Exam Information

Everything that is on the slides and everything that I have said is potentially examinable (i.e., all the examples, the names of researchers, their findings, etc) There is no required reading from the textbook (REQUIRED) The Stanford Prison Experiment website is potentially examinable http://www.prisonexp.org

Lecture 7:
Social Perception II
Stereotypes & Attitudes

& Summary

Outline
Social Perception Stereotypes
Self-fulfilling Prophecies

Attitudes
Attitudes and behaviour Cognitive dissonance

Conclusions

Stereotypes
What is a stereotype?
A belief that associates a group of people with certain traits Not necessarily negative, but may have negative connotations

Studying Stereotypes
3 levels of stereotypes in todays research 1. Public
what we say to others about a group

2. Private
what we consciously think about a group, but dont say to others

3. Implicit
unconscious mental associations guiding our judgments and actions without our conscious awareness

Assessing Implicit Stereotypes

One way of assessing implicit stereotypes is through priming (when participants are
unaware that a stereotype is being activated & cant work to suppress it)

e.g., Bargh and his colleagues Participants read word lists, some lists include words like grey, Bingo, and wrinkle. FOUND: Participants with old word lists walked to elevators significantly more slowly

On average, any two randomly chosen humans are 99.8% alike in the alphabetic sequence in their genetic code. Only 6% of their 0.2% difference is racial; 9% represents ethnic differences within races (e.g., between French and Italians); 85% is individual differences within ones group Myers (2004, p. 662)

Ok, so we have stereotypical thoughts now and then, but they are just thoughts, right, they cant hurt anyone, can they?

SelfSelf-Fulfilling Prophecies
When our beliefs and expectations create reality by influencing the behaviour of ourselves and others. Pygmalion effect Person A believes that person B has a particular characteristic Person B may begin to behave in accordance with that characteristic

 Rosenthal & Fode

tested whether labelling would affect outcome divided students into 2 groups and gave them randomly selected rats 1 group was told they had a group of super genius rats and the other was told they had a group of super moron rats all students told to train rats to run mazes

FOUND: Genius rat group ended up doing better than the moron rat group because of the expectations (and subsequent behaviour) of the students

Rosenthal & Jacobson (1968)

Went to a school and gave IQ tests to kids Told teachers that the test was a spurters test However, they actually randomly selected several kids and told the teacher they were spurters They then returned and gave the kids another IQ test at end of year

FOUND: Spurters showed significant improvements in their IQ scores because of their teachers expectations (and subsequent behaviour toward them) Thus, we have to be careful of our expectations and our labels because they inform our behaviour (and hence our expectations become reality)

Attitudes
What are attitudes? Beliefs and feelings that predispose our reactions to objects, people, and events

Attitudes consist of three components

1. Affect (what we feel toward that object/person/event) 2. Cognition (what we think about that object/person/event) 3. Behaviour (how we act toward that object/person/event)

Attitudes and Behaviour

We take it for granted that our attitudes will guide our actions

La Piere (1934)
Was interested in the relation between attitudes and behaviour Took a road trip with a Chinese American couple across America. At this time, prejudice against Asians was widespread Predicted that people would not serve them

FOUND:
Only 1 person was negative toward the couple Then La Piere sent out questionnaires to each place they visited asking whether they would serve Asians Found that people stated that they would not serve Asians Thus a discrepancy between their attitudes and behaviour

But there is some evidence that our actions can also affect our attitudes

Role play can affect our attitudes What we do, we gradually become

Fake it till you make it

Roberts (1977)
Found that women who do administrative or professional work become more confident and assertive over time Thus, using role-play, we can change our attitudes for good or for evil

But even minimal actions can influence our attitudes

Wells & Petty (1980)
Asked participants to make vertical or horizontal head motions while listening to a radio editorial Wanted to know: which group would agree most with the editorial? FOUND: The nodding group agreed most with the editorial

Cacioppo & colleagues (1993)

Asked participants to rate Chinese characters when pressing their arms upward (i.e., moving toward them) or downward (i.e., pushing them away) Which flex condition would lead to positive ratings?

FOUND The upward flex led to more positive ratings (as the action is compatible with bringing something toward yousomething you would usually do if you find the object pleasant)

So why do our actions affect our attitudes?

Festinger (1957)
Cognitive dissonance theory
We need our attitudes to be consistent with our behaviour When they are not, we experience tension (called cognitive dissonance)

We then try to decrease the discomfort caused by inconsistency, typically by bringing our attitudes in line with our actions We start to think If I chose to do it (or say it) I must believe it The more responsible we feel for a troubling act, the more dissonance we feel, the more likely we are to try to regain consistency by changing our attitudes

Phil Zimbardo and his colleagues (1964)

Do people change their attitudes to be more consistent with their behaviour? Or does attitude change depend upon how responsible they feel for the discrepancy between their attitudes and their actions?

Participants were told to eat as many fried grasshoppers as they could (though they were informed that it was voluntary and they didnt have to eat any if they didnt want to).

Participants were asked to eat fried grasshoppers by one of two experimenters

A nice experimenter A nasty experimenter

Then asked participants to rate how much they liked the grasshoppers, and how willing they were to endorse the grasshoppers to other participants

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Found:
Participants who had the nasty experimenter stated that they liked the grasshoppers more and endorsed them more positively than participants with the nice experimenter Why? If the experimenter was nice, you had a reason for eating the grasshoppers (Im doing it as a favour for the nice experimenter). But if the experimenter was nasty, the only reason that you had for eating the grasshopper was that you must like it (i.e., cognitive dissonance kicks in)

So when will attitudes guide our behaviour?

Attitudes will guide our actions if 1. Outside influences on what we say and do are minimal

2. The attitude is specifically relevant to the behaviour e.g., our attitude about health may not predict whether or not we jog, but our attitude toward jogging will.

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3. We are very aware of that attitude

e.g., Powell and Fazio (1984) found that

repeatedly expressing an attitude makes it come to mind more quickly, and attitudes that come to mind quickly are the ones more likely to guide our behaviour

So what is the take home message?

Be aware that your attitudes and your actions are closely interwoven What you do, you become (going through the motions will lead to that emotion, fake it till you make it) Be careful of the labels that you use to describe others (they will influence your thoughts and actions)

Thank you all

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