PSY 3790 Module 2 Self, Social Cognition and Attitudes Paper: Dissonance, Attribution Errors and When Attitudes Predict Behavior Example

Saying Yes, Staying Home: Attitudes, Attributions and Dissonance in a Tenants' Association

Student Name

Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Thomas Edison State University

PSY-3790: Social Psychology

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

Saying Yes, Staying Home: Attitudes, Attributions and Dissonance in a Tenants' Association

Introduction

When I knock on doors in our building, nearly every resident says they support our campaign for repairs. Yet only a handful come to meetings or sign the formal complaint. Meanwhile, many residents are furious at the building manager, a young man who relays the owners' decisions, as though he personally chose to delay repairs. These patterns led me to this module's topics: how people think about themselves and others, how they explain behavior and how attitudes relate to action.

The Social Self

Our self-concept, the beliefs we hold about who we are, develops partly through social interaction: we learn about ourselves from how others treat us and by comparing ourselves with others. People are motivated to maintain a positive and consistent view of themselves, which shapes how they interpret their own behavior and the behavior of others.

Social Cognition

Social cognition covers the ways people notice, make sense of and recall information about one another. Because the social world is complex, people rely on mental shortcuts, such as judging by first impressions or by how easily examples come to mind. These shortcuts are often useful but can produce systematic errors.

Explaining Others' Behavior

Attribution theory examines how people explain behavior, whether as caused by the person's dispositions or by the situation. Jones and Harris (1967) asked participants to read essays supporting or opposing Fidel Castro and to judge what the writer really believed. One group heard the writer had chosen which side to argue; others were told the side had been assigned. As expected, participants inferred that writers who chose a pro-Castro position held pro-Castro views. Surprisingly, even when told the position had been assigned, participants still inferred that writers held attitudes matching their essays. This tendency to explain behavior by a person's dispositions while underweighting the situation became known as the correspondence bias, or fundamental attribution error.

Changing Attitudes to Fit Behavior

Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) asked participants to perform boring tasks, such as turning pegs, for an hour. Afterward, some were paid one dollar and others twenty dollars to tell the next participant that the tasks were enjoyable. Later, participants who had been paid one dollar described the tasks as more pleasant than did those paid twenty dollars or a control group. The authors explained the result with cognitive dissonance theory: saying something you do not believe creates discomfort, and when the payment is too small to justify the lie, people reduce the discomfort by changing their attitude to match what they said.

When Attitudes Predict Behavior

Glasman and Albarracín (2006) meta-analyzed studies in which attitudes were measured and behavior observed later. On average, attitudes predicted later behavior moderately well, but the strength of the link varied. Attitudes predicted behavior more strongly when they were easy to bring to mind, stable over time, held with confidence, based on direct experience and formed with the specific behavior in mind. Attitudes formed from secondhand information, or measured in general terms rather than about the specific action, predicted behavior less well.

Blaming the Manager

The correspondence bias helps explain why tenants blame the building manager. They see his behavior, delaying repairs, and attribute it to his character, overlooking the situation: he follows instructions from owners he rarely sees. Explaining at meetings how decisions are actually made has shifted some anger toward the owners, where pressure can matter.

Turning Support Into Action

Glasman and Albarracín's findings suggest that general support for repairs is a weak predictor of attending meetings. Asking residents about the specific action, "Will you come Thursday at 7?", and helping them form a plan, such as who will watch their children, makes the relevant attitude more specific and accessible. Dissonance research suggests that small, freely chosen commitments, such as signing a short pledge to attend, can strengthen people's attitudes toward the cause, because they come to see themselves as people who participate.

Ethics of Influence

Using psychology to influence neighbors raises ethical questions. Our association uses these ideas only to help people act on preferences they already hold, and every request is honest and voluntary.

The Self-Serving Bias

People also explain their own behavior differently from others'. They tend to credit their successes to their own abilities and blame failures on circumstances, a pattern called the self-serving bias. At our meetings, residents who missed a deadline often cite their work schedules, while blaming others' absences on lack of commitment, a contrast between how we judge ourselves and how we judge others.

Persuasion

Research on persuasion distinguishes careful processing of arguments from quick reliance on cues such as a speaker's likability or the number of arguments. When residents are busy and distracted, cues matter more; when an issue affects them directly, the quality of arguments matters more. Our flyers now pair clear arguments about repairs with a familiar neighbor's endorsement.

Self-Perception

People sometimes infer their own attitudes by watching their behavior, much as they infer others'. A resident who attends one meeting may decide she must care about the campaign, which helps explain why small first steps matter.

Limits

Festinger and Carlsmith's study was small and has been debated. The correspondence bias appears stronger in some cultures than others. An average across many studies may not hold in any one building.

Conclusion

Jones and Harris showed that people attribute behavior to dispositions even when situations explain it, Festinger and Carlsmith showed that small commitments can change attitudes and Glasman and Albarracín showed that attitudes predict behavior best when they are accessible, stable and specific. Understanding how people think about themselves and others helps explain why neighbors blame the wrong person and why support does not always become action.

References

Festinger, L., & Carlsmith, J. M. (1959). Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58(2), 203-210. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0041593

Glasman, L. R., & Albarracín, D. (2006). Forming attitudes that predict future behavior: A meta-analysis of the attitude-behavior relation. Psychological Bulletin, 132(5), 778-822. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.5.778

Jones, E. E., & Harris, V. A. (1967). The attribution of attitudes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 3(1), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(67)90034-0