1. Social Thinking: Attitudes & Prejudice

2. Attitudes What is an attitude?
predisposition to evaluate some people, groups, or issues in a particular way
can be negative or positive
Has three components
Cognitive—thoughts about given topic or situation
Affective—feelings or emotions about topic
Behavioral—your actions regarding the topic or situation

3. Components of Attitudes
An attitude is a positive or negative evaluation of an object, person, or idea

4. The Effect of Attitudes on Behavior
You’re 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.

5. Attitudes Affecting Actions
Many studies suggest a person’s attitudes do NOT match their actions
HOWEVER…
Attitudes can predict behavior if:
Outside influences are minimal
People are aware of their attitudes
Attitude is relevant to behavior

6. Actions Affecting Attitudes
Can our actions change our attitudes? YES
Cognitive dissonance
Foot-in-the-door phenomenon
Role playing

7. 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.

8. Cognitive Dissonance
Unpleasant state of psychological tension or arousal that occurs when two thoughts or perceptions are inconsistent
Attitudes and behaviors are in conflict
it is uncomfortable for us
we seek ways to decrease discomfort caused by the inconsistency

9. 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 can’t explain your behavior, you may change your attitude so that it is in harmony with your behavior.

11. 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 isn’t very much money, $1 group said task was fun

12. Dissonance-Reducing Mechanisms
Avoiding dissonant information
– we attend to information in support of our existing views, rather than information that doesn’t support them
Create an extraordinary excuse
Firming up an attitude to be consistent with an action
– once we’ve made a choice to do something, lingering doubts about our actions would cause dissonance, so we are motivated to set them aside

13. Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
The tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request
Example: "Can I go over to Suzy's house for an hour?" followed by "Can I stay the night?"
Ask a big request that will be refused followed by a smaller request that will be accepted because it seems more reasonable.
Example: Will you donate $100 to our cause? [response is no]. Oh. Well could you donate $10?
Door-in-the-Face Phenomenon

14. 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.

15. Role Playing Can be explained by Cognitive Dissonance
Playing a role can influence or change one’s attitude
Person reduces dissonance with the excuse, “I was just playing a role.”
Zimbardo’s 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.
Want to learn more about this famous study? See the Stanford Prison Experiment Online Slide Show or watch Stanford Prison Experiment video (8 minutes)
Modern issues of Prison Abuse – see CNN Report on Juvenile Jails and Abuse – 3 min.
Dr. Phillip Zimbardo

16. Prejudice

17. 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

18. 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.

19. Categorization The tendency to group similar objects
May be a means to explain stereotypes

20. Stereotype A generalized belief about a group of people
Stereotypes are sometimes accurate but often overgeneralized.
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

21. Studying stereotypes 3 levels of stereotypes in today’s research
public
what we say to others about a group
private
what we consciously think about a group, but don’t 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)

22. Implicit Stereotypes
Use of priming: subject doesn’t know stereotype is being activated, can’t 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”

23. Implicit Stereotypes Devine’s 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 don’t wish to act in a prejudiced way.
Overcoming prejudice is possible, but takes work
I always discuss Devine's automaticity theory of stereotyping so that I can discuss the issue of overcoming prejudice
In addition, there is a web site ( that has an iat that students -- for a terrific in class demonstration, you can actually do an IAT (probably least controversial to use old/young stereotypes, although you can get the effect with good/bad valenced words and avoid controversy altogether) using word lists and students tapping on their desks, time them on the consistent vs. inconsistent conditions, and you will find a huge time difference

24. Ingroup “Us”
People with whom one shares a common identity

25. Outgroup “Them”
Those perceived as different or apart form “us” (the ingroup)

26. Out-Group Homogeneity Effect
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
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.

27. Ingroup Bias
The tendency to favor one’s 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 one’s own culture or ethnic group is superior to others

28. 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

29. Discrimination
In social relations, taking action against a group of people because of stereotyped beliefs and feelings of prejudice

30. Prejudice and Discrimination
Play “Attitudes and Prejudicial Behavior” (6:06) Segment #31 from Psychology: The Human Experience.
Play “Ethnocentrism and Prejudice” (5:06) Segment #32 from Psychology: The Human Experience.

31. Scapegoat Theory
The theory that prejudice provides an outlet for anger by providing someone to blame
Example: Nazi Germany blaming the Jews for the troubles in Germany after WWI.

32. Just-World Phenomenon
The tendency to believe that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get
Reflects child’s attitude that good is rewarded and evil is punished

33. Stereotype Threat
The knowledge of the stereotype about your group adds pressure on you to prove it false that causes you to not perform at your highest level.
NPR on stereotype threat:

34. Accounting for Prejudice

35. 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.

36. Overcoming Prejudice

37. 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

38. Social Identity and Cooperation
Social identity theory:
States that when you’re assigned to a group, you automatically think of that group as an in-group for you
Sherif’s Robbers Cave study
11–12 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

39. 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.
For more detailed explanation of this study, here are my actual lecture notes:
Leaders then proposed a series of competitive interactions which led to 3 changes between groups and within groups
within-group solidarity – loyalty to own group increased, put aside internal strife to beat enemy
negative stereotyping of other group –other group as out-group, own group as in-group; engaged in stereotyping of other group
Hostile between-group interactions – called names, loss of good sportsmanship, accusations of cheating, raiding, “warfare”

40. Robbers Cave Overcoming the strong we/they effect
establishment of superordinate goals – a goal that benefits everyone but requires everyone’s cooperation
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)

41. Patricia Devine’s 3-step process to Individual Prejudice Reduction
Individuals must decide that prejudiced responses are wrong and consciously reject prejudice and stereotyped thinking
They must internalize their nonprejudiced beliefs so that they become an integral part of their personal self-concept
Individuals must learn to inhibit automatic prejudicial reactions and deliberately replace them with nonprejudiced responses that are based on their personal standards