Lesson Description
Students will use information from the National Institute of Mental Health: Social Influence and Social Cognition Web site to learn about research results in the fields of social influence and social cognition. Students will read about how role-playing can change people's attitudes, why various people respond differently to given situations, how causal attribution can contribute to negative behaviors, and how stereotyping is reinforced by certain factors. They will also review the report's suggestions for future research topics. Students will then answer four questions and apply this information by imagining they are members of a research team and use one of the topics from "Research Directions" to formulate a hypothesis to research.

Instructional Objectives
1. Students will be able to summarize research findings about attitudes, stereotypes, and social cognition and describe future research needs in these areas.
2. Students will be able to use this knowledge to imagine they are members of a research team and use a topic from the "Research Directions" to design a hypothesis for research.

Student Web Activity Answers
1. When used as a method to change attitudes, role-playing works through cognitive dissonance. For example, when people are asked to role-play by arguing in favor of a given position, they persuade themselves of that position even more so than they persuade their audience. Even if the subjects had completely opposing views of the position before the requested behavior, their attitudes still change. A person changes his or her attitude to reduce dissonance between the action (arguing in favor of the position) and the attitude (negative feelings about the position).
2. Because people interpret the world using their attitudes and past experiences, they will respond differently to any given situation. People use both attitudes and social histories to interpret reality, so no two people will respond exactly the same way to a given situation. Additionally, an individual's response to a given event may change over time as that person gains experience.
3. Attributional biases cause us to find blame using our prejudiced attitudes. The report shows how attributional biases can promote aggression. For example, if aggressive boys expect aggressive actions from their peers, then they interpret any neutral interaction as aggression. Research indicates that if aggressive youth received social-skills training that reduced attributional biases, they would act less aggressively. Attributional biases can also affect self-esteem. If people tend to blame their failures on their ability rather than effort, they create self-defeating attitudes.
4. Social categorization allows us to separate people into categories we understand. The salience effect occurs when we can distinguish certain people within a group based on their distinctive features. For example, the salience of being the only male nurse in a clinic can help to maintain stereotypes. The illusory correlation refers to our memory of stereotypical information. If we are given information about a group, whether positive or negative, we later remember having observed far more stereotype-confirming behavior in the group's members than actually happened. Refencing occurs when someone steps outside of our stereotypical categories for their behavior, such as a 75-year-old grandmother who skydives. To keep our stereotype intact, we "fence" the exception away from the rest of the group, and say they are the exception to our stereotype.
5. Students' papers will vary. Students should select a topic under "Research Directions," form a hypothesis, and describe what their research team hopes to accomplish (the goal of the research team hopes to accomplish (the goal of the research project).

Student Web Activity