4/17 and 4/24: Social Psychology- Attitudes+the Self, Relationships

Attitude

• Attitude: categorize stimulus along an evaluative dimension based on 3 components:
• Affective: emotions and affection (positive or negative)
• Behavioral: how you act toward object
• Cognitive: thoughts you have about the object (facts, knowledge, beliefs)
• Attitudes affect behavior?
• Attitudes = Poor predictors of actions
• Changing attitudes typical fail changing behavior
• LaPiere (1934)
• 92% said wouldn't accept Chinese guests
• All but 1 accepted them
• What Attitudes Affect behavior?
• Strong attitudes
• Important attitudes
• Easily Accessed attitudes
• Formed via Direct Experience attitudes
• Certain to you attitudes
• Attitude Theories
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger 1957)
• Dissonance: psychological tension results behavior inconsistent w/ attitudes
• reduce dissonance and regain consistency 
• Dissonance Reduction methods
• Change behavior
• quit smoking
• Trivialize dissonance
• Change attitudes
• weakness in studies linking smoking to cancer
• Add cognitions
• help me relax
• Example of Reducing Dissonance - Smoking
• Change Cognition A: I smoke-----> I don't smoke
• Change Cognition B: I smoke cigarettes + Research has Flaws instead of truth
• Add Cognition C: I smoke + Diseases+ They help me= relax
• Do all Inconsistent behaviors cause Dissonance?
• Cooper and Fazio, 1984
• No. Experience dissonance, behavior must be:
• Freely chosen
• Negative foreseeable consequences
• Responsible for choice felt
• Label arousal as negative
• believe arousal caused by something else, no dissonance
• Subtypes of Dissonance
• Insufficient Justification
• Fraternity initiation- think fraternity awesome to justify hazing
• Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959 - peg turning task
• Aronson and Mills, 1959(initiation into group)
• Post-decision dissonance
• Brehm, 1965: Difficult choice between 2 equally desirable items
• e.g. Droid vs Iphone
• Ignore Pros of other
• Spreading of alternatives
• Maximize difference in your decision's favor
• "I always knew she was the one"
• Compliance Techniques (4) (Cialdini)
• Foot-in-the-door technique: inducing a person to agree small request 1st
• Example: Wear Campaign Button; later, Ask for Billboard on their Lawn
• Why work
• Cognitive dissonance theory: desire to appear consistent in choices
• Door-in-the-face technique: Large request, then Smaller request
• Why work
• want to appear reasonable and good and maintain self-esteem
• Reducing request = Favor; Complying = Reciprocation
• Low-ball technique: ask someone agree to something basis of incomplete info
• becoming attached positively to object
• bid more/pay more than if knew all info
• That's-not-all technique: product high price, improve deal via adding product or lowering price
• salseman = reasonable, doing favor; reciprocate favor by buying

Self

• Synyder's Self-Monitoring Scale (Self-esteem = SE)
• degree regulate behavior match situation
• High Self-monitor 
• Social Chameleons
• Public self used
• Third Person talk
• Public self-consciousness Higher
• Pros
• Do Well in Social Situations
• Cons
• Insincere; Fake 
• Low Self-monitor 
• Consistent across situations
• Private self used
• First person speech
• Private self-consciousness Higher
• Pros
• People Know you
• Cons
• potential Social Ramifications
• Self-esteem- positive and negative self-evaluations
• State of Mind vs. Trait
• State of Mind = Situation dependent
• Trait = Same regardless
• Functions
• Leary (1995): Sociometer hypothesis
• High vs Low Self-Esteem
• High SE
• Highly Positive self-views
• Successful coping stressful times and setbacks
• More Thorough and Precise Self-knowledge
• Low SE
• Pessimistic; prone to thinking failure
• Adverse reactions to negative feedback
• Unrealistic goals tendency
• Enhancing Self-estemm: BIRGing
• BIRGing ( = Basking In Reflected Glory
• Cialdini 1976
•  Football games affect University T-shirts use
• Win = more
• Lose = less
• Larger Margin of victory = Larger # of shirts
• "We" won vs. "They" lost
• CORFing = Cutting Off Reflected Failure
• Association Hurts SE = Cut off ties
• Self-esteem Maintenance Model
• Tesser, 1988
• People behave in manner maintain self-esteem
• How does another's performance Affect us?
• Influence depends:
• Quality of performance
• Closeness of other
• Relevance of dimension
• Factors interact different ways to maintain self-esteem
• Close other X good performance X non relevant dimension = increased self evaluation by reflection (BIRGing)
• Close other X good performance X relevant dimension = decreased SE by comparison (downward comparison)
• What happens when SE suffers?
• Close other Outperforms Self on Relevant dimension:
• Sabotage Other's performance
• Alter Self's performance
• Alter Closeness with Other
• Change self-definition

Relationships

• Evolutionary Theory
• "Marketplace theory" 
• Women = Value Status 
• Men = Value Attractiveness
• Gender difference in Personal ads
• High income man seek attractive woman
• Attractive woman seek well off man
• Attractive women more likely marry successful men
• Why?
• Function of ability to Propagate Genes (Buss 1988,1989,1990)
• Male reproductive success = frequent pairings
• Female's reproductive success = finding provider
• Female's Youth-----> fertility sign
• Male's Status-------> ability to provide
• Support
• Men more likely to prefer youth and appearance = most important
• Women more likely look for "ambition, hard-working"
• Gender differences in Jealousy
• Buss, Larsen, Westen, Semmelroth (1992)
• Gender differences in Mate Preferences----> gender differences in Jealousy
• Asked imagine past relationship; Asked which Worse- Emotional or Sexual Betrayal
• Differences
• Men = 60% Sexual behavior worse
• Women = 80% Emotional worse
• Jealously- function of evolution
• Male = function of Reproductive Uncertainty
• don't know for certain baby = theirs
• Female = function of Resource Uncertainty
• money and house = certain ? 
• Cons
• Can't do Experiments
• Another explanation for Jealousy Differences
• Double-shot theory: one infidelity implies other has happened too
• woman = man's emotional infidelity implies sexual infidelity has occurred
• man = woman's sexual infidelity implies emotional infidelity has occurred
• theory has been experimentally tested
• Communal vs. Exchange relationships (all relationships)
• Communal vs. Exchange (Clark and Mills 1979)
• Exchange: Tit-for-tat
• Communal: Expectations of Mutual Responsiveness
• Communal = Close friendships and Meaningful relationships
• Exchange = Superficial relationships w/ strangers and acquaintances
• Exchange
• Immediate repayment
• helped by acquaintance, repay it
• Want Own Contribution to be Distinguished
• Care about other's needs = Expecting Payback
• Helping each other = no change in mood
• Communal
• Immediate repayment may cause decreased in liking
• immediate repay = no trust of having back in future
• No clear distinction b/w our work and others
• " you did it. no, we did it"
• Care about other's needs even w/out payback
• trust they care/ will get your back sometime later
• Helping other = feel good
• Beginning of most friendships
• Michelangelo Phenomenon (romantic relationships)
• Self does not emerge independently; shaped by interpersonal experience
• Sculpting: mold each other's dispositions values and behavioral tendencies over time to reveal ideal self
• "Chip away" some aspects = reveal partner's ideal self
• Affirmation: partner elicits values and behaviors that are congruent with the self's ideal
• Partner Perceptual affirmation: degree to partner's perceptions of the self is congruent with ideal self
• See partner's true self
• Partner Behavioral affirmation: degree to partner's behaviors toward self is congruent with ideal self
• Bring out partner's true self
• Problems with Sculpting
• Sculpting = continuum ranging form
• Affirmation----> Failure to affirm-----> Disaffirmation
• Failure to Affirm: Partner elicits dispositions, values and behaviors that may be irrelevant to self’s ideal 
• Disaffirmation: Partner elicits dispositions, values and behaviors that may be antithetical to self’s ideal  
• Michelangelo Phenomenon
• At Best: Perceptual Affirmation----> Behavioral Affirmation-----> Self movement toward Ideal-----> Couple Well-being
• partner----------------->ideal self
• At Worst: Perceptual Disaffirmation-----> Behavioral Disaffirmation-----> Movement Away from Ideal-----> Deterioration of Couple Well-being
• ideal self... partner-------------------->
• Myths about Conflict
• Conflict can Always be Avoided
• Conflict = result from Misunderstandings and Unnecessary
• Conflict = Sign of Poor relationship
• How we deal with it
• Bad fights: Goal = Win
• Good fights: Goal = Compromise
• 4 types of Fighting Couples - John Gottman 
• Volatile: conflict part of a larger passionate and loving relationship
• big fight, bigger make-up
• 5-1 ratio
• Validaters: Fair, Equal fights
• self-control and calm; validate other perspective
• 5-1 ratio
• Avoiders: Fight, Go away, Everything's fine
• "agree to disagree"
• 5-1 ratio
• Hostile: Frequent volatile fights
• 1-1 ratio
• 4 horsemen of the apocalypse: 
• Contempt
• "eye-rolling"
• Criticism
• Defensiveness
• Withdrawing 
• 5-1 ratio = Good
• Demand-Withdraw cycle
• One partner demands change, other partner withdraws
• Women = 2x likely make demand ; Why?
• Conflict-structure hypothesis: Women Most Want Change; Changer likely occupy Demand Role
• Women = less power ; want change more
• Cycle
• W demands, M withdraws
• W demands because M withdrew
• M withdraws because W's demands escalate
• W becomes frustrated at M's withdrawal