Social Thinking: Attitudes

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Social Thinking Attitudes Prejudice
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Attitudes

• What is an attitude?
• Our beliefs and feelings about objects, people,
  and events that lead people to behave in certain
  ways.
• Has three components
• Cognitivethoughts about given topic or situation
• Affectivefeelings or emotions about topic
• Behavioralyour actions regarding the topic or
  situation

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Components of Attitudes

• An attitude is a positive or negative evaluation
  of an object, person, or idea

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How Attitudes Develop

• Conditioning Children are reinforced for acting
  and thinking in ways that are consistent with
  their parents attitudes.
• Observational Learning We observe others and
  adopt their ways of acting.
• Cognitive Evaluations Evaluate evidence and
  then form a belief based on that. Do this when
  you have to justify your attitude.
• Cognitive Anchors beliefs that shape the ways
  we see the world and interpret events. We reject
  things that differ too much from our cognitive
  anchor.

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The Effect of Attitudes on Behavior

• Youre most likely to behave in accordance with
  your attitudes when
• 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.

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Attitudes Affecting Actions

• Many studies suggest a persons attitudes do not
  match their actions
• Attitudes can predict behavior if
• Outside influences are minimal
• People are aware of their attitudes
• Attitude is relevant to behavior

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Actions Affecting Attitudes

• Under some circumstances ones actions can
  influence attitudes. They include
• Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
• Role playing
• Cognitive dissonance

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Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon

• The tendency for people who have first agreed to
  a small request to comply later with a larger
  request

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Role Playing

• Playing a role can influence or change ones
  attitude
• Zimbardos 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.

Dr. Phillip Zimbardo
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Cognitive Dissonance (Leon Festinger)

• 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.

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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 cant explain your
  behavior, you may change your attitude so that it
  is in harmony with your behavior.

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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

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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.

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Dissonance-Reducing Mechanisms

• Avoiding dissonant information
• we attend to information in support of our
  existing views, rather than information that
  doesnt support them
• Firming up an attitude to be consistent with an
  action
• once weve made a choice to do something,
  lingering doubts about our actions would cause
  dissonance, so we are motivated to set them aside

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Prejudice
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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

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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.

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Categorization

• The tendency to group similar objects
• May be a means to explain stereotypes

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Stereotype

• An unchanging, oversimplified and usually
  distorted belief about a group of people
• We assume those different from ourselves must all
  be similar to each other.
• 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
• Stereotypes limit the possibilities of
  individuals by discouraging them to explore their
  full range of talents.

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Studying stereotypes

• 3 levels of stereotypes in todays research
• public
• what we say to others about a group
• private
• what we consciously think about a group, but
  dont 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)

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Implicit Stereotypes

• Use of priming subject doesnt know stereotype
  is being activated, cant 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

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Implicit Stereotypes

• Devines 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
  African-American
• we have to actively push them back down if we
  dont wish to act in a prejudiced way.
• Overcoming prejudice is possible, but takes work

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Ingroup Us

• People with whom one shares a common identity

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Outgroup Them

• Those perceived as different or apart form us
  (the ingroup)

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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 out-group as much
   more similar to one another, even in areas that
   have little to do with the criteria for group
   membership.

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Ingroup Bias

• The tendency to favor ones 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 ones own culture or
  ethnic group is superior to others

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The Basis for Prejudice

• In combination, stereotypes and
  in-group/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

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Discrimination

• Unfair treatment of individuals because they are
  members of a particular group.
• Victims of discrimination may see themselves as
  inferior.
• Low expectations low self esteem low chance
  for success.
• See clip of Clarks study from Separate but
  Equal.
• See this modern example (2 min)

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Prejudice and Discrimination

• Play Attitudes and Prejudicial Behavior (606)
  Segment 31 from Psychology The Human
  Experience.
• Play Ethnocentrism and Prejudice (506) Segment
  32 from Psychology The Human Experience.

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Causes of Prejudice
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Exaggerating Differences

• People exaggerate how different others are from
  themselves.
• We tend to prefer people who look, act and think
  like us and see others as being more different
  than they really are.

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Justifying Economic Status

• People of higher socioeconomic status tend to
  justify it by assuming that people of lower
  economic status are inferior to them.
• Believe that lower status people are lazy and
  dont work as hard.
• This is also known as Just-World Phenomenon

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Just-World Phenomenon

• The tendency to believe that people get what they
  deserve and deserve what they get
• Reflects childs attitude that good is rewarded
  and evil is punished

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Social Learning

• Children will imitate their parents attitudes and
  parents will reinforce these attitudes in their
  children
• This is how prejudice is passed on from
  generation to generation

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Victimization

• Victims of prejudice try to gain a sense of power
  and pride by putting down another group that is
  even worse off them.

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Scapegoat Theory

• Individual or group is blamed for a problem that
  is too complex, powerful or remote to be
  addressed.
• Provides an outlet for anger by providing someone
  to blame
• Example Nazi Germany blaming the Jews for the
  troubles in Germany after WWI.

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Accounting for Prejudice
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Accounting for Prejudice Two Theories

• Prejudice and intergroup hostility increase when
  different groups are competing for scarce
  resources
• 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.

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Overcoming Prejudice
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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

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Social Identity and Cooperation

• Social identity theory
• States that when youre assigned to a group, you
  automatically think of that group as an in-group
  for you
• Sherifs Robbers Cave study
• 1112 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

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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.

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Robbers Cave

• Overcoming the strong we/they effect
• establishment of superordinate goals
• 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)

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Ways to Reduce Prejudice

1. Increase contact among members of different
   groups
2. Individuals must decide that prejudiced responses
   are wrong and consciously reject their own and
   others prejudiced and stereotyped thinking
3. Individuals must learn to recognize automatic
   prejudicial reactions and deliberately replace
   them with nonprejudiced responses that are based
   on their personal standards