Download Interacting with patients:

Interacting with patients:
Attitudeand impression
formation
Attitudes
• What are attitudes?
– evaluative social judgements -orientations that
locate objects of thought on dimensions of
judgement
• Mixtures of components
– cognitive: beliefs
– emotional: feelings
– behavioural: predispositions to act
Do attitudes predict behaviour?
• Research shows giving information which
changes attitudes doesn't always change
behaviour
• Usually not very well. Why?
– attitudes are generalisms, behaviours more
specific
– attitudes are only predispositions to act
Changing attitudes
• To effectively change attitudes you need:
– credibility (expertise / trustworthiness)
– likeability (physical attractiveness)
– persuasive arguments (health messages
are usually fear arousing)
– listener’s original position
Attitude formation and change
• Dissonance theory
– dissonance exists when related cognitions
contradict each other.
• Conformity and obedience
• Group influences on behaviour
– polarization
– groupthink
Social perception: impression
formation and attribution
• Is the perception of people and their
behaviour unbiased?
– no: There are characteristic influences on
the way we form impressions of one
another.
– attributions are the explanations we offer
for why things (people, events) are the way
they are.
Concept-driven processing bias:
Stereotypes
• Stereotypes are generalised beliefs about
people based on one or a few defining
characteristics possessed by some members
of their group which are extended to all
members.
• Prejudice is the holding of negative attitudes
towards a member of a group.
• Discrimination involves behaving differently
towards members of a group
• Assumption that beautiful people possess
more desirable traits.
• Expectation bias
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
• Effects of mood
Data-driven processing bias
• First - impressions
• Recent impressions
• Halo effects
• Negativity bias
Attribution bias
• Fundamental Attribution Error
– blame person not circumstance
• Actor-observer bias
– different explanations for you and me
Attibution bias for performance:
gender difference
Stability
Dimensn.
Unstable Stable
(Temp.) (Perm.)
Internal
dimens.
External
dimens.
effort
mood
fatigue
Luck
Chance
Opportunity
ability
intelligence
Task
difficulty
General attributions
• Locus of control
– internal / external
– stable / unstable
– global / specific
• Control refers to a person’s ability to achieve
the outcomes they desire.
• Predictability facilitates control
Other influences
See also: Self-efficacy (link to KAP
lecture)