Psychology 3723F/G Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Combined Oral Contraceptive Pill, Vegetable Juice, Cognitive Dissonance

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3723F/G
• Professor: Elizabeth Campbell

Document Summary

The influence of attitudes on information processing and behaviour. Gordon allport determine for each individual will what he will see and hear, what he will think and what he will do they are our methods for finding our way about in an ambiguous universe . Festinger argued that we use an open-minded information search strategy before we make a decision, in order to be well-informed. Then after a decision is reached we search selectively for information to avoid cognitive dissonance. Freedman and sears argued that some of the early research on selective attention showed that people are more likely to encounter information that supports their attitudes. Argued there"s no evidence for people explicitly looking for attitude congruent information. Later studies showed people do pay more attention to information in line with what their attitudes are but the magnitude of these effects depends on different factors. One factor that influences selective attention is if the attitude is unipolar or bipolar.