Week 12

Psychology 2100: Introduction to Social Psychology

Warren Thorngate, Professor
Psychology Department, Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6
Canada
e-mail = warren_thorngate@carleton.ca

Lecture 12: Advertising, Propaganda and Education

Advertising and attitude change, a brief and biased history of advertising

Undertaken for thousands of years
Fairly amateur before turn of century (except in the circus: the shill in patent-medicine shows, PT Barnum and Jumbo, etc.)
Rapidly evolved in North America following WW2

Contributions from the war: propaganda techniques
The dangers of satisfaction: creation of wants and The Hidden Persuaders
Development of new mass media (especially TV)

Contributions from Psychology

From learning research:

Associate good things with your product
Associate bad things with competitor's product
Disassociate bad things from your product
Disassociate good things from competitor's product
Repeat, repeat, repeat

From perception research:

Capture Attention!

From Freudian theory

Sex and aggression
Symbolism: e.g., the CN Tower and Skydome

From social psychology research:

Know your audience! Do market surveys
When in doubt, appeal to lowest common denominator

Leading to general principles of propaganda:

1st principle of propaganda: Know your audience! (Corollary: when in doubt, assume the lowest common denominator)
2nd principle: Grab attention (with sound, sex, repetition, etc.)
3rd principle: to increase positive attitude, associate good thing with object, dissociate bad things with object
4th principle: to increase negative attitude, associate bad things with object, dissociate good things with object
The four principles yield the first rule of political propaganda: your audience members are the "chosen people" who are honest and pure, but who are treated badly by "them" who are dishonest and corrupt. We must fight "them", knowing that God is on our side. Works (almost) every time!

Some amusing and silly results…

Kliban and the birth of advertising
Cigarettes
Watches, universities, ITT, hot chocolate, Tostitos
Booze
Perfume
Cars

Some consequences...

How are changes of attitude related to changes of behaviour?

Resistance to attitude change: Ableson's (1959) "Modes of Resolution of Belief Dilemmas" as reactions following a message that disagrees with current attitudes and that shows person to be illogical, hypocritical or evil

Denial = refusal to admit the validity of the message-- examples

No, I am not an addict!
Yes, I do spend enough time with my children!

Bolstering = admitting to discrepancy, but downplaying new message while puffing up the importance of old attitude -- examples

OK, I did snort cocaine a few times, but lots of people do, and anyway I wanted to prove that I can do it without becoming addicted.
OK, I don't spend much time with our children, because I must pursue my career to earn money to provide for my children as a gesture of my undying love.

Differentiation = creating a distinction between parts of self or situations that justify hypocracy -- examples

Yes, I do gamble most days when I am depressed, but never when I am feeling OK. The real me would never do it. You make me feel depressed, so it is your fault.
No, the career woman in me doesn't spend enough time with our children, but the mother in me does. I wish I were older so I did not have to worry about career achievement. My parents are to blame for raising me to achieve.

Transcedence = creating an abstract conceptual scheme that shows what is illogical "on the surface" is quite logical "on a higher plane" -- examples

Yes, I often indulge in heroin, even though I know it is bad for me. But it is all part of God's plan for me. Otherwise She would not have brought me down this path.
Of course I do not spend time with our children. I want to teach them how to live independent lives, even though this means I must sacrifice my desire to help them. I ignore my children as an expression of my undying love for them, knowing that when I am gone they will thank me for making them strong and independent.

Compliance versus attitude change (from Kelman, 1958)

Compliance ("OK, I'll do it to please you.") -> temporary behaviour to please the group, change but little attitude change. Private and public attitudes remain different.
Internalization and Identification occur when the person comes to believe that the communicator or group is correct, and gives up previous attitude to take on group attitude. Private and public attitudes become the same.

The practical difficulties of changing attitudes

Situational constraints on attitude change: "Backsliding", the temporary effects of Weekend Retreats, and functionalism revisited
Issues of habit: How to learn new behaviours? What to do while you are learning?
Saving face: When changing attitudes requires that you admit you were wrong

How is attitude change related to behaviour change?

Balance Theory: Fritz Heider revisited

This imbalance is also known as dissonance

Leon Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

2+ attitudes (cognitions) or behaviours are consonant if they logically or psycho-logically follow from each other, for example…

"It tastes good, so I eat it."
"I don't like you, and I don't live with you."

2+ attitudes (cognitions) or behaviours are dissonant if they do not logically follow from each other, for example…

"It tastes awful, but I am eating it."
"I don't like you, but I live with you."

Dissonance produces a state of psychological tension (stress) that we try to reduce by changing one or more attitudes or behaviours

Festinger emphasized dissonance between attitudes and behaviours = hypocracy

Dissonance between attitudes and behaviours can be reduced by changing attitudes, or by changing behaviours
Central idea: The more that a behaviour is seen as (1) public and (2) the result of Free Will, the greater the tendency to change the attitude to become consonant with the behaviour.

This is Festinger's notion that behaviour change can cause attitude change, just like attitude change can cause behaviour change
Harry Truman's infamous quote: "It was a difficult decision to make, but as soon as I made it, I knew I was right."

Research Examples of cognitive dissonance

Festinger and Carlsmith's "$1 - $20" study
Aronson and Mills "Dirty Word" and Grasshopper studies
Brehm's counter-attitudinal message studies
Gerard's selective information seeking studies
Knox and Inkster's race track studies
Festinger, Riecken & Schachter (1956) "When Prophecy Fails"
Daryl Bem's self-perception explanation of dissonance: the bogus pipeline

Life examples of cognitive dissonance and attitude change

Politicians and elections
Initiation rituals (medicine, law, military, religious orders)
Intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation for work: the fall of the Protestant Ethic
Cults: social pressure and dissonance

Heaven's Gate
People's Temple (Jonestown)
Children of God
Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

Some common features of cults:

led by charismatic, narcicistic, paranoid people with confidence
attract people with low self-esteem
use classical & operant conditioning principles to attract converts, foot-in-door techniques
make use of cognitive dissonance with public,voluntary commitments
apply social pressure as Milgram did in his onedience studies
isolate people from alternative viewpoints; dissent is attributed to mental abnormalities

So what?

Can social psychology be put to any better use than selling you what you don't need or converting you to partake of awful acts? Perhaps…

From your text:

Social Psychology and Law
Social Psychology and Health
Social Psychology and the Environment

My favourites…

Conflict resolution, peacekeeping and the reduction of war
Education in the Third World

Difficulties of international students
Can we deliver education abroad?
What will we teach? What will they teach us?

Reducing the gap between rich and poor

The world's most obscene statistic
The rich are getting richer...
And richer...
While 1.3 billion people in the world live on less than $1 US per day

What to do?

Creation versus distribution of wealth: the capitalist versus socialist dilemma

Life as Bingo
The advantages of community

Optimization versus survival: lessons from the Grameen Bank (see Scientific American, November1999, 114-119)

Begun in 1984, ten years after its founder, Mohammud Yunus, a young American-educated economist returning to his native Bangladesh, loaned $27 of his own money to a total of 42 local people who needed small amounts of money to start or improve businesses.
Now established in 39,000 villages in Bangladesh
Seeks poorest people to loan money, 94% are women, and asks for no collateral but borrowers must memorize 16 "resolutions" about drinking clean water, using pit latrines, refusing dowery, managing family size (these are not enforced, but are part of the Grameen philosophy)
All borrowers are required to join a group of five people for peer support and advice. If one member defaults on a loan, all members risk having their line of credit suspended. Thus, peer pressure is used to keep borrowers "in line"
Result: 96% repayment rate; increased status for women; the idea repeated in over 40 countries; Grameen entirely self-sufficient since 1995.

Some final thoughts (for those looking for final answers):

A conclusion is the place you got tired of thinking
Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter because nobody listens
When all else fails, lower your standards!
Matters of fact do not answer questions of value
There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in (thank you Leonard Cohen)

Thanks to the TAs (Mahin and Ersin), to the camera crew (Jamie, Jill, Danny and Coner), and all the wonderful CUTV staff.

Thanks to you for attending the course, and good luck on the final exam!

Final exam

Wednesday, 20 December 2006

in Southam Hall

Have a wonderful Holiday!