Introduction to Psychology: Attitudes, Persuasion, and Racism

This psychology assignment delves into core concepts of social psychology, focusing on attitudes, social cognition, and persuasion. The student defines key terms like social psychology and attitudes, explaining their roles in predicting behavior. The assignment explores the five components of persuasion and analyzes a Snickers TV advertisement based on these elements. Additionally, the student reflects on the impact of racism, discussing personal experiences and beliefs. The assignment demonstrates an understanding of psychological principles and their application to real-world scenarios, supported by relevant references to academic sources. The student's analysis includes an evaluation of the effectiveness of an advertisement using the elements of persuasion.

Introduction to psychology
Introduction to psychology
[Type the date]
Introduction to psychology
Attitudes and Social cognition
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Task A. Answer three (3) of the following learning objectives (~300 words)
1. Define social psychology.
Burton L, Westen D and Kolwaski R defined social psychology as a subject
specialized in the topics and impacts the cognitive processes or the social
activities on the thought of an individual along with the relationships and their
impacts of the individual over each other. Therefore, the social psychology is
based understanding and interaction of people with each other.
2. Define attitudes and their role in predicting future behaviour.
Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993), attitude can be defined as the psychological
reaction which can easily be expressed by evaluation of any particular entity. It
usually includes feeling, emotions, beliefs (cognitive) and the behavioural
tendencies ad might include negative and positive impressions.
Various kinds of attitudes have been discussed and studied and they can help in
predicting the behaviour of the individuals. For example, discomfort is seen to
be caused by the cognitive dissonance which creates a dislike for that person for
which the empathy actions are seen to be taken. When an individual
experiences a discord with his friends and then the starts opposing their
opinions
The attitude of an individual is observed and their feelings were analysed which
would predict the decisions and behaviour in the future cases. For
example, when a person likes the product he buys, he tends to buy is
again and again.
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3. Define persuasion and review the influence of the five components
of persuasion.
The attitudes and behaviour of the people and then again urging the people for
cooperating in anything they desire and to accomplish their goals.
The five components of persuasion:
• Sources: It this component the people are mean to access the message
should be able popular, reliable, accurate, powerful and available.
• Messages: The message must be persuasive in nature and highly consistent
and should have a clear purpose.
• Channels: The channels can range from radio, face-to-face, television, press
anything that can communicate the message.
• Context: Launching of a message at a suitable place and time.
• Receiver: the receivers must be dependent on the success of a persuasion.
When the ad’s viewers are seen to be persuaded when they get a strong
message. (Burton L, Westen D and Kolwaski R)
4. Describe the social cognitive processes people use to try and
understand themselves and others. Include one of the following:
a. First impressions
b. Stereotypes and prejudice
c. In-groups and out-groups
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d. Attribution processes
Task B: Analyse and evaluate an advertisement (~200 words)
Choose either a poster or a TV advertisement and analyse its
effectiveness in terms of the five elements of persuasion research:
source, message, medium, receiver, and context.
To help the marker understand your commentary, please post an image or the
webpage of the ad. Any will do, the following ad was an award winner for
audience recall which can be used for this task
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvlWQyvEI38
I have chosen the TV advertisement of Snickers in the UK. For evaluation of the
advert I have analyzed it on the basis of five elements:
I choose an UK’s TV advertisement of Snickers. In order to evaluate the advert
effectiveness, the advert is analyzed in term of five elements:
 Source: it was launched on the most popular sources and is highly
accessible towards all the target groups and various other customers.
Before the publishing of the advert, it is checked thoroughly and
therefore we will regard it as a credible source.
 Message: “You’re not you when you’re hungry, let’s eat Snickers”.
The message is a perfect one depicting that the Snickers is one of the best
choice when people are hungry.
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 Channel: The advert is accessed for creating awareness as TV is the best
advertised tool.
 Context: The Company has chosen Mr. Bean and depicted it a humorous
action making it look witty and even unexpected. This will be highly
powerful in making deep impression on all their viewers.
 Receiver: The advert is targeted on young as well as busy people who
prefer high energy instantly and is sweet in taste.
The advertisement is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=qIVDxL2lgN4
Task C. Either describe the most interesting/surprising aspect of the chapter
or apply (or explain) some aspect of this material to your life (or your
future work life). (~100 words)
The most important topic in this lesson is racism. Racism has been one of the
causes for rooting the differences. The discrimination on the basis of race is due
to the personal attitude and due to the pressures from community and cultures. I
have met a lot of people who respect whiter people and disregard the ones
having yellow or black skin. They are further seen to believe that white people
are highly smarter and prove out to be trustworthy. This belief has made me
underestimate my faith in people. I cannot change their beliefs and cognition but
I promised myself not to discriminate people on the basis of races and other
related factors.
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References
 Burton, L., Westen, D., & Kowalski, R. (2015). Psychology: Psychological
disorders, 4th edn. Milton Qld. John Wiley.
 Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.
Thuy Thu Dinh
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