An annotated collection of more than 5000 links to resources and ideas for the teaching of social psychology and related courses organized by topic

Attitudes & Behavior

= new link as of September 1, 2023

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Activities and Exercises

Several examples of activities

Intimate partner violence and the foot-in-the-door

Why do so many mistrust scientific findings? - In many cases because it conflicts with a person's worldview.  This article from David Myers suggests some activities you can conduct with your students around this idea.

Does Trump simply share attitudes or also amplify them? - This good question is asked by David Myers.  It is framed well to serve as a discussion starter in your classes.

When does repetition of misinformation become fact? - A good discussion of this question along with some class activities -- by the way, Russia has a larger surface area than Pluto.

Moral judgments

Right-wing attitudes - Myers and DeWall at work again bringing us some good activities related to a Current Directions article [added 1/22/15]

Complete a survey - a variety of scales here that your students can take, get results on, and discuss [added 7/2/09]

Belief-o-matic - An online personality quiz about your religious and spiritual beliefs -- "Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic will tell you what religion (if any) you practice...or ought to consider practicing." [added 1/1/07]

Battleground God - interesting exercise in consistency of beliefs - you are asked a series of T/F questions, and then you receive an analysis of how rationally consistent your answers were [added 3/21/02]

Affect Lab - based on Forgas, 1999, JPSP - from a Research Methods in Social Cognition course - courtesy of Janet Ruscher

Attitudes Lab - based on Petty & Cacioppo, 1984, JPSP - from a Research Methods in Social Cognition course - courtesy of Janet Ruscher

 

Multimedia Resources (Audio / Video)

Audio

“How outrage is hijacking our culture, and our minds” (42:00) - a podcast from Hidden Brain

Why saying is believing - A podcast from NPR -- a full transcript is also included. [added 1/22/15]

F-I-T-D and D-I-T-F in a virtual world - Michael Britt has another good episode of The Psych Files, this time an interview with Paul Eastwick who did some interesting research on social influence within a virtual world. Here is an Eastwick research article on the topic. [3/26/09]

Here's a summary of Festinger's original study on cognitive dissonance - from Michael Britt

Video

"How people rationalize fraud" (4:35) - Here is an excellent Ted Talk on the role rationalization plays in many examples of fraud.  Links to other resources and some discussion questions are included.

Bottle Bank Arcade (1:37) - Here’s a fun strategy to encourage more recycling.

Nick Jonas takes the “which Jonas Brother are you” quiz (1:56)

Trump voter disillusioned after reading 800 pages of queer feminist theory (2:05) - amusing Onion video

Foot-in-the-door - (5:04) a description of a couple classic studies [added 1/22/15]

Foot-in-the-door online - (1:04) Michael Britt explains that F-I-T-D also works in the virtual world. [added 1/22/15]

Cognitive dissonance - (7:49) a description of the classic study [added 1/22/15]

Consistency - (4:10) a clever mistletoe kissing prank assesses for consistency between self-report and behavior [added 3/5/13]

Inconsistency over "class warfare" - (4:48)  Jon Stewart on The Daily Show discusses taxes in which the government can raise $700 billion by taking half of what is earned by the bottom 50% or by raising the marginal taxes on the top two percent.

Inconsistency over "class warfare" part 2 - (6:32) Jon Stewart on The Daily Show takes conservatives to task for hypocrisy over class warfare in this amusing show.

Inconsistency, contradiction, and prejudice - (5:18) amusing Daily Show clip about John McCain's repeated inconsistent statements on allowing homosexuals in the military that likely reveal and protect a prejudice [added 12/16/10]

Inconsistencies - (5:43) humorous clip from The Daily Show of how commentators often contradict themselves [added 3/25/09]

Conversation with Banaji and Greenwald on the IAT - (14:14) [added 4/15/08]

Prior attitudes influence formation of new ones - (0:33) This commercial is an excellent example. [added 4/4/08]

 

Class Assignments

Debate

From Jay Van Bavel's Social Attitudes course: Students will be assigned to a group to debate a topic. We will debate the topic discussed in this comic (https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe). Students will be randomly assigned to a side for the debate and do additional research to determine whether or not fact checks can effectively change attitudes. Students will be graded on their preparation and ability to integrate material from the course (as well as material from outside the course) and formulate an argument. You will grade all your teammates and they will grade you on your contribution. The whole class will participate the debate discussion.

 

Projects

CensusScope - easy and well organized way to search through the 2010 U.S. Census data, with charts, maps and rankings - do any of you have your students look at and use demographic data of any type? I would like to hear what kinds of activities or assignments you use so I can share them with the group. Send any ideas to me at jfmueller@noctrl.edu. [added 6/7/02]

SurveyWiz - This simple-to-use tool by Michael Birnbaum allows you or your students to create surveys for use on the Web or elsewhere. [added 6/9/04]

Paper Assignments

Group paper - interesting assignment in Michael Milburn's Social Attitudes and Public Opinion course [added 9/20/08]

Analyzing an ideology - students "describe and analyze a set of beliefs or attitudes held by" someone or some group they know - includes model papers - from Daryl J. Bem

Examples

Attitude/Behavior Consistency

Inconsistency - McDonald's tells its employees to avoid unhealthy fast food. [added 2/19/14]

Interpreting events to fit prior beliefs - Interesting paper describing "cases of epilepsy that were interpreted as voodoo possession" [added 1/13/10]

"The guilty green" - Describes the guilt many environmentally-conscious people feel when their behavior is not always consistent with their beliefs [added 12/26/07]

Behavioral Intentions

Fishbein and Ajzen say that our behavior roughly equals our behavioral intentions. They go on to say that our behavioral intentions equal our weighted attitudes plus our weighted social norms. I find this easy to relate to the use of steroids. In the summer, in the gym where I work out, there are several football players who go through a cycle of steroids just before season. The pressure to do the drugs is high because it is so accepted in the gym. I feel I refrained because my attitude toward the use of steroids was so strong coupled with my motivation to comply with the social norm was extremely low. I therefore refrained from steroids because that was my behavioral intention.

Behavior Affects Attitudes

Saying-is-believing effect - If you say you like a random person will you actually like that person more? How do you like this issue so far? Come on, you can tell me. [added 6/18/12]

The yo-yo trap - an example of low-balling [added 3/30/04]

A good example of behavior affecting attitudes is as follows. I watched Fall From Grace the other night. It was the story about Jim and Tammy Baker and the crime he/she committed. It was interesting to hear the actor who played Jim Baker talk about how unjust our society is to give Jim Baker forty-five years in prison and Oliver North seminars at schools. It seems he became sympathetic towards Mr. Baker after playing him. I'm assuming this affected his attitude although I obviously don't know how he felt about it before he took the role. Its just that most people don't feel sympathetic towards Jim Baker. (False consensus?)

Foot-in-the-door - as seen in a scam

Foot-in-the-door - good example from the airlines

Foot-in-the-door phenomenon - I noticed that Channel 11 uses the foot-in-the-door technique to solicit subscribers to their network. They could send out fliers or they could just tell people from time to time that the station needs and wants their subscriptions. However, they ask their viewers to make a "commitment." They ask the viewers to call them (an insignificant request). Once they have made the call and committed themselves to a specific amount, their need to be consistent "should" motivate them to complete the pledge by sending the money. Evidently, it doesn't work 100% of the time, because they have encouraged people to take their "credit cards" to the phone with them. Charging the subscription eliminates the possibility of procrastination or retraction of the commitment. They also use the social consensus technique by letting the viewers view the busy operators and hear the phones ring. If viewers believe that other people are subscribing, they are more likely to comply with the request.

Foot-in-the-door phenomenon - Women will sometimes be persuaded to let a date come up to their apartment at the end of an evening, "just for one drink". Though reluctant the woman feels obligated if she allowed the man to pay her way--the reciprocity norm takes hold of her. If the woman seems to be easy prey he may tell her how tired he has suddenly become and ask if he could just lie on the sofa for "a few minutes"--since the weather is bad and he has a long drive it may not be safe to get behind the wheel just yet. If he has made it this far, asking to spend the night, which would have first seemed out of the question, is now likely to be met with "sure I guess that would be all right."

Door-in-the-face - a cartoon example

Door-in-the-face phenomenon - This cartoon shows that Calvin understood how to use the phenomenon. Unfortunately, his mom did as well. [added 1/22/15]

Door-in-the-face phenomenon - from Christine Smith at Antioch College: "You are approached by a charity group, such as Big Brothers/Big Sisters. They would like you to be a Big Sister in the program, which involves a 2 year commitment. Although worthy, you cannot make that commitment, so you refuse because of the time commitment. They compromise with a "counteroffer"...if you can't be a Big Sister, would you be willing to donate $10 so we can take a child in the program to the circus? Because they have compromised (and it is a worthy cause), you agree because you can indeed spare $10.

The door-in-the-face works more for perceived worthy causes. It doesn't work with "Can you write a 20 page paper for me?" "No, how about a 5 page paper?" The other key is compromise--they compromised by lowering the offer, so you respond by agreeing." [added 10/20/05]

Attitude Formation

Prior attitudes influence attitude formation - African-Americans have generally been opposed to same-sex marriage, until now. What might have changed their attitudes? President Obama, whom they also favor, recently has come out publicly in support of same-sex marriage. A lot of other social psych concepts are in play here. Can your students identify several of them? [added 6/20/12]

Prior attitudes shape current ones - "Currently, in the midst of the Obama administration, two-thirds of Republicans (65%) support the so-called "watchdog role" for the press, compared with 55% of Democrats. But last year, while Bush was still in office, only 44% of Republicans felt it was good that press criticism keeps political leaders honest, and Democrats were much more pro watchdog (71% supported press criticism)." [added 1/15/10]

Prior attitudes influence formation of new ones - This commercial is an excellent example. [added 4/4/08]

Cognitive Dissonance

Reducing cognitive dissonance - Do carbon offsets allow us to reduce our guilt about polluting the environment? [added 7/14/07]

Well, I sure caught myself today. I got ready for work this morning, drove to work, parked and walked into the building. I went through the lobby and downstairs to my floor. When I got to the bottom of the stairs I noticed that my shoes felt odd. I looked down and was absolutely aghast. I had on two different shoes! Boy, did my mind go to work trying to justify this me. First it was okay because it gets light so much later in the morning and i dress in the dark now (never mind the fact that I consciously decided not to turn the bedroom light on)... lack of consistency as I don't always do this. Second it was okay because as the day went on many people came up to me and told me they had done the same thing once (I wasn't alone!)... Consensus from coworkers helped relieve the dissonance I felt.

I hate the name Marvin. I've always hated the name. It doesn't sound masculine. It sounds like his mother must have hated him. When I hear it, my schema says "spoiled brat." In my mind, there are no good cognitions associated with the name. Since I never knew a Marvin when I was growing up, I don't know why I have such strong feelings about the name. If anyone would have told me that someday I would be married to a Marvin, I would have told them they were off their rocker. But that's exactly what happened. However, I still dislike the name so much, that sometimes my mind refuses to let my mouth say it. I can't tell you how many times I've slipped and called him Norman. I have never dated a Norman, so I don't know why my mind insists on substituting that name, but it does. As you can imagine, my husband fails to see any humor in this. At any rate, my husband is a very kind and generous man. He is not at all like the schema that I continue to associate with his name. In order to maintain a feeling of consistency, and to relieve dissonance regarding the conflict between my attitude and actions, I've convinced myself that my husband is an exception to the rule.

I feel "out of control!" As the Spring Quarter comes to a close, I'm worried that I can't bring it all together. There's so much to do. I feel dissonance when I try to study. Sometimes it is so overwhelming that I can't concentrate. What shall I work on first. In which class do I have the best chance. In which class will it make very little difference how much I study. My husband is frustrated and confused. He can't understand why I'm so irritable. He can't understand why I don't want to go anywhere. He's starting going places without me. I don't like that. That bothers me too. Then there's my home. I haven't dusted or vacuumed in weeks. I've managed to keep up with the laundry and subsistence meals, but I have things in my refrigerator that are undoubtedly three months old. That's not like me. I'm violating my self perception, which is causing more dissonance. I have completely neglected my friends since I've been in school. I hope they will forgive me when this is all over. I hope there will be someone left to come to my graduation? Worst of all, I'm paying a good deal of money to be tortured this way. Am I a masochist? Why else would I inflict such punishment on myself. I could be back on that good-paying easy job that I detested so much. That's it; that's why I'm doing this! I want the second half of my life to be more rewarding. If I can only hold onto an "illusion of control" for one more week, I'll be a North Central College Senior.

Topic Resources

  Conspiracy theories are dangerous even if they don't affect behavior

  Does rating of pizza predict behavior towards pizza? - According to this research, our ratings of such things actually do a good job of predicting our behavior.

  Conspiracy theories are dangerous even if they don't affect behavior

  Does political hate speech merely reflect – or does it affect – public attitudes? - An excellent blog post from David Myers

  Attitudes follow behavior - In this essay, David Myers provides an excellent analysis of how the expected increase in vaccination will lead to a change in attitudes towards them.  This example also illustrates unrealistic optimism and group polarization.

What helps attitudes persist? Emotion

"How politics changes politicians" - an excellent essay from David Myers

"Voters' preexisting opinions shift to align with political party positions"

Religiosity negatively correlated with attitudes toward science, but only in U.S.

“Psychological ‘nudges’ change intentions but not behaviour for Covid-19”

“People judge others to be more able to change their beliefs than they themselves are”

Support for Black Lives Matter - People can change.  Here is a remarkable chart showing the dramatic change in support for the Black Lives Matter movement from a net negative to a large net positive support over a short period of time.  Here is a link to the fuller poll data.

How companies get people hooked on products they rarely use - interesting look at how content and community can create significant demand for rarely-used items

Fighting group polarization - This research suggests one possible path for cutting through the increasing ideological and political polarization that is occurring.

Political differences - APS shares several articles discussing research on “partisan prejudice across the political spectrum.”

“Is the world an exciting or a terrifying place?” - According to research, how you answer that question “can powerfully shape your life and your political views.”

Change the bias, change the behavior? - Apparently not.  A recent meta-analysis did not find correspondent change of changing one’s implicit bias leading to a change in one’s behavior.

Smiling and customer service - When filling customer service roles, people “are often expected to project a welcoming attitude and maintain a positive, or at least even-tempered, tone while interacting with the most difficult members of the public.”  The authors of this Current Directions article describe how sometimes we engage in “surface acting” or faking it, and sometimes we engage in “deep acting” where we actually change our thoughts and feelings.  The research describes some of the correlates and consequences of these two approaches to customer service.

“Do the President’s tweets simply reflect prevalent attitudes – or do they also intensify them?” - David Myers examines this critical question about the influence of leader communications, in particular regarding the question of whether inflammatory rhetoric towards a group can strengthen negative beliefs towards that group and, perhaps, even inspire action against them.

How to convince parents to vaccinate themselves and their kids - A thorough review of the literature found that trying to change attitudes and beliefs was not very effective.  Trying to modify behavior was more successful.

Yes, your implicit attitudes can change over time

Sources of attitudes towards same-sex marriage

Majority of Republicans believe colleges are bad for U.S. - This change in belief has been quite rapid recently.  What might have led to such a change?

Conservatives use nouns; liberals use adjectives - It's all about our handling of uncertainty.  In fact, this link also takes you to a research summary describing how uncertainty may drives us toward dogmatic beliefs and prejudice.

"Belief in conspiracies largely depends on political identity" - This is another example of what I mentioned in the "quiz" above.

 "Misinformation and education in a post-truth world" - Of course, shifting attitudes and beliefs are often the result of misinformation and fake news that we have heard so much about.  David Myers provides some examples and addresses the topic in this short blog entry.

Quickly shifting attitudes and beliefs - It will be fascinating to watch American politics over the next four years, for so many reasons.  One reason will be the quickly shifting attitudes and beliefs resulting from the hyper-partisan environment we now live in in the U.S.  In the previous issue I sent you a couple examples.  Here are some more examples of attitudes and beliefs changing quite dramatically depending on who is saying what about ... whatever.  What do your students think about people who would change their beliefs so quickly?  Your students would never say they were so fickle, would they?  Here are some more examples. David Myers provides some insight into this question.  It would be a good, brief essay for your students to read as they discuss this topic.  I would love to hear from those of you who live outside of the U.S. if a similar phenomenon of quickly shifting attitudes/beliefs from hyper-partisanship has developed in your country as well.  Please share examples if there are any.

How did U.S. economic confidence dramatically surge/depress in just two weeks time? - Oh yes, there was a presidential election in between.  Amazing how Republican and Democrat confidence judgments of our current economy changed so quickly.

"Why are some of us better at handling contradictory information?"

 How do you get teenagers to eat less junk food? - Frame it as an act of rebellion!  This study did so quite cleverly with positive effects.

Are your attitudes based in morality? - This fascinating research found that if participants were told that their attitudes seemed to be based in morality (rather than equality, or tradition, or practicality) they were less likely to change them and more likely to follow up on them.

30% U.S. teachers tell students that climate change is "likely due to natural causes" - From a survey just published in Science

Republicans like Obama's ideas better when they are Trump's - Excellent research study found issues that Obama and Trump agree upon and presented them as supported by one or the other.  They also asked Democrats.

When facts threaten beliefs, we downplay need for such facts - "The first presented participants with a summary statement from a conference on science and God. When it suggested that science could one day settle the question of God's existence, religious participants wavered in their religious conviction, rating it significantly lower than those told that science was not armed to answer such questions. The very possibility that the religious belief was falsifiable made it vulnerable."

"Why gay marriage opponents lost: The social angle" - good brief essay looking at how such changes can evolve [added 1/22/15]

The licensing effect - If you have just exercised do you give yourself the license to eat something fattening? In other words, might your good intentions backfire in some instances? This blog entry describes a fascinating recent study: "Participants were told that they would be evaluating a new brand of scissors. Part of the evaluation process required them to rate how good the scissors were at cutting out shapes (such as triangles and squares) from a stack of approximately 200 sheets of plain, white paper. Half the participants tested the scissors in a room where there weren’t any recycling facilities, only a trash can. The other half completed the task in a room where recycling facilities were available in addition to a regular trash can. The participants were purposely not given any specific instructions about the sizes of the shapes or the amount of paper that they should use in the task. Instead they were simply told to dispose of any scraps in the receptacle(s) provided and then complete a ‘green attitude’ questionnaire that asked them about their beliefs and attitudes towards the environment. The results were quite simply staggering. Participants who evaluated the pair of scissors when recycling facilities were available used nearly three times more paper than the group who didn’t have recycling facilities. Interestingly this increase in the use of resources occurred regardless of how positive the participants’ ‘green attitudes’ were as measured in the post study questionnaire." [added 8/1/13]

"Dead indoor plants strengthen belief in global warming" - On the other hand, being exposed to healthy or no plants had no effects on one's beliefs. What about fake healthy or dead plants? [added 7/8/12]

Reduce littering with the smell of cleaning - "A team of Dutch social psychologists has proposed a simple solution to the litter problem on trains - infuse carriages with the citrus scent of cleaning product. Martinijn de Lange and his colleagues made their recommendation after conducting a field experiment in which they concealed seven small containers of cleaning product (spiced up with a little Capitaine perfume oil) in the luggage racks of two carriages on a train travelling between Amersfoort-Schothorst and Enkhuizen, a journey of one hour and forty-four minutes." [added 7/8/12]

Memory for our prior intentions is unreliable - "Nearly six hundred undergrads answered open-ended questions about why they'd purchased, downloaded or copied their most recently acquired album (the vast majority had acquired one within the last two weeks), and then they provided the same information again six months to a year later. The participants' answers fell into five main categories: because they liked the artist, liked the music, liked a specific song or songs, someone had recommended the album, or they needed the album for a specific purpose. The key finding was that only one in five participants gave a consistent reason or reasons at both time points....Unsurprisingly perhaps, participants who recalled more reasons at the first time point tended to be more prone to forgetting reasons when quizzed again later. This was also true of participants who reported liking their CD more, perhaps because they'd felt less need to dwell on their motives at the time they acquired the album. A subset of 82 of the participants also gave their reasons at a third time point, approximately six months to a year after the second time of questioning. Although still evident, changes in memory between the second and third time points were far reduced compared with between the first and second time points. This is important for real-life legal situations because consistency of answers across later interviews could be interpreted as a sign of memory reliability. 'It appears critical to have an accurate and complete record of the very first interview given by a witness,' the researchers said." [added 4/28/11]

Using the IAT to predict suicide? - [added 7/13/10]

Can the aIAT detect lying? Can you cheat on it? - It has been suggested that the autobiographical IAT (aIAT) can serve as a lie-detection tool. However, this research suggests people can be easily trained to fool it. [added 1/18/10]

"How to turn a liberal into a conservative" - "Across three studies, Paul Nail and colleagues tested the conservatism and liberalism of students before and after subjecting them to a threat. Their consistent finding was that a threat turned liberal students into conservatives." [added 1/18/10]

Conspiracy theorists - Do they even exist? I have my doubts. [added 1/18/10]

Just reading about it wore me out - A blog entry about some fascinating research in which participants reported a greater willingness to exercise when the instructions were written in easily read font than in a hard to read font. Similar results were found for instructions for making sushi. [4/17/09]

Try this out on your class. Give them the above blog entry to read for the next class. However, surreptiously hand half the class the article in an easy-to-read font and the other half the article in a more difficult-to-read font. Then, at the beginning of the next class ask how many of each group actually read the article. If you do not like that idea, you can probably think of many variations of this manipulation. [added 7/25/09]

Changing beliefs changes behavior - interesting report of a study on how changing students' beliefs in free will increased their cheating behavior [added 5/09/08]

Libertarian paternalism - interesting essay about "nudging" people towards desired behavior by helping to choose for them [added 5/09/08]

"A resource belief-curse: Oil and individualism" - This is a strangely interesting study: "We study the correlation between a belief concerning individualism and a measure of luck in the US during the period 1983-2004. The measure of beliefs is the answer to a question related to whether the poor should be helped by the government or if they should help themselves, while the measure of luck is the share of the oil industry in the state’s economy multiplied by the price of oil. The correlation is negative, suggesting that more reliance on luck is correlated with less individualism." [added 4/6/08]

Left-wing brains vs. Right-wing brains - You may have heard this study comparing the accuracy of liberals and conservatives on an inhibition task, and the neurological correlates. The media had a field day misinterpreting and overblowing this one. [added 11/17/07]

"The education of Shelby Knox" - In a P.O.V. show on PBS, "A self-described 'good Southern Baptist girl,' 15-year-old Shelby Knox of Lubbock, Texas has pledged abstinence until marriage. But she becomes an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex ed when she finds that Lubbock, where high schools teach abstinence as the only safe sex, has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STDs in the state." [added 1/2/06]

Theory of Planned Behavior - Icek Aizen makes available on his site an explanation of the theory of planned behavior (in a nice, graphical, interactive format) as well as access to a number of his articles [added 6/7/02]

Self-determination Theory - a site from Edward Deci et al. on their motivational theory -- it includes an overview, bibliography, discussion of the reward controversy (overjustification effect), related scales that can be downloaded and more [added 6/6/02]

Survey/Polling Data

“Pew Research compares forced-choice versus check-all response options” - In Pew’s report they found that “Response options matter, such that more participants agreed with statements when they were in the forced-choice format.” Links on this page take you to the short and long versions of the report.

“How to access Pew Resource Center survey data” - a brief description of how you and your students can access datasets from Pew for a variety of uses

How to increase voter turnout - "Would-be voters received one of three kinds of phone call: either they were encouraged to vote and reminded of their duty; they were asked whether they intended to vote; or they were asked more detailed questions about when, where etc they planned to vote. A control group received no phone call. A classic study in the 1980s found that simply asking people if they intended to vote ended up making them more likely to vote - a phenomenon known as the 'self-prophecy effect'. However, this effect wasn't replicated here. Would-be voters in the current study, who were simply asked whether they planned to vote or not, were barely more likely to vote than the control group. Same story for the participants who received a call with encouragement to vote. By contrast, would-be voters who were asked questions about the when and where of their voting intentions were, on average, 4.1 per cent more likely to vote than controls. There's a further twist. Digging deeper the researchers realised that the detailed questions about voting intentions only exerted an influence on would-be voters who were the sole eligible voter in their household. Focusing on just these people, the detailed voting intentions phone call led to an average 9.1 per cent increase in turnout." [added 7/13/10]

European Values Survey (EVS) - From The Scout Report: "Based in the Netherlands the EVS concerns itself with asking Europeans about religion and morality, politics, work and leisure, and relationships. On their homepage, visitors can learn about their work by clicking on the "Organization" area. After learning a bit about their organizational structure, visitors will want to look at previous and current surveys. These are located along the left-hand side of the homepage, and they include surveys from 1981, 1990, 1999, and 2000. While visitors do not have access to the raw data on the site, they can look at the questionnaires and read publications based on this research. However, visitors do have access to the World Values Survey (WVS) data, which is available in the 'Values Survey, 1981-2004' section." [4/17/09]

Survey of American youth - "Monitoring the Future is an ongoing study of the behaviors, attitudes, and values of American secondary school students, college students, and young adults. Each year, a total of approximately 50,000 8th, 10th and 12th grade students are surveyed (12th graders since 1975, and 8th and 10th graders since 1991). In addition, annual follow-up questionnaires are mailed to a sample of each graduating class for a number of years after their initial participation." [added 8/05/07]

Attitudes between citizens of neighboring Asian countries - A survey from the Pew Research Center -- "There is a good deal of dislike, if not outright hostility, in how the publics of major Asian countries view their neighbors. The deepest divides exist between traditional rivals - roughly seven-in-ten Japanese express an unfavorable view of China and an equal number of Chinese dislike Japan. Similarly, most Indians have an unfavorable view of Pakistan and most Pakistanis hold negative views about India." [added 12/30/06]

Pew Global Attitudes Project - "The Pew Global Attitudes Project is a series of worldwide public opinion surveys. More than 90,000 interviews in 50 countries have been conducted as part of the project." Current surveys include one in predominantly Muslim countries on the degree to which Islamic extremism is perceived as a threat in their countries. [added 7/6/06]

A blog on analyzing polling data - "Political arithmetik: Where numbers and politics meet" is a blog from Charles Franklin, a professor of political science, in which he explains political bias in polls, the statistical analysis of them, and more. Lots of good examples and very detailed analysis. [added 7/6/06]

National Youth Poll - Hamilton College conducted a national survey of the high school class of 2006 on the hot button issues of guns, gays and abortion. [added 2/22/06]

Living with debt - A report on changing attitudes and behavior towards living in debt within the U.S. -- "Robert D. Manning of Rochester Institute of Technology conducted in-depth interviews and group discussions with nearly 150 people to better understand American's attitudes and behaviors when it comes to their debt." [added 1/10/06]

Survey on midlife sexuality - "2004 update of attitudes and behaviors: Sexuality at midlife and beyond" from AARP [added 9/20/05]

Survey data from NORC - another source of polling data from a national organization for research at the University of Chicago -- polls and reports on 9-11 and other topics [added 9/20/05]

"Discover what the world thinks about U.S." - Here is another site that includes polling data about how others feel about America. It also includes audio and video from around the world translated into English. [added 8/30/05]

How the U.S. is perceived around the world (2004) - a series of pieces on international perceptions of the U.S. including country by country surveys -- which can be compared and contrasted to American perspectives [added 12/1/04]

Attitudes about homosexuality - "This study is a compilation of public opinion polls on acceptance of homosexuality, gay marriage, civil unions, partner benefits, party identification and voting of gays, employment, and adoption. The study includes all of the latest polling data as well as important historical trends for comparative purposes." From the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research [added 3/20/05]

Health Poll Report - "Kaiser Health Poll Report is a bimonthly report designed to provide key tracking information on public opinion about health care topics to journalists, policymakers and the general public. Each Current Feature includes poll findings on a unique and timely topic, while the other sections track public opinion on some key broad questions over time." View the actual poll questions and summary of responses for a large number of topics including Americans' views of disability and public attitudes towards HIV/AIDS. [added 12/1/04]

World Values Survey - "The World Values Survey is a worldwide investigation of sociocultural and political change. It is conducted by a network of social scientist at leading universities all around world. The survey is performed on nationally representative samples in almost 80 societies on all six inhabited continents. A total of four waves have been carried since 1981 allowing accurate comparative analysis." Find the questionnaires used. Data sets are available for analysis, even some online analysis. [added 3/23/04]

CensusScope - easy and well organized way to search through the 2000 U.S. Census data, with charts, maps and rankings - do any of you have your students look at and use demographic data of any type? I would like to hear what kinds of activities or assignments you use so I can share them with the group. Send any ideas to me at jfmueller@noctrl.edu. [added 6/7/02]

Polling Data - PollingReport.com states that it is "an independent, nonpartisan resource on trends in American public opinion." You can find an extensive collection of polling results on a variety of topics here, and it is kept current

Survey Research Center - from Princeton University - links to a considerable amount of survey and poll data and other related resources

Inconsistency and Cognitive Dissonance

Why is it so upsetting when the people we thought were good turn out to be bad? - Oh, the human mind is quite nimble.

How do Trump supporters reconcile his lying? - Oh, the human mind is quite nimble.

“Voters’ pre-existing opinions shift to align with political party positions”

 "Trump voters believe sex allegations against Weinstein, but not against Trump"

 "Politicians reject evidence that conflicts with their beliefs... - ...and if you give them more evidence, they double down.

Origins of cognitive dissonance - story about some fascinating research which investigated and found apparent dissonance-reducing strategies in four-year-old children and capuchin monkeys [added 12/16/07]

• Also, here is a New York Times article discussing the another article's critique
• Finally, here is a video explaining the Monty Hall dilemma andhere is a site where you can play the Monty Hall game [added 4/16/08]

"Attitudes and Cognitive Organization" - classic article by Fritz Heider (1946)

"Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance" - classic article by Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)