PS270 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Amygdala, Condom, Implicit Stereotype
Document Summary
To know people"s attitudes is to predict their actions. Evaluative reactions toward something, often rooted in beliefs and exhibited in feelings and inclinations to act, define a person"s attitude. Abcs of attitudes: affect (feelings), behaviour tendency, and cognition (thoughts) Allan wicker concluded that people"s expressed attitudes hardly predicted their varying behaviours. Students attitudes toward cheating bore little relation to their likelihood of cheating, attitudes toward church only modestly linked with church attendance etc. When morality and greed are put on a collision course, greed wins. Our behaviour and expressed attitudes differ because both are subject to other influences. Other influences on what we say and do are minimal. When the attitude is specific to the behaviour. One method social psychologists use to minimize social influences on people"s attitude reports is measuring facial muscle responses to various statements. Uses reaction times to measure how quickly people associate concepts.
