Attitude and Attitude Measurement Flashcards
Define attitude
An attitude is a predisposition to respond in a particular way to a particular object, event or issue. These are your feelings and emotions toward something.
Some attitudes are stable and resistant to change (eg. Moral beliefs), others show variability.
Attitudes often help predict behavior.
Implicit vs Explicit Attitudes
Explicit: conscious accessible attitudes that are controllable and easy to report. Seen when you ask people to report
Implicit: unconscious associations between objects and evaluative responses (eg. Internal racism, misogyny etc). Seen in behavior when placed in situations.
Attitude Formation
How are attitudes formed?
- classical conditioning
- observational learning
- instrumental/operant conditioning
- social comparison
- genetics
Components of Attitude
ABC Model (Allport, 1935)
- Affective
- Behavioural
- Cognitive
Functions of Attitude
- Knowledge Function
- Affective Function
- Behavioural Function
- Value Expressive Function
- Social Adjustment Function
- Instrumental Function
- Self-esteem Function
- Ego-defensive Function
- Impression Motivation Function
How attitudes influence behaviour
when and why attitudes influence behaviour
- The role of social context
- Strength of attitudes
- Vested interest
- The role of personal experiences
- Attitude certainty
- Attitude specificity
When Attitudes do NOT influence behaviour
There is evidence that behaviour cannot be so simply predicted by attitudes, which questions the
usefulness of the concept of attitudes.
Factors that may account for the discrepancy between attitudes and behaviour include:
Availability - At any time, your behaviour is a selection between possible courses of
action, and one attitude may take precedence over another.
Relevance - Our image on a prejudiced group may be different from the reality.
Situation - If our personal attitudes run contrary to prevalent social norms, we may be
inclined to follow the actions of the crowd.
How do attitudes guide behaviour?
Define implementation plan
- Theory of planned behaviour/reasoned action
An implementation plan is a plan for how to implement our intention and considers our attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control.
- Attitude to behaviour process model
Attitude Change
Attitudes are resistant to change but they do change. Resistance to change is related to importance of attitude function. Can be through learning, persuasion, coercion.
Persuasion
The Yale Model of Persuasion
This refers to efforts to change attitudes through the use of messages focused primarily on the characteristics of the communicator and the audience.
What is the sleeper effect?
The persuasive impact of a message can increase over time, despite an initial lack of credibility in the source. As time passes, people forget the course but the persuasive influence of the message grows.
i.e. even if the source is not credible, over time the message can have an impact e.g. mass media and social media
Discuss the Cognitive Process Underlying Persuasion
How does persuasion work? It happens in two ways, differing in the amount of cognitive effort or elaboration they require.
Elaboration Likelihood model and Heuristic Systematic Model
- Systematic processing: careful consideration of message contents. If it matters to us we are more like to process the information. Uses central route that requires effort
- Heuristic processing: more automatic process using mental shortcuts. Uses peripheral route and needs less effort. If the information isn’t important, were distracted or don’t have time etc.*
Resisting Persuasion
- Selective avoidance: actively avoid information that doesn’t align with your current attitudes
- Selective exposure: seek out information only in cohesion with your existing attitudes
- Forewarning: knowing you’re about to become a target of persuasion and you develop counter arguments
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Actively defend attitude: generating counter arguments during persuasion or being prepared before (inoculation)
McGuire, 1961: Exposure to weaker arguments opposed to one’s attitudes, along with arguments that refute these counter attitudinal positions, can strengthen people’s original attitudes. - Psychological reactance: negative reactions to threaten one’s personal freedom and autonomy. Increases resistance to persuasion. Can result in boomerang effect- attempt to persuade has unintended consequence of strengthening original view.
Ego depletion
If we have previously expanded energy we wont be able to participate in systematic processing. Our limited cognitive resources increases our susceptibility to persuasion.
Cognitive Dissonance
An unpleasant internal states which results when individuals notice inconsistency between two or more attitudes or between their attitudes and their behavior.
Can result in attitude change when we cannot justify the discrepancy.
Eg: having students teach about safe sex to promote the behavior in themselves as it puts them in a position to feel like a hypocrite.
