural values, which shape
individuals' understanding of the social world and guide their actions.
Cognitive social psychology

• Cognitive social psychology examines how cognitive


processes, such as perception, memory, judgment, and
decision-making, interact with social factors to influence
behavior and interpersonal relationships.
• This interdisciplinary field explores how individuals
perceive, interpret, and respond to social information,
emphasizing the role of cognitive processes in shaping
social behavior and attitudes.
Attitude

• Attitudes are beliefs or evaluations about people, objects, or ideas that


influence behavior.
When Attitude affects behavior

• The developing picture of what controls behavior emphasized external


social influences, such as others’ behavior and expectations, and played
down internal factors, such as attitudes and personality.
• When attitudes are strong, relevant, and accessible, they are more likely to
guide behavior. However, the correspondence between attitudes and
behavior is not always straightforward, as situational factors and social
norms may also play a role in shaping behavior.

• Our attitudes do predict our behavior when these other influences on what
we say and do are minimal, when the attitude is specific to the behavior,
and when the attitude is potent.
WHEN SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON WHAT
WE SAY` ARE MINIMAL
• Today’s social psychologists have some clever means at their disposal for
minimizing social influences on people’s attitude reports (unlike the earlier eg:9/11
– vote regarding president bush’s actions). .
• They use some of these complement traditional self-report measures of explicit
(conscious) attitudes with measures of implicit (unconscious) attitudes. One such
test measures facial muscle responses to various statements - a microsmile or a
micro frown to indicate the participant’s attitude about a given statement.
• A newer and widely used attitude measure, the implicit association test (IAT), uses
reaction times to measure how quickly people associate concepts (Greenwald &
others, 2002, 2003).
• One can, for example, measure implicit racial attitudes by assessing whether White
people take longer to associate positive words with Black than with White faces.
• Across 126 studies, implicit associations measured by the IAT have
correlated, on average, a modest 124 with explicit self-reported
attitudes
• A meta – analysis revealed that explicit and implicit attitudes may
together predict behavior better than either alone.
• For attitudes formed early in life, such as racial and gender
attitudes, implicit and explicit attitudes frequently diverge, with
implicit attitudes often being the better predictor of behavior.
• For other attitudes, such as those related to consumer behavior and
support for political candidates, explicit self-reports are the better
predictor.
When other influences (situational) on
behavior are minimal

• The effects of an attitude become more apparent when we look at a


person’s aggregate or average behavior than when we consider isolated
acts.
• Research example - people’s general attitude toward religion poorly
predicts whether they will go to worship services during the coming
week (because attendance is also influenced by the weather, the
worship leader, how one is feeling, and so forth).
• But religious attitudes predict quite well the total quantity of religious
behaviors over time (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1974; Kahle & Berman, 1979).
• Thus the findings define a principle of aggregation
WHEN ATTITUDES SPECIFIC TO THE
BEHAVIOR ARE EXAMINED

• Attitudes toward the general concept of “health fitness” poorly


predict specific exercise and dietary practices, but an individual’s
attitudes about the costs and benefits of jogging are a fairly
strong predictor of whether he or she jogs regularly.
Theory of planned behavior:
• One’s (a) attitudes, (b) perceived social norms, and (c) feelings of
control together determine one’s intentions, which guide behavior.
• Compared with their general attitudes toward a healthy lifestyle,
people’s specific attitudes regarding jogging predict their jogging
behavior much better
When attitudes are potent

• Bringing attitudes to mind – self aware


• Forging strong attitudes through experience
When does our behavior affects
attitude?
• Role Playing
• Saying becomes believing
• The Foot in the door phenomenon
• Evil & Moral Acts
• Interracial behavior & racial attitudes
• Social movements
Role Playing

• When individuals take on a role, they often begin to


adopt the attitudes associated with that role. This can
lead to attitude change as the individual internalizes the
behaviors expected of the role.
• Eg - In the famous Stanford Prison Experiment,
participants playing the roles of guards and prisoners
began to adopt behaviors and attitudes aligned with
those roles, even though these attitudes were not
initially part of their personalities.
Saying becomes believing

• When people express opinions or arguments publicly, they are likely to


start believing what they have said, especially if they feel responsible for
those statements.
• Say, A salesperson who extols the benefits of a product may eventually
convince themselves of its superiority, even if they were initially
indifferent or skeptical.
• Experiment – Higgins et al had university students read a personality
description of someone and then summarize it for someone else, who was
believed either to like or to dislike that person. The students wrote a more
positive description when the recipient liked the person.
• Thus, people tend to adjust their messages to their listeners, and, having
done so, to believe the altered message.
Foot – in- the- door
phenomenon

• The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small


request to comply later with a larger request.
• People are more likely to agree to a large request after they
have agreed to a small, initial request. This gradual escalation
of commitment leads to changes in attitudes to align with
behaviors.
• Nicolas Guéguen and Céline Jacob (2001) tripled the rate of
French Internet users contributing to child land-mine victims
organizations (from 1.6 to 4.9 percent) by first inviting them to
sign a petition against land mines.
• low-ball technique, a variation of foot – in – the door
technique used by sales person.
• A tactic for getting people to agree to something. People
who agree to an initial request will often still comply
when the requester ups the ante. People who receive
only the costly request are less likely to comply with it.
Evil & moral acts

• Engaging in actions perceived as evil or moral can shift a person’s


attitudes to justify their behavior. Performing evil acts can lead to the
dehumanization of victims, while moral acts can reinforce altruistic
attitudes.
• After telling a “white lie” and thinking, “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” the
person may go on to tell a bigger lie.
• Another way in which evil acts influence attitudes is the paradoxical fact
that we tend not only to hurt those we dislike but also to dislike those
we hurt. (E.g. Milgram’s shock experiment or Hitlers war camp guards)
• Soldiers who commit acts of violence may come to view their enemies
as less human to reconcile their actions,
• Moral action, especially when chosen rather than
coerced, affects mor al thinking.
• Doing a favor for an experimenter or another
participant, or tutoring a student, usually increases
liking of the person helped
• Those who engage in charity work may strengthen their
belief in the importance of helping others.
Interracial & Racial Attitudes

• Engaging in positive interactions with individuals of


different races can lead to more favorable racial
attitudes. Conversely, discriminatory behavior can
reinforce negative stereotypes.
• E.g. Programs promoting interracial cooperation, such
as integrated schools or workplaces, can help reduce
prejudices by encouraging positive experiences and
changing attitudes.
Social Movements

• Participation in social movements or collective actions


can lead to shifts in personal attitudes that align with
the movement’s goals and values.
• Individuals who join environmental advocacy groups
often adopt stronger pro-environment attitudes through
their involvement in collective actions like protests,
rallies, or campaigns.
Why does our behavior affect our
attitude? -Conditions
• Social psychology’s detectives suspect three possible sources:
• Self-presentation theory assumes that for strategic reasons
we express attitudes that make us appear consistent.
• Cognitive dissonance theory assumes that to reduce
discomfort, we justify our actions to ourselves.
• Self-perception theory assumes that our actions are self-
revealing (when uncertain about our feelings or beliefs, we
look to our behavior, much as anyone else would).
Self presentation: impression
management
• People see making a good impression as a way to gain social
and material rewards, to feel better about ourselves, even to
become more secure in our social identities.
• Self-presentation theory suggests that to avoid looking
inconsistent or to appear consistent people express attitude
that match their action
• Even if that means displaying a little insincerity or hypocrisy, it
can pay off in managing the impression we are making.
• E.g. lie detector - people exhibit small attitude change inorder to
make impression
Self-justification: Cognitive
dissonance
• Cognitive dissonance theory assumes that we feel
tension, or a lack of harmony (“dissonance”), when
two simultaneously accessible thoughts or beliefs
(“cognitions”) are psychologically inconsistent.
• For example, if someone who values health smokes a
cigarette, they might experience dissonance. To
resolve it, they might shift their attitude to downplay
the health risks or justify the behavior as a one-time
indulgence. Tavris and Aronson: “A
president who has
• This theory pertains mostly to discrepancies between
justified his actions to
himself, believing that
behavior and attitudes. he has the truth,
becomes impervious to
self-correction.”
• Festinger argued that to reduce this unpleasant arousal,
we often adjust our thinking.
• E.g. After the 2003 Iraq War, noted the director of the
Program of International Policy Attitudes, some
Americans struggled to reduce their “experience of
cognitive dissonance”
Festinger argued that to reduce this
unpleasant arousal, we often adjust our
thinking.
E.g. After the 2003 Iraq War, noted the director
of the Program of International Policy Attitudes,
some Americans struggled to reduce their
“experience of cognitive dissonance”
Cognitive dissonance theory offers an explanation for self-
persuasion, and it offers several surprising predictions.
• Insufficient justification - Reduction of dissonance by
internally justifying one’s behavior when external
justification is “insufficient.”
• Experiment by Festinger & Carlsmith's experiment on turning
door knob
• In dozens of later experiments, this attitudes-follow-behavior
effect was strongest when people felt some choice and when
their actions had foreseeable consequences.
• cognitive dissonance theory focuses not on the relative
effectiveness of rewards and punishments administered after
the act but, rather, on what induces a desired action
• It insists that encouragement and
inducement should be enough to elicit the
desired action (so that attitudes may follow
the behavior). But it suggests that
managers, teachers, and parents should use
only enough incentive to elicit the desired
behavior.
• Dissonance after decisions – important decisions
produce dissonance.
• When torn b/n two equally important alternatives
• After making important decisions, we usually reduce
dissonance by upgrading the chosen alternative and
downgrading the unchosen option.
Self-perception
Self-perception theory (proposed by Daryl Bem, 1972)
assumes that we make similar inferences when we
observe our own behavior. When our attitudes are weak
or ambiguous, we are in the position of someone
observing us from the outside.
• Expressions & attitude – Facial expressions, others
emotions & postures affect our attitude.
• The emotions we experience during certain behaviors can
also influence our attitudes. Positive emotions tied to
behaviors can create favorable attitudes toward them, while
negative emotions can do the opposite
• For example, if someone has a great experience exercising
with friends, they may develop a positive attitude toward
physical fitness due to the enjoyable experience.
• Over justification & intrinsic motivations -
• Over justification effect: The result of bribing people to
do what they already like doing; they may then see their
actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically
appealing.
Comparing the theories
• Self-Presentation theory suggests that our actions may appear to affect attitudes
due to our desire to manage impressions.
• Dissonance theory explains attitude change under tension. Where as self-
Perception theory accounts for attitude formation when pre-existing attitudes are
weak or undefined.
• Dissonance emphasizes emotional arousal (e.g., tension from conflicting actions
and beliefs)
• Self-Perception focuses on rational inference without necessarily involving tension.
• Both theories predict similar outcomes, but with different underlying mechanisms.
• Multiple theories provide strong explanations, strengthening confidence in the
principle that "attitudes follow behavior."
“If we wish to conquer undesirable
emotional tendencies in ourselves
we must . . . coldbloodedly go
through the outward motions of
those contrary dispositions we
prefer to cultivate.”

—WILLIAM JAMES,
“WHAT IS
AN EMOTION?” 1884

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