IMPORTANT CONCEPTS CROSS CULTURAL
COMMUNICATION
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
Attitude
A:
A relatively enduring organisation of beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies towards
socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols
B.
A general feeling of or evaluation – positive or negative – about some person, object or issue.
(Hogg, 2008:637)
Attitude change
Any significant modification of an individual’s attitude. In the persuasion process this
involves the communicator, the communication, the medium used, and the characteristics of
the audience. Attitude changes can also occur by inducing someone to perform an act that
runs counter to an existing attitude.
(Hogg, 2008:637)
Attitude formation
The process of forming our attitudes, mainly from our own experiences, the influences of
others and our own emotional reactions.
(Hogg, 2008:637)
Audience
Intended target of persuasive communication
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:195)
Averaging
A method of forming positive or negative impressions by averaging the valence of all
constituent person attributes
(Hogg 2007:48)
Cognitive algebra
Approach to the study of impression formation that focuses on how people combine attributes
that have valence into an overall positive or negative impression
(Hogg 2007:47)
Cognitive dissonance
State of psychological tension, produced by simultaneously having two opposing cognitions.
People are motivated to reduce the tension, often by changing or rejecting one of the
cognitions. Festinger (1957) proposed that we seek harmony in our attitudes, beliefs and
behaviours and try to reduce tensionfrom inconsistency among these elements.
(Hogg, 2008:190)
Collectivism
Societeal structure and world-view in which people prioritise group loyalty, commitment, and
conformity, and belonging and fitting in to groups, over standing out as an isolated individual.
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:618)
Compliance
Superficial, public and transitory change in behaviours and expressed attitudes in response to
requests, coercion or group pressure
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:208)
Culture
The social habits of a community (Boas 1930:30)
A system of shared meanings (Smith and Bond 1998:69)
Although definitions vary, they tend to share the broad view that culture is an enduring
product of and influence on human interaction (Hogg and Vaughan 2008:606)
Culture-bound
Most theories, for example in social psychology, would be culture bound – which means that
they have to be understood from the point of view of a certain culture
Theory and data conditiones by a specific cultural background (Hogg and Vaughan 2008:639)
Culture-blind
Do not take culture into consideration
Theory and data untested outside the host culture (Hogg and Vaughan 2008:639)
Disconfirmation bias
The tendency to notice, refute and regard as weak arguments that contradict our prior belifs
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:204)
Door-in-the-face tactic
Multiple request technique to gain compliance, in which the focal request is preceded by a
larger request that is bound to be refused.
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:211)
Effort justification
A special case of cognitive dissonance inconsistency is experienced when a person makes a
considerabl effort to achieve a modest goal
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:217)
Eloboration – likelihood model
Petty and Cacioppo’s (1986) model of attitude change: when people attend top a message
carefully, they use a central route to process it, otherwise they use a peripheral route. This
model competes with the heuristic – systematic model.
heuristic – systematic model
Etic- emic distinction
Contrast between psychological constructs that are relatively culture- universal and those that
are relatively culture-specific (Hogg and Vaughan 2008:641)
Foot- in-the –door tactic
Multiple request technique to gain compliance, in which the focal request is preceded by a
smaller request that is bound to be accepted.
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:209)
Forewarning
Advance knowledge that one is to be the target of persuasion. Forewarning often produces
resistance to persuasion
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:227)
Fundamental attribution error
Bias in attributing anothers`s behaviour more to internal than to situational causes (Hogg and
Vaughan 2008:641)
Heuristic – systematic model
Chaiken’s (1987) model of attitude change; when people attend to a message carefully, they
use systematic processing; otherwise they process information by using heuristics or mental
short cuts. This model comptes with the elaboration – likelihood model
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:642)
Independent self
A self that is relatively separate, internal and unique (Hogg and Vaughan 2008:613)
Individualism
Societeal structure and world-view in which people prioritise standing out as an individual
over fitting in as a group member (Hogg and Vaughan 2008:618)
Individualism – collectivism
Whether one’s identity is determined by personal choices or by the collective (e.g. having
freedom to adapt your approach to the job or even your own career, marriage or child raising)
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:616)
Induced compliance
A special case of cognitive dissonance inconsistency is experienced when a person is
persuaded to behave in a way that is contrary to an attitude
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:219)
Inoculation
A way of making people resistant to persuasion. By providing them with diluted counterargumenet,
they can build up effective refutations to a later stronger argument
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:227)
Interdependent self
A self that is relatively dependent on social relations and has more fuzzy boundaries (Hogg
and Vaughan 2008:613)
Integration
Stategic attempt to get someone to like you in order to obtain compliance with a request
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:28)
Low-ball tactic
Technique for inducing compliance in which a person who agrees to a request still feel
committed after finding that there are hidden costs
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:211)
Masculinity- femininity
Valuing attributes that are either typically masculine (e.g. achieving gaining material success)
or typically feminine (e.g. promoting interpersonal harmony, caring) (Hogg and Vaughan
2008:616)
Message
Communication from a source directed to an audience.
(What message is used and what kind of arguments are involved)
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:195)
Mindlessness
The act of agreeing to a request without giving it a thought. A small request is likely to be
agreed to, even if a spurious reason is provided.
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:212)
Moderator variable
A variable that qualifies an otherwise simple hypothesis with a view to improving its predicte
power ( e.g. A causes B, but only when C ( the moderator) is present.
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:195)
(Respected adults such as a good teacher, manager, social worker, doctor, nurses are
influential particularly in the development of young children’s attitudes.
Multiple requests
Tactic for gaining compliance using a two-step procedure, the first request functions as a setup
for the second real request
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:209)
Persuasive communication
Message intended to change an attitude and related behaviours of audience
(Hogg, 2008:191)
Power distance (values in culture)
The degree to which unequal power in institutions and practices is accepted, or alternatively,
egalitarianism is endorsaed ( e.g. can employees freely express disagreement with their
manager ?) (Hogg and Vaughan 2008:615)
Reactance
Brehm’s (1966) theory that people try to protect their freedom to act. When we perceive that
this freedom is curtailed, they will act to regain it.
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:227)
Reciprocity principle
The law of doing unto others as they do to you. It can refer to an attempt to gain compliance
by first doing someone a favour, or to mutual aggression or mutual attraction
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:28)
Self-perception theory
Bem’s (1967) idea that we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self-attributions, for
example, we infer our own attitudes from our own behaviour
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:225)
Selective exposure hypothesis
People tend to avoid potentially dissonant information
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:215)
Social identity theory
Theory of group membership and intergroup relations based on self-categorisation, social
comaprision and the construction of a shared self-defintion in terms of ingroup-defining
properties
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:618)
Source
The point of origin of a persuasive communication
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:195)
Source credibility
The credibility of the source will have great importance for the impact of the message/
(Hogg and Vaughan 2008:195)
Summation
A method of forming positive or negative impressions by summing the valence of all the
constituent person attributes
(Hogg 2007:47)
Third person effect
Most people think that they are less influenced than others by stimuli like advertisements. In
reality they are just as susceptible.
(Hogg, 2008:194)
Ultimate attribution error
Tendency to attribute bad outgroup behaviour internally, and to attribute good outgroup and
bad ingroup behaviour externally (Hogg and Vaughan 2008:648)
Uncertanity avoidance
Planning for stability in dealing with life’s uncertainities (e.g. believing that company rules,
rules in social welfare instituitions/services should never be broken) (Hogg and Vaughan
2008:616)
Weighted averaging
Method of forming positive or negative impressions by first weighting and then averaging the
valence of all constituent person attributes
(Hogg 2007:48)