Ebook Social psychology (9th edition): Part 2

www.downloadslide.com Review 203 Intergroup Friendships and Extended Contact l Having friends from outgroups is associated with decreased intergroup anxiety and prejudice. This link has been estab-lished in both correlational and experimental studies. l Research on the extended contact effect, also known as the indirect contact effect, demonstrates that having an ingroup friend who has a good and close relationship with a member of an outgroup can reduce one’s prejudice toward the outgroup. The Jigsaw Classroom l Schools often fail to meet the conditions for reducing preju-dice, in part because competition is too high. One program that is designed to foster intergroup cooperation and interde-pendence suggests that the right kinds of contact can improve attitudes and behaviors in a school setting. Shared Identities l Research on the Common Ingroup Identity Model has found that if members of different groups recategorize themselves as members of a more inclusive superordinate group, intergroup attitudes and relations tend to improve. l Members of minority groups or groups that have less power in a society may prefer and benefit more from dual-identity cat-egorizations that allow them to preserve their smaller group identity but to recognize their connection with the majority or more powerful group. Trust, Belonging, and Reducing Stereotype Threat l Even small changes in the situational factors that give rise to stereotype threat can reduce or eliminate their effects in par-ticular settings. l Individuals tend to be more protected against stereotype threats when they are made to feel a sense of trust and safety in the situation. l A study of middle schoolers showed that the simple inter-vention of asking students to think about values that were important to them dramatically improved the performance of African American students. l Stereotype threat can undermine an individual’s sense of belonging in a particular setting, such as in a school. Interven-tions that promote feelings of belonging have been effective in reducing stereotype threat effects. Exerting Self-Control l Trying to suppress stereotyping can be cognitively tiring. When age, fatigue, intoxication, or other cognitive impair-ment reduces people’s cognitive resources, they are less able to control their stereotypes. l People’s whose motivation to control their prejudice is exter-nally driven—that is, not wanting to appear to others to be prejudiced, tend to be less successful at exerting control than people whose motivation is internally driven—that is not wanting to be prejudiced, regardless of whether or not others would find out. l Some individuals can become relatively expert at regulating prejudiced responses because they recognize the situational factors that have caused them to fail to live up to their egalitar-ian ideals in the past. l A recent experiment suggests that antiprejudice messages that appeal more to internal reasons to control prejudice than exter-nal reasons are more effective. Appeals to externally driven factors, such as not wanting to get into trouble for appearing racist, can even backfire and increase expressions of prejudice. Changing Cognitions, Cultures, and Motivations l Recent research suggests several changes to how people think that can reduce stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination— such as thinking of examples that counter stereotypes, taking the perspective of others, learning that race is more ambiguous and socially determined than simply a genetic, fixed category, and taking a multicultural rather than colorblind approach to intergroup relations. l Changes in the kinds of information perpetuated in one’s cul-ture can alter how one perceives social groups. l Recent field experiments at American high schools and with a sample of people in Rwanda demonstrate the positive effects that peers and the media can have in promoting anti-prejudice norms. KEy TERMS ambivalent sexism (161) contact hypothesis (190) discrimination (155) illusory correlation (184) implicit racism (157) ingroup favoritism (176) ingroups (172) jigsaw classroom (193) modern racism (156) outgroup homogeneity effect (172) outgroups (172) prejudice (155) racism (155) realistic conflict theory (176) relative deprivation (176) sexism (155) social categorization (171) social dominance orientation (174) social identity theory (177) social role theory (181) stereotype (155) stereotype content model (174) stereotype threat (167) stigmatized (166) subliminal presentation (186) superordinate goal (175) system justification theory (174) MEDIA RESOuRCES Go to CengageBrain.com to access Psychology CourseMate, where you will find an interactive eBook, glossaries, flashcards, quizzes, videos, and more. Copyright 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. www.downloadslide.com Attitudes This chapter examines social influences on attitudes. We define attitudes and then discuss how they are measured and when they are related to behavior. Then we consider two methods of changing attitudes. First, we look at source, message, and audience factors that win persuasion through the media of communication. Second, we consider theories and research showing that people often change their attitudes as a consequence of their own actions. Copyright 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. www.downloadslide.com 6 The Study of Attitudes (206) How Attitudes Are Measured How Attitudes Are Formed The Link Between Attitudes and Behavior Persuasion by Communication (217) Two Routes to Persuasion The Source The Message The Audience Culture and Persuasion Persuasion by Our Own Actions (237) Role Playing: All the World’s a Stage Cognitive Dissonance Theory: The Classic Version Cognitive Dissonance Theory: A New Look Alternative Routes to Self-Persuasion Cultural Influences on Cognitive Dissonance Changing Attitudes (249) Review Key Terms Media Resources 205 Copyright 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. www.downloadslide.com 206 Chapter 6 Attitudes Al Qaeda. Abortion rights. The death penalty. Gay marriage. Rush Lim-baugh. Gun control. Israelis and Palestinians. Taxes. Anyone who has followed recent events in the United States—or anywhere else in the world, for that matter—knows how passionately people feel about the issues of the day. Attitudes and the mecha-nisms of attitude change, or persuasion, are a vital part of human social life. This chap-ter addresses three sets of questions: (1) What is an attitude, how can it be measured, and what is its link to behavior? (2) What kinds of persuasive messages lead people to change their attitudes? (3) Why do we often change our attitudes as a result of our own actions? The Study of Attitudes Are you a Democrat, Republican, or Independent? Should smoking be banned in public places? Would you rather listen to alternative rock, country-western, or hip-hop? Do you prefer drinking Coke or Pepsi, working on a PC or Mac, and using an iPhone, Droid, or BlackBerry? Should terrorism be contained by war or conciliation? As these questions suggest, each of us has positive and negative reactions to vari-ous persons, objects, and ideas. These reactions are called attitudes. Skim the chapters in this book, and you’ll see just how pervasive attitudes are. You’ll see, for example, that self-esteem is an attitude we hold about ourselves, that attraction is a positive attitude toward another person, and that prejudice is a negative attitude often directed against certain groups. Indeed, the study of attitudes—what they are, where they come from, how they can be measured, what causes them to change, and how they interact with behavior—is central to the whole field of social psychology (Bohner & Dickel, 2011; Crano & Prislin, 2008; Fazio & Petty, 2008; Perloff, 2010). PuttingCommon Senseto the Test Circle Your Answer An attitude is a positive, negative, or mixed evaluation of an object that is expressed at some level of intensity— nothing more, nothing less. Like, love, dislike, hate, admire, and detest are the kinds of words that people use to T F Researchers can tell if someone has a positive or negative attitude by measuring physiological arousal. T F In reacting to persuasive communications, people are influenced more by superficial images than by logical arguments. T F People are most easily persuaded by commercial messages that are presented without their awareness. T F The more money you pay people to tell a lie, the more they will come to believe it. T F People often come to like what they suffer for. describe their attitudes. It’s important to realize that atti-tudes cannot simply be represented along a single continuum ranging from wholly positive to wholly negative—as you might expect if attitudes were like the volume button on a remote control unit or the lever on a thermostat that raises or lowers temperature. Rather, as depicted in l Figure 6.1, our attitudes can vary in strength along both positive and negative dimensions. In other words, we can react to something with positive attitude A positive, negative, or mixed reaction to a person, object, or idea. affect, with negative affect, with ambivalence (strong but mixed emotions), or with apa-thy and indifference (Cacioppo et al., 1997). Some people more than others are troubled by this type of inconsistency (Newby-Clark et al., 2002). In fact, at times people can have both positive and negative reactions to the same attitude object without feeling conflict, Copyright 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. www.downloadslide.com The Study of Attitudes 207 as when we are conscious of one reaction but not the other. Someone who is openly positive toward racial minorities but harbors unconscious prejudice is a case in point (Wilson et al., 2000). Everyone routinely forms positive and/or negative evaluations of the people, places, objects, and ideas they encounter. This process is often immediate and automatic—much like a reflex action (Bargh et al., 1996; Ferguson, 2007). It now appears, however, that individuals dif-fer in the extent to which they tend to react to things in strong positive and negative terms. What about you—do you form opinions easily? Do you have strong likes and dislikes? Or do you tend to react in more non- l Figure 6.1 Four Possible reactions to Attitude Objects As shown, people evaluate objects along both positive and negative dimensions. As a result, our attitudes can be positive, negative, ambivalent, or indifferent. Cacioppo et al., 1997. © Cengage Learning evaluative ways? People who describe themselves as high rather than low in the need for evaluation are more likely to view their daily experiences in judgmental terms. They are also more opinionated on a whole range of social, moral, and political issues (Bizer et al., 2004; Jarvis & Petty, 1996). Before we examine the elusive science of attitude measurement, let’s stop for a moment and ponder this question: Why do human beings bother to form and have attitudes? Does forming a positive or negative judgment of people, objects, and ideas serve any useful purpose? Over the years, researchers have found that attitudes serve important func-tions—such as enabling us to judge quickly and without much thought Positive attitude Indifference Dual attitudes (ambivalence) Negative attitude whether something we first encounter is good or bad, helpful or hurt-ful, and to be sought or avoided (Maio & Olson, 2000). The downside is that having preexisting attitudes toward persons, objects, and ideas can lead us to become closed-minded, bias the way we interpret new information, and make us more resistant to change. For example, Rus- sell Fazio and others (2000) found that people who were focused on their positive or negative attitudes toward computerized faces, compared to those who were not, were later slower to notice when the faces were “morphed” and no longer the same. How Attitudes Are Measured In 1928, Louis Thurstone published an article entitled “Attitudes Can Be Measured.” What Thurstone failed to anticipate, however, is that attitude measurement is tricky business. One review of research uncovered more than 500 different methods of deter-mining an individual’s attitudes (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1972). Low High Negative reaction As seen in this “Occupy Wall Street” rally for economic justice, people can be very passionate about the attitudes they hold. Self-Report Measures The easiest way to assess a person’s attitude about something is to ask. All over the world, public opinions are recorded on a range of issues in politics, the economy, health care, foreign affairs, science and technology, sports, entertainment, reli-gion, and lifestyles. Simply by asking, Harris polls conducted in the United States in 2011 and 2012 have revealed that Americans pre-fer to watch football over baseball and like to eat chocolate ice cream more than vanilla and other flavors; that more than half say they surf the Internet while watching TV; that one in five adults now has a tattoo; that most would choose Hawaii, California, and Florida, Copyright 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. ... - tailieumienphi.vn