Social Psychology Chapter 4 Behavior and Attitudes Study Questions Fall 2019
1. Define the term attitudes.
- Beliefs and feelings related to a person or event
2. What did Leon Festinger discover about the relationship between attitudes and
behavior?
- Festinger discovered that our attitudes predict our behaviors.
3. Describe attitudes in light of dual processing.
- The idea that we have two "different" minds and that our brain works on two levels,
a conscious and deliberate high road and an unconscious, automatic low road
4. What do we know about the measurement of attitudes? How do we measure implicit
attitudes?
- Psychologist measure expressed attitudes. We measure implicit attitudes by a test
online that uses reaction times to measure people’s automatic associations between
objects and evaluative words.
5. Describe the phenomenon of moral hypocrisy. What can be used to increase selfawareness to encourage moral behavior?
- Moral hypocrisy is appearing moral while avoiding the cost of being so. Making
people self-aware promotes consistency between words and deeds. So, it makes
sense that self-conscious people are usually in touch with their attitudes.
6. Describe the principle of aggregation.
- Effects of an attitude become more apparent when we look at a person’s aggregate
or average behavior instead of isolated acts
7. Under what conditions are attitudes more likely to predict behavior?
- If these “other influences” are minimized,
- if the attitude corresponds very closely to the predicted behavior
- if the attitude is potent
8. How do behaviors affect attitudes?
- When we act, we amplify the idea underlying what we have done, especially when
we feel responsible for it.
9. How do roles impact behaviors?
- When given a role, one can become corrupt and justify their actions because of the
role
- Once in a role, one feels comfortable altering your attitude
- Behavior first can cause attitudes to fall into line or conform
10. Compare the self-presentation and self-affirmation theories.
- Self-presentation- deliberate effort to act in ways that create a particular
impression, usually favorable to ourselves.
- Self- affirmation- theory that people reduce the impact of threat to their selfconcept by focusing on and affirming their competence in some other area
11. Describe the cognitive dissonance theory and identify its author. Define selective
exposure in light of cognitive dissonance theory.
- Leon Festinger famous theory is the cognitive dissonance which tension that arises
when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions.
- Selective exposure is the tendency to seek information and media that agree with
one’s views and to avoid dissonant information
12. What role does choice play in the attitudes-follow-behavior effect?
- Big decisions can produce big dissonance when one later ponders the negative
aspects of what is chosen and the positive aspects of what was not chosen
13. Describe the insufficient justification and over justification effects.
- Insufficient justification- reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one’s
behavior when external justification is “insufficient”
- Over justification effect- the result of bribing people to do what they already like
doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than
intrinsically appealing
14. Describe the facial feedback effect.
-the tendency of facial muscle states to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear,
anger, or happiness.
15. Describe the process of brainwashing.
- The agent systematically breaks down the target’s identity to the point that it
doesn’t work anymore. Then the agent replaces it with another set of behaviors,
attitudes, and beliefs that work in the target’s current environment