Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lecture 10
Lecture 10
Lecture 10
ATTITUDE
- Bogus = fake, pipeline = lie detector IM PLICIT AS SOCIAT ION TEST ( IAT)
- Give people questionnaire & strap with electrode = to do lie detection and can be able to
tell if they lie
- An electronic instrument that records facial muscle activity associated with emotions and
attitudes
- “frowning” muscles = negative evaluation
- “smiling” muscles = positive evaluation
- If negative view towards black people = slower response when “black & good” - Both discussion and discussants were rated more positively when given a severe shock =
more dissonance & more commited
W HERE DO ATT IT UDES COME FROM?
- Direct experience
- Associations (e.g., phobias, nostalgic memories) – “generalisation” in Little Albert
- Consequences for you (rewards and punishments)
- Observational learning (seeing rewards and punishments for others)
- Self-perception
- Rationalisations – e.g., moral attitude
o Rationalising moral intuitions/ disgust
- People who ditching = enjoy their high power
Moral reasoning moral judgement (traditional view)
- Social bonding effect & to show commitment
“homosexual” think about life or contagious argument anti-gay
Moral judgement moral reasoning (social intuitionist view)
Got feeling that don’t like it about homosexuality justify reasons ME AT -EATING & COGN IT IVE DISS ON AN CE
or new belief to stand with judgement
FESTINGER (1957)
- Attitudes sometimes serve the utilitarian function of maximising reward and minimising - Strong prohibition threatens a person’s feeling of freedom
punishment - Engaging in the forbidden behaviour is an attempt to restore that feeling of freedom
o Practical usefulness for you - Boomerang effect … people are now more likely to do the thing you are telling them not
- For example, business people may favour a political party that keeps taxes low, whereas to do
an unemployed person might favour a political party that protects welfare
PERS UASION : DO GO OD ARGUMEN TS WIN OUT? When low relevant (not gonna affects you) the credibility is important: agree with Princeton
professor > high school students
- Good argument is accepted if people paying attention = not have time to process if not
motivated
- Easy to process the argument = no, peripheral processing – got a feeling whether it is right
or wrong based on superstitious thing
S OURCE EFFECT S
- People are more influenced by messages when they come from someone who:
o Is someone you like
o Is physically attractive
o Is credible: doctors or professional advice
o Is similar to you
- Any perception of reality – whether it be how long the line is, to how much pain you’re
experiencing, to how funny a TV show is – can be influenced by the responses of the
TESTING THE ELM people around you
- Participants told that their university is considering requiring comprehensive exams in - This is used – and exploited – all the time by businesses, advertisers, and social scientists
order to graduate [the powerful effect of norms]
- IVs:
o Personal Relevant/Involvement (implemented in 1 year/10 years) NOLAN ET AL (2008): DOORS HANGERS DELIVERED TO CARLIFORNIAN HOUSEHOLDS
o Argument Quality (strong/weak arguments) - Information only (control) – save energy by using a fan instead of air conditioning
o Source Credibility (Princeton education professor, high school students) - Self-interest – save money (up to $54 per month) by using fans instead of air-conditioning
- DV: attitude toward senior comprehensive exams - Environmental protection – protect the environment … decrease greenhouse gas
emissions by using fans instead of air-conditioning
Content of argument matters when you care about it - Social responsibility – do your part … decrease your demand for electricity by using fans
instead of air conditioning
- Descriptive norms did not make strong argument, BUT just stated that “77% of Poll Americans 2014 – view on evolution, where do human come from:
residents often use fans instead of air conditioning to keep cool in summer”
No one actually believes, but everyone believes that everyone else believes
Examples:
- Social influence explanations of the bystander effect (people infer that the people around
them are unconcerned when in fact privately everybody is concerned)
- Most people over-estimate what are “normal” levels of drinking at college
- In the 1920s people thought Americans were in support of prohibitions, when in fact Polls of biology teacher with creationist beliefs across countries – strongest in Africa
privately most Americans were against it
- In the 1950s Americans over-estimated “average” levels of support for segregation
- Students over-estimate the extent to which other students understand difficult material
Irony …
- Despite being more educated and information-rich than ever, society holds some
stubbornly anti-science views
VACCINATION
Yet… the anti-vaccination movement is growing, with associated resurgences in rates of measles,
rubella, mumps and wooping cough
- Co2 causes temperature to increase BUT only small majority of people concerned about
- Vaccination make us sick than better consensus
Explication … if we just explain the evidence more, or more simply, or more convincingly, then
people would agree (the ‘deficit model’)
- DM: problem that people don’t understand the evidence when they get it
L IMIT S TO THE DEF ICIT S M ODEL
MOT IVAT ED RE AS ON IN G
- People don’t act like cognitive scientists, carefully weighing up evidence. They behave
more like cognitive lawyers, focusing on only one side of the argument in an effort to
defend their pre-existing worldview
- So, if people are motivated to reject the science, the repeating the science won’t help
- The more educated people – the more oblige they are with climate change
- Conservative = reverse relationship
There is “solid evidence” of recent global warming due “mostly” to “human activity such as burning
fossil fuels” [agree, disagree]
People are more likely to resist a scientific message if there are negative consequences for them
believing it (e.g., energy company employees resisting climate change messages, smokers resisting
negative health message about smoking)
- Coffee good for you = benefit me, thus read it – but if it bad = sceptical
When people don’t realise there is scientific consensus, they’re less likely to support climate action.
This underscores the importance of closing the consensus gap
The desire to communicate one’s true self might lend motivation to read scientific evidence in a
biased way. For example, superstitious beliefs may signal openness to experience (e.g., as “creative”
or “magical”)
FE AR S/PHOB IAS
People who want to hide from the world that they have an excessive fear of needles and blood – or
an excessive fear of contamination – may be tempted to unify and legitimise those fear within a
philosophy that rejects the validity of techno-medical intervention
- In order to make another party non-competitive – If favour orthodox view = more fund?
- Republicans believe that free-market – science