Social Psych

Social Psych Exam 2 notes

Attitudes—evaluations of various aspects of the social world.

Why study attitudes?
• Evaluation is the basic building block of social thought
• Attitudes affect behavior—persuasion

3 components of attitude
1. Affective
2. Behavioral
3. Cognitive

Explicit attitude—attitudes we consciously endorse, and can easily report—favorite food
Implicit attitude—attitudes that are involuntary, uncontrollable, and at times unconscious—this is what is usually studied

Functions of attitudes
• Knowledge
• Identity/self-expression
• Self esteem
• Ego defensive
• Impression motivation

Attitude Formation
• Classical conditioning
o Form of learning in which one stimulus, initially neutral, acquires the capacity to evoke reactions through repeated pairings with another stimulus
• Normal woman with shark or happy couple
• Camel cigarettes with Joe cool
• Blue pen with nice music, tan pen with bad music, people choose the blue pen
o Repeated many times (necessary)
• Operant conditioning
o Form of learning in which responses that lead to positive outcomes or that permit avoidance of negative outcomes are strengthened
• Luau party: interviewer says good if it is positive and when the polled later they were in favor of the party—interviewer said nothing if negative
• Observational learning
o Environment
• Hereditary
o Some linked to genetics—political and religious beliefs
o More along the lines of liberal and conservative
• Death penalty, censorship
• Genes interact with dopamine and serotonin levels
• There is no one actual gene that says liberal or conservative

Strength of Attitudes
• Strong attitudes are
o Stable
o More resistant to persuasion
o Predict behavior better
• Stronger more committed to it so believe it is correct
o Super duper democrat/die hard republican
• Embeddedness—more connected in your brain
o So if someone is super republican their attitudes toward gun policy and tax ideas are... [continues]

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