6.1 Attitudes & Attitude Change

Question 1

What an Attitude is Not…

Answer 1

It’s not a person’s mood despite its common usage in those terms!

Question 2

What is an attitude?

Answer 2

A positive, negative, or mixed evaluation of a person, object, or idea

• Comprising of affective cognitive or behavioural
• Attitute is + towards dogs because more + then negative inputs

Question 3

Ambivalent

Answer 3

Attitudes can be poitive and negative (ambivilent person has both strong positive and negative feeling towards something)

Question 4

Indifferent

Answer 4

absence of feeling in any direction

Question 5

3 Components of attitudes

Answer 5

Affective
Behavioural
Cognitive

Question 6

Affective

Answer 6

•people emotions or feeling towards object
•Three things that affective based attitudes have in common
-do not result from the rational examination of issues
-not governed by logic
-linked to peoples broader values (maybe you love jeep wranglers because its linked to your adventure values)
•it’s hard to change poeple attitudes when their affectively based

• I like it when dogs wag their tail (+)
• I get annoyed when dogs jump on me (-)

Question 7

Behavioural

Answer 7

• how people act towards the object
• stem from people observations of how they behave towards an object
• people were probably not sure how they felt about the object until the reflect of their actions towards the object. (ex: unsure how they feel about dog, go new to dog and keep petting it. Oh I keep petting the dog, I must like the dog)
• I avoid dogs (-)
• I always pet dogs (+)

Question 8

Cognitive

Answer 8

• the thoughts and beliefs about the object
• Emotions and feelings the object triggers
• based on relevant facts, they’re calculating the plus and minus of that object (think of the pros and cons)
• Dogs smell (-)
• Dogs are friendly (+)

Question 9

How attitudes are measured: Self Report measured:

Answer 9

• self report for the main thing
• Questionnaires
• Product/service, hotels/ restaurants.
• Course evaluations

• Overall, how would you rate ______?
Excellent Good Average Poor Terrible
• How likely are you to buy a Nabisco product in the future?
Very unlikely Somewhat unlikely Not sure Somewhat likely Very likely

Question 10

Explicit attitudes

Answer 10

• Attitudes we know we have
• Operate at conscious level
• Affect controllable behaviors
• Best measured by self-report scales

Question 11

Implicit attitudes

Answer 11

• Attitudes we aren’t aware of having
• Operate in nonconscious level
• Affect involuntary behaviors (like nonverbal)
• How do we measure them??

Question 12

The Implicit Association Test (IAT)

Answer 12

•Measures one’s association between 2 concepts
– Groups (e.g., race, gender)
– Evaluation (+ or -)
•best for attitudes that people don’t know they have or don’t want to say
•reaction time measure
•example: black shooter bias

Question 13

We often want to find out other people’s attitudes, why?

Answer 13

• We think behaviour follows from attitudes
• Attitudes —> behaviour (if we understand attitudes we can predict peoples behaviour)
• There’s a lot of social psych resarch that says that attitudes don’t always predict behaviour
• Ex: how + do you feel about school? This does not predict the liklihood they’ll attend lecture

Question 14

Behaviour follows from attitudes under specific circumstances - 3

Answer 14

–If the attitude corresponds closely to the behaviour
–If the attitude is potent (we’re reminded of it, or acquired it through direct experience)
–When other influences on behaviour are minimized
14

Question 15

Attitudes Follow from Behaviour

•Three theories

Answer 15

–Impression management theory
–Cognitive dissonance theory
–Self-perception theory

Question 16

Impression management theory

Answer 16

(Self-presentation)
•People will behave a certain way to make a good impression and report attitudes in line with their behaviour
•attitudes can sometimes follow from behaviour or come from a broader goal

Question 17

Cognitive dissonance theory

Answer 17

(Self-justification)
–The tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of two conflicting cognitions
–Feels uncomfortable (like the sound of two dissonant music notes together)
–We are motivated to change something in order to make that feeling go away

Question 18

Third variable hypothesis

Answer 18

part of Impression Management Theory
•Attitude: Says he loves kids
•Behaviour: Plays with niece
•Other Factor: Goal to make a good impression on girlfriend

Question 19

Study:
Female participants were told that they were going to meet a man
–More desirable vs. less desirable
–Prefers ‘traditional’ vs. modern women
•Measure attitudes: modern or traditional
•Measure behaviour: IQ test

Answer 19

• People in desireable man condition more motivated to make a better impression
• low desireability dude: no diffrence in womens self reported attitudes (mod/trad)
• high desirability dude: women had more agreenment with modern if the man liked modern, more trad if man liked trad.
• IQ scores were higher if though the man prefered modern women
• It wasn’t that attitudes effected bahaviour or vice versa, there was a third goal that effected both which was the impression managment.

Question 20

3 Options for getting rid of Dissonance:
Cognition A: I smoke cigarettes
\+
Cognition B: Smoking leads to lung cancer
= Dissonace

Answer 20

Option 1: Change Cognition A:
•Cognition A: I don’t smoke

Option 2: Change Cognition B
•Cognition B: Smoking has been linked with cancer, but research has methodological flaws

Option 3: Add Cognition C
•Cognition C: But it never hurt my grandfather/ Life is short

• Any method will work
• We’ll use easiest available method
• Often easier to change attitudes & cognitions than behaviors

Question 21

External Justification

Answer 21

•Explanation for counterattitudinal behavior that lies outside the individual
–Large reward
–Threat of severe punishment
•Dissonance reduction most likely with minimal external justification

Question 22

Forced Compliance Paradigm

Answer 22

• Get people to do something they don’t want to do
• Offer very little incentive
• Result: They will change their attitude in order to justify the unrewarding action

Question 23

Study:
asked people to do a really boring task (sat in front of a board and turned hundreds of pegs)
Then asked to lie to another student coming in and tell the student it was fun
Their either payed $1 or $20

Answer 23

$20 lead to high external justification (so no dissonance)
$1 lead to low external justification (lots of dissonance) [then reacess people and the $1 people change their attitudes and go oh yeah the task was okay, because pople need to explain why they lied]

Question 24

Study:
Approached betters in line or after placing bets (IV)
–After placing bet decision is irrevocable
•“How certain are you that your horse will win?”

Answer 24

• after olacing a bet you can’t change the decision
• Asked the people how certain they were that their hourse had won
• After placing bet the poeple were a lot more sure that they’d won
• Permanent decisions induce more dissonance

Question 25

Self-Perception Theory

Answer 25

(self-observation)
–We infer our attitudes from watching our own behaviour
–Self-observation – just like we infer other people’s attitudes from watching their behaviour
–It’s when your unsure of what your attitude is that your most likley to look ar your behaviour in order to let you know how you feel
–Weak attitudes only

–3rd variable impressiion management (you might like the way you look while smoaking)

Question 26

•Three things that affective based attitudes have in common

Answer 26

• do not result from the rational examination of issues
• not governed by logic
• linked to peoples broader values (maybe you love jeep wranglers because its linked to your adventure values