Difficulty: Intermediate. Prerequisites: Chapters 1–3 (research methods, self-concept, social cognition).
Chapter 4 explores the two-way street between attitudes and behaviour: attitudes predict actions under certain conditions, and actions shape attitudes through cognitive dissonance and self-perception. Chapter 5 examines how biology (genes, hormones, evolution) and culture (norms, roles, individualism vs. collectivism) interact to produce gender differences and similarities. Chapter 6 covers conformity and obedience, anchored by three classic experiments (Sherif, Asch, Milgram) that reveal the surprising power of social situations.
Attitudes and behaviour influence each other, but the link is strongest when attitudes are specific, potent, and free from outside pressure. Gender differences arise from an interplay of biology and culture, not one or the other. People conform to group norms more than they expect, driven by both a desire to be accepted (normative influence) and a desire to be correct (informational influence).
Attitude
A feeling, often influenced by beliefs, that predisposes us to respond favourably or unfavourably to objects, people, and events. Attitudes have three components: affect (feelings), behaviour tendency, and cognition (thoughts).
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
A computer-driven assessment using reaction time to measure automatic associations between attitude objects and evaluative words. Faster pairings indicate stronger unconscious associations.
Role
A set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to behave.
Cognitive dissonance
Tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two inconsistent cognitions. To reduce this tension, we often adjust our thinking.
Selective exposure
The tendency to seek out information and media that agree with one's views and avoid dissonant material.
Insufficient justification
Reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one's behaviour when external justification is insufficient. The less external reason you have for doing something, the more you persuade yourself you wanted to do it.
Self-perception theory
When unsure of our attitudes, we infer them by observing our own behaviour and the circumstances, much as an outsider would.
Facial feedback effect
Facial expressions can trigger corresponding feelings (e.g. smiling can make you feel happier).
Overjustification effect
When people are rewarded for doing what they already enjoy, they may come to see their actions as externally controlled rather than intrinsically appealing, reducing intrinsic motivation.
Self-affirmation theory
People who experience a self-image threat after undesirable behaviour can compensate by affirming another valued aspect of themselves.
Attitudes predict behaviour best when outside influences are minimal, the attitude is specific to the behaviour, and the attitude is potent (thought about, stable, forged by experience). Self-awareness promotes consistency between words and deeds. Situational influences can override even deep convictions.
Attitudes follow behaviour through several mechanisms:
Role playing – Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Study showed how quickly people absorb the attitudes of an assigned role.
Saying becomes believing – people adapt their statements to their audience and then come to believe what they said.
Cognitive dissonance – when behaviour and attitudes clash, the resulting tension motivates attitude change. People reduce dissonance by upgrading their chosen option and downgrading the rejected one.
Self-perception – when attitudes are weak or ambiguous, we read our behaviour as evidence of what we must feel.
Dissonance theory best explains attitude change when behaviour strongly contradicts an existing attitude (producing detectable arousal). Self-perception theory best explains attitude formation in low-involvement situations where no strong prior attitude exists.
The practical takeaway: if you want to change yourself, act first. Attitudes often follow.
Natural selection
The evolutionary process by which heritable traits that best enable survival and reproduction are passed to future generations.
Sex
The two biological categories of male and female.
Gender
The characteristics, whether biological or socially influenced, that we associate with males and females.
Transgender
Someone whose psychological sense of being male or female differs from their birth sex.
Culture
Enduring behaviours, ideas, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large group and transmitted across generations.
Epigenetics
The study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without DNA change.
Norms
Standards for accepted and expected behaviour. Norms both prescribe what people ought to do and describe what most people actually do.
Personal space
The buffer zone we like to maintain around our bodies. Size depends on culture and familiarity.
Gender roles
Behaviour expectations (norms) for males and females. Gender roles vary across cultures and are shifting toward greater parallelism in most of the world.
Genetic influences account for roughly 40% of individual variation in personality traits. Testosterone is linked to dominance and aggression and is more prevalent in males. Evolutionary psychology offers post-hoc explanations for mating preferences (women reproduce "wisely," men "widely"), though these are susceptible to hindsight bias.
Cultural diversity in language, customs, and expressive behaviour confirms that much human behaviour is socially programmed. Collectivistic ("tight") cultures tend toward strong norms, partly because they historically faced more threats such as wars, famines, and disease. Individualistic cultures place less emphasis on rule-following.
Peer-transmitted culture is powerful: peers, not just parents, shape norms and behaviour.
On most psychological attributes, overlap between the sexes is larger than the difference. Key patterns:
Girls and women tend toward more intimate talk, smaller groups, more empathy, more smiling, and more indirect influence styles.
Boys and men tend toward more direct aggression, more social dominance, and more interest in things-oriented vocations.
Women's empathy-related brain circuits show elevated activity when men's do not.
Eagly and Wood's biosocial theory: gender differences arise from both biology and culture inclining men and women into a division of labour. Everything social and psychological is ultimately biological, but biology and culture interact continuously.
Conformity
A change in behaviour or belief resulting from real or imagined group pressure.
Acceptance
Conformity that involves both acting and believing in accord with social pressure.
Compliance
Conformity that involves publicly acting in accord with an implied or explicit request while privately disagreeing.
Obedience
A type of compliance involving acting in accord with a direct order or command.
Autokinetic phenomenon
The apparent movement of a stationary point of light in the dark. Sherif used this to study how norms form in groups.
Chameleon effect
Mimicking someone else's behaviour unconsciously. Mimicry increases liking and social bonding.
Cohesiveness
A "we feeling"; the extent to which group members are bound together by mutual attraction.
Normative influence
Conformity driven by a person's desire to fulfil others' expectations, often to gain acceptance.
Informational influence
Conformity that occurs when people accept evidence about reality provided by others.
Reactance
A motive to protect or restore one's sense of freedom, arising when that freedom is threatened.
Sherif's norm formation studies used the autokinetic effect to show that people converge on a group norm, which they then maintain even when tested alone a year later.
Asch's line-judgement studies demonstrated that about one-third of participants conformed to a clearly wrong group answer. A single dissenter dramatically reduced conformity.
Milgram's obedience studies tested what happens when authority clashes with conscience. In the standard setup, 65% of participants obeyed to the maximum 450-volt shock. Key findings:
Obedience dropped when the victim was closer.
Obedience dropped when the authority figure was further away (21% compliance by telephone).
Institutional authority boosted compliance (hospital nurses obeyed obviously dangerous orders from unknown doctors).
A dissenting peer liberated participants to resist.
The "slippery slope of obedience": once people comply with small escalating requests, continuing becomes easier, partly because compliance breeds acceptance through dissonance reduction.
Group size (up to a point), unanimity, cohesion, status, public (vs. private) response, and lack of prior commitment all increase conformity.
Normative influence (wanting to be accepted) and informational influence (wanting to be correct) are the two main drivers.
People higher in agreeableness and conscientiousness conform more. People high in openness, with strong belief in free will, or with liberal worldviews conform less. Conformity rates are higher in collectivistic cultures and among working- and middle-class individuals.
Reactance arises when freedom feels threatened. People also assert uniqueness, balancing the desire to fit in with the desire to stand out.
Students often think attitudes always predict behaviour. They do not, unless specific conditions are met (minimal outside influence, specific and potent attitudes).
Students confuse compliance with acceptance. Compliance is outward conformity without inner belief; acceptance is genuine attitude change.
Students assume conformity is always bad. Conformity is a neutral process; it can produce constructive outcomes (following safety rules) or destructive ones (mob behaviour).
Students sometimes think Milgram's participants were unusual. They were ordinary people; the study's lesson is about the power of the situation, not the character of the participants.
⚠️ Know the three conditions under which attitudes predict behaviour (minimal outside influence, specificity, potency).
⚠️ Be able to compare dissonance theory and self-perception theory: when each applies, what evidence supports each, and why both are needed.
⚠️ Understand the difference between normative and informational influence, with examples.
⚠️ Know Milgram's key findings: baseline obedience rate (65%), effects of victim distance, authority distance, institutional authority, and the presence of a dissenting peer.
⚠️ The overjustification effect (rewards undermining intrinsic motivation) is a common exam question.
True or False: Cognitive dissonance is most likely to produce attitude change when there is strong external justification for the behaviour. (False. Dissonance is strongest when external justification is insufficient.)
Fill in the blank: Conformity based on a desire to be accepted is called ________ influence. (Normative.)
True or False: In Milgram's baseline study, most participants refused to continue past 150 volts. (False. 65% continued to the maximum 450 volts.)
Fill in the blank: The tendency for external rewards to undermine intrinsic motivation is called the ________ effect. (Overjustification.)
True or False: Asch found that a single dissenter had no effect on conformity rates. (False. A single dissenter dramatically reduced conformity.)
Q: A child who loves drawing is given a gold star every time she draws. After a few weeks, the stars are removed and she stops drawing. Which concept explains this?
A: The overjustification effect. The external reward (gold star) led her to attribute her drawing to the reward rather than to intrinsic enjoyment. When the reward was removed, the intrinsic motivation had been undermined.
Q: In what way does Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Study illustrate the concept of role playing and attitude change?
A: Students randomly assigned to guard and prisoner roles quickly absorbed the attitudes associated with those roles. Guards became authoritarian; prisoners became passive. This demonstrates that stepping into a role can reshape attitudes, not just surface behaviour.
Q: Distinguish between acceptance and compliance, and give one real-world example of each.
A: Acceptance is genuine belief change (e.g. a new employee who comes to share the company's values). Compliance is outward agreement without private belief (e.g. a student who follows a dress code but thinks it is pointless).
Cognitive dissonance (Chapter 4) connects directly to self-justification in prejudice (Chapter 9): people who discriminate often justify their behaviour by developing negative attitudes toward the victim. Conformity and obedience (Chapter 6) set the stage for understanding group influence in Chapter 8 (social facilitation, groupthink, polarisation). The normative/informational distinction reappears in the discussion of persuasion (Chapter 7).
Attitude, ABC model, IAT, implicit attitudes, explicit attitudes, role, role playing, Zimbardo, Stanford Prison Study, cognitive dissonance, selective exposure, insufficient justification, self-perception theory, facial feedback, overjustification effect, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, self-affirmation theory, natural selection, sex, gender, transgender, testosterone, culture, epigenetics, norms, personal space, gender roles, individualism, collectivism, peer influence, conformity, acceptance, compliance, obedience, Sherif, autokinetic effect, Asch, line judgement, Milgram, random assignment, demand characteristics, normative influence, informational influence, cohesiveness, reactance, uniqueness