Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon- Tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request Low-ball technique- 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 (car dealers)
Cognitive Dissonance- Tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions (we reduce this tension by adjusting our thinking)
Impression management- Assume that people, especially those who self-monitor their behavior hoping to create good impressions, will adapt their attitude report to appear consistent with their actions
Attitude components:
Cognitively based– based on primarily on a person’s beliefs about
the properties of the attitude object; their function is “object appraisal”- classify objects according to the rewards or punishments they provide
Affectively based- Based more on people’s feelings and values than on their beliefs. Two subtypes: Value-expressive function (attitude toward political candidates are generally more effectively than cognitively based) Based on Conditioning-Classical conditioning (learned association btw a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus) Operant conditioning-Learned association btw a specific behavior and reinforcement (+ or -); Don’t result from rational examination of the issues; not governed by logic; often linked to people’s values
Behaviorally based- based on self-perception of one’s own behavior when the initial attitude is weak or ambiguous (Bem’s perception Theory)
Attitude Types
Explicit– attitudes we consciously endorse and can easily report; measured by self-report
Implicit– involuntary, uncontrollable, unconscious evaluations; measured by the Implicit association Test (IAT)
When do attitudes predict behavior?
- Role Playing-set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to behave (prison study)
- When saying becomes believing- when there is no compelling external explanation for one’s words, saying becomes believing
- Foot-in-the-Door phenomenon- Tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to later comply with a larger request
- Evil and moral acts- Wartime: Actions and attitudes feed on each other; when evil behavior occurs we tend to justify it as right. Peacetime: Moral action, especially when chosen rather than coerced, affects moral thinking
- Interracial behavior and racial attitudes- racial behavior helps shape our social consciousness (by doing not saying racial attitudes were changed)
- Social movements- political and social movements may legislate behavior designed to lead attitude change on a mass scale
When persuasive communications change our attitude
Petty and Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood model
-The central route to persuasion: people elaborate on the arguments in a persuasive communication, listen carefully to and thinking about the arguments; results in a long lasting attitude change.
-The peripheral route to persuasion: People do not elaborate on the arguments in a persuasive communication, but are instead swayed by peripheral cues or surface characteristics (e.g. who gave the speech)
Factors that encourage central route as compared to the peripheral route:
Motivation-the audience and the message
Personal relevance to the message
Argument quality is high
Level of need for cognition is high
The individuals desire to seek out and think about info
in their social world
Attention-the communicator and the message
Prevent attention loss (limit outside factors, distractions &
reduce the complexity of the communicator)
Capturing attention: Emotions (Fear arousing
communications- attempts to change people’s attitudes by arousing their fears, most effective if the fear is moderate and the message provides actions for reducing fear. Particularly affectively based attitudes.