AP Psychology / Unit 4: Social Psychology and Personality
4.2 Attitude Formation and Attitude Change
Notes
- Cognitive dissonance: discomfort when actions and beliefs conflict; we often change beliefs to match.
- Persuasion: central route (arguments) vs peripheral route (cues like attractiveness).
- Foot-in-the-door and door-in-the-face techniques.
- Mere exposure effect, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination.
Practice
Asking a small favor first, then a bigger one:
Small yes leads to big yes.
An ad with a celebrity and no real argument uses the:
Surface cues.
A smoker who knows smoking is harmful says, "it's not that bad." This reduces:
Belief adjusted to match action.
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