1Copyright 2010 McGraw-Hill Companies

2 Attitude Favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone

3 How Well Do Our Attitudes Predict Our Behavior? People’s expressed attitudes hardly predicted their varying behaviors Moral hypocrisy

4 How Well Do Our Attitudes Predict Our Behavior? When Attitudes Predict Behavior When social influences on what we say are minimal Implicit Implicit association test (IAT) Explicit When other influences on behavior are minimal

5 How Well Do Our Attitudes Predict Our Behavior? When Attitudes Predict Behavior When attitudes specific to the behavior are examined When attitudes are potent Self-awareness Forge strong attitudes through experience

6 When Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? Role Playing Role Set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to behave Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford’s prison study Abu-Ghraib controversy

7 When Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? When Saying Becomes Believing When there is no compelling external explanation for one’s words, saying becomes believing

8 When Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon Tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request Low-ball technique Tactic for getting people to agree to something. People who agree to an initial request will often still comply when the requester ups the ante Used by some car dealers

9 When Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? Evil and Moral Acts Wartime Actions and attitudes feed on each other When evil behavior occurs we tend to justify it as right Peacetime Moral action, especially when chosen rather than coerced, affects moral thinking

10 When Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? Interracial Behavior and Racial Attitudes Racial behavior help shape our social consciousness By doing, not saying racial attitudes were changed Legislating morality Social Movements Political and social movements may legislate behavior designed to lead to attitude change on a mass scale

11 Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? Self-Presentation: Impression Management 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

12 Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance Tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions To reduce this tension, we adjust our thinking Insufficient justification Reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one’s behavior when external justification is “insufficient”

13 Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance Dissonance after decisions Deciding-becomes-believing effect Can breed overconfidence

14 Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? Self-Perception Theory 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 Expressions and attitude Overjustification and intrinsic motivations

15 Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes? Figure 4.7