1. The Self, Attitudes, and Persuasion
Social Psychology
The Self, Attitudes, and Persuasion

2. Agenda Presentation Help? Final Information Social Cognition Attitudes
1 Hour
30 MC Questions, 2 Open Response
Thinking/Intelligence, Health, Personality, Social, Memory
Social Cognition
Attitudes
Persuasion

3. Social Cognition
Cognitive processes by which people understand and make sense of others and themselves
Wide range.
Think of a regular day at school. How much energy you devote to understanding each individual you encounter?
Largely automatic.
Rely on schemas.

4. Impression Formation (Module 43)
Process of forming an overall impression of someone or some group.
How quickly do you think this takes?
How do you think this process occurs?
Mathematical Approach
Group Categorization Approach
Schemas in First Impressions
Schema for a physical group
Arab, Woman, Monk, etc.
Schema for a personality type
“Nice guy,” “Good student,” etc.

5. Impression Formation Central Traits Attractiveness
Traits considered important when forming impressions
Cold – Warm
Competent - Incompetent
Attractiveness
Beautiful = Good
Rated higher on almost everything
Exceptions: Trust and Honesty
Often are better
Expectancy Effects

8. Attributions
How people interpret the causes of others’ and their own behavior/outcomes
Why were you late for class?
Traffic, Last Class Let Out Late
Situational causes
Perceived causes based on environmental causes.
You’re lazy, You don’t pay attention
Dispositional causes
Perceived causes based on internal factors

10. Attribution Errors The Fundamental Attribution Error
Overestimate dispositional causes in other people.
Why?
The Self-Serving Bias
You get an A on a test.
Dispositional Attribution.
You get a D on a test.
Situational Attribution.

11. The Self
Social Comparison Activity Review

12. Driving Ability Distribution

13. Smartness Distribution

14. Attractiveness Distribution

15. Funny Distribution

16. Confidence Distribution

17. The Self Self-Concept How do we define and evaluate the self?
Multifaceted
Self-Schemas
How do we define and evaluate the self?
Social comparisons
Self-Enhancement
Self-Esteem
Positive and negative self-evaluations (self-worth)
Self-Efficacy
Faith in one’s abilities

18. Attitudes Evaluation of a person, behavior, belief, or concept
Carries a value
Positive to negative
Attitudes and Behavior
Do your attitudes affect your behavior?
Yes, especially when we get specific and look over time.
Does your behavior affect your attitudes?
Doing something often makes you like it more.
Example: Repeated song
Cognitive Dissonance
Conflict between contradictory attitudes, thoughts, behaviors.

19. Persuasion Effortful attempt to change an attitude.
Persuasion vs. Compliance
Influential Components of the Persuasion Process
The Message Source
Characteristics of the Message
One-sided arguments vs. Two-sided arguments
Characteristics of the Target
Example: Graduating Test

20. Processing Persuasive Information
Imagine you’re presented with the argument for graduating exams, either:
Starting this year.
Starting 4 years from now.
Level of Processing Matters

21. Routes to Persuasion Central Route – thoughtful (effortful) processing
More conscious
Involved, Motivated, Attentive
Stronger and longer lasting attitude change
Peripheral Route – interpretation based largely on factors other than the content of the message
More automatic
Uninvolved, Unmotivated, Inattentive
Weaker and less persistent attitude change

22. Liking (Module 46) What predicts attraction? Attraction Proximity
Very important in initial attraction.
Proximity
Closeness leads to liking.
Familiarity – Mere Exposure
Repeated exposures lead to increased liking.
People and objects.
Similarity
More similarity? More liking.
Reciprocity of liking effect