EXAM Short

Answer Questions
Preparations
PSYC3312 Psychology and Social Behaviour
University of Western Australia
What is the Dual Processing theory? Explain both processes give one example.

- The dual processing theory is the theory that our response to stimuli is guided by two system of
thought: The intuitive system (type 1) and the rational system (type 2).

- The intuitive system is quick and automatic, based on associations, and performs many of its
operations simultaneously (parallel).

- On the other hand, the rational system is slow and effortful, based on rules and deductions, and
performs many of its operations one at a time (serially).

- For example, suppose you want to decide between heads or tails after 5 consecutive tails. Your
intuitive system would tell you to choose tails next because of the past flips. However, your
rational system would tell you to ignore the coin flips because each flip is independent from one
another and is not associated with the next flip.
What are two ways we process information? Give examples for each.
• Two ways we process information: Top-down processing and bottom-up processing.
• Top-down processing refers to when we interpret incoming stimuli based on pre-
existing knowledge and expectations. It involves using background knowledge to
influence what you are processing.
An example is when you try to put together a puzzle, knowing what the picture will be.
• Bottom-up processing consist of taking relevant stimuli from the outside world and let
in guide you in the process of interpretation. You start out with not knowing the
stimulus, but you let the stimulus guides and influence your perception on what it is
you are trying to process.
An example for this is reading an unknown text from a page.
What is social learning and what are the 4 different types of social
learning?
• Social learning is learning by observing other people with the goal of adapting
one’s behaviour is a particular context. There are 4 different types of social
learning.
• First is exposure, refers to directly observing the subjects of interest we are
learning from.
• Second is stimulus enhancement, refers to the desire to learn how to use tools
others are using.
• Third is mimicry, the tendency to follow another’s behaviour and mannerisms
without knowing the end goal or the reason why they do it.
• Lastly, imitative learning is reproducing behaviour from another to achieve the
same goal.
What are attitudes? What are the 3 components of attitudes? Explain each of
them and provide examples.
• Attitudes is an individual’s evaluation of an object or subject on a positive to
negative dimension. There are three components of an attitude: Affective,
cognitive, and behavioural.
• Firstly, it involves affect – the feelings and emotions associated with the attitude
object or how much someone likes or dislikes it. Our affective states towards an
object can be influenced by classical conditioning or repeated exposures.
• Secondly, attitude involves cognition – the beliefs and knowledge about the
attitude object as well as associated memories and images.
• Finally, the behavioural component of an attitude involves how we behave or
act towards an attitude object.
• For example, you are afraid of spiders (affective), because you believe they are
dangerous (cognitive), hence you will react and scream if you see one
(behavioural).
Explain system justification theory along with two examples.

- System justification theory is the theory where people see the existing socio-political system
they live in as just, fair and desirable. Trying to fight for justice or fairness in an unjust system
takes a lot of effort, However, justifying why the system prevails is easy. To defend the socio-
political system they live in, people who are at a disadvantaged position often accepts it and
defend their disadvantage.

- Example 1: women who are victims of an abusive relationship often think it is not their
partner’s fault why they are being physically or emotionally abused and think that they are at
fault.

- Example 2: many women in a professional workplace accepts their lower wage even though
they are doing the same amount of work as their male counterparts, but for a higher pay.
What is social influence and what are the 3 different types of social influences?
Give examples for each.
• Social influence refers to the many ways others affect us, involving changes of
behaviour as a result from comments, actions and even the mere presence of others.
There are three different types of social influence: conformity, compliance, and
obedience.
• Conformity refers to when people are pressured to act, behave, or look like their
surroundings as a response from a real/imagined pressure. For example, a girl wears a
brand-new trendy sneaker in order to fit in because her close friends are also wearing it.
• Compliance refers to an individual responding favourably or giving in to an explicit
request by another person. For example, buying an item from a store because a
salesperson encourages you to do so.
• Finally, obedience is where you follow an order, usually given from an authority figure.
For example, a soldier follows orders from his superior officer.
What it the Elaboration-Likelihood model of persuasion? Explain the two
routes of persuasion.

• The Elaboration-Likelihood model of persuasion is a theory where there are two routes
a person goes through towards persuasion: the central route and the peripheral route.
Both routes can lead to an attitude change.
• The central route is a route where people think carefully and deliberately about the
content of the persuasive message. They attend to the logic and strength of the
message and bring in their personal experience and knowledge in the process of
evaluating the message.
• The peripheral route is where people attend to relatively easy-to-process and
superficial cues related to the persuasive message, such as the length, expertise or
source of the message. A peripheral cue might change a person’s emotional reaction to
the attitude object (focusing on the persuasive appeal), leading to an attitude change.
What is self-esteem? What are the two different types of self-esteem? Explain 3
strategies that help maintain self-esteem.
- Self-esteem is the overall positive or negative evaluation people have about themselves. There are two different types
of self-esteem: trait self-esteem and state self-esteem.

- Trait self-esteem is the person’s enduring level of self-regard across time. It is researched to be stable, where people
who reported to have high self-esteem at one point of time will have the same level of self-esteem later in their lives.

- State self-esteem refers to the person’s dynamic and changeable evaluations people experience as momentary
feelings about themselves. Performance in contingent domains have consequences for state self-esteem, such that
performing well in a contingent domain can boost state self-esteem and performing worse can deplete state self-
esteem.

- There are three ways that people do to maintain their self-esteem. First, better-than-average effect, which refers to
how people perceive their abilities, attributes and personality as superior compared to their average peers. Secondly,
self-affirmation refers to when people are confronted with feedback that threaten their self-esteem, they affirm
themselves in a domain unrelated to the threatened domain. Thirdly, people engage in self-handicapping, the
tendency to engage in self-defeating behaviour to prevent others making assumptions about poor performance.
What is altruism and what are the 3 motives of altruism?

- Altruism is an unselfish behaviour that benefits other people without regard to personal consequences.
In any altruistic motives, three motives are likely come in play. Two of them are selfish, gaining social
reward and easing personal distress. The other is unselfish, simply acting out of empathic concern or
volunteerism.

- Gaining social rewards refers to being acknowledged by others (in the form of praise) through social
media or mass media. Social rewards can be so potent that there can arise a competition between
people to try to outdo each other’s altruistic acts, all in the service of being highly esteemed.

- Easing personal distress refers to where people help in order to reduce their own personal distress.
Research has shown that seeing another person who are experiencing pain can evoke activity on brain
regions responsible for pain. This results in needing to help in order to go back to a peaceful state.

- People behave altruistically simply out of empathic concern, where they identify with someone in need
accompanied by the intention to enhance someone’s welfare.
What are the situational determinants of altruism?

• There are two situational determinants of altruism: the presence of other

people and victim characteristics.
• The presence of other people can affect whether people will help or not.
Research have suggested that people are less likely to help when there are
people around. Diffusion of responsibility could be one reason, where the
responsibility of helping is not targeted to only one person but also to other
people who are present. Because responsibility is diffused, people are less likely
to help, with the thought that other people might help.
• The second factor is victim characteristics. When the help is explicit and
unambiguous, people are more likely to help. Not only, people evaluate the
victim whether it will render any cost to helping them. The greater the cost
associated with helping a victim, the less likely a person is to act altruistically.
What is the theory of unresponsive bystander (threefold inhibitions)? Explain.

• The theory of unresponsive bystander refers to the several processes to the inhibition of pro-social
behaviour.
• The first process is diffusion of responsibility. When faced with an emergency, a single bystander feels
responsibility upon witnessing the event. However, when there are more people present, the responsibility
is ‘diffused’ and feel less responsible to help, hence reducing to act pro-socially.
• The second process is the implicit model of “nothing has happened”. When an emergency arises, people
initially hesitate on how to respond and try to think of a way to help. However, it becomes a model of
passivity towards others. Finally reaches to the conclusion that the event is not serious and ends up not
helping (i.e. pluralistic ignorance).
• The third process is to avoid fear of embarrassment. People try to think of ways to help when an
emergency arises. However, there is anxiety that the situation may be misunderstood, or the event may
not be very serious. To avoid that embarrassment, people avoid pro-social behaviour.
What is attachment theory? What are the three different types of attachment styles?

• Attachment theory is a theory that early attachments developed during infants shape a person’s
relationship later in life. There are three types of attachment styles and they are relatively stable on a
person’s wellbeing throughout life.
• The first one is secure attachment style. It is characterised by trust and lack of concern of being
abandoned with the view that one is worthy and well liked. During infancy, child explores freely and
engages with strangers when mother is present. Becomes upset when mother departs but relieved and
happy when mother returns.
• The second attachment style is anxious-ambivalent. Characterised by the fear of abandonment and the
feeling that one’s needs are not being met. During infancy, child is anxious to explore and talk to other
strangers even when mother is present. Distressed when mother leaves but ambivalent when mother
returns.
• The final attachment style is avoidant. This is characterised by suppression of attachment needs because
early attempts of being intimate has been rebuffed and find it hard to develop intimate relationships.
During infancy, child will avoid/ignore mother and will not explore and engage. Equally shows little distress
when mother departs and when mother returns.
What is communication and what are the 2 different types of communication styles? Explain
each communication style.

- Communication involves two information processing devices. One device modifies the physical environment of
the other device. As a result, the second device constructs representations similar to the one that is stored in
the first device.
- Interpersonal communication involves the listener and the speaker. There are two types of interpersonal
communication.

- Intra-individual communication refers to the independent processes of production and comprehension. The
model assumes that interaction is not important for how communication works. In other words, communication
works primarily by people doing their own thing in their brains and not through the interactions of other
people.

- The second model is Inter-individual communication, which refers to the interdependent processes of
production and comprehension. It is a model that cause people to simultaneously affect and be affected by
other people when conversing.
- There are three types of intra-individual communication.

o First is encoder-decoder. Communication is linear where message is encoded by the speaker, transmitted then
decoded by the listener/receiver.

o Second is intentionalist. Communication involves an exchange of communicative intentions by the speaker, and it
is up to the receiver how to interpret the message.

o Third is perspective-taking. Communication involves the speaker taking in consideration of the listener when
constructing a message.

- There are two types of inter-individual communication.

o First is collaborative. Communication involves meaning negotiated and then accepted in agreement between the
two parties involved.

o Second is interactive alignment. A conversation between two people where their understanding is aligned because
they prime each other (…i.e. semantics, syntactic, phonetic)
What is Zajonc’s theory of mere presence, and what are the three components of this theory?

- Zajonc’s theory of mere presence is a theory that argues that the presence of other people facilitates
performance of simple tasks but hinders performance on difficult tasks. There are three components to this
theory.

- First is mere presence of others makes a person more aroused. Other people are dynamic stimuli, so we need
to be more alert and be ready to what others might do at any given time.
- Arousal tends to make people more rigid: in the sense that they are more inclined to do what they are already
automatically inclined to do.

- Increase in dominant response facilitates performance in simple tasks but hinders performance in difficult
tasks. The dominant response here means the response a person is more likely to do. For easy and simple tasks,
the dominant responses are usually the correct response. Hence, the presence of other people facilitates the
correct response and improves performance. However, for challenging and difficult tasks, the dominant
response is usually incorrect. Hence, the presence of other people facilitates the incorrect response and inhibits
performance.
What is group polarisation and what are the 2 causes that produce group polarisation?
• Group polarisation is when the group decision tend to be more extreme in comparison to the decisions
made by the individuals. Whatever the whole group decision is leaning, discussions are usually more
inclined further towards that direction. There are two causes that produce group polarisation.
• First, the “persuasive arguments” account (informative). Group discussion tends to expose its members to
novel arguments. Novel arguments that are in support of your view are particularly persuasive. This
expanded pool of arguments, in turn, is likely to be favoured of risk when the group is predisposed to risk-
taking but likely to be favoured of caution when the group is predisposed to play it safe.
• Secondly, the “social comparison” account (normative). Individuals believe that their decisions are more
correct (extreme) than others on valued decisions, but discussions can reveal that it is not the case. Hence,
people tend to respond by taking a position that is more extreme than average with the thought of being
the “better” group member. This consequently polarise the whole group by concluding to a more extreme
decision than before the discussion occurred.
What is interpersonal synchrony and how does it come about? What are the
social outcomes of interpersonal synchrony?
• Interpersonal synchrony is when you match the space and time of behaviour between two or
more people. It promotes formation and/or maintenance of a collective group.
• Interpersonal synchrony involves cooperation on a joint action and positive interdependence. It
seems to also be capable of causing the formation of a common group mentality amongst co-
actors.
• When two or more people move together in time, they begin to view themselves and their co-
actors in common group terms. This bonds individuals and leads people to act in the interest of
the collective and blurs the boundaries between self and other.
• Interpersonal synchrony also has been shown to have pro-social effects (cooperation and
helping behaviour). People are more likely to help others who are synchronous than
asynchronous.
What is self-construal and how does it vary?

• Self-construal refers to the way the person defines themselves, whether

individualistically or in relation to the larger social world.
• First, the self is distinct from others (independent). People refer to themselves
as unique, focuses on internal causes of behaviour, and conceives self as stable
over time. This is usually common in western societies.
• Second, the self is fundamentally connected to others (interdependent). People
refer themselves as embedded to a larger group, focuses on relationship with
others and perceives self as shifting with situational demands. This is more
common in Eastern Asian countries.
Discuss examples of biased social cognition – such as: Primacy & recency effects, Role of
‘schemas’, Heuristics

- Primacy effect: You have a choice between two dates: 1. Envious, stubborn, critical, impulsive, industrious and intelligent; 2.
Intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn and envious. You are likely to pick the second one because the word
‘intelligent’ was presented first even though both people are described with the same words

- Recency effect: You might’ve heard of a product launching soon to the market and you hear great things about the product
before its launch. You became tilted towards wanting to buy the product. However, once it is launched, you hear bad reviews
about the product. You are now less likely to buy the product because the bad reviews is still fresh in your mind.

- Availability heuristics: refers to judgments of frequency or probability are based on how readily relevant examples come to
mind. For example, you are more likely to avoid swimming in the beach after watching JAWS.

- Representative heuristics: refers to the judgments of the frequency of an event based on the extent to which it resembles a
typical case ignoring the base rate information. For example, Tom is a 46-year old whose favourite hobbies include reading non-
fiction books, playing tennis, drinking wine and watching Netflix documentaries. Tome is either a psychology professor or a
truck driver. Many people think the former but ignores that there are more truck drivers than psychology professors.
Outline the ‘cognitive miser’ hypothesis. What are the functions of each mode. Consider
strengths/weaknesses/functions of each mode.

• The cognitive miser hypothesis refers to the tendency of humans to think of a solution to a
problem in simpler and less effortful ways.
• The world is fast and full of resources, but our thinking can be slow. There is a mismatch.
• Social cognition involves shortcuts and approximations in order to conserve resources, but prone
to errors.
• There are two modes of social cognitions that occurs in a continuum.
• At one end of the spectrum is the controlled mode. It is slow, flexible, precise and it is done one
after the other (serial). This is reasoning.
• On the other end of the spectrum is the automatic mode. It is fast, inflexible (because it
happens outside of our control), based on estimates and many thought processes can happen at
once (parallel). This is intuition.
• Social cognition involves all of these modes all the time and both modes can be biased.
What does Dunbar’s number describe? Why?

• Dunbar’s number describe the cognitive limit a person can maintain

stable social relationships and this number is about 150. This is
because the people who are closer to us demand more cognitive
resources. To maintain group cohesion, individuals must be able to
meet their own requirements, as well as coordinate themselves
with other individuals
Discuss the different aspects of the self.

- The sense of being you fits into four different categories.

o Self-concept: how you understand yourself

o Agentic self: what you do, how your behaviour defines you

o Self-esteem: how I feel about myself

o Public self: the impression I want to make about myself to others

- All of these are tightly knitted and affect each other. For example, if I have poor self-concept,
it changes the way I would present myself, and how I present myself changes how I would
behave. And that might feed back into my self esteem, whether I feel bad or worse.
What are some theories to know about the ‘self ’?

- Introspection: Attending ‘inner’ thoughts, feelings, past experiences and intentions. It relies on accessing
stored self-knowledge (self-schemas), providing architecture for organising information about the past
self in order to guide future behaviour.

- Via others’ perceptions (looking glass self): individuals base their sense of self on how they believe others
view them. Using social interactions as a “mirror”, people use their judgements they receive to measure
their own values, behaviour and worth.

- Via social comparison: occurs when you examine the difference between yourself and others. Either
upwards comparison (comparing ourselves to someone perceived to be superior) or downwards
comparison (comparing ourselves to someone perceived to be inferior)
What is the theory of reasoned action/planned behaviour?

• Theory of reasoned action is a model that explains how attitudes predict

behaviour under certain circumstances.
• Attitude towards the behaviour – especially when the attitude is strong and
specific. General attitudes is a poor prediction of behaviour.
• Subjective norm – refers to how others can affect us to act in socially desirable
ways. People are apt to pressures from how other people think or behave.
• The theory is updated slightly to the theory of planned behaviour, with adding
perceived behavioural control – the perception of how much control one have
on their behaviour or the belief you have the capacity and ability to actually do
it.
• All these work together to contribute to the behavioural intention which then
give rise to behaviour.
What are attitudes and what are the different ways we measure attitudes?
- Attitudes are individual overall evaluation towards an object or concept. Attitudes are not directly observable hence we
develop tests to measure them.

- First, through explicit measures by directly asking respondents to think about and report their attitudes (direct). This requires
conscious attention.

o We can use the Likert scale, where respondents indicate their degree of agreement on written statements that indicates
their favourable or unfavourable attitudes.

o Second way, we can use the semantic differential scale. The researcher develops a series of rating scales in which the
respondent is asked to give a judgment about something along an ordered dimension, usually of seven points.

o Collaborative interviewing: where a researcher asks directly asks a series of survey questions related to the attitude in
question and researcher then assess participants’ responses. The interview can either be standardised or flexible but can
give rise to inconsistencies. Standardised interviews can reduce interviewer-related error but increases respondent-related
error.

o Issues with explicit measures - people can be unaware of their own attitude towards an object; subtle differences in the
way something is presented can influence responses; measures can be affected by social desirable responding
- Second, through implicit measures – assessing attitudes without directly asking for verbal
report. Made to overcome problems arise from explicit measures.

o First, we can use evaluative priming – the evaluation of an individual’s reaction time
towards an attitude object. If you have a strong attitude towards something, then it would
be highly accessible to you vs. when you have a weak attitude, then it would be less
accessible.

o Second, we can use implicit association test (IAT) – measuring the strength of associations
between concepts and evaluations. The main idea is response is easier when concept and
evaluation are closely related. Hence reaction towards it is relatively faster than when the
concept and evaluation are loosely unrelated.
What is compliance and what are the four compliance tactics to enhance compliance?
Provide examples for each.

- Compliance is the tendency to favourably accept an explicit request from another person. There are
three different types of compliance methods.

- First is foot-in-the-door technique is when you agree to a small request, you are most likely to comply to
a larger request

o Example: when a friend asks to borrow a small amount of money, then later on asks for a larger sum.

- Second is door-in-the-face technique. Involves giving a very large favour that you’ll definitely refuse but
then given a smaller favour that you are likely to comply on.

o Example: a 12-year-old boy selling a $10 school concert ticket but you refused, then you were offered
a $1 chocolate bar and you agreed to buy it.
What is compliance and what are the four compliance tactics to enhance compliance?
Provide examples for each.

- Third, that’s not all technique. This is a marketing compliance tactic when someone offers you a product
at an initial price then improves the deal by adding on another product BEFORE the person responds to
the final and adjusted offer.

o Example: A salesperson says the TV you were looking at costs $1399. You don’t respond. Then he
continued to say, “and that’s not all, we it also comes with a DVD player!” The add on seemed like a
gift that it creates some pressure to reciprocate.

- Finally, norms of reciprocity. This is when someone does something for us, we feel more compelled to do
something in return

o Example: Businesses and other companies use this advantage of this pressure by preceding their
request with a small gift
What are the three features of love?

- The three features of love include passion, intimacy and commitment.

o Passion: the physiological arousal & longing to be united with another

o Intimacy: feelings that promote a close bond, including happiness in the

other’s presence, mutual sharing and emotional support

o Commitment: in the short term, a decision to love another person & in the
long term, a commitment to maintain the love
What are the two distinct types of love? Explain the difference.

- Love can be further distilled into two distinct types: passionate love and compassionate love.

o Passionate love (or romantic love) is the state of intense longing for union with another. It is a
combination of intimacy and sexual attraction with the goal of sexual gratification. Arousal is
key in passionate love. Passion flows from sudden & dramatic increases in arousal when two
people are vulnerable. However, as predictable patterns develop, less dramatic of arousal
follows which reduces passion.

o Compassionate love is the affection and tenderness we feel for those with whom our lives are
entwined. It is a combination of intimacy and commitment with the goal to form a family bond
or attachment. Unlike passionate love, compassionate love is stable and long lasting. It fulfils
our needs to belong. This serves several functions: maintains stable bonds necessary for parents
to raise children and to keep parents attached with their children.
Outline the following: social facilitation, social loafing, groupthink, group polarisation and
deindividuation.

- Social facilitation refers to when the presence of others facilitates performance of an individual. For example,
cyclists tend to cycle faster when cycling in a group compared to cycling alone

- Social loafing refers to the tendency to exert less effort when working in a group, especially when individual
contributions cannot be monitored. For example, oxens were observed to exert less effort when yoked together
than individually.

- Groupthink refers to when the group reaches a conclusion without scrutiny and or critical evaluations of the
consequences or possible alternatives.

- Group polarisation refers to when the group makes an extreme decision than those made individually. Group
discussions often reveal whatever the group as a whole is leaning towards.

- Deindividuation refers to the reduced sense of individuality and diminished self-regulation when in a large
group. It can promote less awareness, less concern about others and lower inhibition, fear, shame and guilt.
Describe the ‘Master Problem’ of Social Psychology.

Social psychology is the study that explains the thoughts, feelings, and behaviour
of an individual when influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of
other human beings. However, it is hard to come up with terms on how ‘social
influence’ should actually be understood and explained. The social phenomena
is nothing more than the behaviour of its individuals. In this broader sense, the
problem of the group and the individual is the ‘master problem’ of social
psychology. The field isolates the thoughts, feelings and behaviour of an
individual - an attempt to be more specialised – yet forgetting that it all comes
back to the coherent whole.
 Outline the four elements of persuasion.
- Source characteristics: Message can promote attitude change through the peripheral route of persuasion. Message content
is not of importance and when people have little knowledge of the domain, they are more likely to pay attention to
peripheral cues. Such as message coming from a trusted or credible source, which tends to have a higher degree of
persuasion than untrusted sources.

- Content of the message: Messages of high-quality appeal to core values of the audience. This is especially when the
message is straightforward, clear, logical and conveys desirable outcomes suggested. Not only, but vividness can also be
persuasive; message appeals to strong emotions which can often trump more valid and relevant information.

- The channel: refers to how the persuasive message can be reached to its audience. Messages directed towards younger
people will often use social media or other internet platforms and messages directed at older people will often use
television or the radio

- Audience of the message: younger people are more susceptible to persuasive message than older people. As people age,
their attitudes become less malleable. People who are older retain attitudes established when young.
What is the difference between cognitive dissonance theory and self perception
theory?
- Cognitive dissonance theory refers to the inconsistencies that occur in someone’s thoughts, sentiments
or actions and they try to restore consistency. Internal conflict arises when attitudes and behaviour don’t
align. This unpleasant emotional state motivates efforts to restore consistency in three ways. Change the
cognition/attitude to align with the behaviour; change the behaviour to align with the attitude or justify
the mismatch between the attitude and the behaviour.

- Self-perception theory is the theory that people come to know their attitudes based on their own
behaviours in the context they occur in and conclude what their attitude must be. People are not
troubled by any unpleasant state of arousal like dissonance, and they engage in rational inference
process. They don’t change their attitudes, rather they infer what their attitudes must be. If they like.
People value they have chosen something because they actually like it, “I chose to do this so I must like
doing this.”
What is conformity, what are the two social influences on conformity and what
are the factors affecting conformity?
- Conformity refers to favourably agree to an explicit request. There are two ways people conform.

- The first one is informational social influence. This refers to the reliance on other people’s comments,
behaviour or actions because the belief of another person is right. This is most pronounced when we are
uncertain about the situation. This is followed by the need to feel right, hence look at others for the right
answer.

- The second is normative social influence. This refers to the desire to avoid standing out, being criticised
or disapproved by others regardless of what feels personally right. This occurs when there occurs conflict
between the individual and the group.

- Factors affecting conformity include group unanimity, anonymity (lack thereof), group size, culture,
expertise and status.
What are the factors affecting conformity?

- Cognitive dissonance theory refers to the inconsistencies that occur in someone’s thoughts, sentiments
or actions and they try to restore consistency. Internal conflict arises when attitudes and behaviour don’t
align. This unpleasant emotional state motivates efforts to restore consistency in three ways. Change the
cognition/attitude to align with the behaviour; change the behaviour to align with the attitude or justify
the mismatch between the attitude and the behaviour.

- Self-perception theory is the theory that people come to know their attitudes based on their own
behaviours in the context they occur in and conclude what their attitude must be. People are not
troubled by any unpleasant state of arousal like dissonance, and they engage in rational inference
process. They don’t change their attitudes, rather they infer what their attitudes must be. If they like.
People value they have chosen something because they actually like it, “I chose to do this so I must like
doing this.”
 • Quality – message should be truthful
Conversational • Quantity – message should only contain
rules necessary information
• Relevance – message should be relevant to the
(maxims) situation of the conversation
• Manner – message should be unambiguous,
explicit, and orderly