Question

b. How can roles influence attitudes. Discuss how you see the college student role in contrast to the high school student role. How might play that role influence you?

c. Explain what cognitive dissonance is. Now, guess the results of these experiments. Explain the cognitive dissonance behind your guess.

1.) In one study, participants were asked to do a task. It turned out that the task was really, really boring. When they were asked to tell the next person it was a really interesting task, and, in fact, they would get paid for doing so. All agreed to do it. One half of the participants got paid $1 to tell the next person it was interesting; the other half got paid $20 to tell the next person it was interesting. Afterwards they all were asked, "Ok, really, how interesting did you find the task?" One group said they found the task more interesting than the other. Which one? Why?

2.) Researchers looked at recently-graduated college students who had been members of fraternities, some of which did hazing of new members and others that didn't. The former students were asked how committed they were to the fraternity. Did one group say they were more committed than the other? If so, which one? Explain.

Please try as much as you can to help me. Appreciate!

Answer 1

b) Social roles are about how we are expected to behave in a particular role or situation by others and by ourself. A same individual can have different roles towards different people in different situations and time like a student, son, daughter, friend and so on. These roles influence the way we think, behave and what we believe. How we are expected to behave can influence our attitudes for social roles of different culture and different place expects different behaviours from us. In order to behave in a certain way it is important to change our attitudes. Which eventually happens due to the roles.

You can mention:

• What your responsibilities were when you were in high school and how have those responsibilities changed in college?
• How do you feel in terms of studying, part-time job (if any), relation with parents, relation with friends in college and how you felt it was in high school?
• Has the change from high school to college change any of your views?
• How did the change in the above mentioned roles influenced you and your beliefs?

c)Let's understand briefly what cognitive dissonance is first. When our belief, actions, or attitudes are not falling on the same plain we feel uneasy and anxious. This mismatch of our beliefs and actions is what is known as cognitive dissonance. As a result of this discomfort we try to restore it by changing any of the three (beliefs, actions, or attitude) to allign with each other. A very common example is believing that smoking causes cancer and still smoking. This causes dissonance in the individual. So either they quit smoking to come in line with their belief or they change their belief to continue smoking.

c.1)Now this study is in reference to the experiment of Festinger and Carlsmith on forced compliance. Nevertheless, in the given scenario, the answer would be: The group that was paid 1$ to lie said they found the task more interesting than the ones who were paid 20$
This is because the group receiving 20$ for lying have a better reason i.e., high incentive (20$) to lie. This did not create much dissonance in them as they do not have to think much about changing their belief. Therefore, they did not feel the need to emphasise on the task being interesting.
On the other hand, the group that recieved 1$ for lying felt more dissonance between their beliefs and action (lying about the task being interesting) as the incentive is low and not good enough reason to go against their beliefs (finding the task boring). Therefore, they felt more dissonance and to relieve it they have to put in more effort to change their belief, hence they said the task was very interesting.

c.2) The answer would be: The group that did hazing of the new members said they were more committed than the group who didn't.
This is because the group that did hazing of the new members felt a dissonance between their action and belief and therefore the urge to resolve that dissonance. Making them say they feel more committed, unlike the group who did not haze the new members.