5 - Attitudes Flashcards
Attitude?
(a) a relatively enduring organisation of beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols (b) a general feelings or evaluation - positive or negative - about some person, object or issue
McGuire’s 3 main phases or history of attitude?
- concentration on attitude measurement and how these measurements relate to people’s behaviour (1920s-30s)
- focus on the dynamics of change in a person’s attitudes (1950s-60s)
- analysis of the cognitive and social structure of attitudes, and on the function of attitudes and attitude systems (1980s-90s)
One-Component Attitude Model?
an attitude consists of affect towards or evaluation of the object
Two-Component Attitude Model?
an attitude consists of a mental readiness to act, it also guides evaluative responses
Three-Component Attitude Model?
an attitude consists of cognitive, affective and behavioural components, this threefold division has an ancient heritage, stressing thought, feeling and action as basic to human experience
What does the 3 component theory emphasise about attitudes?
- relatively permanent
- limited to socially significant events or objects
- generalisable and capable of abstraction
What did Katz (1960) propose about attitudes?
There are various kinds of attitudes, each serving a different function, such as:
- knowledge
- instrumentality
- ego-defence
- value-expressiveness
Cognitive Consistency Theories?
a group of attitude theories stressing that people try to maintain internal consistency, order and agreement among their various cognitions
Cognition?
the knowledge, beliefs, thoughts and ideas that people have about themselves and their environment.
Balance Theory?
according to Heider, people prefer attitudes that are consistent with each other over those that are not. A person (p) tries to maintain consistency in attitudes to, and relationships with, other people (o) and elements of the environment (x)
When is a triad balanced in balance theory?
if there is an odd number of positive relationships
Attitude behaviour consistency can vary according to?
- how accessible an attitude is
- whether an attitude is expressed publicly
- how strongly someone identifies with a group for which the attitude is normative
Multiple-Act Criterion?
term for a general behavioural index based on an average or combination of several specific behaviours
Theory of Reasoned Action?
Fishebin and Ajzen’s theory of the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. A specific attitude that has normative support predicts an intention to act, which then predicts actual behaviour
Subjective Norm? (reasoned action)
a product of what the person thinks others believe, significant others provide direct information about what is the proper thing to do
Attitude towards the behaviour? (reasoned action)
a product of the person’s beliefs about the target behaviour and how these beliefs are evaluated; attitude towards behaviour, not object
Behavioural Intention?
an internal declaration to act
Theory of Planned Behaviour?
modification by Ajzen of the theory of reasoned action; it suggests that predicting a behaviour from an attitude measure is improved if people believe they have control over that behaviour
Protection Motivation Theory?
theory related to the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour and that focuses on how people can protect their health, maintain better practices and avoid risky behaviour
Self-efficacy?
expectations that we have about our capacity to succeed in particular tasks
Accessible attitudes?
those that can be recalled from memory more easily and can therefore be expressed more quickly; they exert strong influence on behaviour and are associated with greater attitude-behaviour consistency
Automatic Activation?
According to Fazio, attitudes that have strong evaluative link to situational cues are more likely to come to mind from memory
As attitudes are being formed, they correlate more strongly with a future behaviour when?
- the attitudes are accessible
- they are stable over time
- people have had direct experience with the attitude object
- people frequently report their attitudes
Mere Exposure Effect?
Repeated exposure to an object results in greater attraction to that object
Evaluative Conditioning?
a stimulus will become more liked or less liked when it is consistently paired with stimuli that are either positive or negative
Spreading Attitude Effect?
a liked or disliked person (or attitude object) may affect not only the evaluation of a second person directly associated but also others merely associated with the second person
Modelling?
tendency for a person to reproduce the actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real life symbolic model (observational learning)
Self-Perception Theory?
Bem’s idea that we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self-attributions: for example, we infer our own attitudes from our own behaviour
Values?
a higher-order concept thought to provide a structure for organising attitudes
Ideology?
a systematically interrelated set of beliefs whose primary function is explanation; it circumscribes thinking, making it difficult for the holder to escape its mould
Terror Management Theory?
The notion that the most fundamental human motivation is to reduce the error of the inevitability of death; self esteem may be centrally implicated in effective terror management
Social Representation?
collectively elaborated explanations of unfamiliar and complex phenomena that transform them into a familiar and simple form
Expectancy-Value Model?
direct experience with an attitude object informs a person how much that object should be liked or disliked in the future
Thurstone Scale?
An 11-point scale with 22 items, 2 for each point. Each item has a value ranging from very unfavourable to very favourable. Respondents check the items with which they agree. Their attitude is the average scale value of these items.
Unidimensionality?
A Guttman scale consists of a single (low-to-high) dimension. It is also cumulative – that is, agreement with the highest-scoring item implies agreement with all lower-scoring items.
Semantic Differential?
An attitude measure that asks for a rating on a scale composed of bipolar (opposite) adjectives. (Also a technique for measuring the connotative meaning of words or concepts.)
Relative Homogeneity Effect?
Tendency to see outgroup members as all the same, and ingroup members as more differentiated.
Bogus Pipeline Technique?
A measurement technique that leads people to believe that a ‘lie detector’ can monitor their emotional responses, thus measuring their true attitudes
Priming?
Activation of accessible categories or schemas in memory that influence how we process new information
Implicit Association test?
Reaction-time test to measure attitudes – particularly those unpopular attitudes that people might conceal
Impression Management?
People’s use of various strategies to get other people to view them in a positive light
