Lesson 3.2

• Attitudes are beliefs and feelings related to a person or an event.
• The three dimensions of attitudes are Affect (feelings), Behavior tendency, and Cognition (thoughts).
• People's expressed attitudes hardly predict their varying behaviors, according to Allan Wicker.
• Our attitudes do predict our behavior when other influences on what we say and do are minimal, when the attitude is specific to the behavior, and when the attitude is potent.
• Implicit association test (IAT) is the most widely used attitude measure which uses reaction times to measure how quickly people associate concepts.
• Both explicit (self-report) and implicit attitudes help predict people’s behaviors and judgments, according to Greenwald et al. (2015) and Nosek et al. (2011).
• Conditions to predict behavior include when we minimize other influences upon our attitude statements, when the attitude is specifically relevant to the observed behavior, and when the attitude is potent.
• Actions, especially if they are forged by experience, make attitudes more accessible, more enduring, and more likely to guide actions, according to Wicker (2007).
• Our attitudes will predict our behavior if these “other influences” are minimized, if the attitude corresponds very closely to the predicted behaviour, and if the attitude is potent.
• Actions, especially moral actions, affect our attitudes, according to Wicker (2007).
• Self-perception theory assumes that our actions are self-revealing: when uncertain about our feelings or beliefs, we look to our behavior, much as anyone else would.
• Facial feedback effect is the tendency of facial expressions to trigger corresponding feelings such as fear, anger, or happiness.
• Culture is the enduring behaviors, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group of people and transmitted from one generation to the next.
• Self-presentation theory assumes that people, especially those who self-monitor their behavior hoping to create good impressions, will adapt their attitude reports to appear consistent with their actions.
• Self-affirmation theory suggests that people often experience a self-image threat after engaging in an undesirable behavior and can compensate by affirming another aspect of the self.
• Self-perception theory assumes that when our attitudes are weak, we simply observe our behavior and its circumstances, then infer our attitudes.
• People’s adherence to social beliefs appears to guide their living.
• Cultures vary in how much they emphasize the individual self versus others and the society.
• Self-perception theory suggests that when our attitudes are weak, we infer them much as would someone observing us — by looking at our behavior and the circumstances under which it occurs.
• Dissonance theory proposes that the less external justification we have for our undesirable actions, the more we feel responsible for them, and thus the more dissonance arises and the more attitudes change.
• Self-presentation theory assumes that for strategic reasons we express attitudes that make us appear consistent.
• Insufficient justification is the reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one’s behavior when external justification is “insufficient”.
• Overjustification effect is the result of bribing people to do what they already like doing; they may then see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing.
• Cognitive dissonance theory pertains mostly to discrepancies between behavior and attitudes.
• Cognitive dissonance theory assumes that to reduce discomfort, we justify our actions to ourselves.
• Epigenetics is a field of research exploring the expression of genes across different environments.
• Universal status norms dictate that people form status hierarchies and communicate with higher-status individuals in a respectful manner.
• The interaction occurs in at least three ways: A given social situation often affects different people differently, people often choose their situations, and people often create their situations.
• Men are more likely to injure others with physical aggression, according to Archer (2009).
• Overjustification Effect occurs when someone offers an unnecessary reward beforehand in an obvious effort to control behavior.
• Women are also slightly more likely to commit indirect aggressive acts, such as spreading malicious gossip.
• Several late-twentieth-century feminist psychologists contended that women prioritize close, intimate relationships more than men.
• In conversation, men focus on tasks and connections with large groups, while women focus on personal relationships, according to Tannen (1990).
• Social situations do profoundly influence individuals, but individuals also influence social situations.
• In general, women are more interested in jobs dealing with people (teachers, doctors), and men in jobs with things related to physical labor.
• Self-Presentation Theory assumes that for strategic reasons we express attitudes that make us appear consistent.
• Compared to boys, girls talk more intimately and play less aggressively, as noted in decades of research on gender development.
• In leadership roles, men tend to excel as directive, task-focused leaders, while women excel more often in the “transformational” or “relational” leadership style.
• Men’s greater social power is not entirely positive, as they may fear losing it — a phenomenon known as precarious manhood.
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory states that when we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer them much as would someone observing us — by looking at our behavior and the circumstances under which it occurs.