Download Social Psychology I - Calicut University

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 1 –
Core course of
BSc. COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGY
IV semester
CUCBCSS
2014 Admn onwards
CALICUT UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
CALICUT UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF DISTANCE EDUCATION
STUDY MATERIAL
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 1
Core course of
BSc. COUNSELLING PSYCHOLOGY
IV semester
Prepared by
Sri. Eldhose N.J,
Research Scholar, Department of Psychology,
University of Calicut
Settings & Lay out By: SDE
@Resereved
CONTENTS
MODULE 1
INTRODUCTION
MODULE 11
SOCIAL PERCEPTION
MODULE 111
SOCIALIZATION
MODULE IV
ATTITUDES
MODULE I
INTRODUCTION
What Is Social Psychology?
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors are influenced by other people. Social psychologists strive to describe social
behavior carefully and to explain its causes.
As this definition suggests, the subject matter of social psychology is very broad and
can be found in just about everything that we do every day. Social psychologists study why
we are often helpful to other people and why we may at other times be unfriendly or
aggressive. Social psychologists study both the benefits of having good relationships with
other people and the costs of being lonely. Social psychologists study what factors lead
people to purchase one product rather than another, how men and women behave differently
in social settings, how juries work together to make important group decisions, and what
makes some people more likely to recycle and engage in other environmentally friendly
behaviors than others. And social psychologists also study more unusual events, such as how
someone might choose to risk their life to save that of a complete stranger.
Social Psychology: It’s Scientific Nature
Science is not simply based on common sense. Rather, there are five primary characteristics
ofscience.
1. Any science must include the observation of facts.
2. All sciences have formal methodologies, which are systematic procedures used to collect
data.
3. Science involves the accumulation of facts and generalizations.
4. Theories, which are sets of related propositions that explain phenomena, are used in
science to organize observations.
5. Science should have the ability to predict and control phenomena based on formerly
gathered observations.
Social psychology meets most of the requirements for science. As for the observation of
facts, there are many thousands of empirical articles. As for methodology, many are used,
including experiments and surveys. Social psychologists accumulate facts through these
methods. There are also many theories of social psychology, which are outlined above.
However, social psychology is only sometimes effective at predicting and controlling certain
phenomena.
The origin and development of social psychology
The science of social psychology began when scientists first started to systematically
and formally measure the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of human beings (Kruglanski &
Stroebe, 2011). The earliest social psychology experiments on group behavior were
conducted before 1900 (Triplett, 1898), and the first social psychology textbooks were
published in 1908 (McDougall, 1908/2003; Ross, 1908/1974). During the 1940s and 1950s,
the social psychologists Kurt Lewin and Leon Festinger refined the experimental approach to
studying behavior, creating social psychology as a rigorous scientific discipline. Lewin is
sometimes known as “the father of social psychology” because he initially developed many
of the important ideas of the discipline, including a focus on the dynamic interactions among
people. In 1954, Festinger edited an influential book called Research Methods in the
Behavioral Sciences, in which he and other social psychologists stressed the need to measure
variables and to use laboratory experiments to systematically test research hypotheses about
social behavior. He also noted that it might be necessary in these experiments to deceive the
participants about the true nature of the research.
Social psychology was energized by researchers who attempted to understand how the
German dictator Adolf Hitler could have produced such extreme obedience and horrendous
behaviors in his followers during the World War II. The studies on conformity conducted by
Muzafir Sherif (1936) and Solomon Asch (1952), as well as those on obedience by Stanley
Milgram (1974), showed the importance of conformity pressures in social groups and how
people in authority could create obedience, even to the extent of leading people to cause
severe harm to others. Philip Zimbardo, in his well-known “prison study” (Haney, Banks, &
Zimbardo, 1973), found that the interactions of male college students who were recruited to
play the roles of guards and prisoners in a simulated prison became so violent that the study
had to be terminated early.
Social psychology quickly expanded to study other topics. John Darley and Bibb
Latané (1968) developed a model that helped explain when people do and do not help others
in need, and Leonard Berkowitz (1974) pioneered the study of human aggression.
Meanwhile, other social psychologists, including Irving Janis (1972), focused on group
behavior, studying why intelligent people sometimes made decisions that led to disastrous
results when they worked together. Still other social psychologists, including Gordon Allport
and Muzafir Sherif, focused on intergroup relations, with the goal of understanding and
potentially reducing the occurrence of stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Social
psychologists gave their opinions in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme
Court case that helped end racial segregation in American public schools, and social
psychologists still frequently serve as expert witnesses on these and other topics (Fiske,
Bersoff, Borgida, Deaux, & Heilman, 1991). In recent years insights from social psychology
have even been used to design anti-violence programs in societies that have experienced
genocide (Staub, Pearlman, & Bilali, 2010).
The latter part of the 20th century saw an expansion of social psychology into the
field of attitudes, with a particular emphasis on cognitive processes. During this time, social
psychologists developed the first formal models of persuasion, with the goal of understanding
how advertisers and other people could present their messages to make them most effective
(Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1963). These approaches to attitudes
focused on the cognitive processes that people use when evaluating messages and on the
relationship between attitudes and behavior. Leon Festinger’s important cognitive dissonance
theory was developed during this time and became a model for later
research (Festinger, 1957).
In the 1970s and 1980s, social psychology became even more cognitive in orientation
as social psychologists used advances in cognitive psychology, which were themselves based
largely on advances in computer technology, to inform the field (Fiske & Taylor, 2008). The
focus of these researchers, including Alice Eagly, Susan Fiske, E. Tory Higgins, Richard
Nisbett, Lee Ross, Shelley Taylor, and many others, was on social cognition—an
understanding of how our knowledge about our social worlds develops through experience
and the influence of these knowledge structures on memory, information processing,
attitudes, and judgment. Furthermore, the extent to which humans’ decision making could be
flawed due to both cognitive and motivational processes was documented (Kahneman,
Slovic, & Tversky, 1982).
In the 21st century, the field of social psychology has been expanding into still other
areas. Examples that we consider in this book include an interest in how social situations
influence our health and happiness, the important roles of evolutionary experiences and
cultures on our behavior, and the field of social neuroscience—the study of how our social
behavior both influences and is influenced by the activities of our brain (Lieberman, 2010).
Social psychologists continue to seek new ways to measure and understand social behavior,
and the field continues to evolve. We cannot predict where social psychology will be directed
in the future, but we have no doubt that it will still be alive and vibrant.
Goals of Social Psychology
1. Social Psychology Seeks to Understand the Causes of Social Behaviour and Thought
Social psychologists are primarily, interested in understanding the many factors and
conditions that shape the social behavior and thought of individuals. Mainly, how individuals
form ideas relating to the actions, feelings, beliefs, memories and inferences concerning other
persons. A huge number of different factors play a role in this regard. The factors affecting
social interaction fall into five major categories. They are, the actions and characteristics of
others, basic cognitive processes, ecological variables, cultural context and biological factors.
2. The Actions and Characteristics of Others
One person’s behavior and their characteristics expressed in the behavior directly influence
other person’s feeling and action. For example, suppose you are standing on the railway
reservation line. If a stranger goes to the counter straightly without standing on the line, it
will defiantly create different types of feelings and as well action from the people who are
already waiting in the line. It is clear that the acti ons of others affect everyone. The
behaviors of other persons often exert powerful effects on the behaviors and social thoughts
of every individual. For example, When many people are attending a concert in a theatre
when a person seated nearby receives a call on his cell mobile phone and begins a loud
conversation about very private topics what happens to the people around him? The next idea
in this line is that, the behavior of a person often affected by others appearance. For example,
People normally feel uneasy in the presence of a person with a physical disability. People
differently behave towards highly attractive person than
toward less attractive person.
3. The Cognitive Processes
The Cognitive processes such as perception, memory and inferences play a key role on the
understanding and behavior of every individual in the society. Reactions to a certain situation
by an individual strongly depend on the memories of others past behaviors and the inferences
an individual formed about these behaviours. If anybody wants to clearly understand the
causes of others behavior in a social situation it is a must that one should understand what
went on in the thinking pattern and understanding process of those people when they behaved
in a particular social situation. For example, if your friend fixes an appointment with you in a
particular time. You are waiting for him at a particular point in a particular time, if he comes
late what would be your reaction. In such a situations, cognitive process plays a crucial rol e
in the social behavior and social thoughts of every individual. A study of how people
perceive, think bout and remember information
about others are really have a contributing effect of human social behavior. Social cognition
is a growing area of social psychology.
4. The Environmental Factors
The weather and the climate a person experiences has a say in his/her behavior. The
findings of research indicate the physical environment necessarily influences the feelings,
thoughts and behavior of everyone. The climatically conditions make a person either happy
or sad. For example, if there is a continuous rain for a few days most of the people’s day to
day life gets disturbed. Another example is that people become more irritable and aggressive
when the weather i s hot and steamy than when it is cool and comfortable. The environmental
factors create different types of impact on the perceptual experiences of individuals. The
cognitive, affective, interpretive, and evaluative responses of individuals change drastically.
Further, if a person is exposes to a particular environment for a long time he or she will adapt
to that environment and will feel habituated for that condition. The environmental
stimulations facilitate physical and psychological arousals. The
increased arousals will either improves or impairs individual performances. Hence, role of
environment on the social behavior of individual has become one of the very important
factors of study in social psychology.
5. The Cultural Context
People live in different cultural settings. Each culture comes out with its own rules and
norms to be systematically followed in different facets of human life cycle. The practices
followed in one culture will be different than the other cultures. If a person is hailing from a
particular culture he/she has to adapt appropriately the behavior patterns accepted by his/her
culture. In all these process an individual is continuously influenced by the culture from
which he/she is hailing. Social behavior and social thoughts are often strongly affected by the
cultural norms and factors. For example, there are cultural specific behavior patterns exist for
the birth of a newborn, the age attainment ceremony, the marriage ceremony, and finally, the
funeral ceremony. These are some of the specific cultural behaviours expressed by every
culture. The cultural ideas also get changed by the passage of times. For example, previously
love marriages were viewed in negative terms as drastic action but now the cultural beliefs
and values about it have changed greatly. But, whatever the changes takes place in a culture,
person living in anyone of the cultures is expected to follow the
practices of that culture.
6. The Biological/Evolutionary Factors
This is a new branch of social psychology that seeks to investigate the potential role of
genetic factors in various aspects of human behavior. It is also called as genetic factors.
According to this view as any other species human beings also have a process of biological,
evolution throughout history. This evolutionary process takes three basic components. They
are of the view that man is getting emancipated as the generation processed by. Every time
man is getting a new height in all his endeavours. This has lead to the possible difference in
body shapes and structures, the improved inheritance qualities and better selection of passing
the genetic variation to the coming generations. Since the individuals evolutionarily differ on
their biological structures their social interactions will also gets varied in nature. The
biological inheritance usually affect ones preferences, behaviours, emotions and attitudes. For
example, hair colour, skin colour body structure gets changed from person to person in a long
run.
Major Theoretical Perspectives of Social Psychology
1. Researchers who adopt a sociocultural perspective consider how behavior is influenced by
factors that operate in larger social groups, including social class, nationality, and cultural
norms.
2. The evolutionary perspective focuses on social behaviours as evolved adaptations that
helped our ancestors survive and reproduce.
3. The social learning perspective focuses on past learning experiences as determinants of a
person’s social behavior.
4. The phenomenological perspective focuses on a person’s subjective interpretations of
events in the
social situation.
5. The social cognitive perspective focuses on the mental processes involved in paying
attention to, interpreting, judging, and remembering social experiences.
Basic Principles of Social Behavior
1. Social behavior is goal oriented. People have short-term immediate goals that are linked to
broader long-term goals and ultimately to more fundamental motives (such as establishing
social ties, understanding ourselves and others, gaining and maintaining status, defending
ourselves and those we value, and attracting and maintaining mates).
2. Social behavior represents a continual interaction between the person and the situation.
There are several kinds of interactions: (1) different situations activate different parts of the
self; (2) situations have different facets, each of which can activate different social motives in
the person; (3) not everyone responds in the same way to the same situation; (4) people
change their situations; (5) people choose their situations; (6) situations change people; and
(7) situations choose people.
How Psychologists Study Social Behavior
There are three major approaches to conducting research that are used by social
psychologists—the
observational
approach,
the
correlational
approach,
and
the
experimental approach. Each approach has some advantages and disadvantages.
Descriptive methods (including naturalistic observations, case studies, archival studies, and
surveys) involve recording behaviors, thoughts, and feelings in their natural state. They can
uncover correlations but do not permit cause–effect inferences.
Observational research
The most basic research design, observational research, is research that involves
making observations of behavior and recording those observations in an objective manner.
Although it is possible in some cases to use observational data to draw conclusions about the
relationships between variables (e.g., by comparing the behaviors of older versus younger
children on a playground), in many cases the observational approach is used only to get a
picture of what is happening to a given set of people at a given time and how they are
responding to the social situation. In these cases, the observational
approach involves creating a type of “snapshot” of the current state of affairs.
One advantage of observational research is that in many cases it is the only possible
approach to collecting dataabout the topic of interest. A researcher who is interested in
studying the impact of an earthquake on the residents of Tokyo, the reactions of Israelis to a
terrorist attack, or the activities of the members of a religious cult cannot create such
situations in a laboratory but must be ready to make observations in a systematic way when
such events occur on their own. Thus observational research allows the study of unique
situations that could not be created by the researcher.
Another advantage of observational research is that the people whose behavior is
being measured are doing the things they do every day, and in some cases they may not even
know that their behavior is being recorded.
Despite their advantages, observational research designs also have some limitations.
Most importantly, because the data that are collected in observational studies are only a
description of the events that are occurring, they do not tell us anything about the relationship
between different variables. However, it is exactly this question that correlational research
and experimental research are designed to answer.
Case Studies
In a case study, a researcher studies a subject in depth. The researcher collects data
about the subject through interviews, direct observation, psychological testing, or
examination of documents and records about the subject.
Survey method
A survey is a way of getting information about a specific type of behavior,
experience, or event. When using this method, researchers give people questionnaires or
interview them to obtain information. A survey is a data collection tool used to gather
information about individuals. Surveys are commonly used in psychology research to collect
self-report data from study participants. A survey may focus on factual information about
individuals, or it might aim to collect the opinions of the survey takers. A survey can be
administered in a couple of different ways. In one method known as a structured interview,
the researcher asks each participant the questions. In the other method known as a
questionnaire, the participant fills out the survey on his or her own. Surveys are generally
standardized to ensure that they have reliability and validity. Standardization is also
important so that the results can be generalized to the larger population.
When subjects fill out surveys about themselves, the data is called self-report data. Selfreport data can be misleading because subjects may do any of the following:
 Lie intentionally
 Give answers based on wishful thinking rather than the truth
 Fail to understand the questions the survey asks
 Forget parts of the experience they need to describe
Research Hypothesis
Because social psychologists are generally interested in looking at relationships
among variables, they begin by stating their predictions in the form of a precise statement
known as a research hypothesis. A research hypothesis is a specific prediction about the
relationship between the variables of interest and about the specific direction of that
relationship. For
instance, the research hypothesis “People who are more similar to each other will be more
attracted to each other” predicts that there is a relationship between a variable called
similarity and another variable called attraction. In the research hypothesis “The attitudes of
cult members become more extreme when their beliefs are challenged,” the variables that are
expected to be related are extremity of beliefs and the degree to which the cult’s beliefs are
challenged. Because the research hypothesis states both that there is a relationship between
the variables and the direction of that relationship, it is said to be falsifiable, which means
that the outcome of the research can demonstrate empirically either that there is support for
the hypothesis (i.e., the relationship between the variables was correctly specified) or that
there is actually no relationship between the variables or that the actual relationship is not in
the direction that was predicted. Thus the research hypothesis that “People will be more
attracted to others who are similar to them” is falsifiable because the research could show
either that there was no relationship between similarity and attraction or that people we see as
similar to us are seen as less attractive than those who are dissimilar.
Correlational Research
Correlational research is designed to search for and test hypotheses about the
relationships between two or more variables. In the simplest case, the correlation is between
only two variables, such as that between similarity and liking, or between gender (male
versus female) and helping. In a correlational design, the research hypothesis is that there is
an association (i.e., a correlation) between the variables that are being measured. For
instance, many researchers have tested the research hypothesis that a positive correlation
exists between the use of violent video games and the incidence of aggressive behavior, such
that people who play violent video games more frequently would also display more
aggressive behavior.
A statistic known as the Pearson correlation coefficient (symbolized by the letter r)
is normally used to summarize the association, or correlation, between two variables. The
Pearson correlation coefficient can range from −1 (indicating a very strong negative
relationship between the variables) to +1 (indicating a very strong positive relationship
between the variables). Recent research has found that there is a positive correlation between
the use of violent video games and the incidence of aggressive behavior and that the size of
the correlation is about r = .30 (Bushman & Huesmann, 2010). One advantage of
correlational research designs is that, like observational research (and in comparison with
experimental research designs in which the researcher frequently creates relatively artificial
situations in a laboratory setting), they are often used to study people doing the things that
they do every day. Correlational research designs also have the advantage of allowing
prediction. When two or more variables are correlated, we can use our knowledge of a
person’s score on one of the variables to predict his or her likely score on another variable.
Because high-school grades are correlated with university grades, if we know a person’s
high-school grades, we can predict his or her likely university grades. Similarly, if we know
how many violent video games a child plays, we can predict how aggressively he or she will
behave. These predictions will not be perfect, but they will allow us to make a better guess
than we would have been able to if we had not known the person’s score on the first variable
ahead of time.
Despite their advantages, correlational designs have a very important limitation. This
limitation is that they cannot be used to draw conclusions about the causal relationships
among the variables that have been measured. An observed correlation between two variables
does not necessarily indicate that either one of the variables caused the other. Although many
studies have found a correlation between the number of violent video games that people play
and the amount of aggressive behaviors they engage in, this does not mean that viewing the
video games necessarily caused the aggression. Although one possibility is that playing
violent games increases aggression, another possibility is that the causal direction is exactly
opposite to what has been hypothesized. Perhaps increased aggressiveness causes more
interest in, and thus increased viewing of, violent games. Although this causal relationship
might not seem as logical, there is no way to rule out the possibility of such reverse causation
on the basis of the observed correlation.
The interview method
The interview is used widely to supplement and extend our knowledge about
individual(s) thoughts, feelings and behaviours, meanings, interpretations, etc. One of the
best ways to achieve this. The interviewer collects detailed personal information from
individuals usually in one to one situations using oral questions. The interview method of
research is a conversation with a purpose and is non-experimental in design. The interviewer
in one-to-one conversation collects detailed personal information from individuals using oral
questions. The interview is used widely to supplement and extend our knowledge about
individual(s) thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Or how they think they feel and behave.
Interviews can give us both quantitative and qualitative data about participants' thoughts,
feelings and behaviours. This is due to the standardisation and/or free ranging nature of
questions asked. The more structured or standardised interview questions are, the more able
you are to get quantitative data. Quantitative data is reliable and easy to analyse. The less
structured and freer ranging the interview questions the more qualitative your data becomes.
Qualitative data is difficult to analyse and is not as reliable. There are two categories of
interview, Structured interview and Unstructured interview.
The key feature of the structured interview is in the pre-planning of all the questions
asked. Structured interviews also allow for replication of the interview with others. You can
then generalise what you find out to the population from which your interview sample came.
Structured interviews are conducted in various modes: face-to-face, by telephone, videophone
and the Internet. There are three types of structured interview.

The structured interview itself,

the semi-structured interview and

the clinical interview.
A major feature, and difference, is the degree to which each use standardised and
unplanned questions. Standardisation helps the reliability of your results and conclusions.
The more use of unplanned questions, the less structured the interview becomes.
Unplanned spontaneous questions are a key feature of the unstructured interview.
Spontaneous questioning is more responsive to the participant. However spontaneous
questioning does not allow for generalisation. Spontaneous questions can also be accused
of generating invalid results and conclusions. Thus standardisation v. the free ranging
nature of questions is both the main advantage and disadvantage of the interview method
of research, in general and in particular.
Experimental Research
The goal of much research in social psychology is to understand the causal
relationships among variables, and for this we use experiments. Experimental research
designs are research designs that include the manipulation of a given situation or experience
for two or more groups of individuals who are initially created to be equivalent, followed by
a measurement of the effect of that experience. In an experimental research design, the
variables of interest are called the independent variables and the dependent variables. The
independent variable refers to the situation that is created by the experimenter through the
experimental manipulations, and the dependent variable refers to the variable that is
measured after the manipulations have occurred. In an experimental research design, the
research hypothesis is that the manipulated independent variable (or variables) causes
changes in the measured dependent variable (or variables).
Parts of an Experiment: The simple experiment is composed of a few key elements:
The experimental hypothesis: A statement that predicts that the treatment will cause an
effect. The experimental hypothesis will always be phrased as a cause-and-effect statement.
The null hypothesis: A hypothesis that the experimental treatment will have no effect on the
participants or dependent variables. It is important to note that failing to find an effect of the
treatment does not mean that there is no effect. The treatment might impact another variable
that the researchers are not measuring in the current experiment.
The independent variable: The treatment variable that is manipulated by the experimenter.
The dependent variable: The response that the experimenter is measuring.
The control group: made up of individuals who are randomly assigned to a group but do not
receive the treatment. The measures takes from the control group are then compared to those
in the experimental group to determine if the treatment had an effect.
The experimental group: made up of individuals who are randomly assigned to the group
and then receive the treatment. The scores of these participants are compared to those in the
control group to determine if the treatment had an effect.
Cross-Cultural Research
Cross-Cultural Research help to determine universal psychological processes unique to
humans and the cultural influences on basic social psychological behaviour. The scientists
must not impose their own viewpoints and definitions from their own culture onto the
unfamiliar culture, but the two variables are to be understood in the same way in the different
culture (Bond 1988, Lonner & Berry 1986). One result of cross-cultural research in Aronson
et al (2002) shows western cultures focus on individualism and independence, while eastern
cultures on collectivism and interdependence (Kitayama & Markis 1994, Markus & Kitayama
1991, Triandis 1989). To achieve a generalisation from cross-cultural studies, meta analysis
is used to get an average result from two or more studies.
Bias in Research
Bias is the distortion of results by a variable. Common types of bias include sampling bias,
subject bias, and experimenter bias.
Sampling Bias
Sampling bias occurs when the sample studied in an experiment does not correctly represent
the population the researcher wants to draw conclusions about.
Example: A psychologist wants to study the eating habits of a population of New Yorkers
who have freckles and are between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. She can’t possibly
study all people with freckles in that age group, so she must study a sample of people with
freckles. However, she can generalize her results to the whole population of people with
freckles only if her sample is representative of the population. If her sample includes only
white, dark-haired males who are college juniors, her results won’t generalize well to the
entire population she’s studying. Her sample will reflect sampling bias.
Subject Bias
Research subjects’ expectations can affect and change the subjects’ behavior, resulting in
subject bias. Such a bias can manifest itself in two ways:
 A placebo effect is the effect on a subject receiving a fake drug or treatment. Placebo
effects occur when subjects believe they are getting a real drug or treatment even though they
are not. A single-blind experiment is an experiment in which the subjects don’t know whether
they are receiving a real or fake drug or treatment. Single-blind experiments help to reduce
placebo effects.
 The social desirability bias is the tendency of some research subjects to describe
themselves in socially approved ways. It can affect self-report data or information people
give about themselves in surveys.
Experimenter Bias
Experimenter bias occurs when researchers’ preferences or expectations influence the
outcome of their research. In these cases, researchers see what they want to see rather than
what is actually there. A method called the double-blind procedure can help experimenters
prevent this bias from occurring. In a double-blind procedure, neither the experimenter nor
the subject knows which subjects come from the experimental group and which come from
the control group.
MODULE II.
SOCIAL PERCEPTION
It is a well documented fact that human beings are social animals whose survival is
contingent on their ability to interact with others.Naturally, human beings are predisposed to
knowing about others’ personalities which enables them to deal with them amicably. Social
psychology is the discipline that deals with a scientific analysis of human behavior. It tries to
explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of individuals are influenced by presence of
others. It examines how our experience is understood in terms of the social influences and
relationships vis-a-vis the cultural groups to which we belong.
When humans meander through the social mileu,they are constantly bombarded with
variety of information through the various senses. Social perception is, that part of perception
that allows us to understand the individuals and groups of our social world, and thus is an
element of social cognition.
Social perception is defined as the study of how we form impressions of and make
inferences about other people.
information gained
In order to know about other people, we depend
on
from their physical appearance, and verbal and nonverbal
communication. Missing informations are filled in by using an implicit personality theory: If
a person is observed to have one particular trait, we assume that he or she has other traits
related to this observed one. These assumptions help us to categorize people and then infer
additional facts and predict behavior.
An implicit personality theory is a type of schema people use to group various kinds
of personality traits together. Like other schemas, using these theories help us form welldeveloped impressions of other people quickly.
Social perceptions are also interlinked with self-perceptions. Both are influenced by
self-motives. Society has the desire to achieve beneficial outcomes for the self and to
maintain a positive self-image. Just as you prejudge the people you come across in society,
you are being judged by them. As it is natural for humans to want to make a good
impression on people, your self- perceptions almost mirror other's social perceptions.
Social perception is one important component of social competence and successful
social life. Being competent in social perception includes three domains of competence: (1)
knowing that other people have thoughts, beliefs, emotions, intentions, desires, and the like,
(2) being able to “read” other people’s inner states based on their words, behavior, facial
expression and the like, and (3) adjusting one’s actions based on those “readings”. That is, a
socially competent person can make note of other people’s facial expressions, tone of voice,
posture, gestures, words, and the like, and on the basis of these clues, make reasonably
accurate judgments about that person’s state of mind, emotions, and intentions. Socially
competent people then use these inferences about other people’s inner states to make good
decisions about how to behave socially.
Thus socially competent people must have knowledge of social rules, roles, routines,
and scripts in their social lives. Furthermore, they must make use of this knowledge and of
these scripts in their decision making and acting. They also have a concern for other people
and make it a habit to adjust their behavior based on the needs of others. Finally, they have
the confidence needed to interact socially and accept the vulnerability associated with
potential rejection.
Researchers have confirmed the fact that first impressions are important. Studies show
that first impressions are easily formed, difficult to change, and have a long-lasting influence.
Rather than absorbing each piece of new information about an individual in a vacuum, it is
common for people to invoke a preexisting prototype or schema based on some aspect of the
person, modifying it with specific information about the particular individual to arrive at an
overall first impression. One term for this process is schema-plus-correction. It can be
dangerous because it allows people to infer many things from a very limited amount of
information, which partially explains why first impressions are often wrong.
If there is no special reason to think negatively about a person, one's first impression
of that person will normally be positive, as people tend to give others the benefit of doubt.
However, people are especially attentive to negative factors, and if these are present, they
will outweigh the positive ones in generating impressions. One reason first impressions are so
indelible is that people have a tendency to interpret new information about a person in a light
that will reinforce their first impression. They also tend to remember the first impression, or
overall schema, better than any subsequent corrections. Thus if a person whom one thinks of
as competent makes a mistake, it will tend to be overlooked and eventually forgotten, and the
original impression is the one that will prevail. Conversely, one will tend to forget or
undervalue good work performed by someone initially judged to be incompetent. In addition,
people often treat each other in ways that tend to elicit behavior that conforms to their
impressions of each other.
NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION :
Nonverbal communication is one of the many interesting topics studied by social
psychology. Social psychologists view it as an essential element of social perception.
Although there are many other forms of nonverbal communication, the term usually means
conveying thoughts and/or feelings without words using body language or sounds as the
medium. Nonverbal communication can be defined as the way in which people communicate,
intentionally or unintentionally, without words. The main channels of nonverbal
communication are facial expressions, eye contact, body movements, posture and touching.
Nonverbal communication takes place in every social setting, though often it is not
recognized for what it is or for what it means. It makes up a substantial portion of our
communicative experience. Much research has been undertaken in recent years to analyze
different kinds of nonverbal communication, and much of this research has addressed issues
of interpersonal and inter- gender communication, addressing questions of interpersonal
attraction, flirting, interactions in business situations, comparisons of male versus female
interpretations of nonverbal behavior, and so on.
Many of us associate facial expression and gestures with nonverbal communication,
but these are not the only two types involved. There are, in fact, eight different types of
nonverbal communication
1) Facial Expression This makes up the largest proportion of nonverbal communication.
Large amounts of information can be conveyed through a smile or frown. The facial
expressions for happiness, sadness, anger, and fear are similar across cultures
throughout the world.
2) Gestures Common gestures include pointing, waving, and using fingers, etc. You can
tell a person's attitude by the way they walk or by the way they stand. Same goes for
gestures.
3) Paralinguistics This includes factors such as tone of voice, loudness, inflection, and
pitch. Tone of voice can be powerful. The same sentence said in different tones can
convey different messages. A strong tone of voice may indicate approval or
enthusiasm, whereas the same sentence said with a hesitant tone of voice may convey
disapproval or lack of interest. Vocal Behaviors such as pitch, inflection, volume,
rate, filler words, pronunication, articulation, accent, and silence, often reveal
considerable information about others.
4) Body Language and Posture A person’s posture and movement can also convey a
great deal of information. Arm crossing or leg-crossing conveys different meanings
depending on the context and the person interpreting them. Body language is very
subtle, and may not be very definitive.
5) Proxemics This refers to personal space. The amount of space a person requires
depends on each individual’s preference, but also depends on the situation and other
people involved in the situation. -The Use of Space- The only time you really notice
this one is when we particularly need the space. For instance, being in a crowded
elvator or being in a overly crowded house party. A lot of times when a person is
upset they just need their space to calm down.
6) Eye Gaze Looking, staring, and blinking are all considered types of eye gaze.
Looking at another person can indicate a range of emotions including hostility,
interest, or attraction. - Eye behaviors- plays a role in several important types of
relational interaction
7) Haptics This refers to communicating through touch. Haptics is especially important
in infancy and early childhood. -Touch is one of our five senses, but, every touch has
a different kind of meaning to it and when nonverbally communicating - its something
you need to know. Five major areas of touching is : affectionate touch, caregiving
touch, power and control touch, aggressive touch, ritualistic touch.
8) Appearance Our choice of color, clothing, hairstyles, and other factors affecting our
appearance are considered a means of nonverbal communication.
Culture and the Channels of Nonverbal Communication Paul Ekman and his
colleagues have studied the influence of culture on the facial display of emotions. They have
concluded that display rules are particular to each culture and dictate what kinds of emotional
expressions people are supposed to show. Eye contact and gaze are also powerful nonverbal
cues. The use of personal space is a nonverbal behavior with wide cultural variations.
Emblems are nonverbal gestures of the hands and arms that have well-understood definitions
within a given culture.
Multichannel Nonverbal Communication :
In everyday life, we usually receive information from multiple channels
simultaneously. The Social Interpretation Task (SIT), which uses videotaped naturally
occurring interactions as stimuli, reveals that people are able to interpret such cues fairly
accurately by making use of multiple cues. Research with the SIT indicates that extroverts
may be better decoders than introverts.
Gender and Nonverbal Communication :
Women are better than men at both decoding and encoding nonverbal behavior, with
respect to whether people are telling the truth. Men, however, are better at detecting lies. This
finding can be explained by social-role theory, which claims that sex differences in social
behavior are due to society’s division of labor between the sexes. Supportive evidence for
this interpretation is provided by Hall (1979), who found that women’s “nonverbal
politeness” or attending to nonverbal cues that convey what people want others to see and
ignoring nonverbal cues that leak people’s true feelings. It has also been found that decoding
is correlated with the degree of oppression of women in the culture.
ATTRIBUTION, THEORIES OF ATTRIBUTION AND ATTRIBUTION BIAS :
Attribution refers to the the thought processes we employ in explaining the behavior
of other people and our own as well. Attribution implies an explanation for the cause of an
event or behavior. Attribution theory explains how individuals pinpoint the causes of their
own behavior or that of others. We are preoccupied with seeking, constructing and testing
explanations of our experiences and to render it orderly, meaningful and predictable for
adaptive action.
Fritz Heider is considered the father of attribution theory. He believed that people are like
amateur scientists, trying to understand other people’s behavior by piecing together
information until they arrive at a reasonable cause.
He proposed a simple dichotomy for people’s explanations: internal attributions, in
which people infer that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about that
person (e.g., a trait or attitude) versus external attributions, in which people infer that a
person is behaving in a certain way because of the situation that he or she is in. Heider also
noted that people seem to prefer internal attributions
The Two-Step Process of Making Attributions
There are two steps involved in the process of attribution.
First step : Here
people analyze another’s behavior, they typically make an internal
attribution automatically.
Second step : Here they think about possible situational reasons for the behavior. After
engaging in the second step, they may adjust their original internal attribution to take account
of situational factors.
Because this second step is more conscious and effortful, people may not get to it if
they are distracted or preoccupied. People will be more likely to engage in the second step of
attributional processing when they consciously think carefully before making a judgment,
when they are motivated to be as accurate as possible, or if they are suspicious about the
motives of the target.
Research has demonstrated that spouses in happy marriages make internal
attributions for their partner’s positive behaviors and external attributions for their partner’s
negative behaviors, while spouses in distressed marriages display the opposite pattern.
Internal and external attributions can have dramatic consequences on everyday
interactions. How you react to a person's anger may be dependent on whether you believe
that they are having a bad day or that they dislike something about you - the ripples flow into
the future and influence how you treat that person henceforth.
Jones and Davis's (1965) correspondent inference theory explains how people infer that a
person's behaviour corresponds to an underlying disposition or personality trait. Dispositional
(internal) cause is preferred as it is stable and renders people's behaviour more predictable
and increases sense of control.
Theory of Causal Attribution :
According to this theory in the case of Single-Instance Observation the following
principles are used in making attributions.
Discounting principle works on the idea that we should assign reduced weight to a particular
cause of behavior if there are other plausible causes that might have produced it.
Augmentation principle works on the idea that we should assign greater weight to a particular
cause of behavior if there are other causes present that normally would produce the opposite
outcome.
In the case of multiple observations the co variation principle centering on the idea that we
should attribute behavior to potential causes that co-occur with the behavior is used. People
act as scientists and assign causes of behaviour to the factor that co varies most closely with
the behaviour.
The Covariation Model :
The Co-variation Theory assumes that people make causal attributions in a rational,
logical fashion, like detectives, drawing inferences from clues and observed behaviours. By
discovering co- variation in people's behaviour you are able to reach a judgment about what
caused their behaviour.
The covariation model of Kelley (1967) focuses on how people decide whether to
make an internal or an external attribution and on instances where there are multiple
observations of behavior. It explains the attribution process as a search for information about
what a particular behavior is correlated (covaries) with: When behaviour is correlated with
the Situation it is called external attribution. When behavior is correlated with the person it
amounts to internal attribution The theory views people as naive scientists who analyze the
world in a rational manner.
According to Kelly,in order to form an attribution about what caused a person’s
behavior, we note the pattern between the presence (or absence) of possible causal factors
and whether or not the behavior occurs. The most fundamental observation we make about a
person's behavior is whether it is due to internal or external causes (Is the behavior
determined by the person's own characteristics or by the situation in which it occurs?). The
possible causal factors we focus on are (1) consensus information, or information about the
extent to which other people behave the same way towards the same stimulus as the actor
does;
(2) distinctiveness information, or information about the extent to which
one particular actor behaves in the same way to different stimuli i.e., is concerned with
whether the behavior occurs in other, similar situations; and (3) consistency refers to whether
the behavior occurs repeatedly;. When these three sources of information combine into one of
distinct patterns, a clear attribution can be made.
1. Low Consensus, Low Distinctiveness and High Consistency leads people to make an
internal attribution of the actor.
2. High Consensus, High Distinctiveness, and High Consistency lead people to make an
external attribution. It is 3. Finally when Consistency is Low we cannot make a clear internal
or external attribution, and so resort to a special kind of external or situational attribution.
A) So when there is a Low Consensus, and High Distinctiveness, it is due to an actor and
situation interaction that uniquely causes the outcome.
B) When there is High Consensus, and Low Distinctiveness, it is either an actor attribution
or a situation attribution. You basically don't know in this situation.
Several studies have shown that people often make attributions the way Kelley's
model say they should with one exception. In research studies, people don't use consensus
information as much as Kelley's theory predicted; they rely more on consistency and
distinctiveness information when forming attributions. something about the situation or
target.
People are most likely to make an internal attribution when consensus and
distinctiveness are low but consistency is high; they are most likely to make an external
attribution when consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency are all high. When these
dimensions are coupled with the internal and external labels a powerful tool comes into place
to make judgments that influences decisions. For example, high consistency can be associated
with both internal and external attributes, while high distinctiveness aligns with external
attributes, and high consensus with internal attributes.
The covariation model assumes that people make causal attributions in a rational,
logical fashion. Several studies generally confirm that people can indeed make attributions in
the way that these models predict, with the exception that consensus information is not used
as much as Kelley’s model predicts. Also, people do not always have the relevant information
they need on all three dimensions.
Covariation is not causation .Making
co-variation judgments requires multiple
observations, often this information is not available. We need to be aware that attributes are
only inferences. The initial causes of behaviour may never be known, what we are doing is
guessing.
Attribution Biases :
In psychology, an attribution
bias is a cognitive bias that affects the way we
determine who or what was responsible for an event or action (attribution). It is natural for us
to interpret events and results as the consequences of the purposeful actions of some person
or agent. This is a deep-seated bias in human perception which has been present throughout
human history. Our ancestors invariably attributed natural events like earthquakes, volcanoes,
or droughts to the angry retaliation of gods. Attribution biases are triggered when people
evaluate the dispositions or qualities of others based on incomplete evidence.
Attribution biases typically take the form of actor/observer differences: people
involved in an action (actors) view things differently from people not involved (observers).
These discrepancies are often caused by asymmetries in availability (frequently called
"salience" in this context). For example, the behavior of an actor is easier to remember (and
therefore more available for later consideration) than the setting in which he found himself;
and a person's own inner turmoil is more available to himself than it is to someone else. As a
result, our judgments of attribution are often distorted along those lines.
The attribution bias causes us to under-estimate the importance of inanimate,
situational factors over animate, human factors. For instance, we might talk to a person from
another country who mentions they only venture outside the house for outdoor recreation
only once a week, and assume this means that they are a person who loves the indoors.
However, we may be unaware that they live in a cold location where it is freezing outside for
most of the season.
The fundamental attribution error (also known as correspondence bias ) describes the
tendency to over-value dispositional or personality-based explanations for the observed
behaviors of others while under-valuing situational explanations for those behaviors. It is
most visible when people explain the behavior of others. It does not explain interpretations of
one's own behavior - where situational factors are often taken into consideration.
This discrepancy is called the actor-observer bias. Fundamental Attribution Error refers to
the tendency to make attributions to internal causes when focusing on someone else’s
behavior. When looking at the behavior of others, we tend to underestimate the impact of
situational forces and overestimate the impact of dispositional forces. Most people ignore the
impact of role pressures and other situational constraints on others and see behavior as caused
by people's intentions, motives, and attitudes.
Self-Serving Attributions :
Self-serving attributions are explanations for one’s successes that credit internal,
dispositional factors and explanations for one’s failures that blame external, situational
factors. Self-serving bias is a tendency to attribute one’s own success to internal causes and
one’s failures to external causes. This pattern is observed in the attributions that professional
athletes make for their performances. It has been found that less- experienced athletes, more
highly skilled athletes, and athletes in solo sports are more likely to make self-serving
attributions.
One reason people make self-serving attributions is to maintain their self-esteem. A
second reason is self-presentation, to maintain the perceptions others have of one self. A third
reason is because people have information about their behavior in other situations, which may
lead to positive outcomes being expected and negative outcomes being unexpected (and thus
attributed to the situation). People often blame themselves for their own misfortune. Because
otherwise, they would have to admit that misfortune was beyond their control, and they
would be unable to avoid it in the future.
Defensive attributions are explanations for behavior or outcomes (e.g., tragic events)
that avoid feelings of vulnerability and mortality. One way we deal with tragic information
about others is to make it seem like it could never happen to us. We do so through the belief
in a just world, a form of defensive attribution wherein people assume that bad things happen
to bad people and that good things happen to good people. Because most of us see ourselves
as good, this reassures us that bad things will not happen to us. The belief in a just world can
lead to blaming the victim for his or her misfortunes.
Culture also influences attributional bias. With regard to the belief in a just world, in
cultures where the belief is dominant, social and economic injustices are considered fair (the
poor and disadvantaged have less because they deserve less). The just world belief is more
predominant in cultures where there are greater extremes of wealth and poverty.
Our attributions may not be always accurate under many circumstances. First
impressions, for example, are not very accurate. However, the better we get to know
someone, the more accurate we will be about them .
One reason our impressions are wrong is because of the mental shortcuts we use in
forming social judgments.. Another reason our impressions can be wrong concerns our use of
schemas, such as relying on implicit theories of personality to judge others. Attribution errors
are the most pervasive and ultimately the most destructive of the cognitive deficits. Avoiding
the attribution bias can be difficult. One strategy is to simply give other people the benefit of
the doubt. Another would be to inquire into the background behind the circumstances of a
situation, to clarify whether a dispositional explanation is really most plausible. Yet another
would be to ask oneself how one would behave in a similar situation. Eliminating the
attribution bias completely seems impossible, as it is built into human nature. However,
through reflective thinking, it appears possible to minimize its effects. To improve accuracy
of your attributions and impressions, remember that the correspondence bias, the
actor/observer difference, and defensive attributions exist and try to counteract these biases.
IMPRESSION FORMATION AND IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT
Impression Formation:
Impression formation deals with the processes involved in the formation of
impression about others. Impression Formation is the process through which we develop our
beliefs and evaluations of other people. It refers to the process through which we combine
diverse information about other persons into a united impression of them. Forming
impressions about others is an elaborate cognitive process. The initial or first impressions
about others are very important. It is rightly said that the “First impression is the last
impression”. The initial impressions we make on others will generally shape the course of our
future relations with them in important ways. Once an impression is formed, it is generally
resistant to change. Thus, it is necessary to be careful on first dates, interviews and other
situations in which we will meet others for the first time. Large number of research studies
have shown that first impression do seem to exert a lasting effect on both, social thought and
social behaviour (Anderson 1981, Wyer et al, 1994).
Impression Management:
It is also called as self-presentation. It deals with the various methods and efforts that
individuals use to produce a favorable impression about himself/herself on others. We often
attempt to influence others by projecting ourselves in ways which will present us in a
favorable light. We often behave, act, dress and express ourselves in ways that produce
favorable impressions on others. Impression Management is a skillful activity. Research on
impression management has shown that people who can perform impression management
successfully are often successful in many situations as they help others to form positive and
good impressions about themselves.
Solomon Asch (1946) did pioneering studies in the areas of Impression formation. He was
heavily influenced by the work of Gestalt Psychologists, who believed that “the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts” . Like Gestalt Psychologists, Solomon Asch held the view
that we do not form impression simply by adding together all of the traits we observe in other
persons. Rather, we perceive these traits in relation to one another, so that the traits cease to
exist individually and become, instead, part of an integrated, dynamic whole. Asch studied
impression formation by using a simple method. He gave individuals lists of traits supposedly
possessed by a stranger, and then asked them to indicate their impression of this person by
checking the traits on a long list that they felt fit with their impression of the stranger.
In one of his study participants were given the following two lists.
 Intelligent- skilful – industrious - warm – determined – practical - cautious.
 Intelligent– skilful - industrious - cold - determined – practical - cautious.
The above lists differed only with respect to two words: warm and cold. Thus, if
people form impressions merely by adding together individual traits, the impression formed
by persons exposed to these lists would not differ very much. The results of his study
revealed that persons who read the list containing “warm” were much more likely to view the
stranger as generous, happy, good natured, sociable, popular, and altruistic than were people
who read the list containing “cold.”
According to Asch, the words “warm” and “cold” described central traits -- ones that
strongly shaped overall impressions of the stranger and coloured the other adjectives in the
lists. Asch obtained additional support for this view by substituting the words “polite” and
“blunt” for “warm” and “cold.” When he did this, the effects on participant’s impressions of
the stranger were far weaker; “polite” and “blunt”, it appeared, were not central words with a
strong impact on first impressions. Thus, Central traits have a stronger impact on our
impressions than Peripheral Traits.
In further studies, Asch varied not the content but the order of adjectives of each list.
For example
 One group read the following list. “Intelligent- industrious – impulsive critical- stubborn envious”.
 Another– group read: “Envious - stubborn - critical – impulsive - industrious - intelligent.”
In the above list the only difference was in the order of the words on the two lists.
Yet, again, there were larger differences in the impression formed by participants. For
example, while 32 per cent of those who read the first list described the stranger as happy,
only 5 per cent of those who read the second list did so. Similarly, while 52 per cent of those
who read the first list described him as humorous, only 21 per cent of those who read the
second list used this adjective.
Harold Kelly (1950) replicated the studies of Solomon Ash, and found that central
traits affect not only our ratings of others, but also influences our behavior. On the basis of
many studies such as these, Asch and other researchers concluded that:
i) Forming impressions of others involve more than simply adding together individual
traits.
ii) Our perceptions of others are more than the sum of information (Traits) we know
about others.
iii) Individual Traits are evaluated in relation to other known Traits, and develop an
overall picture where all the traits fit together consistently.
iv) Impression formation is a coherent, unified and integrated process in which we take a
wholistic and a global view of the various traits possessed by an individual.
ROLE OF SCHEMAS IN SHAPING FIRST IMPRESSIONS
We have a general tendency to quickly form first impressions about others. These first
impressions, about others, are formed quickly and without any mental effort. Recent research
on impression formation has revealed that we not only form first impressions of others
quickly, but also that these impressions play a strong role in our overt actions, including the
important behaviour of choosing between candidates for political office. Research studies by
Willis and Todorov (2006) have revealed that when shown faces of strangers (male and
female) individuals form first impressions of these people rapidly. In fact even exposure
times of one-tenth of a second are sufficient, and increasing exposure times do not change the
first impressions significantly. Thus, we form impressions of others very quickly and often on
the basis of limited amounts of information (e.g. their facial appearance). This has
considerable practical significance in our interpersonal relationships, business meeting and
other professional relationships.
Implicit Personality Theories: Schemas that Shape First Impressions:
Implicit personality theories are beliefs about what traits or characteristics are
assumed to go together. For example, if someone describes a person as “helpful” and “kind”
we would also assume him/her to be sincere. Similarly, if our friend describes a stranger as
“practical” and “intelligent” person, we would also assume him/her to be ambitious. This is
largely due to the schema we hold about people and or events. For e.g., in many societies, it
is assumed that “what is beautiful is good” – that people who are attractive also possess other
positive traits, such as good social skills and interest in enjoying good times and good things
in life. Large number of research studies, especially those related to birth order and
personality reveal that our impressions of others are often strongly shaped by our beliefs
about what traits or characteristics go together. These beliefs are often so strong that we will
sometimes bend our perceptions of other people to be consistent with them. We often form
impressions of others that reflect our implicit beliefs more than their actual traits.
COGNITIVE APPROACH TO IMPRESSION FORMATION :
The term cognitive means perception, thinking, reasoning and other related mental
processes. Impression formation is a cognitive process in which we combine available
information about others into a weighted average in which each piece of information about
another person is weighted in terms of its relative importance. The various factors that
influence the relative weight age are as follows.
1. The Sources of Input: The information from sources we trust or admire is weighted more
heavily than information from sources we distrust (Rosenbaum and Levin, 1969).
2. Positive and Negative Nature of Information: We tend to weight negative information
about others more heavily than positive information.
3. Unusual or Extreme Behaviour: The information that describes behaviour or traits that are
unusual or extreme are more valued and weighted.
4. Primacy Effect: Information received first tends to be weighted more heavily than
information received later.
Modern investigators have attempted to understand impression formation in terms of the
basic knowledge of Social Cognition i.e., the ways in which we notice, store, remember and
integrate social information. According to cognitive view our basic ideas about how
impressions are formed and changed is influenced by two factors: Exemplars of the trait and
mental summaries that are abstracted from repeated observations of other’s behaviours. We
would discuss each of these briefly.
 Exemplars: It refers to concrete examples of behaviourother have performed that are
consistent with a given traits. According to this view when we make judgements about others,
we recall examples of their behaviour and base our judgement (and our impressions) on
these. For e.g., we may recall that during our first meeting with person, how he/she was rude,
made criticism about others, and did not co-operate with sick person who was with us. We
will recall all these pieces of information and conclude that this person posses the trait of
“inconsideration.”
 Abstractions: It refers to mental summaries that are abstracted from repeated observations
of other‘s behaviour. According to this view when we make judgement about others we
simply bring our previously formed abstractions to mind, and then use these as the basis for
our impressions and our decisions. If we have previously judged a person to be unfriendly,
pessimistic, etc., we will combine these traits into an impression of this individual.
A large number of research evidence (Klein and Loftus, 1993, Klein et al., 1992) supports the
view that concrete examples of behaviour and mental abstractions play a role in impression
formation. The nature of impressions considerably shifts as we gain increasing experience
with others.
Research studies by Sherman and Klein (1994) have explained how our impressions of others
develop. According to them our initial impression of others consists primarily of examples of
behaviour they have shown that are indicative of various traits. After we have had more
experience with people, however, our impressions shift towards consisting mainly of
abstractions ----- mental summaries of their behaviour on many occasions.
In sum, existing evidence indicates that information does not occur in a cognitive vacuum.
On the contrary, mental framework representing our previous experience in many social
situations, and basic cognitive processes relating to the storage, recall, and integrating of
social information, play a role in it.
IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT :
Impression Management is also called as self-presentation. It can be defined as our
efforts to produce favorable impressions on others. Impression Management is a skillful
activity. Research studies (Schlenker 1980, Wayne and Liden, 1995) have demonstrated that
people who can perform impression management successfully often gain important
advantages in many situations such as getting their work done, job promotions, increased
popularity ratings, etc
Impression Management: Some Basic Tactics: The two broad tactics of impression
management are as follows:
a) Self-enhancement: It can be defined as efforts to boost our own self-image. There are
many tactics of self-enhancement. One important tactic of self-enhancement is to
improve our appearance. This can done in following ways:
 Changesin dress.
 Personal grooming (use of cosmetic, hairstyle, use of perfume).
 Use of various props (such as eye glasses).
 Judicious use of nonverbal cues.
Some additional tactics of self-enhancement includes:
i)
Efforts to describe one in positive terms,
ii)
Explaining how they overcame difficult obstacles, and
iii)
How they faced certain challenges, which are not common, etc.
Research studies indicate that all the above techniques work under some or other
conditions. Brief summaries of some research studies using self-enhancement as an
impression management technique are as follows:
 Women who dress in a professional manner (business suit or dress, subdued jewellry) are
often evaluated more favorable for management positions than women who dress in a more
traditionally feminine manner
 It has also been found that eyeglasses encourage impression of intelligence, while long hair
for women or beards for men tend to reduce such impression (Terry and Krantz, 1993).
 Wearing perfume or cologne can enhance first impression provided this particular grooming
aid is not overdone (Baron, 1983).
Most of these efforts to improve personal appearance are not potentially dangerous to the
persons who use them. However, one types of effort to enhance personal appearance ---developing a suntan ---- is potentially harmful (Broadstok Borland and Gason, 1991). Other
tactics of self-enhancement pose different kinds of risks. For instance, recent research by
Sharp and Getz (1996) indicates that one reason why at least some young people consume
alcohol is that it gives them the right “image.” In other words, they engage in such behaviour
partly for purpose of impression management. Research finding (Sharp and Getz, 1996) offer
support for the view that some people do drink alcohol as a tactic of impression management
to help look good in the eyes of others.
b) Other – enhancement: It refers to efforts on our part to make the target person feel
good in our presence. There are many ways in which we can enhance other’s self
esteem. Some of these are as follows:
 Flattery– heaping praise on target person even if they don’t deserve it.
 Expressing agreement with their views.  Showing a high degree of interest in them.
 Doing small favours for them.
Expressing liking for them, either verbally or non verbally (Wayne and Ferris,
1990).
A large body of research evidence suggests that efforts to engage in impression
management are highly useful. It has been found that impression management can influence
important judgments based on impression of others.
Research studies by Wayne and Linden (1995) have demonstrated that impression
management is a useful tactic during the first six weeks on the job. They found that the
greater the extent to which the new employees engaged in other-enhancement (supervisorfocused) tactics of impression management, the more their supervisors viewed them as
similar to themselves. Further, the more the employees engaged in self-enhancement tactic,
the more their supervisors liked them. Most important, increased liking and feeling of
similarity were strong predictors of performance ratings; the more supervisors liked their
subordinates and felt similar to them, the higher they rated their performance.
MODULE 3
SOCIALIZATION
FUNCTIONS OF SOCIALIZATION
Socialization is critical both to individuals and to the societies in which they live. It
illustrates how completely intertwined human beings and their social worlds are. First, it is
through teaching culture to new members that a society perpetuates itself. If new generations
of a society don’t learn its way of life, it ceases to exist. Whatever is distinctive about a
culture must be transmitted to those who join it in order for a society to survive. For
American culture to continue, for example, children in the United States must learn about
cultural values related to democracy: they have to learn the norms of voting, as well as how
to use material objects such as voting machines. Of course, some would argue that it’s just as
important in American culture for the younger generation to learn the etiquette of eating in a
restaurant or the rituals of tailgate parties at football games. In fact, there are many ideas and
objects that Americans teach children in hopes of keeping the society’s way of life going
through another generation
Socialization is just as essential to us as individuals. Social interaction provides the
means via which we gradually become able to see ourselves through the eyes of others,
learning who we are and how we fit into the world around us. In addition, to function
successfully in society, we have to learn the basics of both material land nonmaterial culture,
everything from how to dress ourselves to what’s suitable attire for a specific occasion; from
when we sleep to what we sleep on; and from what’s considered appropriate to eat for dinner
to how to use the stove to prepare it. Most importantly, we have to learn language – whether
it’s the dominant language or one common in a subculture, whether it’s verbal or through
signs – in order to communicate and to think. As we saw with Danielle, without socialization
we literally have no self.
Types of Socialisation:
Although socialisation occurs during childhood and adolescence, it also continues in
middle and adult age. Orville F. Brim (Jr) described socialisation as a life-long process. He
maintains that socialisation of adults differ from childhood socialisation. In this context it can
be said that there are various types of socilisation.
1. Primary Socialisation:
Primary socialisation refers to socialisation of the infant in the primary or earliest
years of his life. It is a process by which the infant learns language and cognitive skills,
internalises norms and values. The infant learns the ways of a given grouping and is moulded
into an effective social participant of that group.
The norms of society become part of the personality of the individual. The child does
not have a sense of wrong and right. By direct and indirect observation and experience, he
gradually learns the norms relating to wrong and right things. The primary socialisation takes
place in the family.
2. Secondary Socialisation:
The process can be seen at work outside the immediate family, in the ‘peer group’.
The growing child learns very important lessons in social conduct from his peers. He also
learns lessons in the school. Hence, socialisation continues beyond and outside the family
environment. Secondary socialisation generally refers to the social training received by the
child in institutional or formal settings and continues throughout the rest of his life.
3. Adult Socialisation:
In the adult socialisation, actors enter roles (for example, becoming an employee, a
husband or wife) for which primary and secondary socialisation may not have prepared them
fully. Adult socialisation teaches people to take on new duties. The aim of adult socialisation
is to bring change in the views of the individual. Adult socialisation is more likely to change
overt behaviour, whereas child socialisation moulds basic values.
4. Anticipatory Socialisation:
Anticipatory socialisation refers to a process by which men learn the culture of a
group with the anticipation of joining that group. As a person learns the proper beliefs, values
and norms of a status or group to which he aspires, he is learning how to act in his new role.
5. Re-socialisation:
Re-Socialisation refers to the process of discarding former behaviour patterns and
accepting new ones as part of a transition in one’s life. Such re-socialisation takes place
mostly when a social role is radically changed. It involves abandonment of one way of life
for another which is not only different from the former but incompatible with it. For example,
when a criminal is rehabilitated, he has to change his role radically.
Agents of Socialization
Social groups often provide the first experiences of socialization. Families, and later
peer groups, communicate expectations and reinforce norms. People first learn to use the
tangible objects of material culture in these settings, as well as being introduced to the beliefs
and values of society.
A.Family:
Family is the first agent of socialization. Mothers and fathers, siblings and
grandparents, plus members of an extended family, all teach a child what he or she needs to
know. For example, they show the child how to use objects (such as clothes, computers,
eating utensils, books, bikes); how to relate to others (some as “family,” others as “friends,”
still others as “strangers” or “teachers” or “neighbors”); and how the world works (what is
“real” and what is “imagined”). As you are aware, either from your own experience as a child
or your role in helping to raise one, socialization involves teaching and learning about an
unending array of objects and ideas.
Our experiences in the family have a lifelong impact on us, laying down a basic sense
of self, motivation, values, and beliefs.
1. Parents—often unaware of what they are doing—send subtle messages to their children
about society’s expectations for them as males or females.
2. Research by Melvin Kohn suggests that there are social class and occupational differences
in child rearing. The main concern of working-class parents often is their children’s outward
conformity, while middle-class parents show greater concern for the motivations for their
children’s behavior. The type of job held by the parent is also a factor: the more closely
supervised the job is, the more likely the parent is to insist on outward conformity.
B . Peer Groups
A peer group is made up of people who are similar in age and social status and who
share interests. Peer group socialization begins in the earliest years, such as when kids on a
playground teach younger children the norms about taking turns or the rules of a game or
how to shoot a basket. As children grow into teenagers, this process continues. Peer groups
are important to adolescents in a new way, as they begin to develop an identity separate from
their parents and exert independence. Additionally, peer groups provide their own
opportunities for socialization since kids usually engage in different types of activities with
their peers than they do with their families. Peer groups provide adolescents’ first major
socialization experience outside the realm of their families. Interestingly, studies have shown
that although friendships rank high in adolescents’ priorities, this is balanced by parental
influence.
C . Institutional Agents
The social institutions of our culture also inform our socialization. Formal institutions
– like schools, workplaces, and the government – teach people how to behave in and navigate
these systems. Other institutions, like the media, contribute to socialization by inundating us
with messages about norms and expectations.
I. Schools are primary agents of socialization
.
1. Research by Patricia and Peter Adler document how elementary age children separated
themselves by sex and developed their own worlds and norms. They found that popular boys
were athletic, cool, and tough. Popular girls depended on family background, physical
appearance, and the ability to attract popular boys.
2. One of the most significant aspects of education is that it exposes children to peer groups.
A peer group is a group of people of roughly the same age who share common interests. Next
to the family, peer groups are the most powerful socializing force in society.
3. It is almost impossible to go against a peer group, whose cardinal rule is to conform or be
rejected. As a result, the standards of peer groups tend to dominate our lives.
4. When children participate in a relay race or a math contest, they learn that there are
winners and losers in society. When children are required to work together on a project, they
practice teamwork with other people in cooperative situations. The hidden curriculum
prepares children for the adult world. Children learn how to deal with bureaucracy, rules,
expectations, waiting their turn, and sitting still for hours during the day. Schools in different
cultures socialize children differently in order to prepare them to function well in those
cultures. The latent functions of teamwork and dealing with bureaucracy are features of
culture.
II. Work palce
The workplace is a major agent of socialization for adults; from jobs, we learn not
only skills, but also matching attitudes and values. We may engage in anticipatory
socialization, learning to play a role before actually entering into it and enabling us to
gradually identify with the role.
Just as children spend much of their day at school, many American adults at some point
invest a significant amount of time at a place of employment. Although socialized into their
culture since birth, workers require new socialization into a workplace, both in terms of
material culture (such as how to operate the copy machine) and nonmaterial culture (such as
whether it’s okay to speak directly to the boss or how the refrigerator is shared).
III.Government
Although we do not think about it, many of the rites of passage people go through
today are based on age norms established by the government. To be defined as an “adult”
usually means being 18 years old, the age at which a person becomes legally responsible for
themselves. And 65 is the start of “old age” since most people become eligible for senior
benefits at that point.
Each time we embark on one of these new categories – senior, adult, taxpayer – we
must be socialized into this new role. Seniors must learn the ropes of Medicare, Social
Security benefits, and getting a senior discount where they shop. When American males turn
18, they must register with the Selective Service System within 30 days to be entered into a
database for possible military service. These government dictates mark the points at which
we require socialization into a new category
C. Mass Media
Mass media refers to the distribution of impersonal information to a wide audience,
such as what happens via television, newspapers, radio, and the Internet. With the average
person spending over four hours a day in front of the TV (and children averaging even more
screen time), media greatly influences social norms (Roberts, Foehr, and Rideout 2005).
People learn about objects of material culture (like new technology and transportation
options), as well as nonmaterial culture – what is true (beliefs), what is important (values),
and what is expected (norms).
E.
Religion
While some religions may tend toward being an informal institution, this section
focuses on practices related to formal institutions.
Religion plays a major role in the
socialization , even if they are not raised in a religious family. Religion especially influences
morality, but also ideas about the dress, speech, and manners that are appropriate. Many of
these institutions uphold gender norms and contribute to their enforcement through
socialization. From ceremonial rites of passage that reinforce the family unit, to power
dynamics which reinforce gender roles, religion fosters a shared set of socialized values that
are passed on through society.
F.. The neighborhood has an impact on children’s development. Some neighborhoods are
better places for children to grow up than other neighborhoods. For example, residents of
more affluent neighborhoods watch out for children more than do residents of poorer
neighborhoods.
G. With more mothers today working for wages, day care is now a significant agent of
socialization.
1. One national study that followed 1,200 children, from infancy into kindergarten found that
the more hours per week that a child spends in day care, the weaker the bonds between
mother and child and the greater the child’s behavior problems.
2. Children who spent more time in day care were also less cooperative with others and more
likely to fight and to be “mean.”
3. This pattern held regardless of the quality of day care, the family’s social class, or whether
the child is a boy or girl.
4. We do not know how to explain these patterns. It could be that children who spend many
hours in day care do not have their emotional needs met or that mothers who put their
children in day care for more hours are less sensitive to their children in the first place.
5. These same researchers also found that the more hours children spend in day care, the
higher they score on language tests.
THEORIES OF SOCIALIZATION
Theories of Socialisation:
Development of Self and Personality:
Personality takes shape with the emergence and development of the ‘self’. The
emergence of self takes place in the process of socialisation whenever the individual takes
group values.
The self, the core of personality, develops out of the child’s interaction with others. A
person’s ‘self is what he consciously and unconsciously conceives himself to be. It is the sum
total of his perceptions of himself and especially, his attitudes towards himself. The self may
be defined as one’s awareness of and ideas and attitudes about his own personal and social
identity. But the child has no self. The self arises in the interplay of social experience, as a
result of social influences to which the child, as he grows, becomes subject.
In the beginning of the life of the child there is no self. He is not conscious of himself
or others. Soon the infant feels out the limits of the body, learning where its body ends and
other things begin. The child begins to recognise people and tell them apart. At about the age
of two it begins to use ‘I’ which is a clear sign of definite self-consciousness that he or she is
becoming aware of itself as a distinct human being.
Primary groups play crucial role in the formation of the self of the newborn and in the
formation of the personality of the newborn as well. It can be stated here that the
development of self is rooted in social behaviour and not in biological or hereditary factors.
In the past century sociologists and psychologists proposed a number of theories to explain
the concept of self.
There are two main approaches to explain the concept of self – Sociological approach and:
Psychological approach.
Charles Horton Cooley:
Charles Horton Cooley believed, personality arises out of people’s interactions with
the world. Cooley used the phrase “Looking Glass Self’ to emphasise that the self is the
product of our social interactions with other people.
To quote Cooley, “As we see our face, figure and dress in the glass and are interested
in them because they are ours and pleased or otherwise with according as they do or do not
answer to what we should like them to be; so in imagination we perceive in another’s mind
some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends and so on and
variously affected by it”.
The looking glass self is composed of three elements:
1. How we think others see in us (I believe people are reacting to my new hairstyle)
2. What we think they react to what they see.
3. How we respond to the perceived reaction of others.
For Cooley, the primary groups to which we belong are the most significant. These
groups are the first one with whom a child comes into contact such as the family. A child is
born and brought up initially in a family. The relationships are also the most intimate and
enduring.
According to Cooley, primary groups play crucial role in the formation of self and
personality of an individual. Contacts with the members of secondary groups such as the
work group also contribute to the development of self. For Cooley, however, their influence
is of lesser significance than that of the primary groups.
The individual develops the idea of self through contact with the members of the
family. He does this by becoming conscious of their attitudes towards him. In other words,
the child gets his conception of his self and latter of the kind of person he is, by means of
what he imagines others take him to be Cooley, therefore, called the child’s idea of himself
the looking glass self.
The child conceives of himself as better or worse in varying degrees, depending upon
the attitudes of others towards him. Thus, the child’s view of himself may be affected by the
kind of name given by his family or friends. A child called ‘angel’ by his mother gets a
notion of himself which differs from that of a child called ‘rascal’.
The ‘looking glass self assures the child which aspects of the assumed role will praise
or blame, which ones are acceptable to others and which ones unacceptable. People normally
have their own attitudes towards social roles and adopt the same. The child first tries out
these on others and in turn adopts towards his self.
The self thus arises when the person becomes an ‘object’ to himself. He is now
capable of taking the same view of himself that he infers others do. The moral order which
governs the human society, in large measure, depends upon the looking glass self.
This concept of self is developed through a gradual and complicated process which k
continues throughout life. The concept is an image that one builds only with the help of
others. A very ordinary child whose efforts are appreciated and rewarded will develop a
feeling of acceptance and self-confidence, while a truly brilliant child whose efforts are
appreciated and rewarded will develop a feeling of acceptance and self – confidence, while a
truly brilliant child whose efforts are frequently defined as failures will usually become
obsessed with feelings of competence and its abilities can be paralyzed. Thus, a person’s self
image need bear no relation to the objective facts.
A critical but subtle aspect of Cooley’s looking glass is that the self results from an
individual’s imagination of how others view him or her. As a result, we can develop self
identities based on incorrect perceptions of how others see us. It is because people do not
always judge the reactions of others accurately, of course and therein arise complications.
Stages of Socialisation:
G.H. Mead:
The American psychologist George Herbert Mead (1934) went further in analysing
how the self develops. According to Mead, the self represents the sum total of people’s
conscious perception of their identity as distinct from others, just as it did for Cooley.
However, Mead’s theory of self was shaped by his overall view of socialisation as a lifelong
process.
Like Cooley, he believed the self is a social product arising from relations with other
people. At first, however, as babies and young children, we are unable to interpret the
meaning of people’s behaviour. When children learn to attach meanings to their behaviour,
they have stepped outside themselves. Once children can think about themselves the same
way they might think about someone else, they begin to gain a sense of self.
The process of forming the self, according to Mead, occurs in three distinct stages.
The first is imitation. In this stage children copy the behaviour of adults without
understanding it. A little boy might ‘help’ his parents vacuum the floor by pushing a toy
vacuum cleaner or even a stick around the room.
During the play stage, children understand behaviours as actual roles- doctor,
firefighter, and race-car driver and so on and begin to take on those roles in their play. In doll
play little children frequently talk to the doll in both loving and scolding tones as if they were
parents then answer for the doll the way a child answers his or her parents.
This shifting from one role to another builds children’s ability to give the same
meanings to their thoughts; and actions that other members of society give them-another
important step in the building of a self.
According to Mead, the self is compassed of two parts, the ‘I’ and the ‘me’ The ‘I’ is
the person’s response to other people and to society at large; the ‘me’ is a self-concept that
consists of how significant others – that is, relatives and friends-see the person. The ‘I’ thinks
about and reacts to the ‘me’ as well as to other people.
For instance, ‘I’ react to criticism by considering it carefully, sometimes changing and
sometimes not, depending on whether I think the criticism is valid. I know that people
consider ‘me’ a fair person who’s always willing to listen. As they I trade off role in their
play, children gradually develop a ‘me’. Each time they see themselves from someone else’s
viewpoint, they practise responding to that impression.
During Mead’s third stage, the game stage, the child must learn what is expected not
just by one other person but by a whole group. On a baseball team, for example, each player
follows a set of rules and ideas that are common to the team and to baseball.
These attitudes of ‘other’ a faceless person “out there”, children judge their behaviour
by standards thought to be held by the “other out there”. Following the rules of a game of
baseball prepares children to follow the rules of the game of society as expressed in laws and
norms. By this stage, children have gained a social identity.
Jean Piaget:
A view quite different from Freud’s theory of personality has been proposed by Jean
Piaget. Piaget’s theory deals with cognitive development, or the process of learning how to
think. According to Piaget, each stage of cognitive development involves new skills that
define the limits of what can be learned. Children pass through these stages in a definite
sequence, though not necessarily with the same stage or thoroughness.
The first stage, from birth to about age 2, is the “sensorimotor stage”. During this
period children develop the ability to hold an image in their minds permanently. Before they
reach this stage. They might assume that an object ceases to exist when they don’t see it. Any
baby-sitter who has listened to small children screaming themselves to sleep after seeing their
parents leave, and six months later seen them happily wave good-bye, can testify to this
developmental stage.
The second stage, from about age 2 to age 7 is called the preoperational stage. During
this period children learn to tell the difference between symbols and their meanings. At the
beginning of this stage, children might be upset if someone stepped on a sand castle that
represents their own home. By the end of the stage, children understand the difference
between symbols and the object they represent.
From about age 7 to age 11, children learn to mentally perform certain tasks that they
formerly did by hand. Piaget calls this the “concrete operations stage”. For example, if
children in this stage are shown a row of six sticks and are asked to get the same number
from the nearby stack, they can choose six sticks without having to match each stick in the
row to one in the pile. Younger children, who haven’t learned the concrete operation of
counting, actually line up sticks from the pile next to the ones in the row in order to choose
the correct number.
The last stage, from about age 12 to age 15, is the “stage of formal operations.
Adolescents in this stage can consider abstract mathematical, logical and moral problems and
reason about the future. Subsequent mental development builds on and elaborates the abilities
and skills gained during this stage.
Sigmund Freud:
Sigmund Freu’s theory of personality development is somewhat opposed to Mead’s,
since it is based on the belief that the individual is always in conflict with society. According
to Freud, biological drives (especially sexual ones) are opposed to cultural norms, and
socialization is the process of taming these drives.
The Three-part self:
Freud’s theory is based on a three-part self; the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is
the source of pleasure-seeking energy. When energy is discharged, tension is reduced and
feelings of pleasure are produced, the id motivates us to have sex, eat and excrete, among
other bodily functions.
The ego is the overseer of the personality, a sort of traffic light between the
personality and the outside world. The ego is guided mainly by the reality principle. It will
wait for the right object before discharging the id’s tension. When the id registers, for
example, the ego will block attempts to eat spare types or poisonous berries, postponing
gratification until food is available.
The superego is an idealized parent: It performs a moral, judgemental function. The
superego demands perfect behaviour according to the parents’ standards, and later according
to the standards of society at large.
All three of these parts are active in children’s personalities. Children must obey the
reality principle, waiting for the right time and place to give into the id. They must also obey
the moral demands of parents and of their own developing super egos. The ego is held
accountable for actions, and it is rewarded or punished by the superego with feelings of pride
or guilt.
Stages of Sexual Development:
According to Freud, personality is formed in four stages. Each of the stages is linked
to a specific area of the body an erogenous zone. During each stage, the desire for
gratification comes into conflict with the limits set by the parents and latter by the superego.
The first erogenous zone is the mouth. All the infant’s activities are focussed on
getting satisfaction through the mouth not merely food, but the pleasure of sucking itself.
This is termed the oral phase.
In the second stage, the oral phase, the anus becomes the primary erogenous zone.
This, phase is marked by children’s struggles for independence as parents try to toilet-train
them. During this period, themes of keeping or letting go of one’s stools become sailent, as
does the more important issue of who is in control of the world.
The third stage is known as the phallic phase. In this stage the child’s main source of
pleasure is the penis/ clitoris. At this point, Freud believed, boys and girls begin to develop in
different directions.
After a period of latency, in which neither boys nor girls pay attention to sexual
matters, adolescents enter the genital phase. In this stage some aspects of earlier stages are
retained, but the primary source of pleasure is genital intercourse with a member of the
opposite sex.
MODULE 4:
ATTITUDES
Definition,
nature,
components-functions.
Attitude
formation.
Attitude
and
behaviour.Persuasion: Cognitive Approach .Resistance to persuation. Cognitive Dissonance,
prejudice.
ATTITUDES
Attitude is a word that is part of our commonsense language. It was derived from the
Latin aptus, which means ‘fit and ready for action’. This ancient meaning refers to something
that is directly observable, such as the way a fighter moves in a boxing ring. However,
attitude researchers now view ‘attitude’ as a construct that, although not directly observable,
precedes behaviour and guides our choices and decisions for action.
DEFINITION
Attitudes are feelings, often influenced by our beliefs, that predispose our reactions to
objects, people, and events. If we believe someone is mean, we may feel dislike for the person
and act unfriendly.

A favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone (often
rooted in one’s beliefs, and exhibited in one’s feelings and intended behavior)-(David
mayers,2010)

A relatively enduring organisation of beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies
towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols. (b) A general feeling
or evaluation – positive or negative – about some person, object or issue.- Michael A.
Hogg, Graham M. Vaughan, 2010).
ATTITUDES HAVE A STRUCTURE
A widely held view of an attitude’s anatomy is the three-component attitude model,
consisting of:
a cognitive (thinking) component – beliefs about the object of an attitude;
an affective (feeling) component – positive or negative feelings associated with the object of
an attitude;
a behavioural (acting) component – a state of readiness to take action.
This model can be traced at least as far back to the work of Milton Rosenberg and Carl
Hovland (1960). As well as the three components, this approach also emphasised that
attitudes are:
 relativelypermanent: that is, they persist across time and situations – a momentary feeling
is not an attitude;
 limited tosocially significant events or objects;
generalisable and at least somewhat abstract – if you drop a book on your toe and find that
it hurts, this is not enough to form an attitude, because it is a single event in one place and at
one time, but if the experience makes you dislike books or libraries, or clumsiness in general,
then that dislike is an attitude.
Each attitude, then, is made up of thoughts and ideas, a cluster of feelings, likes and
dislikes, and behavioural intentions. Despite the appeal of the ‘trinity’, this model presents a
problem by prejudging a link between attitude and behavior.
ATTITUDE FORMATION
Attitudes are learned as an integral part of becoming socialised. They can develop
through our experiences or vicariously through interactions with others, or be a product of
cognitive processes.
EXPERIENCE
Many attitudes arise from our direct experience with attitude objects, and there are
several explanations for its effect: mere exposure, classical conditioning, operant
conditioning, social learning theory and self-perception theory. Direct experience informs us
about the attributes of an object and helps to shape beliefs that influence how much we like or
dislike it. According to Stuart Oskamp (1977), even a mildly traumatic experience can trigger
a negative attitude and make some beliefs more salient. If your first visit to the dentist is
painful, you may conclude that dentists hurt rather than help you, despite their friendly smile.
Simply experiencing something several times can affect how we evaluate it – the mere
exposure effect (see Zajonc, 1968). The first time you hear a new song, you may find you
neither strongly like nor dislike it, but with repetition your response in either direction will
probably strengthen. However, the effect of continued exposure diminishes. For example, an
increased liking for people based on their photos levels off after about ten repetitions
(Bornstein, 1989). Mere exposure has most impact when we lack information about an issue.
Sitting members of a government or an opposition party, for example, usually have an
advantage over other candidates in an election simply because their names are more familiar.
Conditioning:
Both classical and instrumental conditioning emphasise the role of direct reinforcers
in how behaviour is acquired and maintained. Repeated association may cause a formerly
neutral stimulus to elicit a reaction that was previously elicited only by another stimulus. This
is classical conditioning, and it can be a powerful, even insidious, form of attitude learning.
A study by Irvin Janis and his colleagues demonstrated the power of background stimuli by
reinforcing some participants with soft drinks at a time that they were reading a persuasive
message (Janis, Kaye & Kirschner, 1965). Those given soft drinks were more persuaded by
what they read than those who were not.
Behaviour with positive consequences is reinforced and is more likely to be repeated,
whereas behaviour with negative consequences is not. This is instrumental conditioning. For
example, parents use verbal reinforcers to encourage acceptable behaviour in their children –
quiet, cooperative play wins praise. However, when they fight, a reward is withheld or a
punishment such as scolding is introduced. When parents reward or punish their children they
are shaping their attitudes on many issues, including religious or political beliefs and
practices.
Attitudes can also be formed through social learning and can occur in the absence of
direct reinforcers. Albert Bandura (1973) concentrated his research on modelling, where one
person’s behaviour is a template for another’s. Modelling requires observation: individuals
learn new responses, not by directly experiencing positive or negative outcomes but by
observing what happens to others. Having a successful working mother, for instance, is likely
to influence the future career and lifestyle choices of a daughter.
SOURCES OF LEARNING
A crucial source of our attitudes is the actions of other people around us. For the
child, parents are a powerful influence, involving the kinds of learning you have just read
about (classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning and observational learning).
Although the attitudes held by parents and their children are not usually highly correlated,
there are some exceptions. The mass media, in particular television, have a major influence
on people’s attitudes and those of their children – especially so when attitudes are not
strongly held (Goldberg & Gorn, 1974).
SELF-PERCEPTION THEORY
A less obvious way of forming an attitude is to deduce what we think or feel about an
attitude object by searching our behaviour. This was the basis of Daryl Bem’s (1967) selfperception theory . Bem’s idea that we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making selfattributions: for example, we infer our own attitudes from our own behaviour. Bem’s theory
suggests that people act, and form attitudes, without much deliberate thinking.
HOW ATTITUDES ARE REVEALED
One way to find out what people’s attitudes are is to ask them and this is the aim of
some questionnaires. These are still used today and there is an entire area of social
psychology dedicated to constructing attitude scales
CLUES FROM OUR BODY
Physiological measures have one big advantage over self-report measures: people
may not realise that their attitudes are being assessed and, even if they do, they may not be
able to alter their responses. This is why a polygraph or ‘lie detector’ is sometimes used in
criminal investigations. Physiological measures, however, have some drawbacks. Most are
sensitive to factors other than attitudes, as John Cacioppo and Richard Petty (1981) have
noted. For example, trying to solve a problem often raises heart rate, while being vigilant so
as not to miss a signal usually lowers it. Further, these measures provide limited information:
they can indicate intensity of feeling but not direction.
ACTION CLUES
Counts of empty beer and wine bottles in dustbins are examples of unobtrusive
measures of attitudes towards alcohol in your neighbourhood, while chemists’ records show
which doctors prescribe new drugs. In a museum, Eugene Webb and his colleagues (Webb,
Campbell, Schwartz & Sechrest, 1969) noted that the number of prints made by noses or
fingers on a display case could show how popular the display was – and the height of the
prints could indicate the viewers’ ages! Webb also reported that interpersonal distance can
imply an emotion.
Is it possible to have an obtrusive measure that will work? One instance is the bogus
pipeline technique(A measurement technique that leads people to believe that a ‘lie detector’
can monitor their emotional responses, thus measuring their true attitudes) which sets out to
convince participants that they cannot hide their true attitudes. People are connected to a
machine said to be a lie detector and are told that it measures both the strength and direction
of emotional responses, thus revealing their true attitudes and implying that there is no point
in lying. Roger Tourangeau and his colleagues found that people usually find this cover story
convincing and are more willing to ‘spill the beans’, such as drinking to excess, snorting
cocaine and having frequent oral sex (Tourangeau, Smith & Rasinski, 1997).
IMPLICIT ATTITUDES
Sometimes an unobtrusive measure can tell us about an implicit attitude – one that a
person may not actually be aware of. Here are three recent measures that have been
researched:
Bias in language use. Attitudes can be linked to the way that people use words. Anne
Maass (1999) found that when a member of our own group does something good, we use an
abstract adjective or noun to describe it, making it both a positive stereotype and an internal
attribution (e.g. John is honest). However, a good action by an outgroup person is described
using a concrete verb, suggesting that the action was determined by the situation and is an
external attribution (e.g. Hanif helped the old lady to cross a street). The reverse logic
applies to undesirable characteristics. Other techniques based on communication include
discourse analysis and non-verbal cues to reveal hidden attitudes.
Attitude priming. Russell Fazio used priming, noting we can respond more quickly when an
underlying attitude is congruent with a ‘correct’ response (Fazio, Jackson, Dunton &
Williams, 1995). While looking at a series of photos of Black and White people, participants
decided by pressing a button whether an adjective (from a series of positive and negative
adjectives) that followed very quickly after a particular image was ‘good’ or ‘bad’. White
participants were slower in rating a positive adjective as good when it followed a Black
image, and Black participants were slower in rating a positive adjective as good when it
followed a White image.
• Implicit association test. In a similar way to attitude priming, Tony Greenwald and his
colleagues developed the implicit association test using a computer display coupled with
responding on a keyboard (Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz, 1998).
ATTITUDE AND BEHAVIOUR
Attitude scales were developed by the early 1930s and used to measure people’s
views on issues that were fundamental – then as now – such as politics, religion and race.
These scales were questionnaires that asked people what they thought and felt about these
issues and how they might act in various situations. An early study of ethnic attitudes by
Richard LaPiere (1934) revealed a glaring inconsistency between what people do and what
they say.
LaPiere’s provocative study questioned the validity of attitude questionnaires. In a
later review, Allan Wicker (1969) concluded that the correlation between attitudes and
actions is seldom as high as 0.30 (which, when squared, indicates that only 9 per cent of the
variability in an action is accounted for by an attitude). In fact, Wicker found that the average
correlation between attitudes and behavior was only 0.15. LaPiere’s study showed that
people’s behaviour changed across two situations, one where an act was public (e.g. in a
hotel’s reception area) and the other where it was private (responding to a letter). This
difference does not mean that the underlying attitude had changed. There are attitude
characteristics, as well as situational factors, which can promote or disrupt the connection
between an attitude and an action:attitude accessibility and attitude strength.
WHEN ATTITUDES ARE ACCESSIBLE
Accessible attitudes are those that can be recalled from memory more easily and are
expressed more quickly. This is an instance of the availability heuristic (A cognitive short
cut in which the frequency or likelihood of an event is based on how quickly instances or
associations come to mind). Russell Fazio’s work has indicated that accessible attitudes exert
a strong influence on behaviour, improve the link between attitude and behaviour, and are
also more stable, more selective in judging relevant information and more resistant to change
(Fazio, 1986, 1995).
Drawing on Fazio’s model of attitudes, as an association in memory between an
object and an evaluation. The degree to which an attitude is ‘handy’ or functional and useful
for the individual depends on the extent that it can be automatically activated from memory.
The likelihood of automatic activation depends on the strength of the association between the
object and the evaluation. Strong object–evaluation associations should therefore be highly
functional by helping us make decisions. Accessible attitudes can affect the way we
categorise. When choosing from a number of possible categories to describe an object, we are
more likely to select the one that is most accessible. For example, Eliot Smith and his
colleagues found that when participants rehearsed their attitudes towards dairy products,
yoghurt was more likely to cue as a dairy product (Smith, Fazio & Cejka, 1996). On the other
hand, if attitudes towards health food were experimentally enhanced, and therefore made
more accessible in memory, yoghurt was more likely to cue as a health food (Eagly &
Chaiken, 1998).
An attitude becomes more accessible as direct experience with the attitude object increases.
Attitudes formed through actual experience are more consistently related to behaviour (Regan
& Fazio, 1977).
WHEN ATTITUDES ARE STRONG
You would expect that strong attitudes guide behaviour. Almost by definition, strong
attitudes must be highly accessible. They will come to mind more readily and exert more
influence over behaviour than will weak attitudes. Fazio argued that attitudes are evaluative
associations with objects. These associations can vary in strength from ‘no link’ (i.e. a nonattitude), to a weak link, to a strong link. Only an association that is strong allows the
automatic activation of an attitude (Fazio, 1995; see Figure 1). Note that the way that
‘strength’ is used in Fazio’s model is really in relation to the association itself, and does not
mean that a strong attitude is necessarily an extreme attitude.
Direct experience of an object and having a vested interest in it (i.e. something with a
strong effect on your life) make the attitude more accessible and increase its effect on
behaviour. For example, people who have had a nuclear reactor built in their neighbourhood
will have stronger and more clearly defined attitudes regarding the safety of nuclear reactors.
These people will be more motivated by their attitudes – they may be more involved in
protests or more likely to move to another part of the country.
The more often you think about an attitude, the more likely it is to resurface and
influence your behaviour and ease decision making. Martha Powell applied this idea to
attitudes towards issues such as legalised abortion, retirement age and gun control, finding
that people’s views became more accessible simply by asking questions on six different
occasions compared with asking them only once (Powell & Fazio, 1984). Accessing general
attitudes can affect behaviour in specific situations. If the general attitude is never accessed, it
cannot affect behaviour. Therefore, the activation step of Fazio’s model is critical, since only
activated attitudes can guide subsequent information processing and behaviour. Think of a
sports coach priming a team by asking the question ‘Which is the greatest team?’, demanding
a shouted response of ‘We are!’, and repeating this scenario a number of times before the
match begins.
Fazio’s automatic activation model (Figure 1)
ATTITUDES AND BEING RATIONAL
Not all classes of social behaviour can be predicted accurately from verbally expressed
attitudes. Here, two theories, that gave new leads on how to get a better fit between attitudes
and behaviour: the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behaviour.
The theory of reasoned action (TRA: Fishbein and Ajzen’s model of the links
between attitude and behaviour. A major feature is the proposition that the best way to predict
a behaviour is to ask whether the person intends to do it.) was the first to deal explicitly with
the quandary of the rather poor attitude–behaviour link that we referred to earlier. Developed
by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen (1974), it dealt specifically with how someone’s beliefs
and intentions are critically involved in how they act, and included the following
components:
Subjective norm – an outcome of what the individual thinks others believe. Significant
others provide a guide about ‘the proper thing to do’.
Attitude towards the behaviour – based on the individual’s beliefs about the specific
behaviour and how these beliefs are evaluated. This is an attitude towards an act (e.g. taking a
birth control pill), not towards an object (e.g. the pill itself).
Behavioural intention – an internal declaration to act.
Behaviour – the action performed.
Usually, an action will be performed if (1) the person’s attitude is favourable; and (2) the
social norm is supportive. A crucial link in this chain is intention, and Fishbein underlined the
need to have a measure of a person’s intention to act if the act is to be predicted. The TRA
emphasises not only the rationality of human behaviour but also the belief that it can be
controlled: for example, ‘I can stop smoking if I really want to’. However, some actions are
less under people’s control than others. Ajzen (1989) went on to emphasise the role of
volition in a modified model, the theory of planned behaviour (TPB: Modification by
Ajzen of the theory of reasoned action. It suggests that predicting a behavior from an attitude
measure is improved if people believe they have control over that behaviour.). Perceived
behavioural control is the extent to which the person believes it is easy or difficult to perform
an act. In deciding, we think of past experiences and present obstacles. For example, Ajzen
and Madden (1986) found that students, not surprisingly, want to achieve A grades in their
courses: A grades are highly valued by the students (attitude), and they are the grades that
their family and friends want them to achieve (subjective norm). However, predicting an A
grade will be unreliable unless we measure how the students rate their own abilities. The two
theories, TRA and TPB, are not in conflict. The concepts and the way in which they are
linked in each theory are shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2
Habit is also a predictor of future behaviour. We have already seen in Fazio’s work that an
action can become relatively automatic, and therefore operate independently of the reasoning
process underlying TPB. David Trafimow (2000) found that male and female students who
were in the habit of using condoms before sex reported that they would continue to do so on
the next occasion. In effect, habitual users do not ‘need’ to use reasoned decisions, such as
thinking about what their attitudes might be or about what norms are appropriate. Both the
TRA and TPB models have implications for how we can strive for a healthy lifestyle.
PERSUASION
Persuasion is the process by which a message induces change in beliefs, attitudes, or
behaviors (Mayers, 2010). At a more day-to-day level, social psychological research on the
relationship between persuasive communication (Message intended to change an attitude
and related behaviours of an audience) and attitude change is more narrowly focused.
Communicating persuasively.
After the Second World War, he set up the first coordinated research programme dealing with
the social psychology of persuasion at Yale University. The three variables involved in
persuasion are:
1. the source -The point of origin of a persuasive communication-or communicator (who);
2. the message -Communication from a source directed to an audience-(what);
3. the audience- Intended target of a persuasive communication-(to whom).
If you were planning to make a public campaign as persuasive as possible, there are points to
bear in mind: some communicators, message strategies and speech styles are more effective
than others; and the nature of the audience needs to be accounted for.
The persuasion process requires that an audience attends to some extent to a message
and understands at least part of the content. A message is more likely to be accepted if it
arouses favourable thoughts but rejected if it triggers strong counter-arguments.
The three links in the persuasion chain (who, what and to whom) are always present
and often more than one of these plays an important part. We will look more closely at a
message factor that has been studied intensively for its power to change both attitudes and
behaviour – fear. Not surprisingly, fearful advertisements have been used for decades to
induce people to obey the law or to care for their health, based on fear.
In an early study, Irving Janis and Seymour Feshbach (1953) used three message
variations to encourage people to practice good dental hygiene:
Low-fear message – they were told of the painful outcomes of diseased teeth and
gums.
Moderate-fear message – the warning about oral disease was more explicit.
High-fear message – they were told that the disease could spread to other parts of their
body, and saw very unpleasant slides of decayed teeth and diseased gums.
There was an inverse relationship between degree of (presumed) fear arousal and
change in dental hygiene practices. The low-fear participants were taking the best care of
their teeth after one week, followed by the moderate-fear group and then by the high-fear
group.
Although other research has not been so clear-cut, the use of high-fear messages has
been cogently questioned. William McGuire (1969) suggested that as the fear content in a
message increases, so does arousal, interest and attention to what is going on. However, a
very frightening way of presenting an idea may arouse so much anxiety, even a state of panic,
that we become distracted and miss some of the factual content of the message. Disturbing
TV images, for example, may distract people from the intended message or, even if attended
to, so upset people that the advertisement is avoided. Ideas developed in health settings have
cast further light on the use of fear.
Protection motivation theory( Adopting a healthy behaviour requires cognitive
balancing between the perceived threat of illness and one’s capacity to cope with the health
regimen) has offered insights into the way fear appeals may succeed or fail in eliminating
dangerous health practices (see Figure3).
Figure3
COGNITIVE APPROACH
DUAL-PROCESS ROUTES TO PERSUASION
Cognitive processes that are fundamental to how we respond to the content of
persuasive messages have been clarified in the last two decades. Slightly different approaches
have emerged: the elaboration–likelihood model and the heuristic–systematic model. Both
postulate two processes and both deal with persuasion cues. Sometimes it may not be the
quality and type of the persuasion cues that matter but rather the quantity of message
processing that underlies attitude change.
ELABORATION–LIKELIHOOD MODEL
According to Richard Petty and John Cacioppo’s elaboration–likelihood model
(ELM: Petty and Cacioppo’s model of attitude change: when people attend to a message
carefully, they use a central route to process it; otherwise they use a peripheral route. This
model competes with the heuristic– systematic model), when people receive a persuasive
message they think about the arguments it makes. However, they do not necessarily think
deeply or carefully about the arguments, because to do so requires considerable cognitive
effort. The ordinary person is a cognitive miser who is motivated to expend cognitive effort
only on issues that are important to them. Persuasion follows two routes, depending on
whether people expend a great deal or very little cognitive effort on the message.
If the arguments of the message are followed closely, a central route is used. We
digest the arguments in a message, extract a point that meets our needs and even indulge
mentally in counter-arguments if we disagree with some of them. If the central route to
persuasion is to be used, the points in the message need to be put convincingly, as we will be
required to expend considerable cognitive effort – that is, to work hard – on them. For
example, suppose that your doctor told you that you needed major surgery. The chances are
that you would take a considerable amount of convincing, that you would listen carefully to
what the doctor says, read what you could about the matter and even seek a second medical
opinion. On the other hand, when arguments are not well attended to, a peripheral route is
followed. By using peripheral cues we act in a less diligent fashion, preferring a consumer
product on a superficial basis, such as an advertisement in which the product is used by an
attractive model. The alternative routes available according to the elaboration–likelihood
model are shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4.
HEURISTIC–SYSTEMATIC MODEL
Shelley Chaiken’s (1980) heuristic–systematic model (HSM: Chaiken’s model of
attitude change: when people attend to a message carefully, they use systematic processing;
otherwise they process information by using heuristics, or ‘mental short cuts’. This model
competes with the elaboration–likelihood model.) deals with the same phenomena using
slightly different concepts, distinguishing between systematic processing and heuristic
processing. Systematic processing occurs when people scan and consider available
arguments. In the case of heuristic processing, we do not indulge in careful reasoning but
instead use cognitive heuristics, such as thinking that longer arguments are stronger.
Persuasive messages are not always processed systematically. This is when people will
sometimes employ cognitive heuristics to simplify the task of handling information.
Heuristics are a variety of simple decision rules or ‘mental short cuts’, the tools that cognitive
misers use. So, when we are judging the reliability of a message, we may resort to such
truisms as ‘statistics don’t lie’ or ‘you can’t trust a politician’ as an easy way of making up
our minds. This feature of judgement is actively exploited by advertising companies when
they seek to influence consumers by portraying their products as supported by scientific
research or expert opinion. For instance, washing detergents are often advertised in laboratory
settings, showing technical equipment and authoritative-looking people in white coats.
According to Petty, people have a sufficiency threshold: heuristics will be used as
long as they satisfy our need to be confident in the attitude that we adopt (Petty & Wegener,
1998). When we lack sufficient confidence, we resort to the more effortful systematic mode
of processing.
How well we concentrate on the content of a message can be subtly affected by
something as transient as our mood. Diane Mackie, for example, has shown that merely being
in a good mood changes the way we attend to information (Mackie & Worth, 1989). Using
background music is a widely used advertising ploy to engender a mellow feeling. There is a
sneaky reason behind this – feeling ‘good’ makes it difficult for us to process a message
systematically. When time is limited, which is typical of TV advertising, feeling really good
leads us to flick on to autopilot, i.e. to use a peripheral route (ELM) or heuristic processing
(HSM).
Here is an interaction between two of the three major persuasion factors noted in the Yale
programme: a supportive message and a happy audience. Think again about how advertisers
present everyday merchandise: cues like feelgood background music have an additional and
longer-term ‘benefit’. Marketing strategists George and Michael Belch (2007) noted that,
through classical conditioning, a product repeatedly associated with a good mood can come
to be evaluated positively – in time, in the absence of music or other positive contextual cues.
RESISTANCE TO PERSUATION
When we feel strongly about an issue we can be quite stubborn in resisting attempts to
change our position.
Even so, far more attempts at persuasion fail than ever succeed.
Researchers have identified three major reasons: reactance, forewarning and inoculation.
REACTANCE
We are more easily persuaded if we think the message is not deliberately intended to
be persuasive. Think back to an occasion when someone obviously tried to change your
attitudes. Perhaps you found it unpleasant and possibly hardened your existing attitude. Jack
Brehm (1966) referred to this process as reactance- Brehm’s theory that people try to protect
their freedom to act. When they perceive that this freedom has been curtailed, they will act to
regain it.
Brad Bushman and Angela Stack (1996) tested this idea in an interesting study of
warning labels for television films with violent content. Two kinds of labels were compared:
(a) tainted fruit labels, in which a warning is lower key, suggesting that a film’s content could
have harmful effects; and (b) forbidden fruit labels, in which the warning seems like
censorship – the very thing that a network could be anxious to avoid. Perhaps you will not be
surprised that strong warnings increase interest in the violent films and viewers in this study,
like Eve, responded in kind. The underlying cause of reactance is a sense of having our
personal freedom infringed.
FOREWARNING
Forewarning (Advance knowledge that one is to be the target of a persuasion attempt.
Forewarning often produces resistance to persuasion.) is prior knowledge of persuasive intent
– telling someone that an attempt will be made to influence them. Bob Cialdini and Richard
Petty (1979) concluded that, when we know this in advance, persuasion is less effective,
especially with respect to attitudes and issues that we consider important. When people are
forewarned, they have time to rehearse counter-arguments that can be used as a defence.
From this point of view, forewarning can be thought of as a special case of inoculation.
THE INOCULATION EFFECT
As the term inoculation suggests -a way of making people resistant to persuasion. By
providing them with a diluted counterargument, they can build up effective refutations to a
later, stronger argument- is a form of protection. In biology, we can inject a weakened or
inert form of disease-producing germs into the patient to build up resistance to a more
powerful form. In social psychology, we might seek an analogous method of providing a
defence against persuasive ideas. The technique of inoculation is initiated by exposing a
person to a weakened counter-attitudinal argument.
Bill McGuire and his associates (e.g. McGuire & Papageorgis, 1961; Anderson &
McGuire, 1965) became interested in the technique following reports of ‘brainwashing’ of
American soldiers imprisoned by Chinese forces during the Korean War of the early 1950s.
McGuire applied the biological analogy to the field of persuasive communications,
distinguishing two kinds of defence:
1. The supportive defence – This is based on attitude bolstering. Resistance could be
strengthened by providing additional arguments that back up the original beliefs.
2. The inoculation defence – This employs counter-arguments, and may be more effective. A
person learns what the opposition’s arguments are and then hears them demolished.
McGuire and Papageorgis (1961) put both forms of defence to the test. Students were asked
to indicate their agreement on a 15-point scale with a series of truisms relating to health
beliefs, such as:
 It’s a good idea to brush your teeth after every meal if at all possible.
 The effects of penicillin have been, almost without exception, of great benefit to
mankind.
 Everyone should get a yearly chest X-ray to detect any signs of TB at an early
stage.
 Mental illness is not contagious.
Before the experiment began, many of the students thoroughly endorsed, at one
extreme on the response scale. The main variables of interest were the effects of introducing
defences and attacks on these health beliefs in the form of essays offering arguments for or
against the truisms. Students who were in the defence groups were in either (a) a supportive
defence group (the students received support for their position), or (b) an inoculation defence
group (their position was subjected to a weak attack, which was then refuted). There were
also two control groups, one in which the students were neither attacked nor defended, and
another that read essays that strongly attacked the truisms but none defending them.
Not surprisingly, control participants who had been neither attacked nor defended continued
to show the highest level of acceptance of the truisms. The crucial findings are:
 Students equipped with a supportive defence were a little more resistant to an attack when
compared with the control group who had been attacked without any defence.
 Students who had been inoculated were substantially strengthened in their defence against a
strong attack compared with the same control group.
A study by Julia Jacks and Kimberly Cameron (2003) added further weight to the
power of inoculation defence: overall, using counter-arguments may be the most effective
solution. The inoculation phenomenon has been used in some kinds of advertising. For
example, a chemical company may issue a statement about environmental pollution in order
to inoculate its consumers against allegations of environmental misconduct from competing
companies, or from other ‘enemies’ such as a local green party. This practice is now
widespread: an alcohol company may fund alcohol research and alcohol-moderation
campaigns, and a fashion company may support the protection of wildlife.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
People are allowed to change their minds.The fact that attitudes and behaviour can
often be inconsistent has a far-reaching consequence and can be one of the most powerful
forces leading people to change their attitudes. Attitude change is any significant
modification of an individual’s attitude. In the persuasion process this involves the
communicator, the communication, the medium used, and the characteristics of the audience.
Attitude change can also occur by inducing someone to perform an act that runs counter to an
existing attitude.
Cognitive dissonance is one of a family of cognitive consistency theories. It is a State
of psychological tension, produced by simultaneously having two opposing cognitions.
People are motivated to reduce the tension, often by changing or rejecting one of the
cognitions. Festinger proposed that we seek harmony in our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours,
and try to reduce tension from inconsistency among these elements. These assume that people
wish to believe that they are consistent in how they think, feel and behave. This assumption
has been most completely explored by the theory of cognitive dissonance, developed by the
famous social psychologist Leon Festinger (1957).
Cognitive dissonance is that unpleasant state of mental tension generated when a
person has two or more cognitions (bits of information) that are inconsistent or do not fit
together. Cognitions are thoughts, attitudes, beliefs or states of awareness of behaviour. For
example, if a woman believes that monogamy is an important feature of her marriage and yet
is having an extramarital affair, she may experience a measure of guilt and discomfort
(dissonance).
Festinger proposed that we seek harmony in our attitudes, beliefs and behaviour, and
try to reduce tension from any inconsistency. People will try to do this by changing one or
more of the inconsistent cognitions (e.g. in the case of the unfaithful wife, ‘What’s wrong
with a little fun if no one finds out?’), by looking for additional evidence to bolster one side
or the other (‘My husband doesn’t understand me’), or by derogating the source of one of the
cognitions (‘Fidelity is an outcome of religious indoctrination’). The maxim is: The greater
the dissonance, the stronger the attempts to reduce it. Experiencing dissonance leads people
to feel ‘on edge’ – as evidenced by changes in the electrical conductivity of the skin that can
be detected by a polygraph.
There are three ways that produce dissonance: effort justification, induced compliance
and free choice. Let us see how these lines of investigation, called research paradigms, differ.
EFFORT JUSTIFICATION
The moment you choose between alternatives, you invite a state of dissonance. Suppose you
need some takeaway food tonight. You make the momentous decision to go to the hamburger
bar rather than to the stir-fry outlet. You keep mulling over the alternatives even after making
your choice. Tonight’s the night for a hamburger – you can taste it in your mouth already!
The hamburger will be evaluated more favourably, or perhaps the stir-fry becomes less
attractive, or maybe both. You have just experienced effort justification- A special case of
cognitive dissonance: inconsistency is experienced when a person makes a considerable
effort to achieve a modest goal.
In an early study by Elliot Aronson and Judson Mills (1959) students who volunteered
to join a discussion group were told that they must first pass a screening test for their capacity
to speak frankly – in effect, an initiation. Those who agreed were assigned to one of two
conditions, one ‘severe’ and the other ‘mild’. Next, they listened over headphones to a
sample discussion held by a group with a view to joining in during the following week. What
they heard was incoherent and plain boring.
According to dissonance theory:(a) the act of volunteering to be initiated should cause
dissonance; and (b) the severe initiation should lend to a sense of suffering and increase the
degree of dissonance experienced. Consequently, the severe initiation with high dissonance
should also increase interest in what was otherwise a boring discussion. This was confirmed
when the two conditions were compared. It was those who went through the severe initiation
condition who thought that both the group discussion (and also the other group members
heard on tape) were much more interesting.
INDUCED COMPLIANCE
Occasionally people are induced to act in a way that is inconsistent with their beliefs.
An important aspect of the induced compliance, our second dissonance paradigm.it is a
special case of cognitive dissonance: inconsistency is experienced when a person is
persuaded to behave in a way that is contrary to an attitude. Here the inducement should not
be perceived as being forced against one’s will. According to the idea of induced compliance,
dissonance follows when you have agreed to say things about what you have experienced
knowing that the opposite is true. You have been induced to behave in a counter-attitudinal
way.
An intriguing experiment carried out in a military setting by Phil Zimbardo and his
colleagues tackled this culinary question. The participants were asked to eat grasshoppers by
an authority figure whose interpersonal style was either positive (warm) or negative (cold).
According to the induced compliance variation of cognitive dissonance, post-decisional
conflict (and consequent attitude change) should be greater when the communicator is
negative. Inducing people to act inconsistently with their attitudes is not an easy task and
often requires a subtle approach. However, once people have been induced to act counterattitudinally, the theory predicts that dissonance will be strong and that they will seek to
justify their action.
FREE CHOICE
Suppose that your choices between courses of action are fairly evenly balanced, and
that you are committed to making some kind of decision. Based on Festinger’s blueprint of
the process of conflict in decision making, the predecision period is marked by uncertainty
and dissonance, and the post-decision period by relative calm and confidence.
In our third dissonance paradigm, free-choice reduction of conflict is likely to be a
feature of bets laid on the outcome of sporting events, horse racing, gambling and so on.
Once a person has made a choice between decision alternatives, dissonance theory predicts
that the person making a bet will become more confident about a successful outcome.
Jonathan Younger approached people at a fair ground who were either about to bet or had just
placed their bets, on carnival games such as bingo and wheel of fortune, and asked them to
rate their confidence in winning (Younger, Walker & Arrowood, 1977). They found that both
men and women who had already made their bet were more confident of winning.
PREJUDICE.
Prejudice is defined as a preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual
members (mayer, D.2010).
Prejudice is defined as an unfavourable and sometimes hostile attitude towards a social group
and its members (Michael A. Hogg, Graham M. Vaughan, 2010).
As Gordon Allport pointed out long ago, the term ‘prejudice’ literally means
‘prejudgement’ from the Latin prae and judicium (Allport, 1954b). He also defined prejudice
as ‘thinking ill of others without sufficient warrant’, which clearly points to its cognitive
nature (‘thinking’), but includes an evaluation as well (‘ill’).
An awful aspect of prejudice occurs when it involves the dehumanisation of another
group of people. If an outgroup can be viewed as less than human, then atrocities against its
members become essentially no different to squishing an insect. Dehumanisation is
commonplace. Prejudice is associated with much of the pain and human suffering in the
world, ranging from restricted opportunities for employment of new immigrants to physical
violence against minority group citizens and even genocide. It has always been with us and,
depressingly, it may remain as a fundamental part of the human condition. Herein lies a
paradox: prejudice is socially undesirable, yet it pervades social life.
Even in societies where prejudice is institutionalised, sophisticated justifications are
used to deny that it is actually prejudice that is being practised. Prejudice rests on negative
stereotypes of groups; there is a similar link between prejudice and discrimination as there is
between attitudes and behavior with respect to an outgroup; and prejudice often translates
into aggression towards an outgroup. Prejudice involves people’s feelings about and actions
towards other people. It is guided by the groups to which we belong and given a context by
the nature and history of particular intergroup relations.
Prejudice, stereotyping, discrimination, racism, sexism—the terms often overlap.
Prejudice is an attitude. An attitude is a distinct combination of feelings, inclinations to act,
and beliefs. It can be easily remembered as the ABCs of attitudes: a ffect (feelings), b ehavior
tendency (inclination to act), and c ognition (beliefs). A prejudiced person may dislike those
different from self and behave in a discriminatory manner, believing them ignorant and
dangerous. Like many attitudes, prejudice is complex.
The negative evaluations that mark prejudice often are supported by negative beliefs,
called stereotypes. To stereotype is to generalize. Such generalizations can be more or less
true (and are not always negative). “Stereotypes,” may be positive or negative, accurate or
inaccurate. An accurate stereotype may even be desirable. We call it “sensitivity to diversity”
or “cultural awareness in a multicultural world.” The problem with stereotypes arises when
they are overgeneralized or just plain wrong.
Prejudice is a negative attitude; discrimination is negative behavior. Discriminatory
behavior often has its source in prejudicial attitudes (Dovidio & others, 1996; Wagner &
others, 2008). Prejudice knows no cultural or historical boundaries. Human beings are
remarkably versatile in being able to make almost any social group a target of prejudice.
However, certain groups are the enduring victims of prejudice. They are based on social
categories that are vivid, omnipresent and have a social purpose. They also feature people
who almost always occupy low power positions in society. Victimised groups that have been
studied include gays and lesbians people who have physical or mental disabilities and the
elderly, i.e ageism. Two of the most exhaustively researched are racism and sexism.
Prejudiced attitudes need not breed hostile acts, nor does all oppression spring from
prejudice.
Racism and sexism are institutional practices that discriminate, even when there is no
prejudicial intent. Discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity is responsible historically
for some of the most appalling acts of mass inhumanity. While sexism is responsible for the
continuing practice of selective infanticide, in which female babies (and foetuses) are killed,
this is largely restricted to a handful of developing countries (Freed & Freed, 1989).
Genocide is universal.
Racism IS An individual’s prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward people of
a given race, or (2) institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that
subordinate people of a given race. Most research on racism has focused on anti-Black
attitudes and behaviour in the United States where historically Blacks have been perceived
negatively – descendants of rural, enslaved, manual labourers (Plous & Williams, 1995).
Because blatant racism is usually illegal and socially censured, it is now more difficult
to find. Most people in most contexts do not behave in this way. However, racism may
actually have changed its form. New racism has a variety of names, including aversive racism
(Gaertner & Dovidio, 1986) and modern racism (McConahay, 1986), with essentially the
same meaning. At its heart, new racism reflects how people experience a conflict between
deep-seated emotional antipathy towards racial outgroups and values that stress equality.
People prejudiced in this way resolve their problem by leading separate lives and avoiding
the topic of race. They deny being prejudiced, deny racial disadvantage, and oppose
affirmative action or other measures that address racial disadvantage.
The challenge to social psychology, then, is to be able to detect new racism. Although
several scales based on questionnaires have been used with this aim, unobtrusive measures
are generally needed to detect racism in its subtle form – otherwise people may respond in a
socially desirable way. We already discussed bodily clues, action clues and implicit measures
of attitudes. Look in particular at biases in language use when describing the actions of
someone from an outgroup; and at how the implicit association test can be used to measure an
attitude that some of us would rather conceal.
Racism can also be imbedded unintentionally in the words we use, the way we
express ourselves and the way we communicate with and about racial outgroups in our
everyday language. Evidence for this comes from British work in discourse analysis by
Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell (1987). Discourse analysis A set of methods used to
analyse text, in particular, naturally occurring language, in order to understand its meaning
and significance. Finally, although we have some control over what we say, we have less
control over non-verbal communication channels that can be a rich indicator of responding
negatively. If we consistently behave in this way towards individuals from a particular group,
it probably signifies prejudice. Expressions and acts reflecting racism are generally both
illegal and morally condemned, and most people think and act accordingly, but their long
history cannot be shrugged off so easily. The germs of racism still exist, and racism can be
detected in various subtle forms. Racial and cultural resentment and partiality lurk beneath
the surface – relatively dormant but ready to be activated by a social environment (e.g. a
political regime) that might legitimise the expression of prejudice.
SEXISM is an individual’s prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior toward
people of a given sex, or (2) institutional practices (even if not motivated by prejudice) that
subordinate people of a given sex. Almost all research on sexism focuses on prejudice and
discrimination against women. This is because women have historically suffered most as the
victims of sexism – primarily because of their lower power position relative to men in
business, government and employment. A contributing reason for subjectively constructed
gender roles (as distinct from biological sex roles) is that they provide men with structural
power, but women with interpersonal (i.e. person-oriented) power, and they are built into a
conservative political ideology (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost, Federico & Napier, 2009). And of
course, to the extent that women have power over men they are just as capable of
discriminating against men.
Research on sex stereotypes has revealed that both men and women traditionally
believe the same thing: men are competent and independent, and women are warm and
expressive. As Susan Fiske (1998, p. 377) puts it: ‘The typical woman is seen as nice but
incompetent, the typical man as competent but maybe not so nice.’ These are really
consensual social stereotypes. Widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social
group and its members is called Stereotypes. Just because we know about such stereotypes
does not mean that we personally believe them. In fact, it seems that such a correspondence
between knowing and believing occurs only among highly prejudiced individuals (Devine,
1989).
It is tempting to argue that competence, independence, warmth and expressiveness are
all highly desirable and valued human attributes. If this were true, they would be equally
valued. However, one early study suggested that female-stereotypical traits are significantly
less valued than male-stereotypical traits. Traditionally, men and women have occupied
different sex roles- Behaviour deemed sexstereotypically appropriate - in society (men
pursue full-time out-of-home jobs, while females are ‘homemakers’). This is sometimes
called a social role theory. The argumen that sex differences in occupations are determined
by society rather than one’ biology is called Social role theory. The assignment of roles may
be determined and perpetuated by the social group that has more power – men. Alternatively,
maybe there is a biological imperative behind role assignments. This is consistent with sexual
selection theory, ie, The argument that male–female differences in behavior derive from
human evolutionary history.
GENDER AND POWER
Certain occupations become labelled as ‘women’s work’ and are accordingly valued less.
Eagly & Steffen (1984) asked male and female students to rate an imaginary man or woman
who was described as being either a ‘homemaker’ or employed full-time outside the home. In
a control condition, no employment information was given. The results show that both male
and female homemakers were rated as more feminine than people working full-time. This
suggests that certain roles may be sex-typed and that as women increasingly take on
masculine roles there could be substantial change in sex stereotypes. However, the converse
may also occur: as women take up a traditional male role, that role may become less valued.
Changes in access to higher-status ‘masculine’ occupations have been slower and less
extensive outside more progressive environments. One explanation is that male prejudice
against women heading for power generates a backlash that constructs the glass ceiling. It An
invisible barrier that prevents women, and other minorities, from attaining top leadership
positions.
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY AND STEREOTYPE THREAT
Prejudiced attitudes lead to overt or covert discriminatory behaviour, and in time this creates
disadvantage. In this way, a stereotypical belief can create a material reality that confirms the
belief: it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy is the expectations and
assumptions about a person that influence our interaction with that person and eventually
change their behavior in line with our expectations. Members of a stigmatised group know
exactly the negative stereotypes that others have of them and experience what Steele and
colleagues have called stereotype threat (Steele, Spencer & Aronson, 2002). It is a Feeling
that we will be judged and treated in terms of negative stereotypes of our group, and that we
will inadvertently confirm these stereotypes through our behavior
Stigmatised individuals are aware that others may judge and treat them in a
stereotyped way. On tasks that really matter to them, they worry that through their behaviour
they may confirm the stereotypes – that their behaviour will become a self-fulfilling
prophecy. American research has indicated that Black students are continually anxious that
their academic failures will be seen as confirming a stereotype. Cumulatively, this produces
enormous anxiety and can encourage Black students to reduce their efforts, to have lower
academic ambitions and ultimately to drop out of school altogether.
Reference:
1. Baron, R.A., and Byrne, D. (2006. Social Psychology, 10th ed. New Delhi:Pearson
Education.
2. Das.G, Social Psychology,Educational Publishers,New Delhi
3. Myers, D.G. (1990). Social Psychology, 3rd ed. New York: McGraw Hill Inc.
4. Source URL: http://cnx.org/content/m43027/latest/?collection=col11407/1.7 Saylor URL:
http://www.saylor.org/courses/soc101/
5. Instructor’s Manual for Henslin, Essentials of Sociology