Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept

Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept
HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATE DEGREE PROGRAMME Subject Code: PSYG2504 Subject Title: Social Psychology Lecturer: Ms. Doris Wong Individual Assignment (15% of course grade) Instructions: 1. Read this guideline carefully before you start doing your assignment. 2. This assignment accounts for 15% of the course marks. You are required to write about 1000 words, but it should never exceed 1200 words. Please mark with an asterisk* after the 1000th word, and include a word count at the end of the essay. Your assignment MUST be submitted via Turnitin. This assignment, like any term paper, presupposes a substantial amount of background reading. The expectation is that you will do a good deal of extra reading on the selected theories with cultural relevance before you actually start doing it. 6. You are reminded that all research mentioned or citations from any texts must be properly documented in a separate References section. 7. The marking scheme of this assignment is as follows: Content (Relevancy and Accuracy) 50% Presentation (Organization and Logical Reasoning) 20% Communication (Clarity and Grammar) 20% Supporting material 10% You are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept(s) and/or theory/theories you have learnt in this course to your own life. It must be DIRECTLY related to you and only you in your particular cultural environment. A general discussion about a concept/theory without showing enough relevance to yourself will lead to a very poor grade. Plagiarism (stealing others’ ideas or copying others’ assignment) will be severely penalized. You WILL receive an “F” for the course and your name will be reported to the Academic Registrar. A general rule is: copying more than 10 words continuously and exceeds 10% similarity will be regarded as plagiarism. In general, the assignment is due on the 13th week. You are required to submit your paper to “Turnitin” through Moodle. Late submission is penalized 20% of a letter grade (per day). Talk to me well in advance if you cannot finish your assignment on time. Last moment request for delay will NOT be entertained. Rubrics for Individual Assignment Level of Achievement Criteria Capstone (Exemplary) Milestone (Competent) Milestone (Basic) Benchmark (Marginal) Fail Content (50%) The concepts chosen are relevant to the course. Description of the basic concepts is totally accurate. Application of the concepts to student’s personal life is appropriate and clearly explained and elaborated. Student’s deep / inspiring personal reflections are shown. The concepts chosen are relevant to the course. Description of the basic concepts is mostly accurate. Application of the concepts to student’s personal life is appropriate but only partially explained and elaborated. Student’s personal reflections are shown but not deep enough. Most of the concepts chosen are relevant to the course. Description of the basic concepts is generally accurate. Application of the concepts to student’s personal life is appropriate but lacks explanations and elaboration. Some shallow, unexplained personal reflections are shown. Some concepts chosen are relevant to the course but some are not. Description of the basic concepts is not accurate and contains misconceptions. Application of the concepts to student’s personal life is not appropriate. No obvious personal reflections are shown. Concepts chosen are largely irrelevant to the course. Description of the basic concepts is totally wrong and contains misconceptions. No application of the concepts to student’s personal life or is not appropriate. No personal reflections at all. Criteria Capstone (Exemplary) Milestone (Competent) Milestone (Basic) Benchmark (Marginal) Fail Organization & Reasoning (20%) Organizational pattern (specific introduction and conclusion, sequenced material within the body, and transitions) is clearly and consistently observable and skillful, making the content of the paper cohesive. Organizational pattern (specific introduction and conclusion, sequenced material within the body, and transitions) is clearly and consistently observable within the whole paper. Organizational pattern (specific introduction and conclusion, sequenced material within the body, and transitions) is intermittently observable within the paper. Organizational pattern (specific introduction and conclusion, sequenced material within the body, and transitions) is not observable within the paper. Organizational pattern (specific introduction and conclusion, sequenced material within the body, and transitions) is not observable and the whole structure is confusing within the paper. Communication (20%) Use of language displays flair and style, making the paper an engaging piece to read. Use of language is largely clear and accurate, which enhances the effectiveness of the paper. Use of language is largely simple and monotonous, showing some basic mastery of English on the part of the writer. Use of language is largely unclear and inaccurate, adversely affecting the effectiveness of the paper. Use of language is inaccurate and almost impossible to understand, adversely affecting the effectiveness of the paper. Criteria Capstone (Exemplary) Milestone (Competent) Milestone (Basic) Benchmark (Marginal) Fail Supporting Materials (10%) Extensive and observable reference to published resources. APA format followed accurately in bibliography. Observable reference to published resources, though not extensive enough. APA format followed accurately in bibliography. Limited reference to published resources. APA format used but is inaccurate. No/minimal reference to published resources. APA format not followed in bibliography. No reference to published resources at all. APA format not followed in bibliography and shows no sense of referencing.
Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept
PSYG 2504 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Lecture 5 – Prejudice 1 OUTLINE o Stereotype, prejudice and discrimination o Origins of prejudice o Reducing prejudice o Prejudice and discrimination in HK 2 DEFINING THE TERMS ◆ What’s your idea about them? 1. Stereotypes 2. Prejudice 3. Discrimination What do you think about men and women? 4 1. STEREOTYPES ◆ Beliefs about the personal attributes that all members of a particular group or social category share . ◆ Cognitive framework and categorization that influence the processing of social information ◆ Information related to a stereotype is often processed more quickly, and remembered better, than information unrelated to it (Macrae et al., 1997) ◆ Inconsistent information may be refuted or changed in subtle ways to make it consistent (Kunda & Oleson, 1995) Sagar and Schofield (1980) Racial Bias Study Purpose: demonstrate stereotypes bias interpretation of ambiguous events Participants: 40 African American (AA), 40 White (W) Method: 1. Participants presented with ambiguous drawings (e.g. bumps, asks for cakes, take pencil, pokes) with “actors” depicted as W or AA 2. Participants rated “actors” behavior as “mean/playful/threatening/friendly” Results ? 6 1. STEREOTYPES 1. STEREOTYPES ◆ Can be Positive or Negative ◆ Can be accurate or inaccurate • Overgeneralization • Overemphasis on negative attributes • Overestimate the differences between groups • Underestimate the differences within groups ◆ Can be agreed with or rejected by group members GENDER STEREOTYPES 8 ◆ Gender stereotypes are distinct in that they are not only descriptive, but also prescriptive ◆ They tell people what they should do or be 2. PREJUDICE o The evaluation (usually negative ) of a group or an individual based mainly on group membership o “ Occurs naturally in the human species” (Ponterotto, 2006, p. 11) • Prejudgment ▪ e.g. Alice is not a competent manager because she is a woman (before you try to understand her ability)  Contain negative affect/emotion  e.g. strong dislike for Japanese in those who have experienced the WWII 9 o Those who are prejudiced against also hold a negative stereotype of their group, o e.g. gay people are likely to have a stereotype of gay such as immoral or low self – esteem o Unprejudiced people still know the most common stereotypes even though they don’t agree with them  Devine and Elliot (1995) asked students about content of black stereotype and whether they believed it themselves 10 2. PREJUDICE 3. DISCRIMINATION o Negative behaviors towards individuals based on their group membership o Prejudice “legitimizes” discrimination o Covert and Overt o Discrimination decreased in recent years in the US and many other countries • “Old – fashioned” racism, for instance, is simply replaced by modern racism (more subtle) (Swim et al., 1995) • Concealing prejudice from others in public settings, but expressed when it is safe • ‘failing to even notice race’ / color – blind 11 GROUP ANTAGONISM The ABC ◆ A ffective/Attitudinal = Prejudice ◆ B ehavioral = Discrimination ◆ C ognitive = Stereotypes Prejudice and Discrimination EXAMPLE: RACISM •The beginning of the modern civil rights movement was in December 1, 1955 in Alabama •Mrs. Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger •She was then arrested and fined 13 EXAMPLE: RACISM ▪Dr. Martin Luther King started a boycott of the city bus lasted 381 days until the Supreme Court ruling declaring segregation illegal on public buses in 1956 ▪The lady who “sat down” to “stand up” died on Monday, October 24, 2005 ▪Elected by TIME as one of the 100 most influential persons in the last century 14 I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. 15 EXAMPLE: RACISM SHOOTER BIAS Racial Progress ◆ Research reveals that racial prejudice has been on the decline over the last several decades ◆ Election of Barack Obama was seen by many as significant sign of racial progress EXAMPLE: RACISM ◆ Women face discrimination in work settings, higher education and government (e.g. Fisher, 1992) ◆ Issues on Gender Inequality ◆ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SrpARP_M0o EXAMPLE: SEXISM OTHER EXAMPLES o Sexual orientation  Sometimes called heterosexism  Most adult in the US hold negative attitudes toward homosexual behavior, regarding it as wrong and unnatural (Herek & Capitanio, 1996; Yang, 1997) 18 o Age  Elderly people are often assumed to be less capable physically and mentally (Levy & Langer, 1994) o Weight  Sometimes called “size discrimination”  Overweight people are perceived as less attractive, less intelligent, less happy, less self – disciplined, and less successful (Hebl & Heatherton, 1998) 19 o Physical attractiveness • Also known as appearance prejudice • Physically attractive people receive more lenient punishments (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994) OTHER EXAMPLES OTHER EXAMPLES o Singlism  Most people are not aware  Fifty percent of the time, married people were described as kind, giving, and caring, but those attributes were applied to single people only 2% of the time (DePaulo and Morris, 2006)  legal privileges that come with married status 20 THE ORIGINS OF PREJUDICE A. Motivational factors: Perceived THREAT to the well – being of a group ◼ Realistic conflict theory – prejudice and discrimination stem from the perceived threat to the group resources B. Cognitive factors: preservation of self – esteem through group identification ◼ Social identity theory – consequences/ cognitive effects with the identification with a social group C. Cultural factors and social norms 21 MOTIVATIONAL FACTOR: INTERGROUP COMPETITION Realistic conflict theory views prejudice as an inevitable consequence of conflict between groups for limited and valued resources  Resources such as commodities or opportunities  Competition intensifies conflict (Sherif et al., 1961; the Robbers Cave Experiment )  Competition → emotion – laden prejudice  Tension/conflicts reduced with the pursuit of common superordinate goals  Any examples in HK? 22 COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL IDENTITY o Social categorization: the “us” (an ingroup ) VS “them” (an outgroup ) effect o The ‘we’ aspect of our self – concept, enhanced self – esteem through affiliation 23 o Social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982) is concerned with the consequences of perceiving the self as a member of a social group and identifying with it o Assumptions: 1. We categorize 2. We identify 3. We compare 24 COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL IDENTITY Social identity 25 COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL IDENTITY o Perceiving people as members of in – groups and out – groups leads to  In – group favoritism effect/In – group bias (Tajfel et al., 1971) ▪ We evaluate ingroup members more positively, reward them more, and find them more persuasive than outgroup members (e.g. Allen & Wilder, 1975) 26 COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL IDENTITY IN – GROUP VS OUT – GROUP 27  Group – serving biases  Make internal attributions for an ingroup’s successes and external attributions for its failures , and just the opposite for the outgroup  White students tended to attribute a high GPA of white applicants for college admission to ability and a low GPA to a lack of effort and held the reverse view for black applicants (Jackson et al., 1993) 28 COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL IDENTITY  The assumed – similarity effect ▪ Other in – group members are seen as more similar to the self than out – group members ▪ Allen and Wilder (1979) made students believe that they were grouped accordingly to artistic preference (in fact, randomly) and found that students assumed other ingroup members were more similar to them than outgroup members even on matters unrelated to art 29 COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL IDENTITY o The outgroup homogeneity effect ▪ “They are all alike, while we are diverse.” 30 ▪ We are more likely to see subcategories in the ingroup ▪ While Americans see all Asians as the same, we make a careful distinction between Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai, Japanese, Taiwanese, Mainland Chinese, Hong Konger, etc. • We perceive any ingroup member as more complex o White students see other whites as more complex than black people (Jones et al., 1981) o Young people see the young as more complex than the elderly and vice versa (Park & Rothbart, 1982) COGNITIVE EFFECTS OF SOCIAL IDENTITY CULTURAL FACTORS AND SOCIAL NORMS Social learning theory : we acquire (negative) attitudes towards other social groups by hearing such views expressed by significant others. o Rewards for adopting the same views, e.g. love, approval  Socialization  The Media 31 o Socialization  A process by which children learn the conventional social norms  By age 4 or 5, most children living in the US differentiate between blacks and whites and are aware of the prevailing norms about race  By age 7, most also showed signs of prejudice against Asians or Native Americans (Aboud, 1988) 32 CULTURAL FACTORS AND SOCIAL NORMS Parents as Socializing Agent CULTURAL FACTORS AND SOCIAL NORMS o Mass Media coverage reflects and reinforces stereotypes and discrimination  e.g., Gilens (1999) found that the media presents an inaccurate picture of people on welfare, showing them as much more likely to be black and unemployed than is the case in reality 34 CULTURAL FACTORS AND SOCIAL NORMS •Media exposure can influence people’s attitudes and behavior 35 CULTURAL FACTORS AND SOCIAL NORMS REDUCING PREJUDICE o Socialization ▪ More education people have, the less prejudiced they are likely to be (esp. for people with college degrees) (Schuman et al., 1997) ▪ Media exposure yield limited change in people’s attitudes towards outgroup (Paluck, 2009; Kallman, 2017) 36 REDUCING PREJUDICE o Intergroup Contact  Most white soldiers initially opposed desegregation reduced opposition after intergroup contact (Pettigrew, 1958)  Several surveys in Europe found that having more friends in minority groups was associated with less prejudice (Pettigrew, 1997) 37 Allport’s contact hypothesis ◆ Under certain conditions, direct contact between hostile groups will reduce prejudice & discrimination REDUCING PREJUDICE REDUCING PREJUDICE o However , many efforts at intergroup contact do not meet the conditions  Even in desegregated schools, children tend to associate more with their own race (Schofield, 1978) 39 REDUCING PREJUDICE o Recategorization  A shift in the boundary between the in – group (us) and some out – group (them) ▪ Gaertner et al. (1990) suggest helping people to experience working together cooperatively can induce people belonging to different groups to perceive each other as members of a single group  e.g., your identity changes from local students to HKBU students 40 DISCRIMINATION IN HONG KONG 41 ◼ Physical and Mental Disabilities ◼ Psychiatric conditions ◼ Ethnic minority/mainland Chinese ◼ Gender identity (Foley et al., 2006) ◼ Sexual orientation (Lau & Stotzer, 2010) ◼ personal status, e.g. divorced, pregnancy ◼ Occupations, e.g. sex workers ◼ … WORK OF EOC IN HONG KONG The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) is a statutory body set up in 1996 to implement the Sex Discrimination Ordinance (SDO) 《 性別歧視條 例》 , the Disability Discrimination Ordinance (DDO) 《 殘疾歧視條例》 and the Family Status Discrimination Ordinance (FSDO) 《 家庭崗位歧視 條例》 The Commission works towards the elimination of discrimination on the grounds of sex, marital status, pregnancy, disability and family status 42 REFLECTIONS ◆ What social groups do you identify with? ◆ Do you find people speaking English or European languages superior to you/people with dark skin inferior to you? ◆ What do you know about the marginalized groups in Hong Kong? ◆ How much do you aware of your own prejudice and discrimination?
Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept
PSYG 2504 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Lecture 6: Persuasion 1 LECTURE OUTLINE o What is persuasion? o Cognitive process underlying persuasion? • ELM model o What are elements of persuasion? • Who says? The communicator • What is said? The message content • How is it said? The channel of communication • To whom is it said? The audience o How to resist persuasion? 2 3 4 PERSUASION o Effort to change others’ attitudes through the use of various kinds of messages o A symbolic process in which communicators try to convince other people to change their attitudes or behaviors regarding an issue through the transmission of a message in an atmosphere of free choice. (Perloff, 2010) o The process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors. (Myers, 2005) 5 o Systematic processing (central route to persuasion)  Involves considerable cognitive elaboration  Careful consideration of message content and the ideas  Requires effort and absorbs much of our information – processing capacity o Heuristic processing (peripheral route to persuasion)  Examine the message quickly  The use of mental shortcuts  Incidental cues , e.g. the attractiveness of the speaker  Requires less effort  Allows us to react to persuasive messages automatically 6 C O G N I T I V E P R O C E S S O F P E R S UA S I O N – E L A B O R AT I ON L I K E L I HO O D M O D E L ( E L M ) 7 8 9 C O G N I T I V E P R O C E S S O F P E R S UA S I O N – E L A B O R AT I ON L I K E L I HO O D M O D E L ( E L M ) 10 o ELM by Petty, R.E. & Cacioppo, J.T. (1986) o Elaboration – the extent to which the individual thinks about or mentally modifies arguments contained in the communication o Likelihood – the probability that an event will occur o Aims to tell WHEN people should be likely to elaborate, or not, on persuasive messages o People can be simple as an information – processor or detailed, deep thinkers C O G N I T I V E P R O C E S S O F P E R S UA SI ON – E L A B O R AT I ON L I K E L I HO O D M O D E L ( E L M ) 11 o Systematic processing occurs when people… o Have enough capacity or ability to process carefully o Enough time o adequate knowledge o High motivation o High personal relevance or importance o Heuristic processing occurs when people… o Have limited capacity or ability to process carefully o Limited time o Limited knowledge o Low motivation o Low relevance or importance Alba & Marmorstein (1987) – Effect of audience’s capability and cognitive resources on decision making process ➢ Camera A better (than Camera B) on 3 KEY features ➢ Camera B better (than Camera A) on 8 TRIVIAL features 12 C O G N I T I V E P R O C E S S O F P E R S UA SI ON – E L A B O R AT I ON L I K E L I HO O D M O D E L ( E L M ) Time allowed to consider the arguments % choosing A 2 seconds per feature 5 seconds per feature Unlimited 13 The inevitability of peripheral processing in the information age 14 C O G N I T I V E P R O C E S S O F P E R S UA SI ON – E L A B O R AT I ON L I K E L I HO O D M O D E L ( E L M ) ELEMENTS OF PERSUASION o Who says? The communicator o What is said? The message content o How is it said? The channel of communication o To whom is it said? The audience 15 THE COMMUNICATOR: CREDIBILITY 16 o A credible communicator is perceived as both expert and trustworthy o How to become an expert or credible communicator? • In – group members • Knowledge on the topic • Trustworthiness 1. Looking at the other person straight in the eye (Hemsley & Doob, 1978) 2. Audience believes that the communicator is not trying to persuade (Hatfield & Festinger, 1962) 3. Argue against self interest (Eagly, Wood & Chaiken, 1978) T HE COMMU NICATOR: AT T RACT IVENESS o Likability – more likely to be persuaded by a communicator we like than one we dislike 1. Make you feel good and transferred to the message 2. Convey that s/he has interest at heart o Similarity – Sharing the values between the source and the receiver ➢ e.g. Smoking cessation 17 o Physical attractiveness • Attractiveness influence attitudes ▪ Chaiken (1979) ▪ Recruited individuals who were high & low in physical appeal and asked them to advocate stop serving meal at breakfast and lunch ▪ Students received message from the attractive speakers were more inclined to the message • Possible reasons: ▪ People pay more attention to an attractive speaker ▪ Attractiveness is associated with the message ▪ People like and identify with attractive communicators ▪ Attractive individuals may be better public speakers 18 T HE COMMU NICATOR: AT T RACT IVENESS 19 20 THE MESSAGE CONTENT o Reason VS Emotion • Well – educated or analytical audience: rational appeals (Cacioppo et al., 1983, 1996) • The effect of good feelings : more persuasive when there is an association between the messages and good feelings ▪ Janis (1965) found that students were more convinced by the persuasive messages if they were allowed to enjoy peanuts and Pepsi when reading the message • Mood – congruent effects : people tend to perceive everything positive when they are in good mood ▪ Make faster, more impulsive decisions and rely more on peripheral cues 21 THE MESSAGE CONTENT o The effect of arousing fear – messages that evoke negative emotions in the recipient o Fear appeals – a persuasive communication that tries to scare people into changing attitudes by conjuring up negative consequences that will occur if they do not comply with the message recommendations ✓ Moderate levels of fear works best ✓ Paired with specific means for behavioral change o 認清損友 遠離毒品 o 禁毒處（濫用藥物） o Quit smoking 22 23 THE MESSAGE CONTENT • Discrepancy • Cognitive dissonance – internal conflict between the attitudes and the behaviors that prompts people to change their attitude/ opinions • 咪做大嘥鬼 惜食為 香港 • One – sided vs two – sided appeals • The message looks fairer and more disarming if it recognizes the opposition’s arguments • ‘No aluminum cans please!’ vs ‘It may be inconvenient, but it is important!!!!!!’ • Which do you think is more persuasive? 24 THE MESSAGE CONTENT o Primacy vs Recency • Primacy effect – information presented first usually has the most influence • Recency effect – information presented last sometimes has the most influence, but less common than the primacy effect • Miller & Campbell (1959) ▪ Gave university students a condensed transcripts from an actual trial ▪ The investigators gave the testimony and arguments in one block and the defense in another ▪ The students read both blocks and returned one week after declaring their opinions ▪ Results: Most of them sided with the information they read first 25 THE CHANNEL OF COMMUNICATION o How the message is delivered matters o Persuasive speaker must deliver a message that can get attention, understandable, convincing, memorable and compelling • We are influenced by our contact with other people (personal influence), e.g. friends, classmates but not textbooks and lecturers! • Two – step flow of communication – the process by which media influence occurs through opinion leaders (experts), who in turn influence others 26 THE AUDIENCE o Age • Generational explanation – the attitudes the elderly adopted when they were young persists and this makes a big difference from those being adopted by young people nowadays o The cognition of the audiences • Forewarned is forearmed – prepare the counterarguments if the audience is forewarned • Distraction – distracting the attention can inhibit counterarguing • Uninvolved audiences use peripheral cues 27 RESIST ING PERSUASION ATTEMPTS 28 o Protecting personal freedom – Reactance • Negative reactions to threats to one’s personal freedom (i.e. hard – sell attempts often fail) • Reactance increases resistance to persuasion and can even produce negative attitude change or opposition to what was intended 29 RESIST ING PERSUASION ATTEMPTS 30 o Defend our attitudes – developing counter arguments • Providing counterarguments helps people to resist persuasion • Attitude inoculation : Exposing people to weak attacks upon their attitudes so that when stronger attacks come, people will have refutations available ▪ Having thought about the counterarguments beforehand, people are relatively immune to the effects of later persuasive communication RESIST ING PERSUASION ATTEMPTS o Prior knowledge of persuasive intent – Forewarning • Advance knowledge that one is about to become the target of an attempt at persuasio n • More time to formulate counterargument s 31 RESIST ING PERSUASION ATTEMPTS 32 o Selective avoidance of persuasive attempts • Direct our attention away from information that challenges our existing attitudes • Selective exposure – actively attending to information consistent with our attitudes ▪ E .g. mute the commercials, cognitively ‘tune – out’ when confronted with information that is opposite to our attitudes 33 RESIST ING PERSUASION ATTEMPTS INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN RESISTANCE TO PERSUASION People are more resistant to persuasion when they are… o motivated to engage in counter – arguing o attempt to strengthen their own beliefs o NOT ego – depleted (i.e. CAN engage in self – regulation ) • Self – regulation – limited capacity to engage our willpower and control our own thinking and emotions • Ego – depletion – our self – regulation has been reduced because of prior expenditures of limited resources (e.g. tired) 34 o Am I aware of persuasive attempts from others/the external environment? o Which route of processing do I use to make decisions (in face of different kinds of persuasive attempts)? o Which kind of attitudes are more/less resistant to persuasion? Why? 35 RE FLECTIONS
Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept
PSYG2504 Social psychology Lecture 7 Conformity and compliance 1 Outline Social influence • Conformity  What is conformity?  Why and When?  Conformity and Culture • Compliance  What is compliance?  Compliance techniques  How to resist compliance? • Obedience  What is obedience?  Determinants of obedience  Resisting destructive obedience 2 Social Influence 3 An authority The target individual A Group (Mere presence) Direct request Obedience Conformity Compliance Social Influence o Conformity  Doing what we are expected to do in a given situation  Could be a result of real or imagined group pressure o Compliance  A form of social influence involving direct requests from one person to another  Getting others to say ‘Yes’ to your requests o Obedience  Complying with a person or group perceived to be a legitimate authority  Directly order one or more people to behave in a specific way 4 • Doing what we are expected to do in a given situation according to social norm • Majority influence 5 Conformity • Jenness (1932): Jelly Beans Experiment 6 Conformity • Sherif ’s study (1936) – Autokinetic Effect • Classic Case of Suggestibility • Autokinetic Effect : A stationary spot of light in a dark room appears to move • Sherif asked students to judge the apparent movement of a stationary light on a wall Conformity Sherif’s Antokinetic Effect • In ambiguous situations , people tend to rely on information provided by others Conformity Conformity 10 Asch (1955) Line Judgment Study Conformity 11 o Subjects’ task was to pick the line on the left that best matched the target line on the right in length o Alone, people virtually never erred. But when four or five others before them gave the wrong answer, people erred about 35% of the time. 75% of subjects conformed at least once Conformity o WHY do people conform?  Informational Influence ▪ The Desire to Be Right  Normative Influence ▪ The Desire to Be Liked ▪ Norm  an understood rule for accepted and expected behavior  prescribes “proper” behavior 12 Conformity o Informational influence – Others ’ behavior often provides useful information  Trust in the group affects conformity  Task difficulty affects conformity  Conformity due to informational influence affects both public behavior and private beliefs 13 Conformity o Normative influence – The desire to be accepted and to avoid rejection from others  Conformity due to normative influence generally changes public behavior but not private beliefs • e.g. speak politely in front of me but swear among the classmates/friends • However, through dissonance reduction, a behavioral change can lead to a change in beliefs 14 Conformity • Group Size ▪ The larger the group, the more conformity — to a point ▪ Asch found that 3 -5 people elicit more conformity than just 1 -2 people • Group Unanimity ▪ Even one dissenter dramatically drops conformity (Allen & Levine, 1969) 15 o WHEN do people conform? Conformity • Cohesiveness and Commitment to the Group ▪ When one is attracted to or feel committed to the group, conformity increased • Individual characteristics ▪ The more one feels individuated, independent, secure and competent, conformity decreased 16 • Cultures differ in the extent to which people adhere to social norms . • Individual VS collective? ( Bond & Smith, 1996) Conformity and Culture Y ou were working in an office now. One person is using the photocopier and another is waiting. You want to go first in line. ☺ What can you say to the one who is waiting? 18 Imagine…  A form of social influence involving direct requests from one person to another  Getting others to say ‘Yes’ to your requests 19 Compliance Compliance o Langer et al. (1978) • “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine?” • “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?” • “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?” 20 Compliance  “Can I use the copier now because I have to make copies ?”  Compliance increased even though the explanation provided no logical justification  “Mindless compliance ” ▪ Compliance almost without thinking  We spare the mental effort of thinking and simply comply with the situation  How if request to copy 20 rather than 5 pages? 21 Compliance Suppose you’ve lost your account password, but in a hurry of searching for journals in the library… how would you borrow your friend’s library account? 22 Compliance: underlying principles Cialdini (1994) 1. Friendship/liking – we are willing to comply with requests from friends and from people we like 2. Commitment/consistency – once committed to a position/action, more willing to comply with requests for behaviors that are consistent with the position/action 3. Reciprocity – we feel compelled to pay back ; we are more likely to comply with a request from someone who has previously helped us 4 Scarcity – we comply with requests that are scarce or decreasing in availability 5. Authority – we comply with requests that are from someone who holds legitimate authority (obedience) 6. Social validation – We want to be correct: we act or think like others 23 Compliance: Specific techniques 1. Technique based on liking o Ingratiation  Getting others to like us so that they are more willing to agree to our requests (Jones, 1964)  Impression management by 1. Flattery – praising others 2. Self -promotion – informing others about the past accomplishments (e.g. I’m really very organized…) 3. Improving one’s own appearance 4. Emitting more positive nonverbal cues 5. Doing small favors for the target people 6. Incidental similarity – call attention to small and slightly surprising similarities 24 Compliance: Specific techniques 2. Techniques based on commitment or consistency o Foot -in -the -Door Technique  First make a small request (usually so trivial that it is hard to refuse, e.g. free sample) and then follow with a larger request  Freedman & Fraser (1966): The billboard experiment 25 Compliance: Specific techniques  Reasons: 1. Self -perception theory – the individual’s self – image changes as a result of the initial act of compliance 2. Desire to be consistent – especially for those who express a strong personal preference for consistency 26 Compliance: Specific techniques 2. Techniques based on commitment or consistency o Lowball procedure  Getting others to comply by changing a deal after the person has accepted it  Initial commitment made it difficult to walk away even though there have been changes made 27 Compliance: Specific techniques 3. Techniques based on reciprocity o Door -in -the -Face Technique  First make an unreasonably large request, then after being rejected, shift to a smaller request  Cialdini et al. (1975) stopped college students on the street and asked them to serve as unpaid counselors for juvenile delinquents 2 hours a week for 2 years  Results?  Scaled down to a 2 -hour trip to the zoo with a group of such adolescent  50% agreed!  Control group: only 17%  Why is it related to reciprocity? 28 Compliance: Specific techniques 3. Techniques based on reciprocity o That’s -Not -All Technique  Add additional bonus or discount to sweeten the deal before the target has accepted the deal  Burger’s (1986) tried to sell one cupcake and two cookies for 75 cents to students on campus 29  A prepackaged (1 cupcake & 2 cookies) set for 75 cents  75 cents for the cupcake and then 2 FREE cookies!  Persons on the receiving end view the “extra” as an added concession, and feel obligated to make a concession themselves Compliance: Specific techniques 4. Techniques based on scarcity o Playing Hard to Get Technique  Suggesting a person or object is scarce and hard to obtain  Commonly observed in the area of romance  Shown to be effective in job hunting (William et al., 1993) o Deadline Technique  Targets are told that they have only limited time to take advantage of some offer or to obtain some items 30 Compliance: Specific techniques • Other Techniques o Pique Technique  Make an unusual request to pique (stimulate) target’s interest and disrupt target’s mindless refusal script  Santos et al. (1994) asked college women confederates posed as panhandlers (beggars) and approached pedestrians for money 31  “Can you spare any change?”  “Can you spare a quarter?”  “Can you spare 17 cents / 37 cents?”  Total amount of money given was higher as well Group discussion • Using techniques you have just learnt, as well as your knowledge of Social Psychology, devise a plan to borrow $500 from a classmate in the Canteen. You can include confederate(s) if you wish. • Techniques:  Ingratiation  Foot -in -the door technique  Door -in -the face technique  That’s -not -all technique  Lowball technique  Pique technique • Rules  The plan should be reasonable and practical  No coercion 32 Resisting Compliance o Reactance theory (Brehm, 1966)  People attempt to maintain their personal freedom of action  Bensley and Wu (1991) ▪ studied anti -drinking messages of 2 intensities ▪ Mild: there is “good evidence” and “you may wish to carefully consider” these findings ▪ Strong: there is “conclusive evidence” of the harm of drinking and that “any reasonable person must acknowledge these conclusions” 33 ▪ In the first study, average students reported that they intended to drink less in the coming few days after reading the mild message ▪ In the second study, fairly heavy alcohol drinkers (college students) actually consumed more beer after reading the strong message  Thus, attempts that threaten perceived freedom may backfire 34 Resisting Compliance Obedience o An extreme form of social influence involved changing your opinions, judgments, or actions because someone in a position of authority told you to o Obedience is based on the belief that authorities have the right to make requests  Would you harm an innocent stranger if ordered to do so? 35 Obedience o The Milgram Experiments (1963, 1974)  Milgram was interested in the point at which people would disobey the experimenter in the face of the learner’s protests  imagine you are in Yale Univ. Psy . Dept.  the experiment is about the effect of punishment on learning  You and another person are teacher and learner  You have to read aloud pairs of words that the learner has to memorize 36 Obedience o The Milgram Experiments (1963, 1974)  The learner mentions that he has a slightly weak heart  You control an electric shock machine  When he is wrong, you have to punish him: first by “15 Volts – Slight Shock” and in the end, “450 Volts – XXX” 37 Obedience o Sample of the learner’s schedule of protests (recording)  75V: Ugh!  165V: Ugh! Let me out! (Shouting)  270V: (Screaming) Let me out of here (3 times). Let me out. Do you hear? Let me out of here.  285V: (Screaming)  315V: (Intense screaming) I told you I refuse to answer. I’m no longer part of this experiment.  (No more sound in the end) o The experiment’s script 1. Please continue. 2. The experiment requires that you continue. 3. It is absolutely essential that you continue. 4. You have no other choice; you MUST go on. 38 Obedience 39 Percentage of subjects who obeyed experimenter XXX (435 -450) Shock levels in volts 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Slight (15 -60) Moderate (75 -120) Strong (135 -180) Very strong (195 -240) Intense (255 -300) Extreme intensity (315 -360) Danger severe (375 -420) ◆ Psychiatrists guessed that 1 in 1000 would go clear to 450 volts (* Only “True Psychopaths”) ◆ But, in the original study, 26/40 went all the way 40 Obedience Determinants of Obedience o Emotional distance of the victim  Victim is remote, ‘teachers’ heard no complaints  Victim depersonalized o Closeness and legitimacy of the authority  Experimenter is close to the ‘teachers’  perceived authority or legitimacy o Institutional authority  The reputation/prestige of the University o The liberating effects of group influence  Two confederates defied the experimenter  The real participant discontinue 41 Obedience o The Milgram experiments illustrate what he called the “ normality thesis ”  The idea that evil acts are not necessarily performed by abnormal or “crazy” people o He also succeeded in illustrating the power of social situations to influence human behavior o His findings were replicated in different countries (e.g., Jordan, Germany, Australia) and with children as well as adults (e.g. Shanab & Yahya, 1977) 42 Obedience o Variations increasing obedience  Watching a peer give shocks (>90%)  Two other teachers continue (>70%) o Variations decreasing obedience  Experiment taken place in office building (<50%)  Increasing closeness of learner (~40%)  Teacher grasps learner’s hand and force it down upon a metal shock plate! (~30%)  Increasing distance of experimenter (~20%)  Ordinary people as experimenter (<20%)  Two other teachers quit (<10%)  No command (control group) (<<10%) 43 Obedience Resisting Destructive Obedience ◆ Be reminded of personal responsibility ◆ Be reminded that blind obedience is not appropriate at certain point ➢ Provide disobedient models ➢ Social influence can breed defiance and help resist destructive obedience ◆ Question authority’s expertise and motives ◆ Beware and acknowledge people’s tendency to unquestioned obedience Are we all “Nazis”? ◆ NO , an individual’s character can make a difference ◆ Authoritarian Personality – Submissive toward figures of authority but aggressive toward subordinates. Continuum of Social Influence
Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept
PSYG2504 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Lecture 8 Behaviors in Group 1 Outline  Social Facilitation VS Social Inhibition 1. Zajonc’s Drive theory 2. Cottrell et al.(1968): Evaluation Apprehension 3. Baron’s Distraction -Conflict theory  Social Loafing VS Social Compensation • Collective Effort Model  Deindividuation  Group Polarization 2 Behavior in the Presence of Others  Any differences of your behavior when you are doing it alone and performing in front of others? ▪ Singing in the bathroom VS singing in public  The presence of others sometimes enhances and sometimes impairs an individual’s performance  Even just a mere presence of others would affect our behaviors 3 Social Facilitation  Social Facilitation : People sometimes perform better in the presence of others than when they are alone  Others are watching!! 4 Social Facilitation  Zajonc, Heingartner & Herman (1969) ▪ Cockroaches run a maze ▪ Cockroaches watched by others run faster than those without any audience ▪ Conclusion: the presence of an audience would facilitate a well -learned /dominant responses , BUT inhibit a less -practiced/new response. ▪ WHY? ▪ → an increase in arousal 5 Social Facilitation  Michaels et al. (1982) ▪ Studied pool players in a college student union building ▪ Pairs of players who were above or below average were identified and scores were secretly recorded ▪ Teams of 4 confederates approached the players ▪ Poor players: accuracy dropped from 36 to 25% ▪ Good players: accuracy rose from 71 to 80% 6 Social Facilitation 7 • WHY would there be an increase in arousal in the presence of an audience? • Cottrell, Wack , Sekerak & Rittle (1968) ▪ Evaluation apprehension – concern of being evaluated, which increase arousal and contribute to social facilitation effects ▪ When the audience was blindfolded or displayed no interest in watching the person performing the task – no social facilitation Social Facilitation 8 • Baron (1986) ▪ Distraction conflict theory – social facilitation stems from the conflict produced when an individual attempts to pay attention to the other people present and to the task being performed ▪ Cognitive overload can restrict a person’s attention to only focus on essential cues and ‘screen out’ nonessential ones . Social Facilitation 9 Social Facilitation  Social inhibition – the presence of others inhibits a person’s performance ▪ Presence of a spectator reduced individual performance on a memory task (Pessin, 1933) ▪ Can you think of any daily examples? 10 Social Facilitation *Dominant responses : the responses produced most readily at a given situation 11 Social Facilitation 12 • Huguet et al. (1999) found that Stroop interference decreased in the critical -audience conditions, compared to the alone and inattentive -audience conditions Social Loafing Social Loafing :  Declines in motivation and effort when a person works as part of a group as opposed to working alone (Karau & Williams, 1993) ▪ Letting others do the work ▪ Not individually held accountable ▪ Do you have such experience? 13 14 Social Loafing Social Loafing  The noise produced by each person cheering decreases as group size increases (Latané , Williams, & Harkins, 1979) Sound Pressure per Person Group Size 15 Social Loafing0 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cheering Clapping Social Loafing  Collective Effort Model (CEM) by Karau and Williams (1993, 1995)  Social loafing depends on 1. How important the person believes his/her contribution is to group success 2. How likely that better performance will be recognized and rewarded 3. How much the person values group success 16 Why does social loafing occur? Social Loafing Social Loafing Collective Effort Model (CEM) predicts that social loafing will be weakest when 1. They expect their coworkers to perform poorly 2. Individuals work in small rather than big groups 3. They perceive their contributions to the group product are unique and important 4. They work on tasks that are intrinsically interesting 5. When they work with respected others, e.g. friends 17 Social Loafing Social Loafing  Reducing Social Loafing ▪ Make each person’s contribution identifiable ▪ Have members see their own contributions as unique ▪ Provide rewards for high group productivity ▪ Make task meaningful, complex, or interesting ▪ A strong commitment to the ‘team’ ▪ Keep work groups small 18 Social Loafing Social Loafing  Social compensation occurs when a person expends great effort to compensate for others in the group ▪ When others are performing inadequately, and the person cares about the quality of the group product 19 Social Loafing Social Loafing  Across cultures ▪ Social loafing has been found in Asian countries such as India, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia and China ▪ However, social loafing may be greater among people from the U.S. than among Asians (Karau & Williams, 1993) ▪ WHY ? 20 Social Loafing Deindividuation 21 Deindividuation  Deindividuation – in crowded, anonymous situations when people lose a sense of responsibility for their own actions and feel free to express aggressive and sexual impulses  Lowered Individuality  Disappear into the crowd!! 22 Deindividuation  Zimbardo (1970) had groups of 4 young women deliver electric shocks to another person ▪ 1 st condition: participants were greeted by name, wore name tags, and were easily identifiable ▪ 2 nd condition: The participants wore oversize white lab coats and hoods, were never called by name, and were difficult to identify ▪ They were asked to deliver electric shocks to a person not in the group ▪ Results? ▪ those were not identifiable gave almost twice as many shocks as others. 23 Deindividuation  Diener et al. (1976) ▪ Researchers stationed at 27 homes waiting for children who were trick -or -treating on Halloween ▪ IV1: anonymous (no name asked) or identified (names asked) ▪ IV2*: alone or in groups ▪ Children were given an opportunity to take extra candies when the adult was not present ▪ What was the result? • Those children who have been asked names (identified) were less likely to steal 24 Deindividuation  Deindividuation increases when individuals are anonymous and as group size increases ▪ Explanations : ▪ Make people feel less accountable for their actions (Zimbardo, 1970) ▪ Might create a special psychological state in which people are focused externally and unaware of own values (Diener, 1980) ▪ Or might heighten individual’s identification with the group and increase conformity (Postmes & Spears, 1998) 25 IMAGINE… Suppose you are admitted to a University degree program, but you don’t have enough money to pay for the school fee for the coming year (no government subsidy available). Your friend who works in a finance company persuades you to borrow money there (with a VERY HIGH interest rate 8%!!!)…  How likely would you borrow?  Rate 1 -10  Why?  How much? (If yes) 26  Group polarization : the tendency of members of a group to move toward a more extreme position than their original position simply as a result of the group’s discussion 27 Group Polarization 28 Group Polarization  Two major contributing factors:  Social comparison: Our need to be above -average → generate and hold views that are better than other group members  Persuaded by arguments favoring the group’s initial preference during discussions 29 Group Polarization Reflection ◆ How do you think about group? ◆ What would be your role(s)? ◆ How’s your experiences in groups? ◆ How your experiences in group shape who you are now?
Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept
Interpersonal Attraction 1 PSYG2504 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Lecture 9 + Sources of interpersonal attraction – Internal sources – External sources  Proximity  Familiarity  Similarity  Personal attributes + Triangular theory of LOVE (Sternberg, 1986) 2 3 WHY people like or dislike each other?  Internal sources 1. Need for affiliation (i.e. association with others) • Cooperation is important for survival • Individual and situational factors 4  Internal sources 2. Effects of emotions and arousal • General physiological arousal • Attribution to a target person (misattribution?) • Dutton & Aron (1974) Capilano Suspension Bridge 5 • Dutton & Aron (1974) • An interviewer ask male participants just crossed the suspension bridge VS a sturdy bridge to write a brief story based on a picture • Afterwards gave each participant a phone number in case “they wanted to talk further.” • With female interviewers… • With male interviewers? Suspension bridge Sturdy bridge Participants called the interviewer WHY people like or dislike each other? o External sources 1. Proximity 2. Familiarity 3. Similarity 4. Personal attributes 6 + The best single predictor of whether two people will be friends is how far apart they live 7 + Priest & Sawyer (1967) – Studied students in dormitory after a full academic year – Roommates twice as likely as floormates to be friends – Floormates more than twice as likely as students in same dorm to be friends 8 + Why does proximity have an effect? – Availability – Allows repeated exposure – Lower cost in terms of time, money, forethought (social exchange theory) o Long -distance relationships require time, planning and money o Do you have any good friend move to other countries? – Cognitive dissonance pressures us to like those with whom we must associate – Anticipation of interaction o We prefer the person we expected to meet 9 – Can happen indirectly through social media too 10 + The mere (repeated) exposure effect : simply being exposed to a person (or other stimulus) tends to increase liking for it – Subtle but powerful and general (occurs for people, places, words, objects…) 11 + Moreland & Beach (1992) – 4 equally attractive assistants silently attended a large Social Psychology lecture for 0, 5, 10 or 15 times – Students were asked to rate these assistants – Results? 12 + Limits to Mere Exposure – Most effective if stimulus is initially viewed as positive or neutral – Pre -existing conflicts between people will get intensified, not decreased, with exposure – There is an optimal level of exposure: too much can lead to boredom and satiation (Bornstein et al., 1990) 13 + We like others who are similar to us in attitudes, interests, values, background & personality (AhYun, 2002) + Friendship, dating and marriage 14 15 + Newcomb (1961) – assigned roommates to be either very similar or very dissimilar in attitude and values – measured liking at the end of the semester – those who were similar liked each other and became friends whereas those who were dissimilar disliked each other 16 + In romantic relationships, the tendency to choose similar others is called the matching principle + People tend to match their partners on a wide variety of attributes – Values, attitudes, physical appearance, social background and personality (e.g. Schoen & Wooldredge, 1989) – Age, intelligence, education plans, religion, physical attractiveness, height (Hill & Peplau, 1998) + But friendship and love can transcend differences in background 17 + Why do people prefer similar others? – Similar others are more rewarding  e.g. agree more with our ideas or share activities – Interacting with similar others minimizes the possibility of cognitive dissonance  To like someone and disagree with that person is psychologically uncomfortable – We expect to be more successful with similar others  Even we all like to date someone who is attractive, rich, and nice…  But having a similar partner gives a relationship that has a higher chance to survive and mutually desired 18 + Limits to Similarity – Differences can be rewarding – Differences allow people to pool -shared knowledge and skills to mutual benefit  e.g. a Social Psyc group project  Note: when we say “opposites attract”, we are often referring to complementary roles rather than dissimilar values and goal 19 + Proximity causes liking – Once we like someone, we take steps to be closer + Similarity causes liking and liking increases similarity – Gruber -Baldini et al. (1995) followed married couples over a 21 -year period – Spouses were similar in age, education, and mental abilities at the initial testing – Over time, they actually became more similar on several measures of mental abilities 20 + There are large individual and cross -cultural differences in the characteristics that are preferred + Within the U.S., the most -liked characteristics are those related to trustworthiness – Including sincerity, honesty, loyalty and dependability + Two other much -liked attributes are personal warmth and competence (Anderson, 1968) 21 + Warmth – People appear warm when they have a positive attitude and express liking, praise, and approval (Folkes & Sears, 1977) – Nonverbal behaviors such as smiling, watching attentively, and expressing emotions also contribute to perceptions of warmth (Friedman, Riggio, & Casella, 1988) 22 + Competence – We like people who are socially skilled, intelligent, and competent – The type of competence that matters most depends on the nature of the relationship  e.g. social skills for friends, knowledge for professors 23 + Physical attractiveness – Other things being equal, we tend to like physically attractive people more (Hatfield & Sprecher, 1986) – People who are obese are stigmatized and face discrimination in the workplace  College students evaluated an obese woman as less sexually attractive, skilled, and warm than an average -weight woman  There is no such difference between over – and average – weight men (Regan, 1996)  Heavier college woman were less likely than were their slimmer counterparts to receive financial support from their parents (Crandall, 1995) 24 – Who is Attractive?  There’s cultural difference  However, some features that are seen as more attractive: 1. Special facial features (Cunningham, 1986) = Childlike features : large, widely spaced eyes and a small nose and chin – “cute” = Mature features with prominent cheekbones, high eyebrows, large pupils, and a big smile 25 2. Statistically “average” faces are seen as more attractive (Langlois and Roggman, 1990) 26 o The 32 composite faces on the right are generally rated more attractive than the 4 composite faces on the left + “Benefits” of physical attractiveness – Well -liked by peers even early in nursery school (Dion & Berscheid, 1971) – Babies prefer attractive faces (Langlois et al., 1987) – give better impressions in job interviews (Cash & Janda, 1984) – receive more help (Benson, Karabenick, & Lerner, 1976) – receive more lenient punishments (Mazzella & Feingold, 1994) 27 + WHY do we like more attractive people? – Schema/stereotype: attractive people are believed to possess other good qualities  They are believed to be more intelligent, dominant, & mentally healthy (Jackson, Hunter, & Hodge, 1995)  A lecture by a female teacher was rated as more interesting and she was judged to be a better teacher when she wore make up to look attractive (Chaikin et al., 1978)  In fact, there is NO empirical link between looks and intelligence, happiness, or mental health (Feingold, 1992) 28 – Biological disposition  According to evolutionary theory, attractiveness may provide a clue to health and reproductive fitness (e.g. Kalick et al., 1998) – Social psychological influence  Social gains: Being associated with an attractive other leads a person to be seen as more attractive him or herself  “radiating effect of beauty” 29 + The Halo Effect ( 光環效應 ) – the tendency for positive impressions of a person, company, brand or product in one area to positively influence one’s opinion or feelings in other areas – A cognitive bias 30 + A few negative attributes can be associated with physical attractiveness – beautiful women are sometimes perceived as vain and materialistic (Cash & Duncan ,1984) – although handsome male politicians are more likely to be elected, an attractive woman is not helped by her appearance (Sigelman et al., 1986) 31 + Good news for the plain people – as we acquire more specific individuating information about a particular person, our perception and judgement are less affected by the stereotypes (Eagly et al., 1991) – We not only perceive attractive people as likable, we also perceive likable people as attractive  Gross and Crofton (1977) found that after reading description of people portrayed as warm, helpful, and considerate, these people looked more attractive 32 – Lee et al. (2008): HotorNOT.com  Users evaluated about 144 pictures (on attractiveness)  Their pictures rated by >5000 people  Users decide whether to accept the invitation to meet if the others offer to date  Users’ probability of acceptance levels off and drops when the others are much more attractive than themselves 33 + Gender differences – For both sexes, characteristics such as kindness and intelligence are necesssities – Men rank physical attractiveness higher (Feingold, 1990; Jackson, 1992)  Women were more willing than men to marry someone who was NOT “good -looking” (Sprecher et al., 1994) – Women places financial resources higher – Men prefer younger partners, while women prefer older partners  Applicable to many other cultures (Buss, 1989)  Evolutionary explanation ÷ Young and physically attractive are cues to women’s health and fertility (Johnson & Franklin, 1993)  Social cultural explanation ÷ Traditional distinct social roles: Men as the bread -winners; Women were economically dependent and poorly educated than men 34 35 Sternberg (1986) + “Beauty is only skin deep”? What do you think? + What do you seek in an intimate relationship? + How much are you aware of the factors that bring about your previous/current intimate relationship(s)? + What kind is your love relationship according to Sternberg’s (1986) theory of love? Does it apply well to our culture? 36
Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept
PSYG2504 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY LECTURE 10 Altruism 1 LECTURE OUTLINE  Definitions  Situation in HK  Why do we help? ➢ A decision -making perspective ➢ A sociocultural perspective ➢ A learning perspective ➢ Attribution  Who helps?  Whom do we help?  When do we help? 2 DEFINITIONS  Altruism  Helping someone when there is no expectation of a reward (except for feeling that one has done a good deed)  Prosocial Behavior  Any act that helps others, regardless of motive 3 Prosocial Behavior Altruism 4 DO PEOPLE ALWAYS HELP? On March 13, 1964, New York Bar manager Kitty Genovese went home at 3 a.m. A man armed with a knife attacked her She screamed for help: “Oh my God, he stabbed me! Please help me! Please help me!” People turned on the light/looked out to see what happened For more than half an hour , no one helped The man stabbed her repeatedly until she died 38 witnesses, no one came out nor called the police 5 6 助人意願 尋求幫助 意願 接受幫助 意願 港人助人 意願 2016 5.51 4.62 5.06 4.01 2017 5.39 4.73 5.18 4.15 *score 1 -7 ORGAN DONATION 7 2019 BLOOD DONATION H T T P S : / / W W W 5 . H A . O R G . H K / R C B T S / B LO O D -C O L L E C T -2019 8 2019 BLOOD DONATION H T T P S : / / W W W 5 . H A . O R G . H K / R C B T S / B LO O D -C O L L E C T -2019 9 2019 BLOOD DONATION H T T P S : / / W W W 5 . H A . O R G . H K / R C B T S / B LO O D -C O L L E C T -2019 10 BLOOD DONATION 11 12 WHY DO WE HELP? A Decision -Making Perspective (Latané & Darley, 1970) • People decide whether or not to offer assistance based on a variety of perceptions and evaluations • Help is offered only if a person answers “yes” at each step 13 14 A Decision – Making Perspective ( Latané & Darley, 1970) 15 A Decision – Making Perspective ( Latané & Darley, 1970) 1. Notice the event  When we are distracted or in a hurry, we don’t help 2. Correctly interpreting an event as an emergency  Clark and Word (1972)  Nonambiguous: Heard maintenance man fell off a ladder and cried out  Ambiguous: no verbal cues that the victim was injured 16 A Decision – Making Perspective ( Latané & Darley, 1970) 2. Correctly interpreting an event as an emergency  Cues that lead us to perceive an event as an emergency (Shotland & Huston, 1979): • Event is sudden & unexpected • Clear threat of harm to a victim • Harm will increase unless someone intervenes • Victim needs outside assistance • Effective intervention is possible 17 A Decision – Making Perspective ( Latané & Darley, 1970) 3. Deciding that it is your responsibility to help  Moriarty (1975)  Radio at the beach 18 A Decision – Making Perspective ( Latané & Darley, 1970) 4. Deciding that you have the knowledge or skills to act  In emergencies, decisions are made under high stress and sometimes even with personal danger  Well -intentioned helpers may not be able to give assistance or may mistakenly do the wrong thing  Crammer et al. (1988)  When there is an accident and possible injury, a registered nurse is more likely to help than non -medical people 19 A Decision – Making Perspective ( Latané & Darley, 1970) 20 5. Weighing the Costs and Benefits  At least in some situations, people weigh the costs and benefits of helping  People sometimes consider the consequences of NOT helping  e.g. feeling guilty, others’ impression  However, in other cases, helping may be impulsive and determined by basic emotions and values rather than by expected profits 21 A Decision – Making Perspective ( Latané & Darley, 1970) WHY DO WE HELP? A Sociocultural Perspective  Human societies have gradually evolved beliefs or social norms that promote the welfare of the group  Norm of Social Responsibility ▪ Help those who depend on us o e.g. parents, teachers, doctors  Norm of Reciprocity ▪ Help those who help us ( Gouldner , 1960)  Norm of Social Justice ▪ Maintain equitable distribution of rewards 22 WHY DO WE HELP? A Learning Perspective  We learn to be helpful through reinforcement  Children help and share more when they are reinforced for their helpful behavior  Fischer (1963) ▪ 4 -year -olds more likely to share marbles with another child when they were rewarded with bubble gum for their generosity ▪ ‘You are a very nice and helpful person’ vs. ‘That was a nice and helpful thing to do’ ▪ Dispositional praise appears to be more effective than global praise 23 WHY DO WE HELP? A Learning Perspective o We learn to be helpful through observation o Children and adults exposed to helpful models are more helpful • Bryan and Test (1967) ▪ LA drivers helped a female driver with a flat tire ▪ NJ Xmas shoppers more likely to drop money in a Salvation Army kettle if they had just seen someone else do the same  For children, helping may depend largely on reinforcement and modeling to shape behavior, but as they get older, helping may be internalized as a value , independent of external incentives 24 WHY DO WE HELP? Attribution Theory  We are more likely to be empathetic and to perceive someone as deserving help if we believe that the cause of the problem is outside the person’s control  Myer & Mulherin (1980)  College students would be more willing to lend rent money to an acquaintance if the need arose due to illness rather than laziness 25 AN ATTRIBUTIONAL EXAMPLE ( C O U R T E S Y T O D R . J I M L A R S O N ) 26 Causal Attribution for Fall: Situation: You Also Notice: Emotion: Behavior: A crutch lying next to him. Wine bottle in a brown paper bag. Internal / Controllable (He’s a Drunk) Disgust / Annoyed Ignore Help External / Uncontrollable (Bumped?) Sympathy An old man falls down in a crowded MTR station. WHO HELPS? Mood and Helping  People are more willing to help when they are in a good mood  Money: found coins in a pay -phone ( Isen & Simmonds, 1978)  Gift: been given a free cookie at the college library ( Isen & Levin, 1972)  Music: have listened to soothing music (Fried & Berkowitz, 1979)  Odor: smelled cookies or coffee (Baron, 1997) 27 WHO HELPS?  Mood -maintenance hypothesis • “Doing going” enables us to continue to feel good  Good moods increase positive thought  Limitation of effect of good mood • “Feel good” effect is short lived ▪ Only 20 minutes in one study ( Isen , Clark, & Schwartz, 1976) 28 WHO HELPS? Mood and helping  Negative moods sometimes lead to more helping  Negative -state relief model suggests that people may help as a way to make themselves feel better ( Cialdini , Darby, & Vincent, 1973)  Helping made college students feel more cheerful and feel better about themselves (Williamson & Clark, 1989)  When people feel guilty, they are more willing to help (Baumeister , Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994) ▪ Helping others may reduce their guilty feelings 29 WHO HELPS? • More valid for adults (e.g. Aderman & Berkowitz, 1970) and less valid for children (e.g. Isen et al., 1973) • Less likely to occur if a person is focused on themselves and their own needs ▪ e.g. during profound grief (e.g. Aderman & Berkowitz, 1983) 30 WHO HELPS? •Empathy refers to the capacity to be able to experience others’ emotional states, feeling sympathetic toward them, and taking their perspective  The emotional reactions that are focused on or oriented toward other people and include feelings of compassion, sympathy and concern  Occurs when we focus on the needs and the emotions of the victim  Fosters altruistic helping 31 WHO HELPS? Personality Characteristics  There is no single type of “helpful person”  Rather, particular traits and abilities lead people to help in different specific types of situations  e.g. people who help in potentially dangerous emergencies are taller, heavier and tend to have training in coping with emergencies, including lifesaving, medical or police (Huston et al., 1981) 32 WHOM DO WE HELP? Gender differences  Men are more likely to provide help to women in distress (e.g. Latané & Dabbs , 1975), especially when there is an audience  Men more readily help attractive than unattractive women ( e.g Mims et al., 1975)  Men offered more help to women while women are equally helpful to both sexes ( Eagly & Crowley, 1986)  Women provide more social support to others (Shumaker & Hill, 1991)  Women are more likely to offer personal favors for friends and to provide advice on personal problems (Eagly & Crowley, 1986) 33 WHOM DO WE HELP? Gender differences  Motivation may be romantic or sexual  Przybyla (1985)  Undergraduate men watched video ▪ Experimental: erotic ▪ Control: nonsexual  Situation: a female research assistant “accidentally” knocked over a stack of papers  Experimental group more helpful than control ▪ 6 minutes compared with control with male (30 seconds) ▪ Female participants ▪ No difference between experimental and control ▪ No difference between male or female research assistant 34 WHOM DO WE HELP? Physically attractive  Benson, Karabenick, and Lerner (1976)  Subjects found a completed and ready -to -mail application to graduate school in a telephone booth at the airport  Sample: 442 males and 162 females  IV: photo attached belongs to an attractive or unattractive male/female  DV: will they mail it for him/her?  Results? 35 WHOM DO WE HELP? Similarity  Emswiller, Deaux, and Willits (1971)  Confederates dressed as a ‘hippie’ or ‘conservative’  Approached both ‘hippie’ and ‘conservative’ students to borrow a dime for phone call  Results? 36 WHEN DO WE HELP? A. Bystander effect = The presence of other people makes it less likely that anyone will help a stranger in distress  Kitty Genovese murder sparked research of Darley and Latané (1968)  Students in a study of “campus life”  In separate rooms, they talked to the other students through intercom  Emergency: one student (actually pre -recorded message) said he had seizures  “I could really -er -use some help so if somebody would -er -give me a little h -help -uh -er -er -er -er -er c -could somebody -er -er – help -er -uh -uh -uh (choking sounds)…I’m gonna die -er -er – I’m…gonna die -er -help -er -er -seizure -er – [chokes, then quiet]” 37 WHEN DO WE HELP?  IV: number of bystanders: 1, 2, 5  The number of students as told to be in the same discussion  In fact, there was no bystander  the way to help was to leave the lab and sought for that fellow student  DV1: % of students left and sought help  DV2: time they waited before acting 38 WHEN DO WE HELP? 3920 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 One Two Five Number of Bystanders P e r c e n t H e l p i n g 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 One Two Five Number of Bystanders Seconds Until Helping WHEN DO WE HELP? WHY does the bystander effect occur? 1. Diffusion of responsibility • The presence of other people makes each individual feel less personally responsible • If only bystander, bear the guilt or blame for nonintervention • Assume the others ‘will do it’ 2. Pluralistic ignorance • Bystanders’ false assumption that nothing is wrong in an emergency because of others’ reactions • Latané and Darley (1968) pumped smoke into a research room where participants were doing questionnaire 40 WHEN DO WE HELP?  IV: alone in the room or with 2 confederates  DV: the duration of leaving the room and reporting  Results? 3. Evaluation apprehension  Concern about how others are evaluating us  We try not to appear silly/cowardly in reacting to ambiguous situation (e.g. smoke filled room) 41 WHEN DO WE HELP? B. Environmental Conditions  People are more helpful to strangers when it’s pleasantly warm and sunny (Ahmed, 1979)  People are more likely to help strangers in small towns & cities than in big cities (Levine et al., 1994)  What matters is current environmental setting, not the size of the hometown in which the person grew up 42 WHEN DO WE HELP? C. Time pressure  Darley & Batson, 1973  Participants were students studying religion and were asked to give a short talk  IV1: Some were told to hurry, others to take their time  IV2: assigned topic was either the Bible story or future job opportunities  Results? 43 TODAY’S MESSAGE… ◆ Imagine YOU are the one being stabbed like Kitty Genovese… ◆ Cost of helping VS cost of NOT helping ◆ Even if your don’t help with pure altruistic motives…self -serving helping could be better than self -serving apathy ◆ Recipients’ neediness might not change as a result of our motives or the recipients’ responses 44 REFLECTION ◆ What were your motives for helping/reasons for not helping in different situations? ◆ What were your experiences of being a “bystander”? ◆ Does learning about altruism leaves you with an increase/decrease in likelihood of helping? ◆ Would you rather “help or react wrongly” and appear silly, or leave yourself/others in danger? 45
Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept
PSYG 2504 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY LECTURE 3 SOCIAL COGNITION By Doris Wong 1 o Social Cognition 1. Heuristics 2. Schemas 3. Other possible errors in Social Cognition 4. Affect and cognition 2 Today’s Outline: Social cognition o How people think about the social world (Aronson, Wilson, Akert & Sommers, 2015) o How we select, interpret, remember, and use social information to help us make judgements and decisions (Aronson, Wilson, Akert & Sommers, 2015) 3 o The three approaches we often use: 1. Heuristics 2. Schemas 3. Affect and cognition 4 Social cognition 1. Heuristics o Heuristics (mental shortcuts): the simple rules for making complex decisions or drawing inferences in a rapid and efficient manner • Information overload: Demands for our cognitive systems > our cognitive capacity • High level of stress deplete our processing capacity • Heuristics allow us to do more with less effort 5 Heuristics Types of heuristics: a. Representativeness b. Availability c. Anchoring and adjustment d. Status quo 6 1. Heuristics Representativeness heuristic o Guess the occupation of them 7 Representativeness heuristic o Representativeness heuristic : make judgments based on the extent of the current stimuli or events resemble a given prototype o Judgments based on this are often accurate: group norms in behavior and style o Judge the likelihood of particular effects to be produced by specific causes with similar magnitude o Asians show less evidence of thinking based on representiveness heuristic (Spina et al., 2010) 8 9 Representativeness heuristic Representativeness heuristic o Possible error: • Disregard base rates – the frequency with a given event/patterns occur in the total population • Discounting other important information 10 Availability heuristic o Availability heuristic : make judgments based on the ease/amount of specific kinds of information is brought to our mind o The easier to recall something, the more frequent or important we believe it to be o Possible error: overestimate the probability of events that are dramatic but rare 11 Availability heuristic 12 Which is more dangerous? Flight? Car? Availability heuristic o The ease of retrieval or the amount of information available? o Ease:  Self -relevant ( Judgements about objects that we are personally familiar with, e.g. consumer brands)  Involves emotions or feelings o Amount:  Judgement about others  Involves facts, or inherently difficult tasks 13 Problem: Negative Bias 14 o The fact that we show greater sensitivity and likely to remember the negative information than to positive information Anchoring and adjustment o Anchoring and adjustment heuristic : The tendency to use something we know (anchor) as a starting point to which we then make adjustments to deal with uncertainty o E.g. ‘self’ as the anchor 15 Anchoring 16 Status Quo o We tend to judge something as ‘good’ when it is easier to retrieve from our memory , than options that represent a change from the status quo o Chocolate claimed to be first sold in 1937 is judged to be better than those in 2003 (Eidelman, Pattershall & Crandall, 2010) 17 18 2. Schemas ( 基模 ) o A mental framework containing basic and essential features of situations • Built through experience • Shaped by culture • guides our actions and the processing of information • Particularly useful in new or confusing situations o Self, roles, groups (stereotypes), individual, relationships, situations, e.g. The procedures of going to restaurants 19 The impact of schemas o Attention • mental filter of related and consistent information (esp. in states of cognitive overload) o Encoding • information consistent with the schemas put into long -term memory • inconsistent information is put into a separate memory file o Retrieval • Tendency to recall information inconsistent with schemas • But report the consistent information more readily 20 Schemas aid information processing • Help remember or interpret new information • Be more efficient • Fill in the gaps in our knowledge • Perceive and label the new information which is consistent or inconsistent with the schemas • Reduce ambiguous elements in the situation Advantages of Schematic Processing Schemas o People may ignore information which does belong but is schema -inconsistent  Selective attention o People are overly accepting of information that fits a schema • Also called confirmatory hypothesis testing • A tendency to search for information that confirms our original hypotheses and beliefs ▪ we have a stable self -image Limitations of Schematic Processing A. Confirmation bias A. Confirmatory Hypothesis Testing • Snyder and Swann (1978) asked 50% of their participants to find out if the other person they were interviewing was an extrovert (easy – going and sociable), and the other half to find out if s/he was an introvert (shy and withdrawn) • People tended to select questions from a provided list that confirmed the hypothesis they were testing o How to prevent its influence? • Self awareness • Evaluate own beliefs • Consider its effect in decision making • Critical thinking B. Self -fulfilling prophecies (自我應驗預言 ) o The process by which people’s predictions/ expectations lead them to behave in a way to confirm their expectations o Rosenthal and Jacobson’s (1968) study • Gave IQ test to all students in an elementary school in San Francisco • Told the teachers that some of the students scored very high in an IQ test and were promising Limitations of Schematic Processing Self -fulfilling prophecy B. Self -fulfilling prophecies • They predicted that this information would activate the schemas (expectations) towards these students and thus their behavior toward them • In fact, “good” students were chosen randomly; all other students had become the control group • Results: ▪ Those “high” IQ students shown a larger improvement in another IQ test 8 months later compared with the control group B. Self -fulfilling prophecies • (Rosenthal, 1994) indicated that teachers gave the bloomers more attention, more challenging tasks, more and better feedback, and more opportunities to respond in class • In other words, their expectation, which has no grounds, has come true ▪ A self -fulfilling prophecy occurs when we act on our impressions of others • On the contrary, teachers’ lower expectancies for success for minority students or females often undermined the confidence of these groups and actually contributed to poorer performance by them (e.g., Sadker & Sadker , 1994) B. Self -fulfilling prophecies • Snyder, Tanke , and Berscheid (1977) gave male students a photograph of either an attractive or unattractive woman whom they were talking with over the phone for 10 minutes ▪ In fact, the photos were fake and were randomly assigned to women regardless of their true looks ▪ Men who believed they were talking to a more attractive woman behaved more warmly ▪ The woman in turn seemed more sociable, friendly, and likeable When misconceptions challenge self -conceptions • People may be motivated to disconfirm others’ misconceptions of them • When the target is certain of their self -concept, the target’s self -conception will prevail over the perceiver’s misconception • When the target is uncertain, the perceiver’s misconception will tend to prevail (see Swann & Ely, 1984) • What is the implication in education? C. Belief perseverance o Also called perseverance effect o Schemas remain unchanged even in face of contradictory information (e.g. Kunda & Oleson , 1995) o e.g. we found it hard to believe a priest or a teacher would molest children Limitations of Schematic Processing C. Belief perseverance o It is very difficult to demolish a belief once we have established a rationale of the belief o Experimenters first implanted a belief (Ross & Anderson, 1982) • e.g. whether individuals who take risks make good or bad firefighters • Group 1: read cases that a risk -prone person who was a successful firefighter and a cautious person who was not • Group 2: read cases showing the opposite o Subjects were then asked to explain why it is true o Finally, the experimenters told the truth: the information was manufactured FOR the experiment, i.e. a deception o However, the new belief is about 75% intact o The subjects retained their invented explanations for the belief Schemas are like a double – edged sword : They help us process vast amounts of information quickly, BUT sometimes lead us to perceive the world in ways that are not accurate. 33 3. Other errors in social cognition ■ Optimistic bias • Our tendency to see the world through rose -colored glasses . a) A tendency to expect that things will turn out well. b) believe more likely to experience positive outcomes in their lives and less likely to experience negative outcomes (Shepperd, Ouellette, & Fernandez, 1996). ■ Overconfidence bias • Error of omission/lack of feedback ■ Planning fallacy (with Self -serving bias) – Boss VS workers/employees – Look to the future VS look back in the past 34 3. Other errors in social cognition ■ Rocky past VS golden future • When we think about the past, we recognize as a mix of good times and bad times. However, when we forecast the future, we only think about the good times ahead. 35 4. Affect and cognition o Recall the following situations: • One of your “good times” • One of your “bad times” 36 “ When you are joyful, when you say yes to life and have fun and project positivity all around you, you become a sun in the center of every constellation, and people want to be near you. ” Shannon L. Alder 37 This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY -SA-NC The influence of affect on cognition o Mood affects our memory (people, the world, ideas…) • Mood congruence effects • Mood dependent memory 38 Mood congruence effects 39 • Our mood determines which information under given situation is noticed and enters our memory • Mood serves as a filter Mood dependent memory 40 o Affect influences what specific information is retrieved from memory o Current memory becomes a retrieval cue The influence of affect on cognition o Positive mood increases creativity o People with positive mood use more heuristic processing in dealing with problems o Positive mood tends to promote attributions of positive motives 41 The influence of cognition on affect 1. Two -factor theory (Schachter , 1964): We infer our internal reactions from the external world • E.g. when you meet an attractive person, you will feel your heart pounding, red -faced, aroused, excited, you will then conclude that you are in love/being attracted 42 The influence of cognition on affect 2. Activating schemas with strong affective component – different reactions to different people 43 The influence of cognition on affect 3. The regulation of affective states and cognition o We adjust affective state by cognitive mechanisms (use our thoughts to regulate our moods)  we “never had a chance”  I “could have spent the money elsewhere” o make a strategic decision to engage in a temptation that makes us feel better in the short term  e.g. ‘retail therapy’, ‘eating snacks’, ‘drink coca -cola’ 44 o Are we aware of our own heuristics, schema, errors in social cognition? o What would you do to avoid the cognitive biases? o Does the knowledge pose any changes to your habitual way of thinking? 45 Today’s Reflections:
Please read the following guildine , you have to write 1000-1200 words This is a social psychology homework, you are required to write a reflective paper on how you can apply the psychological concept
Lecture 4 Attitudes PSYG2504 Social Psychology 1 Outline o WHAT is Attitude? o HOW are attitudes formed? o WHEN and WHY do attitudes affect our behavior? o HOW do attitudes guide our behavior? • Theory of reasoned action • Theory of planned behavior o HOW and WHY do actions/behaviors affect our attitude? • Cognitive dissonance • Self – perception theory 2 Attitudes o Our evaluations of any aspects of the social world (including people, objects and ideas) o help us understand people’s responses to new stimuli o We can have favorable or unfavorable reactions to different issues, ideas, objects, actions, a specific person or the social groups o Some are quite stable and resist to change, some are variable with situations 3 Attitudes o Related values can influence the attitudes we form e.g. Homosexuality o Attitudes influences our: A. Affect – our emotions and affect towards the stimulus B. Behavior – how we react to the stimulus C. Cognition – our thoughts about the stimulus, including facts, knowledge and beliefs 4 ABC Model 5 Behavior Cognition (thought) Affect Attitudes – Affect o The positive and negative feelings related to the stimulus o E.g. Jay thinks people need to be serious about hygiene • Positive affect – safety, cautious, perseverance • Negative affect – stress, anxiety 6 Attitudes – Behavior o When the attitudes are strong and accessible o E.g. Jay thinks people need to be serious about hygiene, so… 7 Attitudes – Cognitions o Explicit attitude • Consciously accessible • Controllable • Reportable o Implicit attitude • Unconscious associations between objects and evaluative responses • Uncontrollable • Implicit Association Test (IAT) 8 9 o IAT measures one’s associations with various social objects more or less readily with positive or negative descriptive words • E.g. People respond more quickly when white faces are paired with positive words and vice versa • Assess commonly known connections ONLY? • Susceptible to deliberate fakin g Attitude Formation o Social learning – the process that we acquire our views from the social environment, e.g. by interaction or observation o Social learning occurs in three processes: A. Classical conditioning (association ) B. Instrumental/operant conditioning (rewards) C. Observational learning 10 A. Classical conditioning o A basic form of learning in which one stimulus, initially neutral, acquires the capacity to evoke reactions through repeated pairing with another stimulus 11 12 13 14 B. Operant conditioning o A basic form of learning in which responses that lead to positive outcomes or which permit avoidance of negative outcomes are strengthened • Positive outcomes – the attitudes are strengthened and are likely to repeat • Negative outcomes – the attitudes are weakened and the likelihood of being expressed is reduced 15 16 17 C. Observational learning • A basic form of learning in which individuals acquire new forms of behavior as a result of observing others • Social comparison to reference groups 18 19 Modelling & Imitatio n C. Observational learning o Social comparisons • The process we compare ourselves to others in order to determine whether our view of social reality is, or is not, correct o Reference groups • Those people we identify • Whose opinions we value • Similarity 20 Attitudes influence behavior o Consistency between attitudes and behavior depends on… 1. The situational pressures (strong vs weak) 2. Strength of attitudes – accessibility a. Extremity (how strong the emotional reaction is; vested interest) b. Certainty (correctness – consensus; clarity – repeated expression) c. Personal experience (the extent of relation to personal experience) 21 1. Situational pressures o Depends on how “public” is the action o Potential social consequences o Pluralistic ignorance (incorrect assumption of being exceptional) 22 23 1. Situational pressures o We sometimes have completely different attitudes towards the same object in different situations 24 2. Strength of attitudes o Attitudes based on moral values give intense emotions and strongly predict behavior 25 2a. Attitude extremity o The extent to which an individual feels strongly about an issue • Vested interest ▪ the extent to which the attitude is relevant to the concerns of the individual who holds it ▪ Affect judgements and behaviors in the immediate contexts 26 27 2b. Attitude certainty o Depends on • Attitude clarity – clear about one’s attitude ▪ Repeated report/expression facilitates clarity hence certainty ▪ Attitude correctness – feeling one’s attitude is the valid or the proper one to hold ▪ Petrocelli (2007) studied the consensus of bring students’ ID cards ▪ Group consensus acts as justification for the attitude o P redict behavior in public and in private 28 2c. Role of personal experience • Attitudes supported by personal relevance are more likely to be elaborated on in terms of supporting arguments, and make them resistant to change 29 Attitude – behavior consistency 30 Attitudes guide behavior o Theory of reasoned action ( Fishbein & Ajzen , 1975; 1980) • Rational process • behavioral options and norms are considered • consequences or outcomes are evaluated • decision is reached to act or not to act • decision reflected in behavioral intentions → overt behavior 31 Attitudes guide behavior o Theory of planned behavior ( Ajzen , 1991) • An extension of the theory of reasoned action • The individuals consider their ability to perform the behavior ( Perceived behavioral control) • Implementation plan strengthens the intention – behavior relationship 32 Attitudes guide behavior 33 THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR Attitude towards the behavior (e.g. regular exercise is good for my healt h.) Subjective norms (e.g. My friend seems to be jogging and going to the gym.) Perceived control (e.g. I could probably do this.) Behavior intention (e.g. I’m going to start my exercise plan for good health) Behavior – Attitude 1. Cognitive dissonance 2. Self – presentation (behavior) • Impression management • Expression of attitudes • E.g. Construct and develop an online self 3. Self – perception – how one thinks and feels about self 35 Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, 1957) o An internal state that results when individuals notice inconsistency between two or more attitudes or between their attitudes and their behavior • unpleasant feeling with inconsistency 36 Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, 1957) o Festinger and Carlsmith’s (1959) experiment • Performing a dull task for an hour: turning wooden knobs • Manipulation ▪ $1, $20 or no lie • Ask the participants to tell others about the task • Results ? Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger, 1957) 38 Less – leads – to – more effect Less reasons or rewards for an action often leads to greater attitude change Cognitive Dissonance ( Festinger, 1957) o Insufficient Justification • The less incentive one has for performing a counter – attitudinal behavior, the more dissonance is experienced • Needs to reduce the dissonance internally • VS Overjustification effect ▪ the effect of promising a reward for doing what one already likes to do ▪ the reward rather than intrinsic interest becomes the motivation for performing the task 40 Cognitive Dissonance ( Festinger, 1957) o Factors increasing dissonance for performing counter – attitudinal behavior 1. Small threat of punishment • Greater threat produces less dissonance and less attitude change 2. Small amount of reward 3. Behavior is freely chosen 4. There is an irrevocable commitment • Dickerson et al. (1992) study on water conservation • Half of the participants were induced to make public commitment to others, urging them to take shorter showers o Factors increasing dissonance for performing counter – attitudinal behavior 5. Negative consequences were foreseeable 6. Effort is spent with aversive consequences 7. Person feels responsible for consequences ( internal attribution) Cognitive Dissonance ( Festinger, 1957) R educe dissonance o Change the behavior to more consistent to our attitude • E.g. smoking fathers quit smoking o Acquiring new information to justify our behavior (change/add to original attitude) • E.g. finding evidence that smoking away from the children would do no harm o Trivialization: Deciding that the dissonance is not important • Smoking in front of children doesn’t really matter 43 Indirect methods to reduce dissonance o When the attitude – behavior discrepancy involves important attitudes or self – beliefs (trivialization isn’t feasible) o To restore positive self – evaluations • Self – affirmation – restoring positive self – evaluations that are threatened by the dissonance • E.g. Smoking father does not focus on his smoking behavior; but a responsible father as he earns the living 44 Dissonance as a tool for beneficial changes in behavior o Hypocrisy – publicly advocating some attitudes or behavior and then acting in a way that is inconsistent with these attitudes or behavior • sufficiently intense feelings that actions need to be taken to reduce dissonance directly • To change behavior effectively, the person must… a. Publicly advocate the desired behavior b. Induced to think about their behavioral failures in the past c. Given access to means to reduce dissonance 45 Dissonance as a tool for beneficial changes in behavior • Stone , Wiegand, Cooper and Aronson (1997) • Participants make a video advocating the use of condoms (safe sex) • P articipants state the reasons for not using condoms in the past (personal reasons) or reasons why people in general fail to use condoms (normative reasons) • The dissonance is highest in the ‘personal reasons’ group ▪ Participants who provided personal reasons would buy condoms and vice versa 46 Self – perception theory o For 10 years the Cognitive dissonance theory was the only theoretical interpretation of effects of behaviors on attitude change o Bem’s self – perception theory (1972) • When we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer our attitudes from our behavior and the circumstances in which this behavior occurs Reflection s • Are your behaviors consistent with your attitudes? • What are the reasons behind inconsistencies between your attitudes and behaviors? • Are you aware of your cognitive dissonances and h ow do you resolve them? 48