1. Social Psychology 2

2. Attitudes
Attitude – learned tendency to evaluate some object, person or issue in a particular way
Can you predict behavior from attitude?
Sometimes our behavior is different than our attitude…
Sometimes our behavior influences our attitude…

3. Attitudes are made up of…
1. Cognitive component - beliefs, thoughts, ideas about the attitude object
2. Behavior component - predisposition to behave ina particular way
3. Emotional component - feelings and emotions about the attitude object

4. Attitudes have a strong impact on behavior when…
(1) outside influences on what we say and do are minimal
(2) the attitude is specifically relevant to the behavior, and
(3) we are keenly aware of our attitudes.

5. Foot in the door phenomenon
the tendency for people who agree to a small request to comply later with a larger one.

6. Cognitive dissonance theory
Leon Festinger
people feel discomfort when their actions conflict with their feelings and beliefs; they reduce the discomfort by bringing their attitudes more in line with their actions.

7. When do attitudes influence behavior?
attitude specificity - very focused => influences behavior
attitude strength - stronger => more influence on behavior
attitude relevance - extent to which attitudes objects actually have an effect on the life of the person holding various attitudes - vested interest Ex. campaign against raising drinking age

8. Prejudice
Prejudice: A negative attitude toward people who belong to a specific social group while stereotypes are clusters of characteristics that are attributed to people who belong to specific social categories
- person perception + attribution + attitudes => explain prejudice

9. People have a strong tendency to see people as:
In group - a social group to which one belongs
Out group - a social group to which one does not belong
Out-group homogeneity effect - the tendency to see members of out-groups as very similar to one another
In group bias - tendency to judge the behavior of in-group members favorably and out-group members unfavorably
We succeeded because we worked hard, they succeeded because they lucked out

10. Prejudice has an
emotional component - hatred, contempt, fear
behavioral component - discrimination - privately sneering at, physically attacking

11. authoritarian personality - obedient toward their superiors and domineering toward subordinates,
- projection - unwilling to accept own faults but willing to place them on members of other groups
- ethnocentrism- favoring own groups, prejudiced against other groups
People with low self-esteem, weren’t allowed to talk back to parents - channeled toward others