Download social relations and social influence

UNIT 4
SOCIAL RELATIONS AND
INFLUENCE
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Social Perception
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What is Social Perception?
 Social perception refers to the process by
which we form impressions of other
people’s traits and personalities.
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A Social Psychologist studying
social perception would:
 Form an impression about the traits
& characteristics of the person
understudied.
 Try to understand the causes of the
person’s behavior
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IMPORTANT CONCEPT IN SOCIAL
PERCEPTION
 Impression Formation
 Attribution
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Impression Formation
 Impression formation is a process of
organizing diverse information into a unified
impression of the other person.
 Information about other people comes to us
from various sources, such as:–
–
–
–
Reading
Third party
Witness from afar
Interact directly
 Based on all the information we obtained we
form an impression of the person/event.
 The bits of information that we received about
the person/event we then integrate them into
a coherent picture and make a conclusion. 6
The Impression/judgment that we
make about a person are obtained
through: Attending to non-verbal cues (facial
expressions, body posture)
 Incorporating more detailed and
descriptive characteristics
(personality traits give an overall
impression)
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Attribution
 Attribution refers to the process through
which an observer infers the causes of
another’s behavior.
 For example, If a women performs a favor
for us;
– Why is she doing it?
– Is she doing it because she is a generous person
Or, is she doing it because she have an ulterior
motive?
 Thus, attribution process explains why people
act as they do.
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Attributions are made based on:
 A dispositional attribution (internal states of the
person who perform it).
 Lucy learned that her neighbour is unemployed.
 Lucy might judge her neighbour as lazy, irresponsible or
lacking in ability.
 A situational attribution (external factors, ie.
factors in the person’s environment).
 Lucy learned that her neighbour is unemployed.
 Lucy might attribute his unemployment to the scarcity of
jobs, employment discrimination, economic conditions or
company having problems.
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Social Cognition
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What is Social Cognition?
 Social cognition focuses on how people think
about social events (about a person/ a
situation).
 It is the study of social judgment, whereby a
judgment refers to the assignment of an
object/event to a cognitive category.
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 We do not store/encode all the information in
our memory  only focus on certain aspects.
 So, how do we decide which information to
focus on?
 Social Cognition research has shown that
people use Schemas to encode incoming
information.
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What is Schemas?
 A schema is a knowledge structure in memory
that organizes all our knowledge about a
particular domain (e.g. football, fashion, food,
etc).
 A Schema is a well organized structure of
cognitions about some social entity, such as
person, group, role and event.
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The importance of schemas:
 Help to recognize important aspects of
situations or stimulus
 Enable us to remember information better,
and process information quickly.
 Can fill in gaps and knowledge
 Help people to interpret and evaluate
new information.
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Types of Schemas





Person Schemas
Self Schemas
Group Schemas
Role Schemas
Event Schemas
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Person Schemas
 Person Schemas are cognitive structure
that describes the personalities of other
individuals.
 Person Schemas organize our
conceptions of others personalities and
enables us to develop expectations about
other’s behavior.
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Self Schemas
 Self Schemas are structures that organize
our conceptions of our own qualities &
characteristics indicate the dimensions
that you use to think about yourself
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Group Schemas
 Group Schemas are schemas regarding the
members of a particular social group or social
category.
– Male are more independent, dominant, rational,
competitive & stable in handling crisis.
– Female are more emotional, sensitive, gentle,
expressive, helpful, patient, likes gossiping.
 We are able to make quick judgment about the
people, even though we have minimal information
about them.
 They allow us to form impressions of people and
predict their behavior merely by knowing the group
to which they belong
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Role Schemas
 Role Schemas indicate what attributes &
behavior are typical of persons occupying a
particular role in a group.
 Observers might use a role schemas to
understand and to predict the behavior of
the role occupant.
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Event Schemas
 Event Schemas are schemas regarding
important, recurring social events. Examples;
Graduation, Hari Raya, Wedding ceremony
etc.
 Event Schemas specifies the activities that
constitutes the events, the predetermined
order or sequences of the event.
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Social Influence
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What is Social Influence?
 Social influence is the area of social
psychology that explores how people are
affected by the real or imagined pressure of
other individuals or a group.
 The influence may be intentional or
unintentional.
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Social Influence
 Basically, social influence is the “process of
inducing change in people”, through the
following process:– Conformity
– Compliance
– Obedience
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What is Conformity?
 Conformity can be defined as the tendency
for people to yield to real or imagined social
pressure.
 It is a change in a person's behavior or
opinions as a result of real or imagined
pressure form a person or a group of people.
 Conformity occurs when a person changes
his/her attitude or behavior on his/her own to
fulfill social norms, or out of a desire to
follow the beliefs or standard of others.
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Factors that can influence conformity
 Group size and group unanimity  When there is
group cohesiveness and commitment among
members, the chances of conformity is higher.
 Type of person For example personality, gender,
self esteem, male/females oriented tasks or social
status can influence conformity.
 When people are in ambiguous situations  When people have reason to doubt their own
judgments - feelings of insecurity in the decision
 When people tend to follow the lead of a high-status
individual - to avoid punishment
 Rewards and punishments
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Why do we conform?
 Two basic sources of influence:
– Normative social influence:
 Need to be liked, accepted by others
– Informational social influence:
 Need to be correct; to behave in
accordance with reality
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When do we not conform?
 Self-aware people (private vs. public) - When people
are privately self-aware they are less likely to conform;
 Self-presentation if one is trying to present himself as
intelligent, he will be perceived as more intelligent if he
does not conform
 The need for individuation, that is the desire to
maintain one’s uniqueness or the desire for personal
control.
 Behavior that shows that you are exactly like others is
avoided.
 Behavior that greatly restricts your personal freedom.
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What is Compliance?
 Compliance is a type of conformity that occurs
when people yield to social pressure in their public
behavior, even though their private beliefs have not
changed.
 Compliance is a special kind of conformity that
gets behavior change without changing your
attitude  a behavior that is motivated by a desire
to gain a reward or avoid punishment.
 A person changes his/her attitude or behavior in
response to another's direct request.
 Simply asking someone to perform a task is a
request for compliance.
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Strategies that produces
compliance:
 The Foot- in- the door technique
 The Door-in-the-face technique
 The That’s-not-all Technique
 The Lowball Technique
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The Foot- in- the door technique
 A technique of social influence in which
the target of social influence is first asked
to agree to a small request, but later is
asked to comply with a larger one.
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The Door-in-the-face technique
 A technique of social influence in which a
larger request, to which refusal is
expected  is then followed by a smaller
one.
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The That’s-not-all Technique
 The that’s-not-all technique is a technique
of social influence in which a customer is
offered a deal at an initial, often inflated
price, then immediately after making the
initial offer, the salesperson offers an
incentive, discount or bonus to clinch the
deal.
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The Lowball Technique
 A technique in which an initial agreement
is reached, but then the seller reveals
additional costs.
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What is Obedience?
Obedience can be defined as a form of
compliance that occurs when people follow
direct commands, usually from someone in a
position of authority (teachers, parents,
leaders, boss)
It is an act of compliance/following orders
without question because they come from a
legitimate authority.
Although acts of compliance may be
impermanent this does not mean they are
trivial.
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Social Relations:
Prejudice
Discriminations
Aggression
Pro-social behavior
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Prejudice & Discrimination
“John thinks that all Jews are self-centered and
unfeeling people  always out to used others
for their own benefits”
– An attitude or belief about someone based
solely on our stereotypes.
“Therefore, John tries not to get too close to
them. He literally tries to get out of their way
as much as possible”
– An active outworking of these beliefs.
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Prejudice
 Prejudice is exhibited when members of
one group (In-group) display a negative
attitude and behavior towards members
of another group (out-group)
 A negative prejudgment of a group or group
member that is often unwarranted and
based on limited, insufficient information
 A prejudice can be conceptualized as a
negative attitude comprising emotional,
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cognitive, and behavioral components.
Causes of Prejudice
 The Authoritarian Personality - some
individuals are consistently prejudiced against
many minority groups.
 They report having punitive, status-anxious
parents and tend to describe themselves and
their parents in an unrealistically positive manner
and minorities in an unrealistically negative
manner.
 Authoritarian people show submission to
authority, conventionality, and hostility toward
out-groups.
 Can be explained as product of social-learning.
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More Prejudice
 Social Ideologies and Prejudice - both political
conservatism and religiousness are correlated
with prejudice.
 Social Groups and Prejudice - group research
shows that when people are arbitrarily divided
into groups, they show bias in favor of their ingroup.
 Tajfel's social identity theory argues that this
bias results from people's motivation to boost
their self-esteem through a positive social
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theory.
Anti-gay Prejudice
 Prejudice toward gay men and lesbians is
associated with being male, religious,
conservative, and supportive of traditional sex
roles.
 It is more common in rural areas and in certain
regions of the United States than others.
Individuals tend to be less prejudiced toward
gay people the more acquaintance they have
with them.
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Reducing Prejudice
 The inter-group contact hypothesis holds that
certain kinds on conduct between groups (for
example, contact that is socially supported,
equal status, and in pursuit of common goals)
lead to a reduction of prejudice.
 Cooperative, rather than competitive
classrooms, which have students work
together on projects, are more effective in
increasing interaction between students from
different groups.
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Reducing Prejudice
 Positive experiences with an out-group member
is most likely to lead to changed attitudes
toward the out-group when the member is seen
as typical of his or her group.
 Prejudice is a significant cause of residential
segregation. Housing integration can be
effective in reducing stereotypes and prejudice.
 Mass media can reduce prejudice through
favorable depictions both of minority groups
and of interactions among different groups.
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Discrimination
 Overt acts that express prejudice and treat
members of a group unfairly compared to
members of other groups.
 Influencing another’s interest based on
our beliefs about that person.
 Actual harm to another caused by our
prejudicial beliefs.
 Most discriminations is negative.
 Prejudice will lead to discrimination
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Types of discrimination
 Active discrimination –
– Mild slander
– Violence
– Murder
 Covert/ Subtle discrimination
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Forms of Subtle discrimination
 Failure to act
– Refuse to act when the situation calls for.
– E.g. Did not cooperate just because she’s a lady
 Tokenism
– Assisting someone just because of their race, sex
or age  can make one feels humiliated
– Lead to a sense of betrayal and bitterness
 Reverse discrimination
– Alter ones behavior when the targeted person is
around
– People who hold prejudicial attitude may react
too favorably as a way of showing they are not
prejudice but gives out the opposite message. 45
Aggression
 Aggression: Behavior intended to inflict
harm on another person
 Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis: The
theory that frustration causes aggression
 De individuation: A loss of individuality,
often experienced in a group, that results in
a breakdown of internal restraints against
deviant behavior.
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Factors that Influence Aggression
 Biological Groups - Freud and Lorenz believed that
aggression is an instinct that must be vented.
 Evolutionary theory - suggests that although
aggression has survival value, it occurs only under
certain circumstances.
 Cultural Influences - Aggression is cross-culturally
variable. War may occur particularly among groups
competing for scarce resources.
 Multicultural Perspectives: Wars and the Cycle of
Violence - Across cultures, wars tend to increase
domestic violence in countries after they are over.
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Individual Differences & Aggression
 Aggressiveness as a Trait Aggressiveness is a trait that is relatively
stable over time and is in part due to
hereditary factors.
 Physiology and Aggression - Aggression
is influenced by specific brain structures
and may be affected by testosterone,
alcohol, and marijuana.
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Environmental Factors
 Aggression as a Response to Aggression
- Aggression often elicits counter
aggression.
 Physical Pain - Pain frequently incites
aggression. Although unlearned, the link
between pain and aggression can be
influenced by learning.
 Heat - People tend to be more
aggressive in hot environments.
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More Environmental Factors
 Frustration - The original frustration-aggression
hypothesis held that frustration always leads to
aggression and that aggression is always the
result of frustration.
– Research suggests that arbitrary, strong
frustrations without reasonable explanations
particularly incite aggression.
 Arousal - Arousal can energize dominant
learned aggressive responses  Arousal
created by exercise or by viewing erotica can
increase subsequent aggression.
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Economic Frustration and
Aggression
 Frustration can contribute to social upheavals
 The J-curve theory holds that violent social
revolutions are most likely to occur when a
prolonged period of economic development is
followed by a brief period of economic reversal.
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Media and Aggression
 Aggressive Cues and the Weapons Effect Stimuli (such as weapons) frequently
associated with aggression may become
learned aggressive cues.
 The Effects of TV Violence on Children Experimental, quasi-experimental, and
correlational studies suggest a causal
relationship between children's viewing violent
TV and behaving aggressively.
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Media, Sex, and Aggression
 Viewing violent pornography can increase
aggression, particularly by males against
females, and it can lead men to hold negative
attitudes toward women and to endorse rape
myths.
 Sexual Violence - Sexual violence is a
common and serious problem in the United
States.
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Family Violence
 Family violence is a serious problem
– Broad social factors (poverty,
unemployment, substance abuse),
– Sexism
– Personality traits
– A family history of abuse
– Relationship problems
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Hostile and Instrumental Aggression
 Hostile aggression is generally provoked by
pain or upset
 It is emotional and its primary purpose is to
do harm.
 Anything that increases emotional arousal
increases the likelihood of hostile aggression.
In addition, hostile impulses are particularly
likely to lead to deadly behaviors in the
presence of facilitating stimuli (such as
weapons).
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Instrumental Aggression
 Instrumental aggression is not necessarily
caused by anger or emotion.
 Its goal is to gain some desired rewards, such
as money or valuable goods.
 Instrumental aggression is molded by
environmental rewards and social learning.
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Reduction of Aggression
 Not only are hostile and instrumental
aggression triggered by different factors, they
also may be reduced in different ways.
 Hostile aggression can often be reduced if we
somehow distract the person in a passionate
rage and give him time to cool off;
 Instrumental aggression is more likely to be
reduced by changing the models, rewards,
and punishments that influence the aggressive
behavior.
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Prosocial Behavior:
Why Do People Help?
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Prosocial Behavior
 Prosocial behavior : Any act performed
with the goal of benefiting another
person.
 Altruism Helping behavior that is
motivated primarily by a desire to
benefit others, not oneself.
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A basic question that people asked:
 Are people willing to help when there is
nothing to gain? Or
 Do they help only when there is some
benefit for them?
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Theories
 Evolutionary Theory: Instincts and Genes
 Social Exchange: The Costs and Rewards
of Helping
 Empathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive for
Helping
 Cultural Explanation
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Evolutionary Psychology: Instincts &
Genes
 Evolutionary Psychology is the attempt to
explain social behavior in terms of genetic
factors that evolved over time according to the
principles of natural selection.
 Darwin recognized that altruistic behavior
posed a problem for his theory: if an organism
acts altruistically, it may decrease its own
reproductive fitness.
 The norm of reciprocity is the expectation that
helping others will increase the likelihood that
they will help us in the future.
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Social Exchange: The Costs and
Rewards of Helping
 Helping can be rewarding in three ways:
– it can increase the probability that someone will
help us in return;
– it can relieve the personal distress of the
bystander;
– and it can gain us social approval and increased
self-worth
 Social exchange theory argues that much of what we
do stems from the desire to maximize our outcomes
and minimize our costs. Like evolutionary psychology,
it is a theory based on self-interest; unlike it, it does
not assume that self-interest has no genetic basis
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Empathy and Altruism: The Pure Motive
for Helping
 Batson is the strongest proponent of the idea that
people often help purely out of the goodness of their
hearts
 Batson’s empathy-altruism hypothesis states that
when we feel empathy for a person, we will attempt to
help purely for altruistic reasons, that is, regardless of
what we have to gain
 He argues that pure altruism is most likely to come
into play when we experience empathy for the person
in need; that is, we are able to experience events and
emotions the way that that person experiences them.
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Batson is the strongest proponent of the idea
that people often help purely out of the
goodness of their hearts
Batson’s empathy-altruism hypothesis states
that when we feel empathy for a person, we will
attempt to help purely for altruistic reasons, that
is, regardless of what we have to gain
He argues that pure altruism is most likely to
come into play when we experience empathy
for the person in need; that is, we are able to
experience events and emotions the way that
that person experiences them.
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Cultural Theory
 Norms of pro social behavior are prescriptive
social rules that govern when help should
be offered to others.
 The norms of reciprocity, equity and social
responsibility help enforce and regulate prosocial behavior.
 Cultural varies in general levels of helpfulness
and in their moral views of helping behavior
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Determinant of pro-social behavior
 Personal determinant
– Individual Differences: The Altruistic Personality
– Gender Differences in Prosocial behavior
– The effects of mood on helping: Feel Good, Do
Good
 Situational determinant
– Rural Versus Urban Environments
– The Number of Bystanders: The Bystander Effect
– The Nature of the Relationship: Communal Versus
Exchange Relationships
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Personal Determinants of Prosocial
Behavior
 Individual Differences: The Altruistic
Personality
 Gender Differences in Prosocial behavior
 The effects of mood on helping: Feel
Good, Do Good
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Personal Determinants of Prosocial
Behavior

Individual Differences: The Altruistic
Personality
Developmental psychologists find helping in
. very young children
– Helping can be encouraged by rewards, but
rewards should not be emphasized too much.
– Parents can also increase prosocial behavior in
their children by doing it themselves 
Children learn from observation what is valued
and desired.
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–
Personal Determinants of Pro social
Behavior
 Gender Differences in Prosocial behavior
• Eagly and Crowley found that men are
more likely to help in chivalrous, heroic
ways, and women are more likely to
help in nurturant ways involving longterm commitment.
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Personal Determinants of Prosocial
Behavior
 The Effects of Mood on Helping: Feel
Good, Do Good
– Good mood and
 Good mood
generosity
lead to a more pro social behavior
– Bad mood and
seeking relief
 Negative-state relief hypothesis says that
people help in order to alleviate their own
sadness and distress
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Situational Determinants of Prosocial
Behavior: When Will People Help?
 Rural Versus Urban Environments
 The Number of Bystanders: The Bystander
Effect
 The Nature of the Relationship: Communal
Versus Exchange Relationships
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Situational Determinants of Prosocial
Behavior
 Rural Versus Urban Environments
– One explanation is that people from rural settings are
brought up to be more neighborly and more likely to
trust strangers.
– Milgram in her urban-overload hypothesis  the idea
that people living in cities are likely to keep to
themselves in order to avoid being overloaded by all
the stimulation they receive.
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Situational Determinants of Prosocial
Behavior
 The Number of Bystanders: The Bystander Effect
– The bystander effect is the finding that the greater the number of
bystanders who witness an emergency, the less likely any one of
them is to help
– Latané and Darley developed a step by step description of how
people decide whether to help in an emergency: Noticing an Event:
 Interpreting the Event as an Emergency
 Assuming responsibility
 Knowing How to Help
 The Deciding to Implement the Help
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Situational Determinants of Prosocial
Behavior
 The Nature of the Relationship: Communal
Versus Exchange Relationships
– Generally we are more helpful towards friends than
strangers; the exception occurs when the other is
beating us in a domain that is personally important and
thus threatens our self-esteem
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How Can Helping Be Increased?
 People do not always want to be helped -- if being
helped means that they appear incompetent, they
will often suffer in silence, even at the cost of
failing at the task.
 Simply being aware of the barriers to helping can
increase people’s chances of overcoming those
barriers.
 The goal of helping is to make it supportive,
highlighting concern for the recipient; watch out
for administering aid that merely threatens the
other’s self-esteem.
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Attitudes and
Attitude Change
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What is attitude ?
– An attitude is a mental & neutral state of
readiness, organized through experiences,
exerting a directive or dynamic influence
upon the individual’s response to all
objects and situation with which it is
related. (G.W. Allport)
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 Attitude are how we feel about a particular
things, people, groups, events and issues in
our world.
 An attitude exist in a person mind  it is a
mental state.
 Attitude is an evaluation judgement 
positive, negative or neutral  about objects
of thoughts.
 Some of our attitudes are intensely felt, but
others may have really little meaning to us.
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Attitude are based on “ABC”
information
– affective component
 the person’s emotions and affect towards the
object
– behavioral component
 how person tends to act towards the object
– cognitive component
 consists of thoughts and beliefs the person has
about the object
– These are not always highly related to each other.
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Components of attitude
 3 components:
– Belief/cognition
– An evaluation (affective)
– A Behavioral Predisposition
 “My Social Psychology class is really
boring”
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Belief/cognition Component
 An attitude includes
– An object label
– Rules for applying the label
– Set of cognition knowledge structure associated
with the label
 The person who doesn’t like his/her social
psychology class perceive it as involving
– Certain content
– Taught by a particular person
 We often cannot prove whether a particular
beliefs are true /false.
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An evaluation (affective) Component
 Emotional element.
 “It’s boring”  indicate that the course arouse
a mild unpleasant emotion in the lecture.
 Strong negative emotion  dislike, hate, loath.
“I hate him”
 Positive emotion “ This food is fantastic”, “I
like her”, “He is very nice”.
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A Behavioral Predisposition Component
 An attitude involves a behavioral tendency
towards the targeted object.
 “It’s boring”  implies a tendency to avoid
the class
 “I like my job”  suggest an intention to go
to work/work harder.
 Persons having a specific attitude are
inclined to behave in certain ways towards
an object.
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 Some social Psychologist believe that
attitudes are constructed from beliefs and
values
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 Attitudes are viewed as the conclusion of 2
statements of belief and values premises:
– Belief
 Non-evaluative thoughts about characteristics of
objects in our world.
 What we perceive as the facts of our world
 “Easy access to guns produces more injuries”
– Values
 An evaluation of the goodness or badness of objects
of thoughts.
 “Producing injuries and deaths is bad”
 Attitudes are the results of the logical combination
of these cognitive and evaluation element:
– Attitude
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 “Easy access to guns is bad"
 Belief
– “ Easy access to guns enables one to
protect one’s family”
 Value
– Being able to protect one’s family is
good
 Attitude
– Easy access to guns is good
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Attitude Formation
– “ I like my job”
– “ Chinese are good at maths”
– Nuclear power plants are dangerous”
– Guns don’t kill, people kill people”
 Where do these attitude comes from?
 How are they formed?
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How is attitude formed?
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Social Learning Process
(Socialization)
Attitudes are learned from:
 Direct contact with the object/person
 Indirect contect with the person/object
 From Parents (as a part of socialization
process)
 Instrumental learning
 Friends  interaction with peers
 Media  thru observational learning.
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Functions of Attitude




Instrumental function
Knowledge or schematic function
Value-expressive
Ego Defense
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Instrumental function
 We develop
– favorable attitude towards objects that
aid/reward us.
– Unfavorable attitude towards objects that
punish us.
 Once the attitude is developed  it provide
a simple & efficient mean of evaluating
object.
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Knowledge or schematic function
 Attitude provide us with a meaningful
environment and guide behavior
 Help the person to structure the world
so that it makes sense.
– “All blacks (negroes are bad &
untrustworthy”
– “All Chinese are good in math's”
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Value-expressive
 Some attitude express the individual’s
basic values & reinforce self-image.
 Help the person express important
aspects of self-concept.
– Conservative attitude towards abortion,
sex before marriage.
 It symbolizes a person’s identification
with a group/sub-culture.
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Ego defense
 Some attitude protect the person from recognizing
certain thoughts or feelings that threaten his self
image, or
 Experiences that threaten a person self-esteem 
which could lead to a more negative evaluation of
other person/object/ group
 Help the person protect himself/herself from
acknowledging basic self-truth.
– Jack (a boss in a big company) cannot fully accept
or acknowledge that he’s being controlled by his
wife.
– He then direct his anger & hatred towards his
employee.
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ATTITUDE AND BEHAVIOR
 Social Psychologist studied attitude in order to
predict behavior.
 The way people act towards or against us  have
an impact on our lives.
 However, research has also indicated that we
cannot always predict how a person will behave
from knowledge of the individual’s attitude (Wicker,
1969)
– Eg. A Classic study by La Piere on Americans
attitude & behavior towards Chinese, in early 30’s
 There is no attitude-behavior consistency
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WHY?
 Some behavior are dependent on
particular situation context
 Sometimes attitude is not made salient
 then it will not affect behavior
 Attitude questions asked are not
specific enough
 Mood and behavior consistency.
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Situational Factors
 According to Schuman & Johnson
(1976):
– Some behavior are dependent on
particular situation context  thus,
attitude cannot predict them.
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Attitude not salient - unaware
 In everyday life, whether we will remember our
attitudes spontaneously when we have to act
(behavior), depend on the strengths of association
between the target object and our evaluation
(attitude).
 How to encourage the strength of object-evaluation
association:
– Frequently expressing the same attitude when asked
– Everyday & direct experience with the attitude object
 Thus, there will be consistency between your
attitude & action if you thought about a situation or
condition repeatedly, or you have had meaningful
direct experience with the condition.
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Attitude questions not specific
 Often, attitude tell nothing about behavior because
the attitude questions asked are not specific
enough.
– Does a person’s infactuation with Ferrari sports
cars tell us whether he will buy one?
 The more specifically worded the attitude
measures  the more consistent it was with
behavior.
– “Do you like Ferrari, and if you do would you buy
one?”
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Mood and behavior consistency
 The more intense your mood when you have to act
 the less likely that your behavior will be
consistent with your attitude.
 Mood can be positive or negative.
 Mood often caused or changed everyday event.
 Studies shown that if you are in an irritable mood 
you tend to behave aggresively.
 Intense moods may overwhelm the influence of
attitude on behavior  which would reduce attitudebehavior consistency.
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Persuasion
 Persuasion is a type of social influence in which a
source tries to change the mind or action of a
recipient.
 Persuasion involves overt attempt to change another
person’s attitude or behavior.
 Message of persuasion may be:
– Simple, informative, logical & positive
– Frightening, fearful
– Humorous etc.
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Source of persuasion




Mass-Media
Advertisement
Individual person (person-to-person)
Group influence
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What is Persuasion?
"A conscious attempt by one individual or
group to change the attitudes, beliefs, or
behavior of another individual or group of
individuals through the transmission of
some message“
(Bettinghaus, E.P., and Cody, M.J.,1994).
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Brainwashing
 Brainwashing
– Indoctrination usually involves the ultimate persuasion
strategies to produce extreme changes in attitude and
behavior
 Religious group members
 Concentration camp prisoners
 Differences between brainwashing & typical
persuasion situation
– Effect control  the persuaders have the power to benefit
or harm their victims through giving or restricting basic
physical or psychological needs.
– Information control  The persuaders can censure or
provide information at their whim.
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ATTITUDE CHANGE
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Attitude change
 Formation & change of attitude are
interwoven.
 Attitude change involves:
– Adopting
– Modifying
– Relinquish
attitudes to fit the needs
& interest at present
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 Attitude cannot be change by simple
education
 Acceptance of new attitude depends
– on who is presenting the knowledge
– How it is presented
– How the person is perceived
– The credibility of the communicator
– The conditions by which the knowledge
was received
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Attitude change when:
 Cognitive change occurs
 Affective change occurs
 Behavioral Change occurs
(Traindis)
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110
Source of change





Other people
Family
Media
Church
Object itself
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Steps to changing attitude:





Attention
Comprehension
Yielding
Retention
Action
 According to Triandis,
“ in analyzing the attitude-change process we
must consider the effect of who says what,
how to whom, with what effect”
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What can we do to change attitudes?
 In order to produce change a suggestion for
change must be reviewed and accepted.
 Reception and acceptance are more likely to
occur where the suggestion meets existing
personality need or desires.
 The suggestion is more likely to be accepted if:
– It is in harmony with valued group norms an
loyalties.
– The source of the message is perceived as
trustworthy or expert.
– The message follows certain rules of 'rhetoric'
regarding order, presentation, organization of
content, nature of appeal, etc.
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 A suggestion carried by mass media plus
face-to-face reinforcement is more likely to
be accepted than a suggestion carried by
either one of these alone, other things being
equal.
 Change in attitude is more likely to occur if
the suggestion is accompanied by change in
other factors underlying belief and attitude.
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One-sided vs. two-sided
presentation
 A one-sided presentation is more effective if
the audience agrees or has little knowledge
about the subject.
 A two-sided presentation is more effective if
audience already has a view and you are
trying to change it, because if they know the
facts and you omit them, they will discount
your argument.
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Issue presented is likely to have a
disproportionate influence on opinions if
 The cues as to the incompatibility of different
items of information are absent.
 The contradictory information is presented by
the same communicator.
 The committing actions are taken only after one
side of the issue has been presented.
 The issue is an unfamiliar one.
 The recipient has only a superficial interest in
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the issue (low cognitive need)