Ch 4 - Behavior and Attitudes

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Ch 4 - Behavior and Attitudes

• Part 1 Feb 7

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Attitudes

• Favorable/unfavorable evaluation of an object.
• 3 dimensions of attitudes
• Affective (feelings)
• Behavior (actions)
• Cognition (thoughts)
• How do attitudes develop?

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Attitude Formation

• Most social psych believe attitudes are learned
• 1) Social learning via interactions w/others
• Classical conditioning learning based on
  association (example?)
• Observational learning modeling
• 2) Genetic factors may play a small role
• Evidence of this from twin studies
• How might this depend on the attitude?

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Attitude - Behavior Link

• Early history - assumed attitudes determined our
  behaviors
• Example?
• LaPieres study (1934) was first to question the
  attitude-behavior link
• What were the studys results?
• In 60s, Festinger suggested behavior may
  determine attitudes, rather than att ? beh
• What does this imply?

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1970s attitude research

• Crisis of Confidence in attitude research
• What was the crisis?
• Better experimental control in 70s
• Jones Bogus Pipeline
• How did this experimental procedure work?
• What were the results of these studies?

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The 70s continued...

• Fishbein Ajzen - principle of aggregation
• Attitude measures more effective if average over
  many behaviors.
• Better track record than predicting a single
  behavior.
• Example?

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Level of Specificity (cont).

• They also emphasized matching the level of
  measurement.
• Specific attitude --gt specific behavior
• Bad example of specificity match?
• Good example of specificity match?
• In Fishbein Ajzens model what is the best
  predictor of a behavior?

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Automaticity

• Sometimes behavior becomes automatic and we dont
  think about our attitudes.
• Can improve attitude - behavior link by forcing
  us to think about attitudes before acting.
• Experiment with self-awareness (mirrors)
• What were the results?

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Direct Experience

• Direct experience with behavior strengthens an
  attitude.
• Cranos (82) study - 1978 ballot to change
  drinking age in Mich from 18 to 21.
• What did he measure?
• What did he find?

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Main Principles for when Attitudes ? Behavior

1. When external influences are minimal (reduce
   social influences or constraints)
2. When attitude is specific used to predict
   specific behavior (level of specificity)
3. When were made to be self-conscious of attitudes
   (automaticity)
4. When were directly affected by an event

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Role Playing

• More evidence that behaviors partly determine
  attitudes.
• Role - a set of norms that define how we should
  act when in a certain position.
• The Stanford Prison Experiment - a famous social
  psych experiment.
• 1971, Dr. Phil Zimbardo.
• www.prisonexp.org

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Stanford Prison Experiment

• Aims - study prison life - 2 wk study.
• Simulated prison environment in basement of Psych
  Dept at Stanford.
• Recruited normal male students from ad in
  paper. No idea what was to happen.
• Random assignment to guard or prisoner

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Stanford Prison Experiment

• How did the experimenters set up anonymity for
  the prisoners?
• How did the experimenters make the guards
  anonymous?

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Stanford Prison Experiment

• How were prisoners behaviors influenced?
• How were guards behaviors influenced?
• External sources during the experiment?
• What were some results?

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Stanford Prison Experiment

• How did the experiment end?
• Ethics of this experiment?
• What is Zimbardos view of this?
• What does it teach us about the power of roles?