Ch 4: Attitudes & Behavior
Part 3: Feb. 13, 2015
How does behavior affect attitudes?
1) Foot-in-the-door phenomenon:
– What is it?
– Example?
2) Escalating behavior:
– May explain harmful acts
– SPE example –
3) Cog Dissonance – how behavior might change
our attitude
– Festinger’s experiment?
– Result?
– What was the role of insufficient justification?
• $20 condition -
• $1 condition -
Self-Perception Theory
• Alternate to Cog Dissonance theory
– S-P Theory: When difficult to interpret
attitudes/weak attitude  look at our behavior
– Facial Feedback (as example):
• Original studies (smiling / frowning) –
• How does this work?
• S-P theory (cont.):
– Embodied Cognition (as example):
• Experiment examples –
• How does the effect work?
Overjustification & Motivation
• S-P can influence motivation
– What is the overjustification effect?
– Intrinsic motivation attribution:
– Extrinsic motivation attribution:
Comparing Theories
• Cog Diss: what is the main explanation?
• S-P Theory: what is the main explanation?
• What does each best explain?