Social Psychology
Part II
Dr. William G. Huitt
Valdosta State University
Last revised: May 2005
Attitudes and Attitude Change
•
Attitudes
– A relatively stable evaluation of a person, object,
situation, or issue
– Attitudes have three components:
1. a cognitive component – thoughts and beliefs about the
attitudinal object
2. an emotional component – feelings toward the attitudinal
object
3. a behavioral component – predispositions concerning
actions toward the object
•
Generally, attitudes are caught, not taught.
Cognitive Dissonance
• When people discover that some of their
attitudes are in conflict with others or that their
attitudes are not consistent with their behavior;
they are likely to experience an unpleasant
state called cognitive dissonance
• Likely results from a desire to maintain selfesteem
• Individuals experience dissonance when
observing conflicts in the attitudes and/or
behaviors of others; that is, vicarious cognitive
dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance
• Festinger and Carlsmith
– Placed research participants alone in a room to play
a boring game
– Upon completing the game, participants were
instructed to tell the next participants that the game
was fun
– Participants who were paid $1 resolved the conflict
by convincing themselves that the game really had
been fun, a change in attitude
– By contrast, participants who were paid $20
resolved the negative feelings by justifying their
actions on the basis of having been paid a fairly
large sum of money relative to the amount of effort it
had required to lie to the next participant
Cognitive Dissonance
• Aronson and Mills
– Argued that the more people have to sacrifice, give
up, or suffer to become a member of an
organization, the more positive their attitudes are
likely to become toward the group, in order to justify
their sacrifice
Persuasion
• A deliberate attempt to influence the attitudes
and/or behavior of another
• Researchers have identified four elements of
persuasion:
1.
2.
3.
4.
the source of the communication
the audience
the message
the medium
Persuasion
• Some factors that make the source more
persuasive are
1. credibility
2. attractiveness
3. likeability
• Persuasion easier when
– people are of low intelligence
– Message is repeated
Prosocial Behavior
• Behavior that benefits others, such as helping,
cooperation, and sympathy
• Altruism
– Behavior aimed at helping another, requiring some
self-sacrifice and not designed for personal gain
– Factors influencing
• empathy
• commitment
Prosocial Behavior
• The bystander effect
– The fact that as the number of bystanders at an
emergency increases, the probability that the victim
will receive help decreases, and help, if given, is
likely to be delayed
– Diffusion of responsibility
• The feeling among bystanders at an emergency that the
responsibility for helping is shared by the group, so each
person feels less compelled to act than if he or she alone
bore the total responsibility
Aggression
• The intentional infliction of physical or
psychological harm on another
• Biological factors in aggression
– There is a genetic link for criminal behavior
– Men are more physically aggressive than
women, and the male hormone testosterone
is involved
– Low arousal level of the autonomic nervous
system
Aggression
• Other influences on aggression
– Frustration-aggression hypothesis
• The hypothesis that frustration produces aggression
• Aggression in response to frustration is not always aimed
at the people causing it
– Scapegoating
• Displacing aggression onto minority groups or other
innocent targets not responsible for the frustrating situation
– People often become aggressive when they are in
pain or are exposed to loud noise or foul odors
Aggression
• Aversive events and from unpleasant
emotional states such as sadness, grief, and
depression
• Personal space
– An area surrounding each individual, much like an
invisible bubble, that is considered to belong to the
person and is used to regulate the closeness of
interactions with others
• Crowding
– A subjective perception that there are too many
people in a defined space
Social learning theory
• Learning by observation and modeling
Social Learning Theory
• Attention
– individual notices something in the environment
• Retention
– individual remembers what was noticed
• Reproduction
– individual produces an action that is a copy of
what was noticed
• Motivation
– environment delivers a consequence that
changes the probability the behavior will be
emitted again (reinforcement and punishment)
Aggression
• Albert Bandura
– Claims that aggressive models in the subculture, the
family, and the media all play a part in increasing
the level of aggression in society
• Oliver
– Concludes that one-third of people who are abused
go on to become abusers, one-third do not, and the
final third may become abusers if their lives are
highly stressful
Aggression
• Research evidence overwhelmingly supports a
relationship between TV violence and viewer aggression
Social Cognition Theory
• Mental processes that people use to notice, interpret,
understand, remember, and apply information about the
social world and that enable them to simplify, categorize,
and order that world
Prejudice and Discrimination
• Prejudice
– Negative attitudes toward others based on their
gender, religion, race, or membership in a particular
group
• Discrimination
– Behavior, usually negative, directed toward others
based on their gender, religion, race, or membership
in a particular group
Prejudice and Discrimination
• The roots of prejudice and discrimination
– Realistic conflict theory
• The notion that prejudices arise when social groups must
compete for scarce resources and opportunities
– In-groups and out-groups
• In-group
– A social group with a strong sense of togetherness and
from which others are excluded
• Out-group
– A social group specifically identified by the in-group as
not belonging
Prejudice and Discrimination
• The roots of prejudice and discrimination
– Social cognitive theory
• According to the social-cognitive theory, people learn
attitudes of prejudice and hatred (or nonprejudiced
attitudes) the same way they learn other attitudes
Prejudice and Discrimination
• The roots of prejudice and discrimination
– Social cognitive theory
• Stereotypes
– Widely shared beliefs about the characteristic traits,
attitudes, and behaviors of members of various social
groups, including the assumption that the members of
such groups are usually all alike
– Macrae and colleagues
– Suggest that people apply stereotypes in their
interactions with others because doing so requires less
mental energy than trying to understand others as
individuals
Prejudice and Discrimination
• Is prejudice increasing or decreasing?
– Gallup polls revealed that Caucasians in the United
States became more racially tolerant over the final
decades of the twentieth century
– Studies suggest that racial stereotyping is still
evident in the United States