Social Thinking:
Attitudes & Prejudice
Attitudes
What is an attitude?
– predisposition to evaluate some people, groups, or
issues in a particular way
– can be negative or positive
– Has three components
• Cognitive—thoughts about given topic or situation
• Affective—feelings or emotions about topic
• Behavioral—your actions regarding the topic or situation
Components of Attitudes
• An attitude is a positive or negative
evaluation of an object, person, or idea
The Effect of Attitudes on
Behavior
•
You’re most likely to behave in accordance with
your attitudes when
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Attitudes are extreme or are frequently expressed
Attitudes have been formed through direct experience.
You are very knowledgeable about the subject.
You have a vested interest in the subject.
You anticipate a favorable outcome or response from
others for doing so.
Attitudes Affecting Actions
• Many studies suggest a person’s attitudes
do NOT match their actions
HOWEVER…
• Attitudes can predict behavior if:
– Outside influences are minimal
– People are aware of their attitudes
– Attitude is relevant to behavior
Actions Affecting Attitudes
• Can our actions change our attitudes?
YES
– Cognitive dissonance
– Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
– Role playing
Cognitive Dissonance
(Leon Festinger)
1919-1989
• The theory that people act to reduce
the discomfort (dissonance) they feel
when their thoughts (cognitions) are
inconsistent with their actions
• When our attitudes are inconsistent
with our actions, we change our
attitudes to reduce the dissonance.
Cognitive Dissonance
• Unpleasant state of psychological tension or
arousal that occurs when two thoughts or
perceptions are inconsistent
• Attitudes and behaviors are in conflict
– it is uncomfortable for us
– we seek ways to decrease discomfort caused by
the inconsistency
How Cognitive Dissonance
Leads to Attitude Change
When your behavior conflicts with your attitudes, an uncomfortable
state of tension is produced. However, if you can rationalize or
explain your behavior, the conflict (and the tension) is eliminated
or avoided. If you can’t explain your behavior, you may change
your attitude so that it is in harmony with your behavior.
Insufficient-justification effect
• Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)
– gave subjects a boring task, then asked subjects to lie to
the next subject and say the experiment was exciting
– paid ½ the subjects $1, other ½ $20
– then asked subjects to rate boringness of task
– $1 group rated the task as far more fun than the $20
group
– each group needed a justification for lying
• $20 group had an external justification of money
• since $1 isn’t very much money, $1 group said task was fun
Dissonance-Reducing Mechanisms
• Avoiding dissonant information
– we attend to information in support of our
existing views, rather than information that
doesn’t support them
• Create an extraordinary excuse
• Firming up an attitude to be consistent
with an action
– once we’ve made a choice to do something,
lingering doubts about our actions would cause
dissonance, so we are motivated to set them aside
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
• The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small
request to comply later with a larger request
• Example: "Can I go over to Suzy's house for an hour?"
followed by "Can I stay the night?"
Door-in-the-Face Phenomenon
• Ask a big request that will be refused followed by a
smaller request that will be accepted because it seems more
reasonable.
• Example: Will you donate $100 to our cause? [response is
no].
Oh. Well could you donate $10?
Cognitive Dissonance: A Review
– If you have a good excuse for a behavior
that does not go with your attitude then
you avoid dissonance.
– If you do not have a good excuse for a
behavior that is against your attitude you
must change your attitude to fit your
behavior.
Role Playing
Can be explained by Cognitive Dissonance
• Playing a role can influence or change one’s attitude
• Person reduces dissonance with the excuse, “I was just
playing a role.”
• Zimbardo’s Prison Study
– College students played the role of guard or prisoner in a
simulated prison.
– The study was ended after just 6 days when the guards
became too aggressive and cruel.
– Want to learn more about this famous study? See the
Stanford Prison Experiment Online Slide Show or watch
Stanford Prison Experiment video (8 minutes)
– Modern issues of Prison Abuse – see CNN Report on
Juvenile Jails and Abuse – 3 min.
Dr. Phillip
Zimbardo
Prejudice
Prejudice
• Based on the exaggerated notion that members
of other social groups are very different from
members of our own social group
• An unjustifiable attitude toward a group and its
members
• Usually involves stereotyped beliefs, negative
feelings, and a predisposition to discriminatory
action
• Usually involves a negative attitude
Keep in Mind…
• Racial and ethnic groups are far more
alike than they are different
• Any differences that may exist between
members of different racial and ethnic
groups are far smaller than differences
among various members of the same
group.
Categorization
• The tendency to group similar objects
• May be a means to explain
stereotypes
Stereotype
• A generalized belief about a group of people
• Stereotypes are sometimes accurate but often
overgeneralized.
• Because stereotypes sometimes have a kernel of
truth, they are easy to confirm, especially when you
see only what you expect to see.
• When stereotypic beliefs become expectations that
are applied to all members of a given group, they
can be both misleading and damaging
• Creating special cases, or exceptions, allows
people to maintain stereotypes in the face of
contradictory evidence
Studying stereotypes
• 3 levels of stereotypes in today’s research
– public
• what we say to others about a group
– private
• what we consciously think about a group, but don’t say to others
– implicit
• unconscious mental associations guiding our judgments and actions
without our conscious awareness
• See The Hidden Prejudice video clip (Scientific
American Frontiers (6 minutes)
Implicit Stereotypes
• Use of priming: subject doesn’t know
stereotype is being activated, can’t work
to suppress it
– Bargh study
• have subjects read word lists, some lists include words like “gray,”
“Bingo,” and “Florida”
• subjects with “old” word lists walked to elevators significantly more
slowly
– another study
• flash pictures of Black vs. White faces subliminally
• give incomplete words like “hos_____,” subjects seeing Black make
“hostile,” seeing White make “hospital”
Implicit Stereotypes
• Devine’s automaticity theory
– stereotypes about African-Americans are so prevalent
in our culture that we all hold them
– these stereotypes are automatically activated
whenever we come into contact with an AfricanAmerican
– we have to actively push them back down if we don’t
wish to act in a prejudiced way.
– Overcoming prejudice is possible, but takes work
Ingroup “Us”
• People with whom one shares a
common identity
Outgroup “Them”
• Those perceived as different or apart
form “us” (the ingroup)
Out-Group Homogeneity
Effect
1. Typically, we describe the members of
our in-group as being quite varied,
despite having enough features in
common to belong to the same group
2. We tend to see members of the outgroup as much more similar to one
another, even in areas that have little
to do with the criteria for group
membership.
Ingroup Bias
• The tendency to favor one’s own group usually at
the expense of the outgroup
• We make favorable, positive attributions for
behaviors by members of our in-group, and
unfavorable, negative attributions for
behaviors by members of out-groups.
• Ethnocentrism - belief that one’s own culture
or ethnic group is superior to others
The Basis for Prejudice
• In combination, stereotypes and ingroup/out-group bias form the cognitive
basis for prejudicial attitudes.
• Prejudice also has a strong emotional
component, which is intensely negative and
involves hatred, contempt, fear, and loathing
• Behaviorally, prejudice can be displayed in
the form of discrimination
Discrimination
• In social relations, taking action
against a group of people because of
stereotyped beliefs and feelings of
prejudice
Prejudice and Discrimination
• Play “Attitudes and Prejudicial
Behavior” (6:06) Segment #31 from
Psychology: The Human Experience.
• Play “Ethnocentrism and Prejudice”
(5:06) Segment #32 from Psychology:
The Human Experience.
Scapegoat Theory
• The theory that prejudice provides an
outlet for anger by providing someone
to blame
• Example: Nazi Germany blaming the
Jews for the troubles in Germany
after WWI.
Just-World Phenomenon
• The tendency to believe that people
get what they deserve and deserve
what they get
• Reflects child’s attitude that good is
rewarded and evil is punished
Stereotype Threat
• The knowledge of the stereotype about your group
adds pressure on you to prove it false that causes
you to not perform at your highest level.
• NPR on stereotype threat:
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156664337/stereot
ype-threat-why-women-quit-science-jobs
Accounting for Prejudice
Accounting for Prejudice:
Two Theories
1. Prejudice and intergroup hostility
increase when different groups are
competing for scarce resources
2. People are prejudiced against groups
that are perceived as threatening
important in-group norms and values
• Social psychologists have increasingly
come to believe # 2 is more correct.
Overcoming Prejudice
Reducing Prejudice
• Initially, researchers thought simple
contact between conflicting groups
would reduce prejudice (contact theory)
• They now think that prejudice can be
overcome when rival groups cooperate
to achieve a common goal
Social Identity and Cooperation
Social identity theory:
– States that when you’re assigned to a group, you
automatically think of that group as an in-group
for you
– Sherif’s Robbers Cave study
• 11–12 year old boys at camp
• Boys were divided into 2 groups and kept
separate from one another
• Each group took on characteristics of distinct
social group, with leaders, rules, norms of
behavior, and names
Robbers Cave (Sherif)
• Leaders proposed series of competitive
interactions which led to 3 changes between
groups and within groups
– within-group solidarity
– negative stereotyping of other group
– hostile between-group interactions
• A fierce rivalry quickly developed
• To restore harmony, Sherif created a
series of situations in which the two
groups would need to cooperate to
achieve a common goal
• After a series of joint efforts, the rivalry
diminished and the groups became
friends.
1906-1988
Robbers Cave
• Overcoming the strong we/they effect
– establishment of superordinate goals – a goal that
benefits everyone but requires everyone’s cooperation
• e.g., breakdown in camp water supply
– overcoming intergroup strife - research
• stereotypes are diluted when people share
individuating information
• This idea used in the classroom – The Jigsaw Method of
cooperative learning. (see pg. 514)
Patricia Devine’s 3-step
process to Individual Prejudice
Reduction
1. Individuals must decide that prejudiced
responses are wrong and consciously reject
prejudice and stereotyped thinking
2. They must internalize their nonprejudiced
beliefs so that they become an integral part
of their personal self-concept
3. Individuals must learn to inhibit automatic
prejudicial reactions and deliberately
replace them with nonprejudiced responses
that are based on their personal standards