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Cognitive Dissonance

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The theory that we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent. For example, when our awareness of our attitudes and our actions clash, we can reduce the resulting dissonance by changing our attitudes.

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Cognitive Dissonance Theory

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Inconsistent cognitions produce a psychological tension that people are motivated to reduce Change your attitude: being frugal is overrated Change your perception: it wasn't THAT expensive Add consonant cognitions: i did buy them on sale minimize the importance of the conflict: i'm a nice person, so what if i spend too much sometimes reduce perceived choice: i had to buy them for the wedding next week.

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Insufficient Justification

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reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one's behavior when external justification is "insufficient." If you perceive little or no justification for your voluntary behavior, then you will feel pressure to change your attitude.

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Insufficient Deterrence

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A condition in which people refrain from engaging in a desirable activity, even when only mild punishment is threatened. ex. Give a child a smaller punishment will overtime have greater affect on that child not doing the thing they were punished for.

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Belief in a Just world

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Want to perceive the world as rational, consistent, and fair

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System Justification Theory

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the theory that people are motivated to see the existing political and social status quo as desirable, fair, good, and legitimate. Motivated to accept and perpetuate the 'status quo' even if they are accidental, arbitrary, or unjus

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Victim Blaming

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Tend to assume that victims did something to deserve their negative outcomes

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Complementary Stereotyping

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Members of high and low status groups are seen as possessing complementary sets of positive and negative characteristics

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Meritocratic Beliefs

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The idea that hard work and determination lead to success., the idea that hardwork and determination lead to success "from rags to riches"

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Social Influence and its 4 types

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Automatic social influence Conformity Compliance Obedience

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Automatic social influence

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unconsciously mimic what other's do. We unwittingly mimic each other all the time.

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Conformity

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1. A change in one's behavior due to the real or imagined influence of other people. Change perceptions, opinions, or behavior in ways that are consistent with group norms.

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Compliance

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A change in behavior elicited by a direct request/ favor.

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Obedience

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A change in behavior in response to the commands of an authority figure.

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Mimicry

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The act or art of copying or imitating closely.

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Normative influence

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(Social Pressure) The influence of other people that leads us to conform in order to be liked and accepted by them; this type of conformity results in public compliance with the group's beliefs and behaviors but not necessarily private acceptance of those beliefs and behaviors. (e.g. Asch's Line judgement)

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Informational influence

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(Others provide information) Influence of other people that leads us to conform because we see them as a source of information to guide our behavior; we conform because we believe that others' interpretation of an ambiguous situation is more correct than ours and will help us choose an appropriate course of action. (e.g. Autokinetic Effect)

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Private Conformity

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(really believe in it) Conforming to other people's behavior out of a genuine belief that what they are doing or saying is right

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Public Conformity

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( go along to get along) Conforming to other people's behavior publicly without necessarily believing in that the other people are saying or doing.

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Pluralistic ignorance

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The case in which people think that everyone else is interpreting a situation a certain way, when in fact they are not. (for example we misperceive what is normative: College children assume that their peers drink more than they actually do)

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Norm of Reciprocity

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The expectation that helping others will increase the likelihood that they will help us in the future

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Foot-in-the-door technique

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persuasive technique involving making a small request before making a bigger one

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Low-balling

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(Secure agreement, then reveal hidden costs) When a salesperson induces a customer to agree to purchase a product at a very low cost, subsequently claims it was an error, and then raises the price; frequently, the customer will agree to make the purchase of the inflated price.

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Door-in-the face

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initially making a very large unreasonable request that the target is likely to turn down, then making the critical request

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Psychological Reactance

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The theory that people react against threats to their freedom by asserting themselves and perceiving the threatened freedom as more attractive.

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Group

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Three or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence each other.

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Collective

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Assembled into or viewed as a whole.

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Social Facilitation

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The tendency for people to do better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated.

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Mere Presence Theory

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the proposition that the mere presence of others is sufficient to produce social facilitation effects

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Evaluation Apprehension Theory

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The idea that social rewards and punishments that we receive from other people are based on their evaluations of us.

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Stereotype Threat

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a self-confirming concern that one will be evaluated based on a negative stereotype

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Distraction Conflict Theory

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a theory based on the idea that being aware of another person's presence creates a conflict between attending to that person and attending to the task at hand and that it is this attentional conflict that is arousing and that produces social facilitation effects 1. Attentional conflict between distraction and task. (i.e., "tunnel vision).

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Social Loafing

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the tendency for people in a group to exert less effort when pooling their efforts toward attaining a common goal than when individually accountable

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Sucker Effect

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When you get stuck with all of the work in a group of free riders because you care too much to not do anything.

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Collective Effort Model

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The theory that individuals will exert effort on a collective task to the degree that they think their individual efforts will be important, relevant, and meaningful for achieving outcomes that they value.

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Deindividuation

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The loosing of normal constraints on behavior when people can't be identified (like when in a crowd, wearing a mask).

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Group cohesiveness

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Qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking between members.

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Group polarization

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The tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of individuals.

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Persuasive Arguments Theory

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Individuals become more convinced of their views when they hear novel arguments in support of their position (exposure to information).

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Social Comparison Theory

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The idea that we learn about our own abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people.

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Social Categorization Theory

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Describes the circumstances under which a person will perceive collections of people (including themselves) as a group and the consequences of perceiving people in group terms.

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Groupthink

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A kind of thinking in which maintaining group cohesiveness and solidarity is more important than considering the facts in a realistic manner.

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Mixed Motives

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Conflicting motives in social situation (i.e., compete vs. cooperate).

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Social Dilemma

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A conflict in which the most beneficial action for an individual will, if chosen by most people, have harmful effects on everyone

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Prisoner's Dilemma

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A situation modeled by game theory in which rational actors pursuing their individual interests all achieve worse outcomes than they could have by working together.

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Commons Dilemma (Sin of omission)

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social dilemma in which individuals must contribute to a common pool on order to maintain the public good (for example: if too many people don't pay taxes, we will all lose valuable services (public schools, parks,ect..)

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Integrative Agreement

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All parties obtain outcomes that are superior to what they would have obtained from an equal division of the contested resources.

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Fixed-pie beliefs (Zero-sum game)

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only so much that can go around (e.g orange story) 1. zero sum: there can only be one winner 2. non zero sum: everyone can get what they want

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Superordinate Identity

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1. thinking about identity at increasingly higher levels 1. (example: not democrat vs republican but american, not america vs canada but north american, not north American but global 2. helps establish common ground between groups in conflict

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Prejudice

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A hostile or negative attitude toward a distinguishable group of people, based solely on their membership in that group.

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Discrimination

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Unjustified negative or harmful action toward a member of a group simply because of his or her membership in that specific group.

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Stereotypes

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Cognitive beliefs that associate people with certain traits based on their group membership.

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Social Categorization

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When somebody judges what another person is like by attributing the same characteristics of a group that the person is a part of to that person.

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Outgroup Homogeneity Effect

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The assumption that there is more similarity among members of an outgroup than among members of one's ingroup.

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Illusory Correlations

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The tendency to see a relation between variables even when they are actually uncorrelated.

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Shared Distinctiveness

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We are more likely to notice distinctive persons (outgroup or minority group members) and distinctive events or traits. (expectations and confirmation bias).We then come to assume that that distinctive trait is typical for all members of the outgroup.

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Ultimate Attribution Error

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The tendency to attribute an individual's behavior to the shared disposition of an entire group of people., assumption that behaviors among individual members of a group are due to their internal dispositions

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Subtyping

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accommodating individuals who deviate from one's stereotype by thinking of them as "exceptions to the rule"

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Confirmation Bias

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a tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore or distort contradictory evidence

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Self-fulfilling Prophecies

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Occur when a perceiver's false expectations cause them to behave in ways that elicits the expected behavior from members of the outgroup, that in turn reinforces their initial stereotyped belief. ex. Standardized test

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Automatic stereotyping

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1. Once we learn to associate a group with a trait (e.g., from our parents, peers, media images), the presents of that group can automatically activate the trait. 2. Stereotype is automatically activated when there is chronic accessibility (culture, individual experiences), and when motivated with goals to protect self-esteem, affiliate with others, or be egalitarian. 3. Even if you don't have an explicit feelings about the stereotype your implicit feelings will become salient when the group becomes present.

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Stereotype Threat

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Apprehension that one's behavior might confirm a stereotype while in a stereotype-relevant situation. (awareness of negative stereotype → stress → impairs performance).

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Stereotype Lift

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Awareness of positive stereotype can boost one's performance.

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Ambivalent Sexism

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A form of sexism characterized by attitudes about women that reflect both negative, resentful beliefs and feelings and affectionate and chivalrous but potentially patronizing beliefs and feelings 1. Even positive stereotypes can have negative consequences. Benevolent and hostile sexism against women are still saying that women are weak.

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Hostile Sexism

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Belief that women are inferior (less intelligent, worthless, etc).

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Benevolent Sexism

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sexism that reflects a superficially positive attitude put women on pedestal but nonethe less reinforces women's subordination.

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Minimal Group Paradigm

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an experimental paradigm in which researchers create groups based on arbitrary and seemingly meaningless criteria and then examine how the members of these "minimal groups" are inclined to behave toward one another.

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Realistic Conflict Theory

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The idea that limited resources lead to conflict between groups and result in increased prejudice and discrimination.

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Social Identity Theory

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The idea that an individual's self-concept can derive from perceived membership in a relevant social group.

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Evolutionary Perspective

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In-groups provide security, depend on them for survival, need to cooperate and trust. Those who favored their group (trusted them and thought they were better than the other groups) were more likely to survive, therefore passing the trait on to subsequent generations.

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Modern Racism (aka. Subtle racism)

answer

As norms for racism and sexism change, prejudice has gone "underground." Prejudice against minorities primarily surfaces when prejudice can be rationalized and made socially acceptable.

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Contact Hypothesis

answer

Mutual interdependence, common goal, interpersonal contact, multiple contacts, social norms of equality

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Latent Ability

answer

caused by Stereotype threat- ex. from 'a class divided' film: blue eye kids did better at cards in first day when they were 'superior' than the next day when they were not. 2. Basic prediction: When threat is removed, stereotyped group members should outperform nonstereotyped group members.

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Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) Dissonance Study (boring task)

answer

1. Participants take part in an extremely boring study, but is asked to tell the next person the experiment was enjoyable. 2. Offered $1 or $20 to lie to the next person, or not asked to lie 3. Main question: How would getting paid affect their attitude? In other words, who later rated the experiment as most enjoyable? 4. The people that got $1 rated the experiment as most enjoyable because they wanted to change their attitudes to comply with their behaviors. Them lying could not be justified by $1, but they could make themselves believe that the activity really wasn't that bad, it wasn't incredibly boring.

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Aronson & Mills (1959) embarrassment test (sexual readings study)

answer

Aronson and Mills: 1. women come in and do a study about sexual beliefs. Two conditions: 1. low effort: read words out loud (prostitute) 2. high effort: (explicit words) and a passage from a novel (sexual novel). 3. Watch a boring video on animal sexual behavior. Women in high effort rated the movie as interesting because they had to do something difficult beforehand and were trying to justify it."The harder it was to acquire the more we like it later"

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Brehm's (1956) Difficult decisions study (rationalizing liking objects more after we've chosen them)

answer

1. After we have made a decision, we will feel dissonance regarding the possibility of it being wrong. We will often change our perceptions to reduce this dissonance and make the decision seem more attractive. 2. Brehm (1956) asked shoppers to rate the attractiveness of household appliances. They were then allowed to choose, as a gift, between two appliances they had rated equally attractive. Twenty minutes later, they were asked to re-evaluate the appliances. Guess what? They now rated their gift somewhat more highly. And the items they did not choose they rated as worse.

question

Harmon Jones (1996) study (drinking vinegar vs. sugar drinks)

answer

1. Inconsistency alone may produce dissonance effects even w/o negative consequences. 2. Study where participants rated regular koolaid and koolaid mixed with vinegar blindly. 1. One group (HIGH CHOICE) got to choose to comment on whatever they felt like. 2. (NO CHOICE) had to choose whether what they had was good or bad. 3. Subjects were not consistent with what they wrote which in turn experiences dissonance from their behavior. ****Not sure exactly what the results were in relation to the dissonance. In the graph the no choice subjects had a high rating of the regular koolaid, but the high choice subjects rated it higher. In the vinegar koolaid ratings, the no choice rated it low, the high choice rated it much higher- close marks to the regular koolaid.

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Biased support of meritocratic beliefs study

answer

Meritocratic beliefs is the idea that hard work and determination leads to success, exposed to belief about persistence, if we fail in life it is our fault, try again to succeed. The biased support/ideas of meritocratic beliefs:

question

Asch's Line Judgment Task

answer

1. Virtually all participants were accurate in comparing line sizes when alone. Subjects went along with the clearly incorrect majority 37% of the time. 25% of subjects NEVER conformed. 50% conformed for at least half of the presentations.

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What are the ways we can reduce dissonance?

answer

1. Change your attitude: "Being frugal is overrated" 2. Change your perception: "It wasn't THAT expensive" 3. Add consonant cognitions: "I did buy them on sale" 4. Minimize the importance of the conflict: "I'm a nice person, so what it I spend too much sometimes?" 5. Reduce perceived choice: "I had to buy them for the wedding next week."

question

Do bigger rewards produce greater change?

answer

No, small rewards produce greater change in attitude. Behaving in a way that is against your attitude would not be justified by a small reward and in turn will change your attitude to reduce dissonance.

question

Do bigger punishments produce greater change?

answer

1. No, small punishments produce greater change in attitude. 1. If a small punishment is administered then the person will think they are holding back the desired behavior because they have self control rather than being forced not to behave in a certain way. Small punishments cause greater change for when a person refrains from performing a behavior based on a mild punishment they do not have sufficient external justification for why they refrained. This causes cognitive dissonance and one is forced to change their belief so that it becomes consistent with their behavior, which reduced the discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance. 2. A large punishment will cause people to not behave in a certain way while the punisher is present, but when the punisher is not present they will find no reason to hold back the desired behavior (because they have sufficient external justification for their behavior).

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Do we like something more or less the more we "pay" for it?

answer

The more we pay for something the more we like it . We do this in order to avoid the cognitive dissonance that arises when we feel that we did something foolish for no good reason. Since there is insufficient external reason (i.e benefits) for engaging in demoralizing, difficult, or boring task, all we can do to reduce the discomfort we are experiencing is to change our belief (i.e. liking it more).

question

What kinds of decisions produce dissonance?

answer

Difficult decisions: Alternative courses of action are similarly desirable (A choice between two equally desirable things, situations where we act contrary to our internal beliefs for no good reason, ect.)

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What are the necessary conditions for dissonance and attempts at its reduction to occur?

answer

1. Unwanted negative consequences 2. Personal responsibility: choice and foreseeability 3. Physiological arousal; decreases after attitude change 4. Attribution of arousal to discrepancy

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Does everyone care equally about being consistent? Who cares less and why?

answer

Collectivists are less concerned with consistency, show fewer dissonance effects. Collectivists focus more on INTERdependence rather than independence. They are group-goal oriented rather than personal goal oriented. Often people from collectivist cultures act in ways consistent with the situation, not just on the basis of personal beliefs.

question

Do there need to be negative consequences for you to experience dissonance?

answer

No, inconsistency alone can cause dissonance (Ex: the sweet beverage or vinegar beverage experiment)

question

What are some of the consequences of system justifying beliefs?

answer

People defend, bolster, and rationalize the status quo simply because it exists. People justify "getting the short end of the stick" because "its the way it is" - it's the same reason why women justify getting paid less than men working the same job. These beliefs don't permit us to see the flaws in the system, therefore nothing is done to change anything.

question

What are some of the consequences of victim blaming?

answer

Victims of crimes or accidents often seen as causing their fate (e.g. rape victims, battered wives) - maybe in the long run less people will report crimes

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When are people more likely to endorse system justifying beliefs?

answer

When they perceive that the system is threatened. For example, when the American economy is suffering Americans are more likely to say positive things about the economy, otherwise they are supporting a failing system.

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Who in US society endorses meritocratic beliefs (i.e. do only people at the top endorse it)?

answer

Meritocratic beliefs are endorsed by people across the social spectrum.

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How do people continue to support beliefs when presented with scientific evidence that its wrong?

answer

Confirmation bias -They would come up with reasons for flaw in the study, such as internal validity.

question

Why do people conform?

answer

Two reasons: 1. Informational influence (others provide us with info) 2. Normative influence (social pressure) Two types: 1. Private conformity (really believe it) 2. Public conformity (go along to get along)

question

What's the difference between informational and normative influence?

answer

Informational influence is when other people provide info to us which in then influences our beliefs and behaviors while Normative influence is influence through social pressure.

question

How does group size influence conformity?

answer

Conformity increases with group size but only up to a point. Depends on our perception of how many distinct individuals there are- couples and groups of people or separate individuals.

question

Are we influenced by true norms or our perception of them?

answer

We are influenced by perceptions of the norms, not the norms per se.

question

What individual differences affect the likelihood of conforming?

answer

1. Age differences young adolescents most vulnerable older people(63-85) conform less to an incorrect majority. 2. Gender differences 1. weak and unreliable 2. conform more on opposite sex tasks 3. social pressure based on gender norms.

question

What cultural differences exist in the likelihood of conforming?

answer

1. Individualistic cultures: value autonomy and independence. 2. Collectivistic cultures: value social harmony and fitting in for sake of the community. conformity rates generally higher in collectivistic cultures.

question

What factors make compliance more likely?

answer

1. Talking fast 2. Catching people by surprise can increase compliance. 3. People are affected by the phrasing of the request. 4. An appearance of a reason. 1. ie: (Xerox machine request study)

question

Why does foot-in-the-door work?

answer

Agreeing to a small request will possibly make us agree to the larger request. Works best when small request is not too trivial, and subject wants to view self as consistent.

question

Why does low-balling work?

answer

Justification and the psychology of commitment. We feel committed so we have to go through with it.

question

Why does door-in-the-face work?

answer

The large request is rejected, we second request seems smaller so we will accept it. (perceptual contrast) Techniques only work when they are hidden from view. 1. These techniques fail if they are obvious, or unreasonable.

question

Why did people obey in Milgram's study?

answer

Authoritative figure and perceived legitimacy of the authority i.e titles, uniform, location. Normative influence from authoritary figure- would have to be strong to stand up to figure. Cognitive dissonance, lack of personal responsibility. the average rate of obedience(66%) 19. What are the factors that affected the rate of obedience? 1. Presence of allies- two confederates. 2. Whether or not learners could not be seen, and could not see them (higher obedience when learner could not be seen, than when they are in the same room) 3. Whether or not the victim was remote and teachers heard no complaints 4. Participant required to force learners hand into contact with shock plate. 5. Presence of allies (dissenters)

question

Chameleon Effect study

answer

nonconscious mimicry. According to Chartrand and Bargh, the chameleon effect is the natural tendency to imitate another person's speech inflections and physical expressions. You can notice that people who get along well behave almost the same way, as they unintentionally mimic each other's body posture, hand gestures, speaking accents, and other. The body is actually autonomously making the interaction smoother and increasing the level of likeability when in rapport.

question

Autokinetic Effect (Sherif) (estimating movement of light)

answer

Subjects were seated in dark room where a light was shown in front of them. Each time it disappeared and reappeared, they were asked how far it was from them. They responded 2 ft., 4 ft., when actuality it was not moving at all. The autokinetic effect goes into play - - each subject experience different things (one person said 2 ft, another said 10 ft). In the 2nd phase, the subject was put in a room with 2 other people and asked to respond out loud. They all came to a common estimate. it shows that as they were using each other as a source of information -- Informational influence. when the situation is ambiguous, the answer is unclear, therefore people use informational influence to come up with a conclusion.

question

The classic Xerox study, Langer, Blank, and Chanowitz (1972)

answer

explored how the language of requests influences willingness to comply. To do this they observed how well different requests to cut into the line at the copier worked. They found when people ask to cut into the line to make 5 copies, they are successful about 60% of the time, no questions asked. At the baseline, people are generally polite. (For what it's worth, the actual request was also polite: "Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine?")

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