1

Mark: Strongly disagree/ disagree/ neutral/ agree/ strongly agree

World hunger is a serious problem that needs attention

Our country needs to address the growing number of homeless people

The right to vote is one of the most valuable rights of US citizens

Our government should spend less money on nuclear weapons and more on helping citizens better their lives.

2

Indicate whether or not you regularly perform the stated behaviors

I personally donate money or write my representative to do something about world hunger

I volunteer in a homeless shelter or donate money to organizations that help the homeless.

I voted in the last election (if eligible) I write to my representative or participate in

protests to convey my feelings about nuclear weapons

3

Attitudes

What is an attitude? Belief, opinion with evaluative component Functions?

Cognitive dissonance theory Festinger we we need our attitudes to be consistent with our

behavior it is uncomfortable for us when they aren’t we seek ways to decrease discomfort caused by

inconsistency

4

Dissonance-reducing MechanismsAvoiding dissonant information

we attend to information in support of our existing views, rather than information that doesn’t support them

Sweeney & Gruber (1973) Watergate study

Firming up an attitude to be consistent with an action set aside doubts/ uncertainty, become more

confident after decision effect of investing great effort, cost

5

Dissonance-reducing Mechanisms Changing an attitude to justify an action

when a person does something counter to their stated beliefs, then justify the deed by modifying their attitude

Insufficient-justification effectchange in attitude that occurs because person

cannot justify an already completed action without modifying attitude

optimizing conditions include external justification, free choice, when action would cause harm

6

Insufficient-justification effect

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) gave subjects a boring task, then asked subjects to lie

to the next subject and say the experiment was exciting

paid ½ the subjects $1, other ½ $20 then asked subjects to rate boringness of task $1 group rated the task as far more fun than the $20

group

each group needed a justification for lying $20 group had an external justification of money since $1 isn’t very much money, $1 group said task was

fun

7

Using Attitudes as Ways to “Justify” Injustice

Just-world bias a tendency to believe that life is fair

it would seem horrible to think that you can be a really good person and bad things could happen to you anyway

Just-world bias leads to “blaming the victim” we explain others’ misfortunes as being their

faulte.g., she deserved to be raped, what was she

doing in that neighborhood anyway?

8

Summary

Perceiving & evaluating others when we’re accurate, when we’re not

Attributions person vs. situation attributions the person bias actor-observer discrepancy effects of prior information effects of physical appearance

9

Summary

Stereotypes what are they? how do we study them? Implicit stereotypes

Self-fulfilling prophecy effects Attitudes

cognitive dissonance theory dissonance-reducing mechanisms the insufficient-justification effect the just-world bias & blaming the victim