PSYC 2740 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Stanford Prison Experiment, Cognitive Dissonance, Philip Zimbardo

• School: University of Denver
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 2740
• Professor: Pamela Miller

Document Summary

Attitude -- positive or negative reaction to various persons, objects and ideas. Attitude object -- the entity toward which the attitude is directed. Affective (the only part we use today)(emotional reaction) Attitudes did not predict behavior as well as social psychologists thought they would: uncertain identi cation of attitude object. Behavior toward one attitude object can be controlled by the attitude toward another: the experiment - chinese couple travelled all over us to observe discrimination. Refused service once(behavior), 92% refused to accept guests(attitude: when do attitudes predict behavior, high correspondence between attitude measure and behavior in question; same speci city. Based on direct experience (fazio & zanna, 1981) Self-presentation theory: we do not want to look foolishly inconsistent. Pretend an attitude that matches our behavior (behavior leads to hypocritical attitude change: our attitude does not truly change. Festinger & carlsmith (1959) attitude so we do not feel bad.