Psychology 001Introduction to

Psychology

Christopher Gade, PhDOffice: 621 Heafey

Office hours: F 3-6 and by apt. Email: gadecj@gmail.com

Class WF 7:00-8:30 Heafey 650

What are we going to focus on now?

Attitude: an opinion that influences our behavior

Persuasion: the changing or formation of an attitude through information Central route to persuasion – presenting an

argument that seriously evaluates the evidence

Peripheral route to persuasion – presenting an argument based on unimportant factors (i.e. appearance)

When are these techniques of persuasion effective?

When the argument is… Of interest – central routes Of little interest – peripheral routes

Tuition raising experiment example

Not perceived as an attempt at persuasion Forewarning effect: the reduced effectiveness of

a persuasive message due to the awareness and resistance of the purpose of the message

Note: the first argument is very important in central routes to persuasion Inoculation effect: the reduced effectiveness of

a good argument if it follows a weak one

Specific Persuasion Strategies

Foot-in-door technique Start with modest request

Door-in-the-face technique Start with an outrageous request

Bait-and-switch technique Start with a great deal and then make additional

demands

That’s-not-all technique Make an offer, then improve it before the response

What principle do most of these persuasion techniques

operate on? Most of us believe that our attitudes influence

our behaviors, however, that’s not true all of the time

Cognitive dissonance: A change in attitude due to a change in behavior

Festinger’s cog turning task Participants performed a boring task during an

experiment They were then asked to promote the task to the

next participant Some were told that they would be paid $1 for this,

others were told that they would be paid $20 Participants were then asked to identify their actual

enjoyment of the task

Conformity Why do we conform?

Forms of conformity Conformity surrounding

us Conformity in

ambiguous situations Conformity in

unambiguous situations

How do we increase conformity?

Do we conform in our lack of action?

Why do we conform? Conformity – maintaining or changing one’s

behavior to match the behavior or expectations of others

But why do we conform? Uncertainty? – we don’t know what to do in most

novel situations, so we mimic the behavior of others

Norms – a set of behaviors or rules that define the proper behavior in a situations

classroom behavior Learned responses – conformity can result from the

continual presentation of appropriate responses to situations.

“Hi, how’s it going?”

Reflexes? – a lot of our conformity is uncontrollable and even unrecognized

Clapping example Smiling/laughing example

Other forms of conformity in our

environment

Clothing

“Center of attention”

Material being presented

Conformity in ambiguous situations

A lot of our conformity is a result of the fact that there is no true appropriate behavior or responses in most situations

When presented with ambiguous situations, people look to others in an attempt to perceive what is best to do… we’ll get back to this later

This conformity in ambiguous situations has also been found to overlap into ambiguous stimuli as well Autokinetic effect example

But what about unambiguous situations?

We conform to ambiguous situations because we often don’t know what the right answer/response is, but we certainly don’t conform to the group in situations where there is an obvious correct answer/response… right? Solomon Asch’s line study experiments

What influences the likelihood of conformity?

The number of people in the majority The magic #3

The presence of an “ally”

The social situation’s requirement to conform Need for speed Need for unanimity

The ambiguity of the situation (sometimes)

The “collectivist”, or “individualist” nature of the individual being tested

Do we conform in our lack of action?

Kitty Genovese example

Diffusion of responsibility – we tend to feel less responsibility to act when other people nearby are equally able to act Conversation

example Pluralistic ignorance

– assumption that everyone else has a better idea of how to act in a situation. Smoke example

The end of the conformity section…

Read the text to examine a number of conformity topics that we didn’t have time to go over.

For the next class, we’re now going to look at some social psychology concepts in action, come ready to participate