Exam 2 Review – Spring 2015
(Note: Check your class notes to determine if we got through all the Ch 6 material)
Chapter 4 – Attitudes & Behaviors
 Definition of attitude – affective, behavioral, cognitive components
 Attitude assessment – problems with self-reports?
o LaPiere’s research on self-reports versus behavioral observations
o Covert measures as alternatives to self-report
 Implicit Association Test (IAT) – how does it work?
o Fishbein & Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior:
 Principle of Aggregation – how could this improve self-reports?
 Level of Specificity – how could this improve self-reports?
 Theory of Planned Behavior (see Fig 4.2)
 Includes social norms & perceived control over the
behavior (in addition to attitude) as predictors of behavior
 Intention is the best predictor of behavior
 Importance of roles in determining our behaviors & influencing attitudes:
o Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) as example
 Details of the study – how were participants assigned to roles of
‘guard’ and ‘prisoner’?
 How did the role play impact their behavior & attitudes?
 How/why did the study end?
 What are 3 main lessons from the SPE?
 How does behavior affect attitudes?
o Foot-in-the door – how does this work? Role of self-perception?
o Escalating behavior – Stanford Prison Experiment as example of this
 Cognitive Dissonance –another explanation for why behavior affects attitudes
o Festinger’s original experiment
 People are motivated by consistency (betw beh + attitude)
 Tension/anxiety if feel inconsistent
 How did he study cog dissonance? (boring task, $1 or $20…)
 Results of his study? Whose attitudes changed most?
 Self-Perception theory – an alternative to cog dissonance theory
o If difficult to interpret our feelings or when weak attitude  look to our
behavior for clues
 Self-Perception & Emotion
 Facial feedback – how does this work?
 Embodied cognition – what is it and how does it work?
 Self-Perception & Motivation
 Overjustification effect – what is it? Why might motivation
be reduced by rewards?
 Comparing Cog Dissonance & Self-Perception theories –
o Difference based on whether anxiety/tension is emphasized or not
o Which theory better explains attitude change? Attitude formation?
Chapter 7 – Persuasion
 Persuasion
o Central route to persuasion – how does it work? Example?
o Peripheral route to persuasion – how does it work? Example?
 What determines which route we use?
o Source of Persuasion:
 Importance of credibility – how does this work?
 Importance of likeability – based on similarity and physical
attractiveness
o Message:
 Primacy vs. recency effect for information & persuasion?
 Fear-based messages – what kinds are most effective?
 Subliminal messages – what are they?
 Distinguish between subliminal perception & persuasion
 Greenwald experiment – self-help tapes with self-esteem
vs. memory focus; what were the results?
 Murphy experiment – with Chinese characters – what were
the results?
o Audience
 Do individual differences affect our ‘persuadability’?
 Forewarning & resistance – consider counterarguments
 Effects of age: what are the lifecycle and generational
explanations for persuasion/attitude change?
o Is there more support for lifecycle or generational?
o Extreme Persuasion: Example of Cults
 Jim Jones’ People’s Temple and Jonestown Massacre
 1978 mass suicide & Jones’ influence
 What explanations focused on Jones?
 What are situational explanations for the suicides?
 The use of source, message, & audience effects in cults
o Resisting Persuasion
 Counterarguments – link to inoculation hypothesis
 How does it work?
 Attitude Inoculation applications –
 Kids & toy commercials – does it work?
Chapter 6 – Conformity & Obedience (note that this material may change slightly based
on class coverage, check your notes to determine what was covered in class)
 Types of Social Influence – conformity, compliance, & obedience (definitions &
how does each differ from the others?)
 Effects of mimicking others – automatic process? Social functions of mimicking?
(Chartrand’s research on gestures)
 Classic Conformity studies (Sherif & Asch)
o Sherif’s study – autokinetic effect (pinpoint of light)
 How was the study done? Results?
o Asch’s study – line judgments
 How was the study done? Results?
o Differences between Sherif’s and Asch’s studies?
o Why do people conform?
 Information purposes
 Normative purposes
 Public vs. private conformity – what is the distinction?
o Majority influences on conformity
 What is the influence of group size on conformity?
 What is the effect of seeing other nonconformists?
 Does it matter if the other nonconformists agree or disagree
with you?
 Compliance
o Langer’s experiment – Xerox machine & requests to cut in line; results?
o Strategies for compliance –
 Reciprocity norm – are there immediate or delayed responses?
 Door-in-the-face technique – how does it work? Example?
 Obedience
o Milgram’s research:
 Original experiment – what was the procedure? What was found
regarding % of participants who obey?
 Impact of the situation on obedience: how did each affect
obedience?
 Location of the experiment
 Experimenter characteristics
 Closeness to victim
 Disobedient others
o Reasons for Obedience
 Self-justification
 The role of culture – individualists vs. collectivists?
o Criticisms of Milgram’s experiment
 Deception
 Created distress
 Did participants know of right to withdraw?
 Inflicted insight
o Burger’s replication of Milgram – how was the procedure similar to or
different from Milgram?
 Results of Burger’s replication?
o Ethics of Milgram’s research –
 What were the concerns here? Milgram’s response?