Chapter 15 Entry

Herman Melville said, "We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads." How are our lives connected to each other? This is answered through social psychology, which studies how we think, influence, and relate to one another. A big impact on social psychology is social thinking. The attitude and explanation I have of someone else's actions shapes my social behavior. A way I can explain someone's behavior is by crediting either the situation or the person's disposition. By doing this I would be using the attribution theory. However, in doing this I can underestimate the impact of the situation or overestimate the impact of personal disposition creating a fundamental attribution error. When observing a certain situation I get feelings about the situation, which are usually influenced by my beliefs. This feelings predispose me to respond in a particular way to the situation or those who are involved making "attitude affect actions." There are two different paths that my attitude can take. The first is the central route to persuasion. This is when I would focus on the arguments and respond with favorable thoughts. The other path I could take is the peripheral route to persuasion. In this case I would be influenced by incidental cues, such as the speaker's attractiveness. Not only can "attitude affect actions" but "actions can affect attitude." This happens with the foot in the door phenomenon. If I agree to a small request I will comply later with a larger request.