What are we going to focus on now?

1. Psychology 001Introduction to PsychologyChristopher Gade, PhDOffice: 621 HeafeyOffice hours: F 3-6 and by apt. Email: gadecj@gmail.com Class WF 7:00-8:30 Heafey 650

2. What are we going to focus on now? • Attitude: an opinion that influences our behavior • Persuasion: the changing or formation of an attitude through information • Central route to persuasion – presenting an argument that seriously evaluates the evidence • Peripheral route to persuasion – presenting an argument based on unimportant factors (i.e. appearance)

3. When are these techniques of persuasion effective? • When the argument is… • Of interest – central routes • Of little interest – peripheral routes • Tuition raising experiment example • Not perceived as an attempt at persuasion • Forewarning effect: the reduced effectiveness of a persuasive message due to the awareness and resistance of the purpose of the message • Note: the first argument is very important in central routes to persuasion • Inoculation effect: the reduced effectiveness of a good argument if it follows a weak one

4. Specific Persuasion Strategies • Foot-in-door technique • Start with modest request • Door-in-the-face technique • Start with an outrageous request • Bait-and-switch technique • Start with a great deal and then make additional demands • That’s-not-all technique • Make an offer, then improve it before the response

5. What principle do most of these persuasion techniques operate on? • Most of us believe that our attitudes influence our behaviors, however, that’s not true all of the time • Cognitive dissonance: Achange in attitude due to a change in behavior • Festinger’s cog turning task • Participants performed a boring task during an experiment • They were then asked to promote the task to the next participant • Some were told that they would be paid $1 for this, others were told that they would be paid $20 • Participants were then asked to identify their actual enjoyment of the task

6. Conformity • Why do we conform? • Forms of conformity • Conformity surrounding us • Conformity in ambiguous situations • Conformity in unambiguous situations • How do we increase conformity? • Do we conform in our lack of action?

7. Why do we conform? • Conformity – maintaining or changing one’s behavior to match the behavior or expectations of others • But why do we conform? • Uncertainty? – we don’t know what to do in most novel situations, so we mimic the behavior of others • Norms – a set of behaviors or rules that define the proper behavior in a situations • classroom behavior • Learned responses – conformity can result from the continual presentation of appropriate responses to situations. • “Hi, how’s it going?” • Reflexes? – a lot of our conformity is uncontrollable and even unrecognized • Clapping example • Smiling/laughing example

8. Other forms of conformity in our environment • Clothing • “Center of attention” • Material being presented

9. Conformity in ambiguous situations • A lot of our conformity is a result of the fact that there is no true appropriate behavior or responses in most situations • When presented with ambiguous situations, people look to others in an attempt to perceive what is best to do… we’ll get back to this later • This conformity in ambiguous situations has also been found to overlap into ambiguous stimuli as well • Autokinetic effect example

10. But what about unambiguous situations? • We conform to ambiguous situations because we often don’t know what the right answer/response is, but we certainly don’t conform to the group in situations where there is an obvious correct answer/response… right? • Solomon Asch’s line study experiments

11. What influences the likelihood of conformity? • The number of people in the majority • The magic #3 • The presence of an “ally” • The social situation’s requirement to conform • Need for speed • Need for unanimity • The ambiguity of the situation (sometimes) • The “collectivist”, or “individualist” nature of the individual being tested

14. Do we conform in our lack of action? • Kitty Genovese example • Diffusion of responsibility – we tend to feel less responsibility to act when other people nearby are equally able to act • Conversation example • Pluralistic ignorance – assumption that everyone else has a better idea of how to act in a situation. • Smoke example

15. The end of the conformity section… • Read the text to examine a number of conformity topics that we didn’t have time to go over. • For the next class, we’re now going to look at some social psychology concepts in action, come ready to participate