Are we motivated to think in certain ways?

1. Are we motivated to think in certain ways?

2. Example of a theory building on previous research (and starting as a graduate student) • Theories incorporating philosophy System justification theory

3. People are motivated, unconsciously and consciously, to justify status quo • Motivation higher when system is seen as inevitable, when it’s challenged, and when people feel dependent on it (and when low personal control—Kay) • Motivation affected by levels of epistemic, existential, and relational needs • Can justify by direct endorsement, legitimation of institutions, stereotyping, rationalization, denial of shortcomings, etc. • For advantaged groups, good for self-esteem, psych well-being. For disadvantaged groups, bad for these. • In the short term, it helps everyone. • Although people usually resist change, more willing to change when seen as likely to happen and when it isn’t that much of a change Postulates of theory

4. What are examples of people believing or supporting things that go against their own interests? • What are some approaches to explain this previously? • Marx and Engels—”ideas favor dominant groups prevail b/c these groups control the cultural and institutional means by which ideas are spread” • Tajfel—stereotypes justify actions against outgroups • Lerner’s belief in a just world • If stability is the norm, what does lead to revolt? • What would you do to start a revolution? History and revolution

5. What are these, as defined by Jost? • What are examples of these? • Denial of injustice or exploitation • Fatalism about prospects for social change • Rationalization of social roles • False attribution of blame • Identification with the oppressor • Resistance to social change (Jost, 1995) • For minorities? Women? Other groups? Prosperity theology False consciousness beliefs

6. How does SJT differ from social identity theory? • How does SJT differ from just world beliefs? • How does SJT differ from cognitive dissonance theory? • Social dominance theory? • Terror management theory? • Taber’s theory? • Cultural cognition hypothesis? Differences among theories

7. What does SJT say in terms of what systems will be justified? • Is it a theory of conservatives? • How do people “justify” them? • Does pluralistic ignorance play a role? • How does this occur beyond politics? • What are practical implications of the theory? Implications

8. How do these affect political processing? • Selective exposure • Hostile media phenomenon • Attitude congruency bias • Disconfirmation bias • Attitude polarization Taber, Cann, & Kucsova, 2009 • I did a lot of the stuff they say hasn’t been done. : ) • What individual factors did they look at? Why would these have an effect? Motivated political processing article

9. What was their basic design? • What were the hypotheses? • What do you think of the difference between the short, long, and 2-sided messages? Which of these are more realistic? • Are there any other issues with the methods of the study? • How did they compute attitude polarization? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this method? Methodology

10. H1: Ratings of argument strength affected by previous attitude but not so much for short and 2-sided. • Moderated by strength, not knowledge • Stats issues? • H2a: People took longer to rate inconsistent arguments IF high knowledge or sometimes strong attitudes. • Stat issues • H2b: People had more thoughts in response to incongruent arguments and if knowledgeable, and more for long than 2-sided than short. • Stat issues • H3: Attitude strength was related to more polarization and more bias was related to more polarization (no knowledge effect) • p. 150 quote. p. 152 • Stat issues • H4 and 5, no type of argument effects • Why? Findings

11. How do their findings compare to Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979 from earlier in the semester? • What is new in this study? • How does this study translate to the real world? • Why aren’t we just extreme on everything? • How do we get people to moderate? Implications

12. Kahan, Braman, Cohen, Gastil, & Slovic, 2010 • Cultural theory of risk (Douglas & Wildavsky, 1982)—what does it say? • What types of risks do these types of people see or not see? • Individualist worldview • Communitarian worldview • Egalitarian worldview • Hierarchical worldview • How do these conceptions relate to liberal/conservative? Which is better? • How do they relate to SDO and RWA? Case: HPV vaccine

13. How would each of these groups see the risks of universal HPV vaccination? Why? • Individualist worldview (low group) • Communitarian worldview (high group) • Egalitarian worldview (low grid) • Hierarchical worldview (high grid) • How would findings showing that it doesn’t affect sexual behavior be interpreted? (2 recent studies) Risk perceptions

14. What was the design of the first part of the study? • The second part? • Any issues? • They chose not to control for gender, education, political orientation, etc. Thoughts? Methodology

15. No arguments vs. unattributed. • Any problems with their discussion of correlations? (p. 508) • More risk perceptions if higher in hierarchy, got arguments, and especially if both • In second experiment, the closer p’s values were to the con person than the pro person, the more risk they saw. • Effect for hierarchy and not individualism again (though they make it sound like individualism was more important in discussion) • Why would hierarchy be more important than individualism? Is there something about this issue? Results

16. Why is the no argument condition so low in Figure 4? • What do these results suggest about what we should and shouldn’t do to help people assess risk? • What other risk perceptions are likely affected by values? Discussion

17. How do we persuade people? Given this week’s readings

18. Begin Haidt book • Go to yourmorals.org before reading • Come to class with an example of an automatic moral issue • Be working on individual projects • Be working on group projects—GET IRB IN! • Only 7 weeks left Next week