Attitiudes: Making Evaluations About the World

Question 1

how do attitudes develop

Answer 1

attitudes: an evaluation of a specific stimulus with:
- affective component - what feelings or emotions are evoked by the stimulus
- behavioural component - what actions do you intend to take (or not take)
- cognitive component - what do you think or know about the stimulus (intellectual component)
attitudes can vary in tone (positive or negative) and strength (mild to passionate)

Question 2

attitude formation

Answer 2

implicit attitudes:
- form without our conscious awareness
- may occur almost automatically 
explicit attitudes:
- an attitude that one can recognize and can control

Question 3

classical conditioning

Answer 3

when 2 stimulus are paired together, they may come to elicit the same response
Ivan Pavlov and his salivating dogs
- unconditioned stimulus (UCS): dog food
- unconditioned response (UCR): salivation - automatic response
- conditioned stimulus (CS): bell
- conditioned response (CR): salivating at the bell (will no longer need to see the food for salivation, just the bell will elicit that response

Question 4

how is classical conditioning important in the formation of attitudes

Answer 4

• if we pair something new (CS) with a stimulus (UCS) that evokes an emotional response automatically (UCR), the CS alone might later evoke the response on its onw (CR)
• Eg. political candidates (UCS) play a theme song (UCS) that make people happy (UCR) so with repeated pairings the candidate alone will evoke positive emotions (CS)
• the mere exposure effect:
  inherent association between things we see repeatedly and positive affect
  we like things more when they are familiar to us

Question 5

operant conditioning

Answer 5

using reinforcement or punishment to strengthen or weaken a particular behaviour
types of operant outcomes:
- positive reinforcement: develop positive attitudes about prof if she gives you an A for hard work on paper (giving something good)
- negative reinforcement: develop positive attitudes about prof if she doesn’t make you get extra tutoring after you improve your grades (taking away something bad)
- positive punishment: develop negative attitude about prof if she gives you an F on a paper you slacked on (giving something bad)
- negative punishment: develop negative attitudes about prof if she takes away bonus marks because you were late for class (taking away something good)

Question 6

observational learning

Answer 6

• watching others (models) engage in behaviours and then repeating those actions
• can explain how we acquire attitudes, dears, opinions, or specific behaviours
• ex. using celebrities for advertising

Question 7

assessing attitudes

Answer 7

• we may know a persons attitudes from their behaviours, but this is not always reliable
• self report measures (questionnaires about our explicit attitudes or opinions)
• explicit attitudes are easier to asses then attitudes
• a person may lack awareness of their implicit attitudes
• observations is another way to gauge attitudes, but it can also be inaccurate
• implicit associations test (IAT):
• can examine attitudes toward such topics as race, religion, and politics
• based on idea that when 2 ideas are closely related, we can group them together quicker (faster reaction time on cognitive task)

Question 8

implicit associations test

Answer 8

reaction time is faster to words that are congruent with your stereotype and slower to those that are not

Question 9

do attitudes influence behaviour

Answer 9

• short answer: sometimes
  when attitudes do not predict behaviour:
• LaPiere (1934): almost all restaurant owners allowed Chinese patrons (behaviour) but when asked 6 months later they said they would not (attitude)
• Corey (1937): university students stated that they felt cheating was wrong, but 76% cheated on a difficult exam

Question 10

awareness of our behaviour and attitude change

Answer 10

• how strongly do you believe that texting while driving it dangerous
• have you ever texted while driving

Question 11

cognitive dissonance

Answer 11

• discomfort that occurs when our attitudes and behaviours are inconsistent
• most evident when behaviours conflict with strong belief about self
• can help people act more in line with their attitudes (promote healthy behaviours)

Question 12

cognitive dissonance: Festinger and Carlsmith study

Answer 12

• Ps completed boring task
• paid to convince others to do task too (control group)
• group 1: paid a lot
• group 2: paid a little
• all Ps later asked how enjoyable original task was
• results: Ps paid less to convince others to do boring task (group 1) rated task as more enjoyable. why?
• more cognitive dissonance between attitude and behaviour (lied about task being fun, got little money for it) to resolve dissonance the only change they could make was to change their attitude about the task (say it was more enjoyable)

Question 13

cognitive dissonance example

Answer 13

attitude (cognition A): “I am a serious animal lover”
behaviour: I eat meat
- related cognition B: “animals are delicious”
reduce tension: change behaviour to match attitude - become a vegan
OR: justify behaviour by changing cognition A: “I only love dogs, all other animals are fair game”
OR: justify behaviour by adding new cognitions: “I make sure I only eat meat that’ s from humanely treated animals”
OR: ignore/deny information that conflicts with attitude: “slaughterhouses don’t mistreat animals”

Question 14

post decision dissonance

Answer 14

• when we have to reject one appealing choice in favour of another, we will devalue the option not selected
• after you chose which college to attend, did you start to find flaws with the with the ones you rejected

Question 15

Bem’s self perception theory

Answer 15

can attitudes come from behaviour

• yes
• Stanford prison study
• guards behaviour changed their attitudes into the mindset that they were real guards
• prisoner behaviour changed their attitudes into the mindset that they were real prisoners