• psychologist who contributed to the social cognitive theory
• he studies the way people learn things 

• provides a framework that allows us to look at social cognition 
• 3 factors that effect cognition  (example: stealing)

         1. behavior --> have I dont it before?

         2. personal characteristics --> am i honest or dishonest?

         3. environmental factors --> is someone watching? cameras?

• the ability to learn from others (example: watching martha stewart fold a fitted sheet then copying her)
• not distinctly human
• learn by modeling 
•     attention, retention, motor reproduction, motivation (4 steps) 

• his work has to do with priming effects
• did experiment where he divided people into 2 groups: he showed them the same video but told one group it was real and one group it wasn't. The video was of gang violence. Examined that the ones who thought it was real became more aggressive --> measured this with car horns. 

Priming effects are based on what we know about how info. processing works.

- The activation of one thought may trigger another thought. ex --> someone who was bullied as a child may not be able to watch bullying in media because it brings back bad memories. 

- the more we identify with characters the more we are affected by the violence they do or perform. 

- violence done to cartoon characters is less priming because we know they do not exist. unless it's the lion king. dat shit sad. 

- 3 Components to Priming:

  1. our own behaviors --> are you a person who has enacted violent behaviors?

  2. Cognitive, biological or other factors --> higher levels of intelligence make for a difference in what you see. 

  3. environmental factors --> if you lived in a slum with violence around you all the time you may be more affected by it on tv. 

1. Storage Bin Model: the last behavior you saw, is the first behavior you get out. (the last thing you see on TV is the first thing you will think of in a similar situation).

2. Storage Battery: priming happens over time and is cumulative/happens with repetition.  (You will think of the things you've seen the most often)

3. Synapse Model: one of those two things happens depending onyou or the type of communication. 

- a sociologist who originated the diffusion of innovations theory and introduced the term "early adopter."

- innovators: most ventursome with it comes to new technologies and are willing to take a hit if it does not succeed

-early adopters: wait to see which tech. are going to survive before they purchase

-early majority: adopt an innovation over a varying degree of time - where most ppl fall

- late majority: adopts after the average member of society, waits until the price comes down - where most ppl fall

- laggards: very late in adopting tech. or don't at all. Tend to be older in age. 

Gabriel Tarde

- people adopting new practices or new things 

- 1903 book - laws of imitation: once people adopt technology there is a snowball effect 

- advent of technology hasnt made the breaking of news any quicker b/c they had methods in the 1950s. --> Telax in newsroom had bells that run - more bells more important the story. 

- social learning, ie. imitation, is one of the things diffusion is based on. 

• public intellectual who wrote a number of important books, most important was "public opinion" published in 1922
• he argues in his book that the media are the principle connection between events in the world and the images in the mind of the public 

• describes the ability of the news media to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda.
• tells the public what to think about as important. 
• agenda-setting has less effect on us because we are wealthy and educated so there isn't a lot of room for more things to get into our heads.

• formally developed agenda-setting theory
• first research done in chapel hill in 1968. Asked people the public agenda and then the media agenda in relation to the presidential election. They had a group of people look at a newspaper, then asked them what they thought were the most important issues. Six weeks later they asked them the same questions. The media agenda at time 1 became the public agenda during time 2.  The main outcome said that the media tells us what to think about, not what to think. 
• three years later they did a study in Charlotte that said that the more often you use media, the more likely you are to follow the media agenda. 

• These three researchers did a study where they showed a group of ppl a fake news cast - outcome was that the news that had been given the most time on the newscast was the most important news
• first identified the "priming effect." 
• said that priming is a two-fold process with agenda-setting that takes place over time 

• Once agenda setting has made an issue salient, priming is the process by which "mass media can... shape the considerations that people take into account when making judgements about political candidates or issues"

• Psychologist who was intrested in the effects of persuasive messages on attitude change and the intervening variables (like socioeconomic status) that effect attitude change

• attitudes form about a person everytime you have an interaction with them
• you may already have formed an attitude about a person if they are attractive or unnatractive or if you already knew something about them before you meet. 
• attitudes refer to the sum total of positive and negative reactions to anything

- persuasive appeals take 2 forms

    1. information in a piece of news

    2. salience of a piece of news 

- some news is important but we don't care because we don't know the people it's about. Who determines what is salient? - The agenda setters! 

• persuasive measures must overcome psychlogical resistance 
• ex: someone wanted to persuade Dr. West to become a conservative. The only way he would do it is if they said they would kill someone. 
• he is not persuadable because he has a long list of rational and psychological reasons to vote for obama 

• studied under Carnap, a logical positivist 
• he conducted the "voter's choice study," and Elmira was the first of those. This study said that the radio has an effect on how people vote...looked at registered voters in Elmira. 
• Wrote a book called "People's Choice" 
• Worked at Office of War Information 
• Brought social science statistical method to communications  - essentially invented communication research (scientific, scholarly, and market). 

Lab: bring people into lab and do experiment in strictly controlled sitation

field:  leave lab to do exp. like at a school

correlational: call people on phone then do a cross-tabulation then calculate. With this method you cannot prove casuality 

longitudinal: get in touch with the subjects so you can see the effect on an exp. over time. "this causing that"

natural: rarely done. Example: a community that hasnt been exposed to the internet - looking at it before and after. 

Intervention: trying to innoculate people about the effects of media violence. not really research - more advocacy 

1. A perpetrator who is attractive

2. violence that seems justified 

3. violence that gets unpunished

4. minimal consequences to victim

5. violence that seems realistic to viewer 

- a functional model about how people behave

observations ---> attitudes ---> behavioral intentions----> behaviors

^ chain of actions. 

- theory of reasoned action: people consider the the implications of their actions before they decide to engage or not engage in a given behavior. 

      - people make the decision to behave or not to behave in a certain way based upon two criteria.

1. the person's attitude toward the behavior itself is one important criterion

2. the person's perceptions about how others will view the behavior

theory of planned behavior: intentions to act are also based on upon the perceived control the  person has over the behavior.--> is the action easy or difficult to perform?

      - example: an overweight person would think that going on a diet is desireable (positive attitude toward behavior) and that their friends and family would think its a good idea too (positive social norm). However, may believe it is not possible to go on a diet because healthy food is more expensive, doesn't taste good, hard to prepare (believes the change is too difficult). 

- also developed the feedback loop: example: Dr. West gives Ricky an internship and she does a great job, so West has formed a positive attitude of her (more money in his bank), but there are also stressors in this like West having a bad day, etc. The homeostasis in this example is when everyone gets along. (i have no idea if this is right). 

- learned rules of behavior serve as a guide for new life situations. These rules provide an abstract framework for decision making in these situations. 

- example: The Beatles. Paul McCartney and John Lennon said they tried to imitate the work of other music groups, but they also drew from their personal knowledge and experiences to put a personal stamp on their music. 

- occur whenever a person refrained from reprehensible conduct for fear of the consequences, such as formal punishment by society. 

- occurs whenever new information or the observation of new behavior inhibits or restrains a person from acting in a previously learned way. 

Example: A smoker might decide to change his behavior if he sees a close relative die of lung cancer. 

- disinhibit or life previously learned internal restraints on certain behaviors. 

example: a teenage girl who'se parents strictly forbit drinking alcohol or smoking. When she goes to college she will be around both of these things often, so her established mores become more relaxed. 

- John Milton's pamphlet named after a hill in Athens where speeches were given

- written in opposition to censorship and licensing 

- published in 1644

-test for determining whether speech or expression can be labeled obscene

- literary, artistic, political, or scientific value 

- sexual arousal (ew)

- changes in attitudes or values --> more accepting of extra marital sex, less desire for children. (jennings zillman) 

- behavioral changes --> disinhibitory, violent behavior during porn tends to be disinhibited. More likely to enact that sexual violence in real life. (jennings zillman)

- watching porn led to higher levels of general arousal

and those who watched sexually explicit films were not as satisfied with their partners sexually. they were also more inclined toward violent sexual behavior and violence overall. This was tested with their car horns. 

1. psychological fright --> ex: antichrist

2. "could happen to you" --> psycho 

3. goal of film is to produce a sense of menace --> blue velvet or dark knight