Top 5 Favorite Social Psychology Theories
1. In order of appearance in the book, my first favorite theory is facial feedback hypothesis. I like that your mood can be affected by your face, especially in two separate ways, because even if something is unpleasant, people can actually like it just by smiling.
2. Next is self-monitoring mostly because I am a big self-monitor. I like that people are so adaptive that they can change from one social situation to the next. I don't like the thought of people being fake, but I take self-monitoring to mean that a person accentuates certain characteristics in order to fit in rather than be totally insincere.
3. Third is false consensus effect because people have biased samples, and they don't know that others don't think like they do. I also wondered if this heuristic is more common in collective cultures than individualistic cultures.
4. Then is superordinate goals. Superordinate goals can unite groups which were against each other from the start. I think superordinate goals is one of the best ways to reduce conflict.
5. Last is the norm of reciprocity because it is so powerful in my life, and I think in pretty much everyone's life. I can't get a compliment without immediately throwing one back, or when I need a compliment, I just start complimenting other people.
Top 5 Favorite Social Psychologists
1. First things first, I have to go with Dan Gilbert because he seems to be a charming and witty guy. His remark to the "Bubba" still cracks me up. I also like his work on affective forecasting and his perspective on the fundamental attribution error. He also has publications on several different areas of study within social psychology such as stereotypes and prosocial behavior, and I appreciate his diversity especially because Dr. G. would tell us more Dan Gilbert stories every time we came to his study.
2. Next I'd have to say Leon Festinger mostly for cognitive dissonance. I have respect for someone who can think of such a counter-intuitive theory which makes so much sense. It also puts such a twist on how we think about persuasion, attitudes, and consistency. Festinger is a diverse guy as well. His social comparison theory is also a little counter-intuitive because it says to look outwards to find information about ourselves. Before, I thought people looked inward to learn about themselves.
3. Third is Claude Steele for his work on stereotype threat and alternatives for cognitive dissonance. Stereotype threat is interesting to me because an individual does not have to believe in the stereotype to worry about perpetuating it. Also interesting is that one way to decrease it is to have a role model, but role models are rare in stereotype threat cases because many individuals disidentify from the task.
4. Then is Stanley Milgram. Him and Zimbardo both have guts, but I would choose Milgram because he mapped out all of the variables (such as authority variables) with multiple, similar studies. Not only did he conduct one of the most interesting studies ever, but then he expanded on it and elaborated until he could write a whole book.
5. Last is Robert Zajonc mostly because his name is awesome. Not really. Mostly because of his work on social facilitation. He must be pretty clever to take a theory which had both support and counter evidence and adapt it to a theory which turned the counter evidence into support. Plus he did an experiment in which supported that cockroaches are influences by the presence of other cockroaches. Actually, nevermind, that counts against him. A redeeming study was his work on facial feedback hypothesis which is cool because it works in two ways though Zajonc studied the physiological aspects of it.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Influences on Obedience
I chose to demonstrate the influences on obedience for my demonstrate-a-concept blog. Obedience is changing behaviors because of a direct command from an authority figure (Milgram, 1963). Destructive disobedience is specifically following commands from authority figures which will cause others harm. The three sets which influence destructive obedience is the authority figure, the victim, and the procedure (Blass, 1992; Miller, 1986).
Subsets under the authority figure are the figure’s status (affected by both location and the person) and the proximity of the figure. The higher the status of the establishment from which the figure comes from and/or the higher status of the person themselves, the more likely people will obey his or her orders (Milgram, 1974). Furthermore, the farther away the figure is, the less likely people will obey his or her orders (Milgram, 1974).
The subset under the victim is proximity A person is typically more willing to inflict harm on another person that they cannot see, and from whom they can psychologically distance themselves (Miller, 1986, p. 228). Obedience drops when the victim is in the same room as the obedient person, and drops farther when the obedient person has to touch the victim in order to follow instructions which are harmful (Milgram, 1974).
The subsets under the procedure are a sense of responsibility, transmitter vs. executant role, and the foot-in-the-door technique. If the person feels that he or she is responsible for his or her actions, that person is less likely to cause harm to another person than if someone else is willing to take responsibility (Tilker, 1970). The transmitter is a role which only requires the transmittance of an action, not thinking of the idea or carrying out the action. The executant executes the actually command. People will more likely follow destructive orders in a transmitter role than an executant role (Kilham & Mann, 1974). Also, if the authority convinces a person to do a small task first, that person is more likely to carry out bigger tasks later (Freedman & Fraser, 1966).
To demonstrate these ideas, I sent people the following survey without the concept that it is supposed to test which I’ve included in parenthesis.
Imagine that you are walking, simply minding your own business, when someone tells you to hit the nearest person. Assume you don’t know the person telling you or the person you potentially hit.
First off, how likely are you to hit a person if told to?
Under each of the following circumstances tell whether or not you think you would listen to the person telling you to hit someone. If you don't want to put a yes/no answer, give a percentage of the time you think you would listen to them.
1) You're in the FBI building, and a security guard tells you to. (status of establishment)
2) You're in a Walmart, and a security guard tells you to. (status of establishment)
3) Another student at Southwestern tells you to, and you can't hit that student. (status of figure)
4) The Southwestern police tell you to. (status of figure)
5) While walking down the street, a police officer tells you to. (proximity of figure)
6) While walking down the street, a police officer from a third story window tells you to. (proximity of figure)
7) You don't actually have to hit the person, but press a button that will activate a mechanical arm which will hit the person. Please try to exclude influence of the cool factor. (proximity of victim)(compared to original likelihood of hitting someone)
8) You're told if you hit someone, the person who told you to hit them will take responsibility for your actions. (responsibility)
9) You're told if you hit someone, you will have to take responsibility for your actions.(responsibility)
10) You have to tell someone else to hit somebody, but you don't have to hit anyone yourself. (transmitter vs. executant)(compared to original likelihood of hitting someone)
11) At first you're told only to give someone a light tap. Afterward you're told to make it a little harder, then you're supposed to hit them. (foot-in-the-door technique)(compared to original)
Six people responded to the survey. The average percent that people felt they would hit another person is 15.8%. For the first question with a high establishment status figure, they predicted they would obey 55% of the time. For the low establishment status figure, the prediction dropped to 2.5%. The third question issued the command from a low personal status figure, and the prediction was they would obey 5% of the time. For the high(er) personal status figure, the prediction rose to 11.7 %. Participants answered that they would obey 20.8% in the close proximity situation compared to 9.2% in the far proximity situation. Though the cool factor was hard to ignore in the victim proximity case, participants predicted they would obey 26.7% instead of the original 15.8% of the time. For the situation in which the figure took responsibility, participants said they would obey 26.7% of the time, and for the situation in which the person took responsibility, participants said only 3.3% of the time. The smallest obedience yet. In the role of the transmitter instead of executant, predictions were 16.7% instead of the original 15.8%. Lastly, for the foot-in-the-door condition, predictions jumped to 21.7% compared to the original 15.8%
Though the results generally support the trends, some of the concepts weren’t really meant to be tested by survey. The foot-in-the-door technique (which I’m actually surprised worked) is not meant to have each step presented all at once. The point is to ease people into doing the action, and that is not captured in two sentences. Also some participants predicted they would obey the Southwestern student instead of the Southwestern police, so esteem for Southwestern students versus for Southwestern police could have biased their responses. The twist to the results is that one of the six participants (who has been studying a lot of Holocaust this semester) answered 0% to every answer, and the results I gave include her responses factoring into the averages.
Using the foot-in-the-door technique myself, after I asked the small favor of filling out a short survey. I asked a bigger favor, for 3 of the participants to video their results. This is why we’re reading from papers, I didn’t script them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDJjovaGTnA
The funniest part is that these are all people that live in BC 2 with me, and the first video participant said that she would do what I said because I was simply wearing a suit jacket over my normal clothes. When in real life, I’m nothing more than her suitemate.
Blass, T. (1992). The social psychology of Stanley Milgram. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 227-329.
Kilham, W., & Mann, L. (1974). Level of destructive obedience as a function of transmitter and executant roles in the Milgram obedience paradigm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 696-702.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row.
Miller, A. G. (1986). The obedience experiments: A case study of controversy in social science. New York: Praeger.
Tilker, H. A. (1970). Socially responsible behavior as a function of observer responsibility and victim feedback. Journal of personality and Social Psychology, 14, 95-100.
Subsets under the authority figure are the figure’s status (affected by both location and the person) and the proximity of the figure. The higher the status of the establishment from which the figure comes from and/or the higher status of the person themselves, the more likely people will obey his or her orders (Milgram, 1974). Furthermore, the farther away the figure is, the less likely people will obey his or her orders (Milgram, 1974).
The subset under the victim is proximity A person is typically more willing to inflict harm on another person that they cannot see, and from whom they can psychologically distance themselves (Miller, 1986, p. 228). Obedience drops when the victim is in the same room as the obedient person, and drops farther when the obedient person has to touch the victim in order to follow instructions which are harmful (Milgram, 1974).
The subsets under the procedure are a sense of responsibility, transmitter vs. executant role, and the foot-in-the-door technique. If the person feels that he or she is responsible for his or her actions, that person is less likely to cause harm to another person than if someone else is willing to take responsibility (Tilker, 1970). The transmitter is a role which only requires the transmittance of an action, not thinking of the idea or carrying out the action. The executant executes the actually command. People will more likely follow destructive orders in a transmitter role than an executant role (Kilham & Mann, 1974). Also, if the authority convinces a person to do a small task first, that person is more likely to carry out bigger tasks later (Freedman & Fraser, 1966).
To demonstrate these ideas, I sent people the following survey without the concept that it is supposed to test which I’ve included in parenthesis.
Imagine that you are walking, simply minding your own business, when someone tells you to hit the nearest person. Assume you don’t know the person telling you or the person you potentially hit.
First off, how likely are you to hit a person if told to?
Under each of the following circumstances tell whether or not you think you would listen to the person telling you to hit someone. If you don't want to put a yes/no answer, give a percentage of the time you think you would listen to them.
1) You're in the FBI building, and a security guard tells you to. (status of establishment)
2) You're in a Walmart, and a security guard tells you to. (status of establishment)
3) Another student at Southwestern tells you to, and you can't hit that student. (status of figure)
4) The Southwestern police tell you to. (status of figure)
5) While walking down the street, a police officer tells you to. (proximity of figure)
6) While walking down the street, a police officer from a third story window tells you to. (proximity of figure)
7) You don't actually have to hit the person, but press a button that will activate a mechanical arm which will hit the person. Please try to exclude influence of the cool factor. (proximity of victim)(compared to original likelihood of hitting someone)
8) You're told if you hit someone, the person who told you to hit them will take responsibility for your actions. (responsibility)
9) You're told if you hit someone, you will have to take responsibility for your actions.(responsibility)
10) You have to tell someone else to hit somebody, but you don't have to hit anyone yourself. (transmitter vs. executant)(compared to original likelihood of hitting someone)
11) At first you're told only to give someone a light tap. Afterward you're told to make it a little harder, then you're supposed to hit them. (foot-in-the-door technique)(compared to original)
Six people responded to the survey. The average percent that people felt they would hit another person is 15.8%. For the first question with a high establishment status figure, they predicted they would obey 55% of the time. For the low establishment status figure, the prediction dropped to 2.5%. The third question issued the command from a low personal status figure, and the prediction was they would obey 5% of the time. For the high(er) personal status figure, the prediction rose to 11.7 %. Participants answered that they would obey 20.8% in the close proximity situation compared to 9.2% in the far proximity situation. Though the cool factor was hard to ignore in the victim proximity case, participants predicted they would obey 26.7% instead of the original 15.8% of the time. For the situation in which the figure took responsibility, participants said they would obey 26.7% of the time, and for the situation in which the person took responsibility, participants said only 3.3% of the time. The smallest obedience yet. In the role of the transmitter instead of executant, predictions were 16.7% instead of the original 15.8%. Lastly, for the foot-in-the-door condition, predictions jumped to 21.7% compared to the original 15.8%
Though the results generally support the trends, some of the concepts weren’t really meant to be tested by survey. The foot-in-the-door technique (which I’m actually surprised worked) is not meant to have each step presented all at once. The point is to ease people into doing the action, and that is not captured in two sentences. Also some participants predicted they would obey the Southwestern student instead of the Southwestern police, so esteem for Southwestern students versus for Southwestern police could have biased their responses. The twist to the results is that one of the six participants (who has been studying a lot of Holocaust this semester) answered 0% to every answer, and the results I gave include her responses factoring into the averages.
Using the foot-in-the-door technique myself, after I asked the small favor of filling out a short survey. I asked a bigger favor, for 3 of the participants to video their results. This is why we’re reading from papers, I didn’t script them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDJjovaGTnA
The funniest part is that these are all people that live in BC 2 with me, and the first video participant said that she would do what I said because I was simply wearing a suit jacket over my normal clothes. When in real life, I’m nothing more than her suitemate.
Blass, T. (1992). The social psychology of Stanley Milgram. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 227-329.
Kilham, W., & Mann, L. (1974). Level of destructive obedience as a function of transmitter and executant roles in the Milgram obedience paradigm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 696-702.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.
Milgram, S. (1974). Obedience to authority: An experimental view. New York: Harper & Row.
Miller, A. G. (1986). The obedience experiments: A case study of controversy in social science. New York: Praeger.
Tilker, H. A. (1970). Socially responsible behavior as a function of observer responsibility and victim feedback. Journal of personality and Social Psychology, 14, 95-100.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Obedience and Defiance in the Corps
The term obedience refers to a person's change in behavior caused by a direct command from an authority figure (Milgram, 1963). The reason that obedience is tricky in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M for freshmen is because the people that are training you are at the most three years older than you, and the sophomores who really get in your face were in your exact position only a year ago. Still as a freshman, everyone is your superior except other freshman, so you do what they say including class sets of push-ups (your class year plus 100, so for class of '11 = 111), memorize and recite campusologies (information about the college which range from 3-70 lines), sprint through the hallways of the dorm, sit a certain way at outfit meeting, always have your shirt tucked in with a belt, the list goes on and on.
However, if they just smacked you in the face with all of these new rules from the beginning, no one would ever stay in the Corps. To get you to stay in the Corps, they use the foot-in-the-door technique which starts with easy requests and gradually builds to more demanding requests (Cialdini, 2007). For example, one requirement is that you greet all upperclassmen whenever you see them. To make this easy, at first you don't know theirs names, so you simply call them Mr./Ms. Smith. Then you have to call them by their real names. Then you have to call them by their names, hometown, and major. So a process that starts with "Howdy Mr./Ms. Smith, sir/ma'am" ends with "Howdy Mr./Ms. (last name) sir/ma'am, from (city, state), taking (major) sir/ma'am". A seemingly impossible tasks when you first arrive with 300 band members to meet. But when you chose to be in the Corps, and they start with Mr./Ms. Smith, by the time you get to "greeting three deep", you have a self-image that you're able to fulfill that requirement. Plus there is some serious effort justification going on by then.
Defiance, or refusing to follow orders from an authority, can be contagious (Levine, 1969). This is why in the Corps, even defiance is obedience. There is one way you're allowed to be deviant in the Corps, and everything else is strictly punished. This defiance is called a "pull-out". During a pull-out you defy some rule such as refusing to do push-ups or dumping a bucket of water on the sophomores as they burst into your room at 5:30 to wake you up with the sweet sound of them yelling at the top of their lungs. Under no circumstances are some rules to be broken though. For example, you never pull-out upperclassmen's first names. One of my buddies called an upperclassman by her first name one time (because we know them all, but we're just not allowed to say it), and the punishment was 15 minutes of straight push-ups. The catch was that the buddy who said the name didn't do them with us, but called count as we did them. He was crying by the time we were done, and no one ever did that again.
Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: HarperCollins.
Levine, J. M. (1989). Reaction to opinion deviance in small groups. In P. B. Paulus (Ed.), Psychology of group influence (2nd ed., pp 187-231). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.
However, if they just smacked you in the face with all of these new rules from the beginning, no one would ever stay in the Corps. To get you to stay in the Corps, they use the foot-in-the-door technique which starts with easy requests and gradually builds to more demanding requests (Cialdini, 2007). For example, one requirement is that you greet all upperclassmen whenever you see them. To make this easy, at first you don't know theirs names, so you simply call them Mr./Ms. Smith. Then you have to call them by their real names. Then you have to call them by their names, hometown, and major. So a process that starts with "Howdy Mr./Ms. Smith, sir/ma'am" ends with "Howdy Mr./Ms. (last name) sir/ma'am, from (city, state), taking (major) sir/ma'am". A seemingly impossible tasks when you first arrive with 300 band members to meet. But when you chose to be in the Corps, and they start with Mr./Ms. Smith, by the time you get to "greeting three deep", you have a self-image that you're able to fulfill that requirement. Plus there is some serious effort justification going on by then.
Defiance, or refusing to follow orders from an authority, can be contagious (Levine, 1969). This is why in the Corps, even defiance is obedience. There is one way you're allowed to be deviant in the Corps, and everything else is strictly punished. This defiance is called a "pull-out". During a pull-out you defy some rule such as refusing to do push-ups or dumping a bucket of water on the sophomores as they burst into your room at 5:30 to wake you up with the sweet sound of them yelling at the top of their lungs. Under no circumstances are some rules to be broken though. For example, you never pull-out upperclassmen's first names. One of my buddies called an upperclassman by her first name one time (because we know them all, but we're just not allowed to say it), and the punishment was 15 minutes of straight push-ups. The catch was that the buddy who said the name didn't do them with us, but called count as we did them. He was crying by the time we were done, and no one ever did that again.
Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The psychology of persuasion. New York: HarperCollins.
Levine, J. M. (1989). Reaction to opinion deviance in small groups. In P. B. Paulus (Ed.), Psychology of group influence (2nd ed., pp 187-231). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, 371-378.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Coming to Like What We Suffer For
Like I've said before, I'm a transfer student from Texas A&M. What you might not know is that I was a proud member of the Fighting Texas Aggie Cadet Corps, a hop and skip away from going to a military academy without the benefit of a tier 1 education. While I was in the Corps, I definitely experienced the effects of cognitive dissonance, a theory which states that when our actions and attitudes don't line up, we feel psychological tension just like hunger and are motivated to reduce it (Festinger, 1957). One of the ways to reduce cognitive dissonance, especially since our past behaviors can't be changed, is to adjust our attitudes to bring them in line with our behaviors thus resolving that tension. A study by Aronson and Mills (1959) supported that one way we do this is by effort justification, or changing our attitude to justify the effort we put into it. Therefore, we like what we suffer for no matter what the reality is.
While we were watching the video of the Marines being pinned with their gold wing pins, I remembered one of my experiences before. Obviously not as bad as having a pin being pins into my chest, but it involved some blood. Band members in the corps have to earn two sets of "brass" which we wear on our collars. Until we earn these brass, we wear two "AMU" brass on each collar which, among other things, clearing labels us as freshman, or fish in the Corps, not a good position to be in (our first names are actually changed to fish (with a lowercase f) and we have no first names until sophomore year). By earning the brass, we earn our place. Because we are in the band, "corps brass" (what the rest of the Corps wears) isn't as important as the "band lyre" which is actually what we will wear the rest of the four years. In way, the band has it worse because we have to earn both our place in the corps and in the band. We earn our lyres all first semester and they are given to us at the A&M vs. UT game on Thanksgiving. To earn our corps brass, we undergo a process called "Junior Hell Week" or "Junior Focus Week" for the parents.
Normally only the sophomores get on the fish's case about everything we do, and juniors only get upset when we do something really bad. During Junior Hell Week, they act like the sophomores, with the added bonus that when they make us do "corrective physical training" they don't have to do it with us like the sophomores. So not only do we do "corrective physical training" every weekday for at least an hour and a half (with a 2 hour Saturday session thrown in), but it's a harder work out than anything we've done before.
The instance in particular that I was reminded of was when we went to the park on campus (it's not hazing if they do it where other people can see, except no one is around to see at 5:30 in the morning). During the course of the workout, we did monkey bars over and over and over. So much that the skin on the more callous part of my palms torn back and left nice little flaps of skin for dirt to get caught under when we immediately went to do push-ups on ground afterward. I tried to wash them in the water fountain when we were given a water break, but we were too rushed to do much good. Plus then it was right back in the dirt. After our workout, we ran back to get into uniform for morning formation, but changing into class uniform from pt uniform takes enough time. I only had time to wash my hands with soap and stick bandages on. After breakfast, I cared for my hands as much as I could, but with all of the activity, they took a long time to heal.
The point in all of this, is at the time that it happened, I loved the Corps because I chose this for myself. I was putting so much into it and sacrificing so much for it, I had to really really like it justify my behavior because of cognitive dissonance. To this day, I say that the Corps wasn't that bad, and I'm glad I did it. But kinda like the people at Jonestown, I don't know what the Cause was. Sure I have some generic lessons I learned, but if you ask me why I did it, I probably would never tell you the same thing twice.
Sorry, for the long blog, but writing it has been soothing. I also gained 30 pounds almost immediately after leaving the corps because I had gotten quite used to eating whatever I wanted without any effect. My diet struggle while adjusting to the demands of Southwestern's academics is another cognitive dissonance story maybe for a test question like we had on the last test (wink at Dr. G.).
Tune in next week for some fascinating stories about obedience. :).
Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 177-181.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
While we were watching the video of the Marines being pinned with their gold wing pins, I remembered one of my experiences before. Obviously not as bad as having a pin being pins into my chest, but it involved some blood. Band members in the corps have to earn two sets of "brass" which we wear on our collars. Until we earn these brass, we wear two "AMU" brass on each collar which, among other things, clearing labels us as freshman, or fish in the Corps, not a good position to be in (our first names are actually changed to fish (with a lowercase f) and we have no first names until sophomore year). By earning the brass, we earn our place. Because we are in the band, "corps brass" (what the rest of the Corps wears) isn't as important as the "band lyre" which is actually what we will wear the rest of the four years. In way, the band has it worse because we have to earn both our place in the corps and in the band. We earn our lyres all first semester and they are given to us at the A&M vs. UT game on Thanksgiving. To earn our corps brass, we undergo a process called "Junior Hell Week" or "Junior Focus Week" for the parents.
Normally only the sophomores get on the fish's case about everything we do, and juniors only get upset when we do something really bad. During Junior Hell Week, they act like the sophomores, with the added bonus that when they make us do "corrective physical training" they don't have to do it with us like the sophomores. So not only do we do "corrective physical training" every weekday for at least an hour and a half (with a 2 hour Saturday session thrown in), but it's a harder work out than anything we've done before.
The instance in particular that I was reminded of was when we went to the park on campus (it's not hazing if they do it where other people can see, except no one is around to see at 5:30 in the morning). During the course of the workout, we did monkey bars over and over and over. So much that the skin on the more callous part of my palms torn back and left nice little flaps of skin for dirt to get caught under when we immediately went to do push-ups on ground afterward. I tried to wash them in the water fountain when we were given a water break, but we were too rushed to do much good. Plus then it was right back in the dirt. After our workout, we ran back to get into uniform for morning formation, but changing into class uniform from pt uniform takes enough time. I only had time to wash my hands with soap and stick bandages on. After breakfast, I cared for my hands as much as I could, but with all of the activity, they took a long time to heal.
The point in all of this, is at the time that it happened, I loved the Corps because I chose this for myself. I was putting so much into it and sacrificing so much for it, I had to really really like it justify my behavior because of cognitive dissonance. To this day, I say that the Corps wasn't that bad, and I'm glad I did it. But kinda like the people at Jonestown, I don't know what the Cause was. Sure I have some generic lessons I learned, but if you ask me why I did it, I probably would never tell you the same thing twice.
Sorry, for the long blog, but writing it has been soothing. I also gained 30 pounds almost immediately after leaving the corps because I had gotten quite used to eating whatever I wanted without any effect. My diet struggle while adjusting to the demands of Southwestern's academics is another cognitive dissonance story maybe for a test question like we had on the last test (wink at Dr. G.).
Tune in next week for some fascinating stories about obedience. :).
Aronson, E., & Mills, J. (1959). The effect of severity of initiation on liking for a group. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 177-181.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Persuasion
Persuasion, a process that changes attitudes, can occur in two different ways. When we are motivated to analyze and elaborate, or think carefully and scrutinize persuasive information, we take the central route to persuasion (Greenwald, 1968; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). In the central route, the strength and quality of the argument matters most (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). The other route I'll come back to later. A strong predictor that people will take the central route is their level of involvement in the subject (Petty & Cacioppo, 1984). For example, if someone is buying a car, he or she is more likely to evaluate important issues such as gas mileage, crash test ratings, number of seats, etc. However, if that same someone brings a friend along, the friend is more likely to consider more trivial issues such as which car is prettier, which brand has the best color of red paint, how many beer cases can fit in the back seat, etc. The friend's route to persuasion is called the peripheral route in which the message is not important, but the external cues are (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).
A time when my attitudes were persuaded via the central route is when I decided to transfer schools. The persuader was my boyfriend who off-handedly mentioned how nice it would be to go to the same school our last night together at home before we left for spring semester. I had never thought of transferring before, and started to think about it quite seriously by looking up statistics and facts and opinions of others online. And as I thought about my first semester in which I wrote no papers, got a 4.0 without working harder than in high school, etc. it started to become a better and better idea. Before I knew it I was filling out an application, then scheduling and interview, then looking at financial aid offers, then ta-da. This situation included a lot of personal involvement considering it could decide my future, so I took the central route of persuasion.
A time when my attitudes were persuaded by the peripheral route is whenever I pick out a shampoo. Though I am personally involved, the issue simply isn't very important to me, so I am not motivated to elaborate on it very much. Whenever I go buy shampoo, I go to the store and just look at all of the different shampoo bottles. I let cues like brand, color, bottle, scent, etc. influence my decision rather than turning over every bottle and looking at the ingredients then looking up what the ingredient is supposed to do online ... blah blah blah. I end up picking the on in the prettiest bottle with the best smell despite whether it will give my hair the most volume or curl (neither of which I need). Because I rely on cues instead of the content of the argument to choose shampoo, I am using the peripheral route.
Greenwald, A. G. (1968). Cognitive learning, cognitive responses to persuasion, an attitude change. In A. Greenwald, T. Brock, & T. Ostrom (Eds.), Psychological foundations of attidudes (pp.147-170). New York: Academic Press.
Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T. (1984). The effects of involvement on response to argument quantity and quality: Central and peripheral routes to persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 69-81.
Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. New York: Springer-Verlag.
A time when my attitudes were persuaded via the central route is when I decided to transfer schools. The persuader was my boyfriend who off-handedly mentioned how nice it would be to go to the same school our last night together at home before we left for spring semester. I had never thought of transferring before, and started to think about it quite seriously by looking up statistics and facts and opinions of others online. And as I thought about my first semester in which I wrote no papers, got a 4.0 without working harder than in high school, etc. it started to become a better and better idea. Before I knew it I was filling out an application, then scheduling and interview, then looking at financial aid offers, then ta-da. This situation included a lot of personal involvement considering it could decide my future, so I took the central route of persuasion.
A time when my attitudes were persuaded by the peripheral route is whenever I pick out a shampoo. Though I am personally involved, the issue simply isn't very important to me, so I am not motivated to elaborate on it very much. Whenever I go buy shampoo, I go to the store and just look at all of the different shampoo bottles. I let cues like brand, color, bottle, scent, etc. influence my decision rather than turning over every bottle and looking at the ingredients then looking up what the ingredient is supposed to do online ... blah blah blah. I end up picking the on in the prettiest bottle with the best smell despite whether it will give my hair the most volume or curl (neither of which I need). Because I rely on cues instead of the content of the argument to choose shampoo, I am using the peripheral route.
Greenwald, A. G. (1968). Cognitive learning, cognitive responses to persuasion, an attitude change. In A. Greenwald, T. Brock, & T. Ostrom (Eds.), Psychological foundations of attidudes (pp.147-170). New York: Academic Press.
Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T. (1984). The effects of involvement on response to argument quantity and quality: Central and peripheral routes to persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 69-81.
Petty, R. E., Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. New York: Springer-Verlag.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Attitude as a predictor of Behavior
Most people would take for granted that our attitudes, or our positive and/or negative evaluations in reaction to a person, object, or idea (Petty & Chaiken, 2004), are directly related to our behaviors. LaPiere (1934) discovered that this is not necessarily the case. Many factors influence whether our behaviors follow our attitudes (Glasman & Albarracin, 2006). One of these factors is the strength of the attitude, and one of the factors that contributes to the strength of the attitude about something is the amount of information we have about it (Davidson et al., 1985).
This concept is true for me in political elections in two ways. First, when I was little, and I didn't know very much about elections, government, or current presidents (I say current because every self-respecting little kid knows oodles about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln). My attitude about elections was not very strong partly because I didn't know anything about the candidates running at the national level much less lower levels. If I had known more about candidates running for office, my attitude would be stronger which would cause a change in my behavior such as asking my parents to vote for a certain candidate.
Second, with my first presidential election in which I can vote coming up, I didn't know much until recently. Because I didn't have much information, my attitudes were not very strong, and I committed the crime of not voting in the primary (awful, I know). If I had known more, I would have had stronger attitudes, and been more likely to vote. Now that I do know a good bit about the candidates, I'm am surely going to vote in the general election coming up.
Glasman, L. R., & Albarracin, D. (2006). Forming attitudes that predict future behavior: A meta-analysis of the attitude-behavior relation. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 778-822.
LaPiere, R. T. (1934). Attitudes vs. action. Social Forces, 13, 230-237.
Petty, R. E., & Chaiken, S. (Eds.). (2004). Key readings in attitudes and persuasion. London: Taylor & Francis.
This concept is true for me in political elections in two ways. First, when I was little, and I didn't know very much about elections, government, or current presidents (I say current because every self-respecting little kid knows oodles about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln). My attitude about elections was not very strong partly because I didn't know anything about the candidates running at the national level much less lower levels. If I had known more about candidates running for office, my attitude would be stronger which would cause a change in my behavior such as asking my parents to vote for a certain candidate.
Second, with my first presidential election in which I can vote coming up, I didn't know much until recently. Because I didn't have much information, my attitudes were not very strong, and I committed the crime of not voting in the primary (awful, I know). If I had known more, I would have had stronger attitudes, and been more likely to vote. Now that I do know a good bit about the candidates, I'm am surely going to vote in the general election coming up.
Glasman, L. R., & Albarracin, D. (2006). Forming attitudes that predict future behavior: A meta-analysis of the attitude-behavior relation. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 778-822.
LaPiere, R. T. (1934). Attitudes vs. action. Social Forces, 13, 230-237.
Petty, R. E., & Chaiken, S. (Eds.). (2004). Key readings in attitudes and persuasion. London: Taylor & Francis.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
A 95% White Community
When I moved to Wylie at age 4, it had a population around 10,000 and was 95% Caucasian. I cannot remember encountering anyone from a different race until I was in intermediate school (5-6 grade). Even then, I can only think of about 4 people who were African-American, and a couple of people who were Indian. The brother and sister who were Indian were easy to tell apart because one was male and one was female. However, no matter how hard I tried, I could not tell the boys who were African-American apart. To me they all looked the same. They were not in my ingroup, or people in the same social group as me; they were part of an outgroup, or social group that I didn't belong to, that I had very little contact with, so I thought they were more similar than they actually were. This is called the outgroup homogeneity effect (Linville & Jones, 1980).
As you can probably guess, as an ignorant 5th or 6th grader this mistake got me in a lot of trouble one day. I avoided as much as possible calling these guys by their names not because I didn't know them, but because I couldn't tell who was who. Inevitably, one day, I could not avoid saying one's name. I had a 25% chance of getting it right, and of course I didn't. So what else am I supposed to do but try again? Wrong again. It was not looking to turn into a good situation, so I just stopped and prepared for my punishment. He came close to me and asked, "Why don't you know my name? Is it because we all look the same?" I had no choice but to answer yes because it was the truth, and I'm not good at lying. A flash of fury ran across his eyes, but then he said, "It's okay, you all look the same to me too." What a relief. This insight helped me to understand that not just African-Americans look the same, but anyone in our outgroups looks the same. Luckily, the more I became acquainted with people of different races, the more I was able to realize the subtle differences between all people.
Linville, P. W., & Jones, E. E. (1980). Polarized appraisals of outgroup members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 689-703.
As you can probably guess, as an ignorant 5th or 6th grader this mistake got me in a lot of trouble one day. I avoided as much as possible calling these guys by their names not because I didn't know them, but because I couldn't tell who was who. Inevitably, one day, I could not avoid saying one's name. I had a 25% chance of getting it right, and of course I didn't. So what else am I supposed to do but try again? Wrong again. It was not looking to turn into a good situation, so I just stopped and prepared for my punishment. He came close to me and asked, "Why don't you know my name? Is it because we all look the same?" I had no choice but to answer yes because it was the truth, and I'm not good at lying. A flash of fury ran across his eyes, but then he said, "It's okay, you all look the same to me too." What a relief. This insight helped me to understand that not just African-Americans look the same, but anyone in our outgroups looks the same. Luckily, the more I became acquainted with people of different races, the more I was able to realize the subtle differences between all people.
Linville, P. W., & Jones, E. E. (1980). Polarized appraisals of outgroup members. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 689-703.
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