Primacy Effect On Attitude Formation

SAQ 1. The primacy and recency effect relate to the order in which we learn things. Primacy effect in relation to attitude formation is an attitude shaped on primary information learned (such as on first impressions). Recency effect is the things we see/experience most recently and is thought to have less impact than the primacy effect (Luchins 1957). We are more likely as humans to remember what we saw first than what we saw last. It is thought that we form our first impressions of someone within the first eleven seconds of meeting them. The order in which we learn things about someone impacts our attitude formations. Luchins (1957) said that time can change the impact of these effects. He conducted a study known as 'Impressions of Jim.
This study tested the primacy and recency effects and provided evidence of the primacy effect.
However, Luchins did find that if a space of time was involved between the primary information and the recent information then the recency effect could over ride the primacy effect. He said that the recency effect was important but not as important as the primacy effect (Silka 1989). Central traits are also said to affect attitude formation. Kelley (1950) found that central traits are more important to us when building first impressions during the substitute teacher study. Kelley found that using words such as 'warm ' or 'cold ' to describe someone can affect the way that people behave towards the described person. Being a 'cold ' or 'warm ' person is known as a central trait. Grouping traits around the central traits is known as the halo effect. This is believing that people have other traits such as being 'friendly ' because they are considered a 'warm ' person. It is thought that we judge people who have even just one good central trait on being a good person despite their peripheral traits. This is the same for having a bad central trait. We judge them as bad as we assume they possess other bad traits that we associate with the bad central trait.
(Gross, 2013) The graph below shows that the percentage of things recalled is greater at the beginning and the end than in the middle. This is the primacy and recency effect.

(Heiman, Unknown date)
SAQ 2. The English Oxford Dictionary define a stereotype as 'A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing '. Fiske (2004) says that stereotypes represent one specific kind of schema. There are many different types of stereotypes such as gender; racial; class; age; sexuality ect. Stereotyping is thought of as a cognitive process where we categorise people and assume that people in this category share the same characteristics and personality traits. It is thought to be a normal cognitive process that everyone goes through. It is believed that stereotypes have both social and cognitive functions within society. Lippmann (1922) claimed that stereotyping helps us make sense of the very complex world in which we live. As humans we can be quite lazy and like things to be simple so it is thought that we use stereotypes as a reductionist way to simplify and process information. Chimanda Adichi (2009) said that stereotyping is a result of a 'single story we have created in our minds '. This supports the idea that our minds are reductionist. (Gross 2013; Adichi 2009) Socially stereotypes are thought to be shared by members of a group and make groups distinct. Stereotypes are said be a way of the in-groups controlling and influencing the out-groups in society. In-groups are the groups that the positive attributes are assigned to and out-groups are the group that the negative attributes are assigned to. People believe that the out-group success is due to external reasons where as the in-groups success is due to internal reasons. This suggests that stereotyping has a polarising effect in society keeping the in-groups separate from the out-groups. Brislin (1993) claims that stereotypes are useful to people as they attempt to achieve their goals and meet life’s demands suggesting that they also have a social function. (Gross 2013)

SAQ 3. It is thought that there are three components to the formation of attitudes and stereotypes. These can be seen in what 's known as the 'ABC Model ' below.

The 'A ' in 'ABC Model ' stands for the Affective Component. This refers to the emotional reaction that someone may have towards the attitude object. An attitude that is formed from an emotion is called an affectively-based attitude. The 'B ' stands for the Behavioural Component and refers to the way the person behaves as a result of being exposed to the attitude object. A behaviourally based attitude is when your attitude is determined by observing your own behaviour. For example, if someone asks if you like a food but you don 't eat it very often, you may think back to a time when you have eaten it. You may then conclude that you must like the food as you ate it. The 'C ' in ABC Model stands for the Cognitive Component. This refers to the beliefs/thoughts that someone holds about the attitude object. This involves someone’s knowledge of the attitude object. These beliefs and thoughts about the spider along with the physical and emotional reactions causes the attitude to be formed about the attitude object. (Essays, UK; Marsh 2015) Operant conditioning is also said to play a part in the formation of attitudes. It is said that if an attitude is positively reinforced it strengthens the attitude. For example the news papers reinforcing that all immigrants are bad in the media. If an attitude is negatively reinforced, for example, if it is rejected by society or someone challenges your attitude then this will weaken the attitude. Others believe that social learning theory plays apart in the formation of attitudes. They say that we pick up on other peoples attitudes and that these attitudes become our own. Some even say that attitudes are learned by others such as family and friends and even that we are socialised in to our attitudes.

SAQ 4. As discussed earlier stereotyping is categorising people and assuming that people in this category share the same characteristics. Holding a stereotype view doesn 't involve any action towards the stereotyped person/group. Sometimes people can hold prejudice views about the stereotyped person/group. This is usually concerned with a negative stereotype. However holding a prejudice doesn 't involve any action/ behaviour. Only when the prejudice is acted upon does it become discrimination. Prejudice relates to the cognitive and affective components where as discrimination relates to the behavioural component of the ABC Model. For example some people say that woman are terrible drivers. If someone said this it would be a prejudice view based on a stereotype. However if someone treated women drivers differently/unfairly because of this extreme attitude this would be discrimination. An example of this is if someone was to purposely not give a woman a driving job because they believe that they wouldn 't be as good at it as a man. Many types of discrimination are against the law such as racism where as stereotyping is not and it is seen as a normal cognitive process. (Gross 2013)

SAQ 5. Jane Elliot 's 'Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes ' Experiment is often seen as a good way to reduce prejudice and discrimination.
In this experiment Jane segregated children in the classroom based on their eye colour. She told them that one group was inferior to the other and watched how the in-group help prejudices against and discriminated the out-group. The next day she switched the groups and the inferior group got a taste of what is was like to be discriminated against. Jane Elliot 's experiments are well known around the world today for giving the minority groups a chance to experience feelings of power and voice their opinions. They also give the in-groups the chance to experience what in feels like to be the out-group. Often people don 't understand something until they have experienced it themselves. Once someone knows the outcomes of their actions their actions often change. Even just reading about Jane Elliot 's experiments changes peoples attitudes and it is thought that they have contributed to a decrease in prejudice and discrimination. (Marsh
2015) The contact hypothesis suggests that cooperative interaction with the people in the disliked group will result in a liking of the group and will encourage positive attitudes towards them. Amir (1969) suggests that equal positive status contact between various ethnic groups, with the out-group members being perceived as being typical for the group they are associated with, results in a reduction of prejudice. This was supported by a meta-analytic review conducted by Pettigrew and Tropp (2006).

SAQ 6. Prejudice and discrimination can lead to what’s known as stereotype threat. This is when the individual conforms to a negative stereotype about themselves as a result of how they are thought of/treated by others holding the prejudice beliefs. The presence of the stereotype makes the individual act to that stereotype. This comes from Steele and Aronson (1995). They conducted several experiments on black students and found that the black students performed more poorly than the white students when an emphasis was put on race. When race was not emphasised the black students performed equivalently and sometimes better than the white students. It is thought that stereotype threat doesn 't just relate to academic tasks it can also lead to reduced effort and reduced sense of belonging. It is thought that this lack of effort and sense of belonging can have damaging long term effects on the individual and result in social inequality. Prejudice and discrimination can also lead to ill health. Discrimination can effect someone’s living conditions and life chances. This relates to education, employment and housing as low socio-economic status is one of the main contributing factors on adverse health changes. Discrimination such as racism can also lead to higher stress levels which are known to be bad for you health. It is also though that people who suffer from racial discrimination are more likely to conform to substance abuse, which in turn has negative effects on the health of the individual. (Bulatao & Anderson 2004)

Task 2. Prejudice is an extreme attitude (usually negative) that someone may develop from a stereotype. Discrimination is behaviour that occurs as a result of a prejudice. Prejudice and discrimination are from a cognitive approach and part of social perception. This essay will critically evaluate two social psychological theories of prejudice and discrimination. Authoritarian personality comes from Adorno et al (1950) who proposed that some people are prejudice as a way of their personality. He suggested that traits associated with this type of personality are what cause people to be hostile towards certain ethnic, racial and other minority groups. He also claimed that people with this type or personality who consider themselves to be of inferior status have very rigid beliefs and categorise groups in to 'them ' and 'us ' groups. Adorno et al said that authoritarians were often people that had experienced a harsh upbringing with strong discipline/punishment and little affection. This caused them to experience severe frustration as a child but, still hold high opinions of their parents. Adorno et al used the ideas of Freud to conclude his hypothesis of authoritarian personality. He said the unconscious hostility that authoritarians feel from their childhood is often displaced on to the minority groups and they become the targets. Authoritarians are also thought to project their own unacceptable impulses on to the minorities which causes them to feel threatened by the minority groups. They have very little self-understanding and their prejudice protects them from the unacceptable parts of themselves. Adorno et al came up with the authoritarianism scale to measure authoritarian and antidemocratic traits in personality. It is thought that someone with this type or personality is more susceptible to explicit fascist propaganda. (Gross 2013) There is some consistent evidence to support this theory, however, there are lots of problems with the methodology of it. The wording of the questions on the scale are worded in a way that if the individual agrees with them they almost always imply anti-Semitism, ethnocentrism and potential fascism. This suggests experimental bias. Hyman and Sheatsley (1954) found that a better explanation for high 'F scale ' scores was a lower education. It has been said by Brown (1965) that Adorno et al never referred to the scale as the authoritarianism scale. He in fact referred to it as the 'Potentiality for fascism (F) scale '. Adorno et al also generalises this theory to all children who have had a harsh and strict upbringing. It suggests that they are all prejudice/discriminatory when they grow up and this is not the case. There is also evidence to show that some prejudice people do not conform to the authoritarian personality. Not all prejudice people are hostile. Again this theory generalises people too much. This theory doesn 't explain why people are only prejudice to some groups and not others. You would believe that all authoritarians are prejudice to all minority groups which isn 't the case. It is not explained how whole social groups can be prejudice. It is unlikely that a whole social group all have authoritarian personality when this theory would suggest so. This would mean that all Nazis are authoritarian. Cultural/social norms would be a better way to explain prejudice and conflict than someone’s personality traits in this respect. (Gross 2013; Hyman et al. 1956; McLeod 2014) It is thought that people feel frustrated when they feel like they are deprived of something that they believe they are entitled to. Davis (1959) said that the difference between what we actually have (in terms of our standard of living) and what we expect to have (the standard of living we think we should have) is our relative deprivation. When what we actually have falls short of rising expectations it is know as acute deprivation and results in dissatisfaction. This is expressed as a J-curve graph. (Davies, 1969) See below.

(Gross 2014)

An example of acute relative deprivation is the 1992 riots in Los Angeles. These happened after a black motorist was beaten by four police officers from LA. They were found not guilty in court by an all white jury. This was seen as symbolic of how little esteem they have in relation to the white majority. This resulted in the blacks feeling a huge injustice and the black people began rioting in protest. This is what 's known as demonstrating fraternalistic relative deprivation as the hostility is towards others who are dissimilar to themselves and it relates to group discrimination. There is also what 's known as egotistic deprivation. This is when the individual compares themselves to another individual that is considered similar to their self. (Gross 2013; Eysenck 2000) This theory is based on group norms and so it explains why entire groups can hold the same prejudice (such as Nazis). It is thought to fail to explain why some people that experience inequality don 't take action. This is often counter argued with the fact that some people try to avoid conflict where ever possible, especially seeing as causing social conflict won 't always result in life- improvement. (Kendall 2005) Egotistic deprivation also explains why some people express higher levels of hostility and prejudice than others and many people can relate to this. Vanneman and Pettigrew (1972) found evidence of the town dwellers in the United States of America having the most extreme racist attitudes and were in fact the most fraternally deprived. However, there is not enough information regarding the processes involved with fraternalistic deprivation and their findings have been criticised for containing experimental bias and generalising. They are however thought to have high ecological validity. Vanneman and Pettigrew went in to real life situations to do their research but have been accused of looking specifically for people who were hostile and fraternally deprived. It is also sometimes argued that relative deprivation is not a cause of prejudice and discrimination, that it is a result of it. This is due to some people experiencing low socio-economic status as a result of prejudice and discrimination. This theory suggests that all people who hold prejudice and discriminate against others feel deprived of something when this is not the case. People hold prejudices for all sorts or reasons it 's not always because they feel deprived it can be from a stereotype or a learned attitude. (Eysenck 2000; Bulatao & Anderson 2004) In conclusion I feel that both theories have valid points in explaining the causes of prejudice and discrimination. I feel that Relative Deprivation Theory is the theory that makes the most sense as I feel that authoritarian personality is too over generalised. I agree with the criticism that authoritarian personality doesn 't explain why entire groups hold the same prejudice and believe that relative deprivation theory explains this better. However, I also agree that relative deprivation theory can be a result of prejudice and discrimination not just a cause of it. Each theory is too simplistic and doesn 't take in to account the other theories. (Eysenck 2000; Bulatao & Anderson 2004)

Reference List/ Bibliography

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