Transcript Attitudes and Behaviour

Exam Information
• Everything that is on the slides and
everything that I have said is potentially
examinable (i.e., all the examples, the
names of researchers, their findings, etc)
• There is no required reading from the
textbook
• (REQUIRED) The Stanford Prison
Experiment website is potentially
examinable http://www.prisonexp.org
Lecture 7:
Social Perception II
Stereotypes & Attitudes
&
Summary
Outline
Social Perception
• Stereotypes
– What is a stereotype?
– Studying stereotypes
– Self-fulfilling Prophecies
• Attitudes
– Attitudes and behaviour
– Cognitive dissonance
Summary
Stereotypes
• What is a stereotype?
–A belief that associates a group of
people with certain traits
–Not necessarily negative, but may have
negative connotations
Studying Stereotypes
3 levels of stereotypes in today’s research
1. Public
– what we say to others about a group
2. Private
– what we consciously think about a group, but
don’t say to others
3. Implicit
– unconscious mental associations guiding our
judgments and actions without our conscious
awareness
Assessing Implicit Stereotypes
1. Priming: Participants are unaware
that a stereotype is being activated,
can’t work to suppress it
e.g., Bargh and his colleagues
– Participants read word lists, some lists
include words like “grey,” “Bingo,” and
“Florida”
– FOUND: Participants with “old” word
lists walked to elevators significantly
more slowly
2. Implicit Association Test (IAT)
A measure of unconscious associations. It
measures the speed at which people
respond to the pairing of concepts—such
as “blacks” or “whites” with values such as
“good” or “bad”
“On average, any two randomly chosen
humans are 99.8% alike in the alphabetic
sequence in their genetic code. Only 6% of
their 0.2% difference is racial; 9%
represents ethnic differences within races
(e.g., between French and Italians); 85% is
individual differences within one’s group”
Myers (2004, p. 662)
Ok, so we have stereotypical
thoughts now and then, but they
are just thoughts, right, they can’t
hurt anyone, can they?
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• When our beliefs and expectations create reality
by influencing the behaviour of ourselves and
others.
• Pygmalion effect
– Person A believes that person B has a
particular characteristic
– Person B may begin to behave in accordance
with that characteristic
• Rosenthal & Fode
– tested whether labelling would affect outcome
– divided students into 2 groups and gave them
randomly selected rats
– 1 group was told they had a group of “super
genius” rats and the other was told they had a
group of “super moron” rats
– all students told to train rats to run mazes
FOUND:
–“Genius” rat group ended up doing better
than the “moron” rat group because of
the expectations (and subsequent
behaviour) of the students
Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968)
• Went to a school and gave IQ tests to kids
• Told teachers that the test was a “spurters”
test
• However, they actually randomly selected
several kids and told the teacher they were
spurters
• They then returned and gave the kids
another IQ test at end of year
FOUND:
• Spurters showed significant improvements
in their IQ scores because of their teacher’s
expectations (and subsequent behaviour
toward them)
• Thus, we have to be careful of our
expectations and our labels because they
inform our behaviour (and hence our
expectations become reality)
Attitudes
• What are attitudes?
–Beliefs and feelings that predispose
our reactions to objects, people, and
events
• Attitudes consist of three components
1. Affect
(what we feel toward that object/person/event)
2. Cognition
(what we think about that object/person/event)
3. Behaviour
(how we act toward that object/person/event)
Attitudes and Behaviour
• We take it for granted that our attitudes
will guide our actions
La Piere (1934)
• Was interested in the relation between attitudes
and behaviour
• Took a road trip with a Chinese American couple
across America.
• At this time, prejudice against Asians was
widespread
Predicted that people would not serve them
FOUND:
• Only 1 person was negative toward the
couple
• Then La Piere sent out questionnaires to
each place they visited asking whether they
would serve Asians
• Found that people stated that they would
not serve Asians
Thus a discrepancy between their
attitudes and behaviour
But there is some evidence that our
actions can also affect our attitudes
• Role play can affect our attitudes
“What we do, we gradually become”
“Fake it till you make it”
Roberts (1977)
• Found that women who do administrative
or professional work become more
confident and assertive over time
• Thus, using role-play, we can change our
attitudes for good or for evil
But even minimal actions can
influence our attitudes
• Wells & Petty (1980)
–Asked participants to make vertical or
horizontal head motions while listening
to a radio editorial
–Wanted to know: which group would
agree most with the editorial?
–FOUND: The nodding group agreed most
with the editorial
Cacioppo & colleagues
(1993)
• Asked participants to rate
Chinese characters when
pressing their arms upward
(i.e., moving toward them) or
downward (i.e., pushing them
away)
• Which flex condition would
lead to positive ratings?
FOUND
• The upward flex led to more positive ratings
(as the action is compatible with bringing
something toward you—something you
would usually do if you find the object
pleasant)
So why do our actions affect
our attitudes?
Festinger (1957)
Cognitive dissonance theory
• We need our attitudes to be consistent with
our behaviour
• When they are not, we experience tension
(called “cognitive dissonance”)
• We then try to decrease the discomfort
caused by inconsistency, typically by
bringing our attitudes in line with our
actions
• We start to think “If I chose to do it (or say
it) I must believe it ”
• The more responsible we feel for a troubling
act, the more dissonance we feel, the more
likely we are to try to regain consistency by
changing our attitudes
Zimbardo, Weisenberg,
Firestone, and Levy (1965)
• Do people change their
attitudes to be more consistent
with their behaviour?
• Or does attitude change
depend upon how responsible they feel for the
discrepancy between their attitudes and
their actions?
Participants were told to eat as many fried
grasshoppers as they could (though they were
informed that it was voluntary and they didn’t have
to eat any if they didn’t want to).
•
Participants were asked to eat
fried grasshoppers by one of two
experimenters
– A “nice” experimenter
– A “nasty” experimenter
•
Then asked participants to rate how much
they liked the grasshoppers, and how
willing they were to endorse the
grasshoppers to other participants
Found:
• Participants who had the nasty experimenter
stated that they liked the grasshoppers more and
endorsed them more positively than participants
with the nice experimenter
• Why?
If the experimenter was nice, you had a reason for
eating the grasshoppers (“I’m doing it as a favour
for the nice experimenter”).
But if the experimenter was nasty, the only reason
that you had for eating the grasshopper was that
you must like it (i.e., cognitive dissonance kicks in)
So when will attitudes guide our
behaviour?
• Attitudes will guide our actions if…
1. Outside influences on what we say and
do are minimal
2. The attitude is specifically relevant to
the behaviour
e.g., our attitude about health may not
predict whether or not we jog, but our
attitude toward jogging will.
3. We are very aware of that attitude
e.g., Powell and Fazio (1984) found that
repeatedly expressing an attitude makes
it come to mind more quickly, and
attitudes that come to mind quickly are
the ones more likely to guide our
behaviour
So what is the take home message?
• Be aware that your attitudes and your
actions are closely interwoven
• What you do, you become (“going through
the motions will lead to that emotion”,
“fake it till you make it”)
• Be careful of the labels that you use to
describe others (they will influence your
thoughts and actions)
Ok, so I’ve just spent 7 weeks
of my life that I will never get
back studying Social
Psychology—did I learn
anything? Anything at all?
Lectures
• Definition and Methods
• Social Influence: Social Facilitation
Summary of Lectures
• Social Loafing
• Conformity &
Helping Behaviour
Summary of Lectures
•
Deindividuation
•
Obedience
•
Minority Influence
Summary of Lectures
Social Perception
•
Attributions
•
Stereotypes
•
Attitudes
Thank you all