Social Thinking: Attitudes & Prejudice

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

Components of Attitudes• An attitude is a positive or negative

evaluation of an object, person, or idea

The Effect of Attitudes on Behavior

• You’re most likely to behave in accordance with your attitudes when

1. Attitudes are extreme or are frequently expressed

2. Attitudes have been formed through direct experience.

3. You are very knowledgeable about the subject. 4. You have a vested interest in the subject. 5. You anticipate a favorable outcome or response

from others for doing so.

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

Actions Affecting Attitudes

• Can our actions change our attitudes? YES

– Cognitive dissonance

– Foot-in-the-door phenomenon

– Role playing

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.

1919-1989

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Role PlayingCan 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

Prejudice

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

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.

Categorization

• The tendency to group similar objects

• May be a means to explain stereotypes

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

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)

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”

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

Ingroup “Us”

• People with whom one shares a common identity

Outgroup “Them”

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

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.

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

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

Discrimination

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

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.

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.

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

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:http://www.npr.org/2012/07/12/156664337/stereotype-threat-why-women-quit-science-jobs

Accounting for Prejudice

Accounting for Prejudice: Two Theories

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

2. 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.

Overcoming Prejudice

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

Social Identity and CooperationSocial 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

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.

1906-1988

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)

Patricia Devine’s 3-step process to Individual Prejudice Reduction

1. Individuals must decide that prejudiced responses are wrong and consciously reject prejudice and stereotyped thinking

2. They must internalize their nonprejudiced beliefs so that they become an integral part of their personal self-concept

3. Individuals must learn to inhibit automatic prejudicial reactions and deliberately replace them with nonprejudiced responses that are based on their personal standards