Social Psychology W4 P1

Introduction to Social Psychology, University of Queensland, EdX.

-An attitude is an association between a behavior or object and an evaluation. An attitude has three main components: A belief, a feeling, and behavioral output.
-An attitude is different than an opinion; an opinion is just what we say our attitude is.

-sometimes we express an opinion that doesn't match our attitude due to social pressure, fear, or because we simply aren't thinking about it.
-Attitudes are also not good predicters of actions for the same reason.
-Persuasive messages are tough to change attitudes with; the have to stay in the brain, carry an impact, and physically change a person's actions.

-Humans are persuaded by a variety of factors besides a message itself; the message may target gender, age, or self esteem, it may invoke fear or sadness or joy, the message may be credible, or presented by an attractive speaker.
-the higher the credibility of a message, the more persuasive. However, credibility has less effect as time foes on. If people sleep on a message, they are more likely to disassociate the idea from the speaker.
-However, attractiveness is more likely to stick in a person's head because they increase engagement.
-Making people afraid, as in propaganda, also works. People don't want bad things to happen to them, so the are easily influenced to do whatever they are wanted to do.

-When giving a persuasive message, the pros should outweigh the cons. The more you think about the pros, the more persuaded you'll become.
-Also, if the message is associated with other positive things, chances are you'll start feeling positively about the subject as well.

-Any inconsistency in our thoughts isn't pleasant, so we do our best to reduce it; consistency is more important to our brains than a reward.
-Behavior is more easily changed than attitude is, so advertisements and such will use this concept to their advantage.