PSYC 2000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 23: Cognitive Dissonance, Attitude Change, Direct Instruction
Psych notes 11/10/2016
Social psychology pt. 2
● Social cognition - mental processes people use to make sense of the world around them
○ Attitude - tendency to respond positively or negatively toward a certain person,
object, idea or situation
○ Three components of attitudes:
■ Affective (emotional) component
■ Behavioral (actions) component
■ Cognitive (thoughts) component
○ Attitudes are often poor predictors of behavior unless the attitude is very specific
or very strong
■ Ex. voting
○ Forming attitudes:
■ Direct contact with the person, situation, object, or idea
● Ex, eating vegetables
■ Direct instruction from parents or others
● Ex, being told smoking is bad or that you will like a certain movie
■ Interacting with other people who hold a certain attitude
● Ex, if your peer group likes playing a certain sport
■ Vicarious conditioning: watching the actions and reactions of others to
ideas, people, objects, and situations
● Ex, if you see that your mother is afraid of dogs
○ Attitude change:
■ Persuasion: the process by which one person tries to change the belief,
opinion, positions, or course of actions of another person through
argument, pleading, or explanation
● Key elements in persuasion are the source of the message, the
message itself, the target audience, and the medium
■ Elaboration likelihood model: people will either elaborate on the
persuasive message or fail to elaborate on it
● The future actions of those who do elaborate are more predictable
than those who do not
■ Central route: persuasion based on content and logic of the message
● High elaboration: careful processing of the info
● More durable attitude change
■ Peripheral route: persuasion based on non-message factors such as
attractiveness, emotion, credibility
● Low elaboration: minimal processing of the info
● Less durable attitude change
■ Cognitive dissonance: sense of discomfort or distress that occurs when a
person’s behavior does not correspond to that person’s attitudes
● Lessened by changing the conflicting behavior, changing the
conflicting attitude, or forming a new attitude to justify the behavior
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Document Summary
Social cognition - mental processes people use to make sense of the world around them. Attitude - tendency to respond positively or negatively toward a certain person, object, idea or situation. Attitudes are often poor predictors of behavior unless the attitude is very specific or very strong. Direct contact with the person, situation, object, or idea. Ex, being told smoking is bad or that you will like a certain movie. Interacting with other people who hold a certain attitude. Ex, if your peer group likes playing a certain sport. Vicarious conditioning: watching the actions and reactions of others to ideas, people, objects, and situations. Ex, if you see that your mother is afraid of dogs. Persuasion: the process by which one person tries to change the belief, opinion, positions, or course of actions of another person through argument, pleading, or explanation. Key elements in persuasion are the source of the message, the message itself, the target audience, and the medium.