Interacting with patients:

1. Interacting with patients: Attitudeand impression formation

2. Attitudes • What are attitudes? • evaluative social judgements -orientations that locate objects of thought on dimensions of judgement • Mixtures of components • cognitive: beliefs • emotional: feelings • behavioural: predispositions to act

3. Do attitudes predict behaviour? • Research shows giving information which changes attitudes doesn't always change behaviour • Usually not very well. Why? • attitudes are generalisms, behaviours more specific • attitudes are only predispositions to act

4. Changing attitudes • To effectively change attitudes you need: • credibility (expertise / trustworthiness) • likeability (physical attractiveness) • persuasive arguments (health messages are usually fear arousing) • listener’s original position

5. Attitude formation and change • Dissonance theory • dissonance exists when related cognitions contradict each other. • Conformity and obedience • Group influences on behaviour • polarization • groupthink

6. Social perception: impression formation and attribution • Is the perception of people and their behaviour unbiased? • no: There are characteristic influences on the way we form impressions of one another. • attributions are the explanations we offer for why things (people, events) are the way they are.

7. Concept-driven processing bias: Stereotypes • Stereotypes are generalised beliefs about people based on one or a few defining characteristics possessed by some members of their group which are extended to all members. • Prejudice is the holding of negative attitudes towards a member of a group. • Discrimination involves behaving differently towards members of a group

8. Assumption that beautiful people possess more desirable traits. • Expectation bias • Self-fulfilling prophecy • Effects of mood

9. Data-driven processing bias • First - impressions • Recent impressions • Halo effects • Negativity bias Attribution bias • Fundamental Attribution Error • blame person not circumstance • Actor-observer bias • different explanations for you and me

10. Attibution bias for performance: gender difference

11. General attributions • Locus of control • internal / external • stable / unstable • global / specific • Control refers to a person’s ability to achieve the outcomes they desire. • Predictability facilitates control

12. Other influences See also: Self-efficacy (link to KAP lecture)