PSYC 215 Chapter Notes - Chapter 7: Cognitive Dissonance, Fudge, Automatic Behavior

• School: McGill University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 215
• Professor: Mark Baldwin

Document Summary

Chapter 7: attitudes, behavior, and rati onalization (228-265) When you see a scrumptious hot fudge sundae, your mind prepares your body for the action of consumption. Likert s(cid:272)ale: a (cid:374)u(cid:373)eri(cid:272)al s(cid:272)ale used to assess people"s attitudes; i(cid:374)(cid:272)ludes a set of possi(cid:271)le answer with labeled anchors on each extreme. E(cid:454)a(cid:373)ple: use of (cid:272)ellpho(cid:374)e (cid:449)hile dri(cid:448)i(cid:374)g, fro(cid:373) 1 (cid:862)it"s (cid:374)e(cid:448)er a(cid:272)(cid:272)epta(cid:271)le(cid:863) to 7 (cid:862)it"s al(cid:449)a(cid:455)s a(cid:272)(cid:272)epta(cid:271)le(cid:863) That scale sucks when it comes to attitudes towards capital punishment or environmentalism. Response latency: the amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus, such as an attitude question. Someone who answers in a shorter period of time has greater accessibility, and is therefore likely to have a stronger attitude on the topic than someone who takes several seconds before answering. Ce(cid:374)tralit(cid:455) of a(cid:374) attitude to the perso(cid:374)"s (cid:271)elief s(cid:455)ste(cid:373): if (cid:455)our poi(cid:374)t of (cid:448)ie(cid:449) o(cid:374) a topi(cid:272) is very important to you, it should highly correlate with your attitudes about certain other issues.