Advanced Social Psychology Midterm Examination

In social psychology, a person’s attitude is a “cognition that often with some degree of aversion or attraction (emotional valence), that reflects the classification and evaluation of objects and events” (attitude, 2011). Typically, attitudes are examined because of the desire to observe and understand one’s behavior. Behaviors are the “potential and expressed capacity for physical, mental, and social activity during the phases of human life” (human behaviour, 2011). Social psychologists have found that attitude and behavior can be influenced and even changed through different means of persuasion.

Doug McKenzie-Mohr studied how social psychological methods can be employed to persuade people to change their behaviors in such ways that will promote a sustainable environment for the future. According to McKenzie-Mohr, since the earth’s population continues to swell, resources must be used more competently. To persuade people to preserve these resources, psychologists have been looking at ways to overcome the difficult task of changing attitudes and actions. Community-based social marketing is a proposal for sustainability that not only offers suggestions on how to influence people to actively protect resources, but is also designed to look at potential barriers to change. It combines psychological knowledge and social marketing skills to create a successful means of promoting positive behavioral changes. The first step in the community approach is to select a behavior that needs to be changed. There are “two classes of environmentally related behavior: one-time and repetitive actions” (McKenzie-Mohr, 2000, p. 532). One-time actions require a person to make a change only once. This could be something simple such as installing a low-...

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...ophecy. The key to changing attitude and behavior is understanding the correct methods and procedures for the given scenario.

References

Attitude. (n.d.). In Encyclopædia Britannica online. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/42266/attitude

Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W., & Schachter, S. (1956). When prophecy fails. London: Harper-Torchbooks .

Human behaviour. (n.d.). In Encyclopædia Britannica online. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/275332/human-behaviour

McKenzie-Mohr, D. (2000). Fostering sustainable behavior through community-based social marketing. American Psychologist , 55 (5), 531-537.

Petty, R. E., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1984). The effects of involvement on responses to argument quantity and quality: central and peripheral routes to persuasion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 46 (1), 69-81.