Reference Group

Theory of Planned Behavior

Fazio's 5 basic principles

1. Reality is Constructed

2. Social Influence is Pervasive

3. Associations (what we associate with a given stimuli influences subsequent perceptions)

4. Accessibility (those cognitive representations which are currently accessible are the most influential in determining perceptions and judgments)

5. Conservatism 

Demonstrated the importance of associative learning:

those who were in a room with weapons on the table gave more shocks than those w/out weapons (badmiton condition) 

Those who saw an aggressive film were more likely to give more shocks to people associated with the film (the "learner" had the same name as the movie character) than those not associated with the film.

Asociation/Availability/Accessibility 

--- Salience vs. Accessibility of the Alternatives

Accessibility determines what comes to mind when we have to generate alternatives...therefore, when we "rehearse" category/exemplar relationships, later those exemplars are likely to be accessible. 

Accessibility and the Power of Language

Adjectives influence a more globall focus and action verbs influence a more detailed focus

(i.e. agressive vs. punch) 

Accessibility and the Power of Language

And/Or -- Increasing the accessibility of an interrelational construct can affect how a physical object is encoded and subsequent performance. 

1. Arousal

2. Reinforcement

3. Information 

Presence of evaluative others increases arousal (increased arousal leads to the increased likelihood of emitting the dominant response)

also cockroach experiments 

Group Cohesion and Task relevance affect communication and status (????)

People ranked deviates are less likeable

(especially those of lower status??) 

Darley & Latane "Epileptic Seizure" 

Also "Smoke Filled Room" and "Lady in Distress" 

Decision Tree:

1. Notice something is wrong

2. Define the event as an emergency

3. Assume personal responsibility

The larger the group the less likely people were to help. 

Normative vs. Informative Social Influence

Example: Kelley and Lamb's "PTU Taste Test" 

Normative Social Influence -- Possibility of Social Reward/Punishment

1. Sense of group affects normativeness and conformity

2. Anonyminity = lower conformity

3. size of unanimity (plateaus at 3 -- effect starts with only 2)

4. presence of ally

Informational Social Influence -- Social Info

Moderated by:

1. Ambiguity/Difficulty of task

2. Visual vs. Memory Based

3. Relative Expertise 

Conformity can be primed non-consciously -- easier to prime conformity than non-conformity

Example of Social Influence 

Loyalty/In-group favoritism/in-group norms are related

In-group favoritism was associated with enhanced self-esteem in the loyalty condition, while it was associated with decreased self-esteem in the equality condition. 

Subtle Power of Norms

In general, students thought that others supported the status quo more than they did

Subtle Power of Norms

Sometimes Descriptive and Injunctive Norms can counteract

Subtle Power of Norms

Norms of Conversation Can Affect Attitude Reports

When asked on two seperate questionairres to rate the Queen and the Royal Family, the Royal Family was rated more favorably than when the 2 questions were on the same questionairre (presumably b/c people assumed that the question was asking about the royal family without the Queen)

Illustration of How Attitudes are Reported as a Basis of Accessibility between the Knowledge and Object Appraisal (?)

Those who had opportunities to rehearse their attitudes were less stressed when asked their opinion and performed more consistently than those who had no opportunity to rehearse their attitudes. 

Illustration of the Influence of Attitudes on Perception and Categorization

People's motivational state influenced what image they interpreted (or even were aware of when presented with an ambiguous situation) 

Illustration of the Influence of Attitudes on Perception and Categorization

 Accessible attitudes are functionally beneficial; however they leave one relatively insensitie to any changes that the object might exhibit (i.e. in the experiment people were less likely to detect changes between people/morphs)

Illustration of the Influence of Attitudes on Perception and Categorization

People learned negative info more quickly.

People were more able to generalize extreme beans and negative beans. 

Illustration of the Influence of Attitudes on Perception and Categorization

People expect the pain of a loss to have a larger impact than an equivalent gain of a positive value.

Impact Bias -- the tendency to overestimate the intensity and duration of a negative reaction

Affective Forecasting Error 

Do Behaviors Affect Attitudes?

Kids who were given a mild threat to not play with a toy rated that toy lower than kids given no threat or a severe threat (therefore, they displayed internal justification through attitude change) -- they also displayed less cheating when given an opportunity to lie about their score to receive candy. 

1. Induced Compliance Paradigm (people need to choose to engage in counter-attitudinal behavior for it to affect attitudes)

2. Effort Justification Paradigm (people choose to expend effort to reach some goal)

3. Forbidden Toy/Insufficient Deterence Paradigm (people who choose to go along with a command that isn't very severe internally justify their actions by changing their attitude) -- Lepper (1973)

4. Free Choice Paradigm (When people choose freely between two available alternatives, after the choice they perceive their choice even more favorably than prior to the choice) -- eg. Racetrack Study (Knox & Inkster, 1968) & (Staw, 1974 -- ROTC study)

Illustration of the Free Choice Paradigm

Individuals who signed up for ROTC to avoid the draft were included in a study -- those individuals who recieved high lottery numbers and were at a school where they could drop out of ROTC, did; however, those individuals who received a high lottery number and were at a school where they couldn't drop out displayed the highest satisfaction with ROTC and the highest performance -- they knew they had the possibility of avoiding the draft, yet they chose ROTC anyway, therefore, they internally justified their decision. 

Illustration of the Potential Cumulative Effects of Attitudes and Social Influence

Selective Exposure -- Nixon supporters tended to show the least amount of exposure, knowledge, and intention to change their behavior as a result of Watergate -- their prior attitudes influenced their news gathering behavior. 

Illustration of the Potential Cumulative Effects of Attitudes and Social Influence

 Indoctrination -- Arousing emotions tend to decrease individuals ability to be aware of social pressures and carefully process messages.

High conformity pressures, high cognitive dissonance, and high amgiuity.

Illustration of the Potential Cumulative Effects of Attitudes and Social Influence

The harder the path, the more the goal seems highly valuable.