Mark: Strongly disagree disagree neutral agree strongly agree

1
Mark Strongly disagree/ disagree/ neutral/
agree/ strongly agree

• World hunger is a serious problem that needs
  attention
• Our country needs to address the growing number
  of homeless people
• The right to vote is one of the most valuable
  rights of US citizens
• Our government should spend less money on nuclear
  weapons and more on helping citizens better their
  lives.

2
Indicate whether or not you regularly perform the
stated behaviors

• I personally donate money or write my
  representative to do something about world hunger
• I volunteer in a homeless shelter or donate money
  to organizations that help the homeless.
• I voted in the last election (if eligible)
• I write to my representative or participate in
  protests to convey my feelings about nuclear
  weapons

3
Attitudes

• What is an attitude?
• Belief, opinion with evaluative component
• Functions?
• Cognitive dissonance theory
• Festinger
• we we need our attitudes to be consistent with
  our behavior
• it is uncomfortable for us when they arent
• we seek ways to decrease discomfort caused by
  inconsistency

4
Dissonance-reducing Mechanisms

• Avoiding dissonant information
• we attend to information in support of our
  existing views, rather than information that
  doesnt support them
• Sweeney Gruber (1973) Watergate study
• Firming up an attitude to be consistent with an
  action
• set aside doubts/ uncertainty, become more
  confident after decision
• effect of investing great effort, cost

5
Dissonance-reducing Mechanisms

• Changing an attitude to justify an action
• when a person does something counter to their
  stated beliefs, then justify the deed by
  modifying their attitude
• Insufficient-justification effect
• change in attitude that occurs because person
  cannot justify an already completed action
  without modifying attitude
• optimizing conditions include external
  justification, free choice, when action would
  cause harm

6
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 isnt very much money, 1 group said
  task was fun

7
Using Attitudes as Ways to Justify Injustice

• Just-world bias
• a tendency to believe that life is fair
• it would seem horrible to think that you can be a
  really good person and bad things could happen to
  you anyway
• Just-world bias leads to blaming the victim
• we explain others misfortunes as being their
  fault
• e.g., she deserved to be raped, what was she
  doing in that neighborhood anyway?

8
Summary

• Perceiving evaluating others
• when were accurate, when were not
• Attributions
• person vs. situation attributions
• the person bias
• actor-observer discrepancy
• effects of prior information
• effects of physical appearance

9
Summary

• Stereotypes
• what are they?
• how do we study them?
• Implicit stereotypes
• Self-fulfilling prophecy effects
• Attitudes
• cognitive dissonance theory
• dissonance-reducing mechanisms
• the insufficient-justification effect
• the just-world bias blaming the victim