Behavior and attitudes

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Behavior and attitudes

• Chapter 4

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Behavior and attitudes

• How well do our attitudes predict our behavior?
• When does our behavior affect our attitudes
• Why does our behavior affect our attitudes?
• Postscript Changing ourselves through action

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Behavior and attitudes

• What is the relationship between what we are (on
  the inside) and what we do (on the outside)?
• Connections between attitude action, character
  conduct, private word public deed
• Assumption our private beliefs feelings
  determine our public behavior
• Change behavior - change hearts minds first

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Behavior and attitudes

• Leon Festinger (1964) - evidence showed that
  changing peoples attitudes hardly affects
  behavior
• Attitude
• A favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction
  toward something or someone(often rooted in ones
  beliefs, exhibited in ones feelings intended
  behaviors
• Thus a person may have a negative attitude
  towards coffee, a neutral attitude towards the
  French a positive attitude towards their
  neighbor

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Behavior and attitudes

• Attitudes provide an efficient way to size up the
  world
• E.g., a person who believes a particular ethnic
  group is lazy aggressive may feel dislike for
  such people therefore intentionally act in a
  discriminatory manner
• Study of attitudes major concern for social
  psychology
• Three dimensions as the ABCs of attitudes
• Affect (feelings), behavior tendency, cognition
  (thoughts).

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How well do our attitudes predict our behavior

• Allan Wicker (1969) concluded that attitudes
  hardly predicted varying behavior
• Students attitude to cheating bore little
  relation to likelihood of their actually cheating
• Attitudes toward the church were only modestly
  linked with church attendance
• Self-described racial attitudes provided little
  clue to behaviors in actual situations

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Do our attitudes predict our behavior?

• moral hypocrisy appearing moral while
  avoiding the costs of being so (D. Batson
  colleagues, 1997,2002)
• Studies presented people with appealing task
  raffle tickets toward 30.00 prize dull task
  with no positive consequences.
• Participants had to assign themselves supposed
  other participant to one or the other tasks
  only 1 in 20 believed that assigning themselves
  to positive task was moral
• But! 80 did so when morality greed were put
  on collision course, greed won!

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Do our attitudes affect our behavior?

• We are it seems a population of hypocrites
• What controls behavior
• Emphasis on external social influences others
  behavior expectations played down internal
  factors such as attitudes personality
• Original thesis that attitudes determine actions
  was countered in 1960s by the antithesis that
  attitudes determine virtually nothing

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When attitudes predict behavior

• Behavior our expressed attitudes differ because
  both are subject to other influences
• Might attitudes accurately predict behavior if we
  neutralize other influences?
• We measure expressed attitudes
• We say what we think others want to hear
• Late 2002 many US legislators, sensing
  countrys post9/11 fear, anger patriot fervor
  publicly voted support for Bushs planned war
  against Iraq (privately having reservations)
• On roll-call vote, strong social influences
  fear of criticism had distorted true sentiments

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When social influences on what we say are minimal

• There are some clever ways to minimize social
  influences on peoples attitude reports
• Measure facial muscle responses to various
  statements
• Bogus pipeline to the heart wire people to
  fake lie detector which participants are told is
  real (show them how well it displays previous
  attitude results then ask new questions
• Irony in deceiving to elicit truthfulness
• Implicit association test (IAT) reaction times
  to measure how quickly people associate concepts

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When other influences on behavior are minimal

• Not only inner attitudes that guide but also
  situations
• Would averaging many occasions enable us to
  detect more clearly impact of attitudes?
• Knowing the players (baseball, cricket) we can
  predict their approximate batting averages
• Religious attitudes predict quite well he total
  quantity of religious behaviors over time
• Effects of attitude become more apparent when
  looking at persons average behavior rahter than
  isolated acts

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When attitudes specific to behavior are examined

• Attitudes do predict behavior in which the
  measured attitude was directly pertinent to
  situation
• Attitudes toward general concept of health
  fitness poorly predicts exercise dietary
  practices
• But individuals attitudes about costs benefits
  of jogging are strong predictors of whether
  he/she jogs regularly
• To change habits through persuasion alter
  peoples attitudes towards specific practices
• An attitude predicts behavior better when the
  attitude is potent

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When attitudes are potent

• Much of behavior is automatic
• Acting without reflecting
• Such mindlessness is adaptive frees mind to
  work on other things
• In novel situations behavior less automatic,
  attitudes become more potent
• We think before we act
• If prompted to think about our attitudes before
  acting, would we be truer to ourselves? Yes! Our
  attitudes become potent if we think about them
• Self-conscious people are usually in touch with
  their attitudes

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When attitudes are potent

• Make them self-aware! Perhaps by having them act
  in front of a mirror promotes consistency
  between word deed
• Nearly all students say cheating is morally wrong
• Students to work on anagram problem related to IQ
  told to stop when bell rang left alone 71 of
  students did not stop
• Among students made self-aware by working in
  front of mirror while hearing own tape-recorded
  voices only 7 cheated
• Batson colleagues (1999) found that mirrors did
  bring behavior into line with espoused moral
  attitudes
• Our attitudes predict our actions if
• Other influences are minimal
• The attitude is specific to the action
• The attitude is potent, as when we are reminded
  of it or made self-conscious

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When does our behavior affect our attitudes?

• Behavior determines attitudes
• True that we sometimes stand up for what we
  believe
• Also true that we come to believe what we stand
  up for
• Sarah hypnotized told to remove shoes when book
  dropped when asked why se removed shoes? She
  replied that feet were hot tired
• The act produces the idea

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Role playing
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Role Playing

• Role
• Set of norms that defines how people in a given
  social position ought to behave
• Zimbardo experiment (1971)
• to find out
• Is prison brutality a product of evil prisoners
  malicious guards?
• Do the institutional roles of guards prisoner
  embitter harden even compassionate people?
• Do the people make the place violent?
• Or does the place make the people violent?

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Zimbardo experiment
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Role Playing

• Flipped coin for who played guards prisoners
• Gave guards uniforms, reflective sun glasses,
  clubs whistles instructed them to enforce
  rules
• Guards began to disparage prisoners
• Some devised cruel degrading routines
• Prisoners broke down, rebelled or became
  apathetic
• Growing confusion between reality illusion,
  between role playing self-identity
• Forced to stop after only 6 days
• Deeper lesson of role-playing concerns how what
  is unreal can subtly evolve into what is real
• In new career, as teacher, soldier, we enact a
  role that shapes our attitudes

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Abu Ghraib degradation of prisoners
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When saying becomes believing

• People often adapt what they say to please the
  listener
• Quicker to tell good news than bad
• Adjust messages to listeners position
• When induced to give spoken or written support to
  something they doubt, will often feel bad about
  deceit
• But begin to believe what they said
• When there is no compelling external explanation
  for ones words, saying becomes believing
• Impression management in expressing our thoughts
  to others, we sometimes tailor our words to what
  we think the others will want to hear.

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The foot in the door phenomenon

• If you want people to do a big favor for you
  effective strategy is to get them to do a small
  favor first
• Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
• 46 TO suburbanites willing to give to C cancer
  Society when approached directly others asked a
  day ahead to wear a lapel pin (which all agreed
  to do) were nearly twice as likely to donate
• In these experiments, the initial compliance
  wearing a lapel pin, stating ones intention,
  signing a petition was voluntary
• When people commit themselves to public behaviors
  perceive those acts as their own doing, they
  come to believe more strongly in what they have
  done

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Foot-in-the-door
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The foot in the door phenomenon

• Low-ball technique
• A tactic for getting people to agree to
  something. People who agree to an initial request
  will often still comply when the requester ups
  the ante. People who receive only the costly
  request are less likely to comply with it

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Low-ball technique
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The foot in the door phenomenon

• Cialdini (1978) trained for three years in sales,
  fund-raising advertising agencies to better
  understand why one person says yes to another
• He discovered how they exploit the weapons of
  influence
• Low-ball technique tactic used by car dealers
• After customer agrees to buy because of bargain
  price, starts completing sales forms
  salesperson removes price advantage by charging
  for options or checking with boss who disallows
  deal wed we losing money
• Folklore has it that the low-balled customer now
  sticks with higher priced than would have agreed
  at the outset
• Airlines hotels also used tactic by attracting
  inquiries with great deals, then hoping customer
  will agree to higher price option

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Evil and moral acts

• Evil sometimes results from gradually escalating
  commitments
• A trifling evil act can whittle down ones moral
  sensitivity making it easier to perform a worse
  act
• Evil acts influence attitudes paradoxical fact
  that we tend not only to hurt those we dislike
  but also to dislike those we hurt
• Several studies found that harming an innocent
  victim by uttering hurtful comments or
  delivering electric shocks typically leads
  aggressors to disparage their victims thus
  helping them justify their cruel behavior
• This is especially so when we are coaxed into it
  not coerced
• When we agree to a deed voluntarily, we take more
  responsibility for it

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Evil and moral acts

• A group that holds another in slavery will likely
  come to perceive the slaves as having traits that
  justify their oppression
• The more one harms another, adjusts ones
  attitudes, the easier harm-doing becomes
• Evil acts shape the self but so do moral acts
• Our character is reflected in what we do when we
  think no one is looking
• Moral action, especially when chosen rather than
  coerced, affects moral thinking
• Positive behavior fosters liking for the person
• Doing a favor for an experimenter or tutoring a
  student usually increases liking of the person
  helped
• If you wish to love someone more, act as if you do

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Interracial behavior racial attitudes

• If moral action feeds moral attitudes will
  positive interracial behavior reduce racial
  prejudice?
• Much as mandatory seat belt use has produced more
  favorable seat belt attitudes
• Social scientists testimony in 1954 before
  Supreme court decision to desegregate schools
• If we wait for the heart to change through
  preaching teaching we will wait for a long time
  for racial justice
• If we legislate moral action, we can, under the
  right conditions indirectly affect heartfelt
  attitudes
• Following Supreme Court decision the of White
  Americans favoring integrated schools jumped
• Interracial behavior increased

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Social Movements

• Societys laws therefore its behavior can have
  a strong influence on its racial attitudes
• Danger lies in possibility of employing same idea
  for political socialization on a mass scale
• Participation in the Nazi rallies, displaying the
  Nazi flag, public greeting Heil Hitler
  profound inconsistency between behavior belief
  for Germans
• German greeting was a powerful conditioning
  device
• Prevented from saying what they believed tried
  to establish psychic equilibrium by consciously
  making themselves believe what they said
• This practice not limited to Totalitarian regimes
• Political rituals daily flag salute, singing
  National anthem- use public conformity to build a
  private belief in patriotism

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Social movements
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Social movements

• 1950s Korean war prisoners (POW) went through a
  thought control program
• Captors methods included gradual escalation of
  demands
• Starting with trivial requests gradually
  working up to more significant ones
• Once a prisoner had spoken or written a
  statement, felt an inner need to make beliefs
  consistent with acts
• Start small and build big tactic was an effective
  application of the foot-in-the-door technique
• Continues to be so today in socialization of
  terrorists torturers

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Summing-up When does our behavior affect our
attitudes?

• The attitude-action relation works in reverse
  direction not only to think ourselves into
  action but also to act ourselves into a way of
  thinking
• Similarly, what we say or write can strongly
  influence attitudes that we subsequently hold
• Research on the foot-in-the-door phenomenon
  reveals that committing a small act later makes
  people more willing to do a larger one
• Actions also affect our moral attitudes that
  which we have done even if its evil, we tend to
  justify
• Similarly our racial political behaviors help
  shape our social consciousness
• Political social movements may legislate
  behavior designed to lead to attitude change on a
  mass scale

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Why does our behavior affect our attitudes

• What theories explain the attitudes-follow-behavio
  r phenomenon?
• How does the contest between these theories
  illustrate the process of scientific
  explanations?
• Why does action affect attitudes?
• Three possible sources suspected
• Self-presentation theory for strategic reasons
  we express attitudes that make us appear
  consistent
• Cognitive dissonance theory to reduce
  discomfort we justify our actions to ourselves
• Self-perception theory our actions are
  self-revealing (when uncertain about our feelings
  or beliefs we look to our behavior)

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Self-presentation Impression management

• Who among us does not care what people think?
• Spend on cosmetics, clothes, plastic surgery,
  diets
• See making a good impression as a way to gain
  social material rewards
• To feel better about ourselves
• To become more secure in our social identities

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Self-presentation impression management

• No one wants to look foolishly inconsistent
• To avoid this we express attitudes that match our
  actions
• We may pretend those attitudes
• Even if it means displaying a little insincerity
  or hypocrisy it can pay off
• People exhibit much smaller attitude change when
  a fake lie detector inhibits them from trying to
  make a good impression
• But there is more to attitude changes than
  self-presentation

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Self-justification cognitive dissonance

• Our attitudes change motivated to maintain
  consistency among cognitions
• Leon Festingers (1957) cognitive dissonance
  theory
• Assumes that we feel tension, or lack of harmony
  (dissonance) when 2 simultaneously accessible
  thoughts or beliefs (cognitions) are
  psychologically inconsistent (i.e., when we
  decide to say or do something we have mixed
  feelings about)
• To reduce this unpleasant arousal, we adjust our
  thinking
• Mostly to discrepancies between behavior
  attitudes
• British survey 50 of smokers disagreed with
  nonsmokers who nearly all agreed that smoking is
  really as dangerous as people say

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Cognitive dissonance insufficient justification

• Famous experiment by Festinger for 1 hour you
  perform dull tasks (such as turning wooden knobs
  again again)
• Then you are persuaded to tell next participant
  (who is accomplice to experimenter) that it was
  interesting
• Accomplice tells you that previous friend found
  it boring
• Oh, no, you reply saying how interesting it
  really is what good exercise you get from
  turning knobs
• Someone else gets you to fill in questionnaire
  asking you how much you actually enjoyed your
  knob-turning
• Now for the prediction under which condition are
  you most likely to believe your little lie say
  that experiment was interesting? When paid only
  1 for fibbing or when paid 20 as others were?

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Insufficient justification

• Those paid just 1 (hardly justification for a
  lie)would be most likely to adjust their
  attitudes to their actions
• Having insufficient justification for their
  actions experience more discomfort (dissonance)
  motivated to believe in what they had done
• Those paid 20 had sufficient justification for
  what they had done hence experienced less
  dissonance
• Cognitive dissonance theory focuses not on
  relative effectiveness of rewards punishments
  after the act but rather on what induces a
  desired action
• Students who perceive their required community
  service as something they would have chosen to do
  are more likely to anticipate future volunteering
  than those who feel coerced

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Dissonance after decisions

• When faced with important decision what college
  to attend, whom to date, which job to accept
  torn between 2 equally attractive alternatives
• You may recall a time when having committed
  yourself painfully aware of dissonance
  cognitions
• The desirable features of what you had rejected
  the undesirable features of what you have chosen
• After making important decisions usually reduce
  dissonance by upgrading chosen alternatives
  downgrading unchosen option
• Jack Brehm (1956) experiment on dissonance had
  women rate 8 products - then showed 2 products
  women rated closely told them they could have
  whichever they chose
• When rerating products, women increased their
  evaluation of the product they chose decreased
  evaluation of the unchosen one

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Self-perception

• Consider how we make inferences about other
  peoples attitudes
• How a person acts in a particular situation
  then attribute behavior either to persons traits
  attitudes or to environmental forces
• Self-perception theory (Daryl Bem, 1972) assumes
  that we make similar inferences when we observe
  our own behavior
• The acts we freely commit are self-revealing
• Self-perception theory the theory that when we
  are unsure of our attitudes, we infer them much
  as would someone observing us, by looking at our
  behavior circumstances under which it occurs

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Self-perception

• Do people who observe themselves agreeing to
  small requests come to perceive themselves as
  helpful sorts who respond positively to requests
  for help?
• Perhaps this is why in the foot-in-the-door
  experiments people will later agree to larger
  requests
• Yes indeed, behavior can modify self-concept

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Self-expressions attitude

• Experiments on facial expressions Laird (1974)
  induced college students to frown while attaching
  electrodes to their faces contract these
  muscles, pull your brows together students
  reported feeling angry
• Induced students to smile they felt happier
  found cartoons more humorous
• Those induced to repeatedly practice happy
  expressions may recall more happy memories find
  happy mood lingering
• Viewing ones face in the mirror magnifies
  self-perception effect
• Its tough to smile feel grouchy
• When we are afraid just whistle a happy tune

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Expressions attitudes

• Want to feel better? Walk for a minute taking
  long strides with your arms swinging your eyes
  straight ahead
• If our expressions influence our feelings then
  would imitating others expressions help us know
  what they are feeling?
• Experiment by K. Vaughan J. Lanzdetta (1981)
  suggested that it would
• Students observed someone getting electric shock
• Told some of observers to make a pained
  expression whenever the shock come on
• Compared with students who did not act out
  expressions these students perspired more had
  faster heart rates
• Acing out persons emotion enabled observers to
  feel more empathy
• The implication to sense how other people are
  feeling, let your own face mirror their
  expressions

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Expressions attitudes

• We synchronize our movements, postures, tones
  of voice with others
• Doing so helps tune in to what theyre feeling
• Makes for emotional contagion which helps explain
  why its fun to be around happy people
  depressing to be around depressed people

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Over justification intrinsic motivations

• Insufficient justification effect smallest
  incentive that will get people to do something
  usually most effective
• They get to like activity keep doing it
• Cognitive dissonance offers 1 explanation for
  this
• When external inducements are insufficient to
  justify behavior we reduce dissonance by
  justifying behavior internally
• Self-perception theory offers different
  explanation
• people explain behavior by noting conditions
  under which it occurs
• we observe our uncoerced action infer our
  attitude

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Over justification intrinsic motivation

• Contrary to notion that rewards always increase
  motivation unnecessary rewards can have a
  hidden cost
• Rewarding people for doing what they already
  enjoy may lead them to attribute action to the
  reward
• Thus undermining their self-perception that they
  do it because they like it
• Experiments have confirmed this over
  justification effect
• Pay people for playing with puzzles, they will
  later play with puzzles less than those who play
  for no pay
• Over justification effect the result of bribing
  people to do what they already life doing they
  may then see their actions as externally
  controlled rather than intrinsically appealing

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Over justification intrinsic motivations

• Self-perception theory implies an unanticipated
  reward does not diminish intrinsic interest
• People can still attribute actions to their own
  motivation
• When rightly administered rewards can boost
  creativity
• Over justification effect occurs when someone
  offers unnecessary reward beforehand in an
  obvious effort to control behavior
• What matters is what reward implies
• Rewards praise that inform people of their
  achievements make them feel, Im very good at
  this boost intrinsic motivation
• Rewards that seek to control people lead them
  to believe it was a reward that cause their
  effort I did it for money diminish
  intrinsic appeal of an enjoyable task

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Intrinsic extrinsic motivaion

• When people do something they enjoy, without
  reward or coercion, they attribute their behavior
  to their love of the activity.
• External rewards undermine intrinsic motivation
  by leading people to attribute their behavior to
  the incentive