Attitude change

Question 1

the link between beliefs and attitudes

Answer 1

Have you ever tried Tinder?

Is it the best way to find a mate? Or voyeuristic and weird?

If you believe ‘a’ you probably like it more than the person who believes ‘b’, and this belief will predict how you evaluate Tinder

This cognitive aspect is important when it comes to attitude change and persuasion

Question 2

what is persuasive communication influenced by?

Answer 2

Source – who communicates the message

Content – what is said

Audience – to whom it’s said

Question 3

source factors

Answer 3

credibility

attractiveness

similarity

sleeper effect

Question 4

credibility

Answer 4

More likely to believe experts and those that are trustworthy

Size of organisation from where information comes from

E.g. How much sleep should get – more likely to believe if said by physiologist

Question 5

attractiveness

Answer 5

Halo effect

Products more positive when associated with more attractive people

Question 6

similarity

Answer 6

To communicator

Common ground

Question 7

sleeper effect

Answer 7

Interaction of different factors

Look at source in conjunction with what is being said

Strength of arguments put forward

Not credible, but strong argument, after time delay, arguments can be quite persuasive

Source credibility is discarded

Question 8

content factors

Answer 8

Communication arguments

Appealing to emotions

Question 9

communications

Answer 9

How many arguments? More is usually better (why?); repetition
o Greater grasp of the available evidence – greater knowledge
o Especially in terms of physical attractiveness – less repetitions needed if more attractive
o Can say same thing about 3 times before people switch off

Counterarguments? Depends on audience – if agrees initially, one-sided better; if disagrees initially, provide counterarguments but refute them

Spell out conclusions? Mostly yes

Discrepancy and credibility – aim for small changes
o More success if credible
o If not then aiming for small changes is better

Question 10

appealing to emotions

Answer 10

Such approaches can work, but they have most impact when…
o Communication depicts the extremely negative, fearful consequences of refusing to change
o Convinces audience that these consequences are likely it attitudes do not change
o Offers strong positive reassurance that complying with recommendations will have positive results.

Fear may build an emotional tension that makes audience more receptive but…only if it is tinged with the optimistic idea that fearful consequences can be avoided by following recommendations.

Question 11

audience factors

Answer 11

intelligence

gender

age

culture

Question 12

intelligence - McGuire (1968)

Answer 12

Depends what you’re saying – quality of the arguments

Extremes not very successful – less likely to be persuadable

Persuasion means understanding arguments and accepting them

Low – accept few arguments that you do understand

Max persuasion with medium

Question 13

gender - Cacioppo and Petty (1980)

Answer 13

Gender bias at the time

Used to be thought that women were more cooperative

Realised studies biased in terms of what they were looking at – questions more likely to be known more by one gender

Question 14

age - Krosnick and Alwyn (1989)

Answer 14

Young adults have unstable attitudes – lots of flexibility – lots of life changes etc.

However, older people can be as equally as persuadable

Question 15

personal v collective identities - Han and Shavitt (1994)

Answer 15

“You, only better” – appealing to the personal aspect

“Sharing is beautiful” – collectivistic approaches in marketing messages

Question 16

precisely how does persuasion occur?

Answer 16

Most popular models say it depends upon the cognitive responses we have to the attitude object and this varies across people and situations – not static across time

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) – main one today

Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM; Chaiken et al., 1991) – useful to know briefly

Question 17

postulates (define) of the ELM

Answer 17

1. People are motivated to hold correct attitudes
2. The amount and nature of issue-relevant elaboration can vary
3. Variables can affect attitudes by serving as arguments, cues, or factors that affect the nature and amount of elaboration
4. The motivation to process a message objectively elicits argument scrutiny
5. The motivation and ability to process arguments causes increased use of arguments and lower use of cues
6. Biased processing leads to biased issue-relevant thoughts
7. Elaborate processing of a message causes new, strong attitudes

Question 18

postulates of the HSM

Answer 18

Similar in that it emphasises motivation and ability as determinants of depth of message processing

Proposes we expend more effort to assess message quality when motivation and ability high (Systematic) and use simple cues/heuristics when motivation and ability low (Heuristic)

In general, huge overlap between these two models. Focus mainly on ELM (but following examples support HSM too)

Question 19

illustration

Answer 19

Politician from opposition party making a speech to convince floating voters that they should vote for his party. Politician is reasonably attractive and well-turned out. He tries to appeal to people by highlighting things he has in common with the audience (e.g., he’s from working class origins himself). He has many arguments in favour of his own party’s approach and so speaks at length. He speaks quite quickly, and with authority. Some people clap after each point made.

Question 20

will he succeed? if so, with whom?

Answer 20

According to Cacioppo & Petty (1987) depends on whether audience use:
o Peripheral or central processing

Question 21

2 main routes to attitude change in the ELM

Answer 21

Peripheral route (quite spontaneous)

Central route (quite deliberative)

Question 22

peripheral route

Answer 22

Be swayed by cues peripheral to message content (e.g., source factors)

Use heuristics like “People who talk fast know what they are saying”

NB It’s the default option! We do this unless we are willing and able to deliberate

AC via PR is temporary, susceptible to change and poor predictor of behaviour

May understand arguments but don’t necessarily use them

Gut reaction – not very long lasting

Question 23

central route

Answer 23

If willing and able to deliberate, you:
o Generate your own thoughts that are favourable/unfavourable to message arguments
o Use self-generated reactions to arrive at an attitude that might be different from initial attitude
o NB AC via CR is relatively permanent, resistant to further change and good predictor of behaviour

Question 24

what determines which route is used?

Answer 24

Ability (cognitive load again) - Petty et al. (1976)

Motivation (need for cognition) - Cacioppo & Petty (1982)

Personal interest (will this affect me?) - Petty et al. (1981)

Question 25

ability

Answer 25

College students listened to strong or weak argument in favour of 20% tuition fees increase

Half did complex computer task while listening, half didn’t (busy/non-busy)

Did cognitive load affect their agreement with proposal?

Question 26

ability results

Answer 26

Non-busy: strong arguments => agreement with disliked proposal; weak => no real effect – what you would expect

Busy: strong and weak => agreement with disliked proposal

Why? Cog task prevented counter-argument

Factors that increase ability to process decrease reliance on peripheral cues

Question 27

motivation

Answer 27

Do you think deeply about issues or not? Are you high/low in Need For Cognition?

College students listened to strong or weak arguments

Half high NFC, half low

Question 28

high in NFC

Answer 28

I really enjoy a task that involves coming up with new solutions to problems

I tend to set goals that can only be accomplished by expending considerable mental effort

I would prefer complex to simple problems

Question 29

low in NFC

Answer 29

Thinking is not my idea of fun

It is enough for me that something gets the job done; I don’t care how or why it works

More often than not, more thinking just leads to more errors

Question 30

motivation results

Answer 30

Students low in NFC agreed a bit more with strong than weak but impressed by BOTH

Students high in NFC only impressed by strong argument

Why? Thought about counterarguments that easily refute weak arguments

Question 31

personal interest

Answer 31

Students read communication about comprehensive exam at Uni, either:
o In 10 years time (low pers. relevance) or
o Immediately (high pers. relevance)

Communication attributed to either:
o Prestigious education commission (high credibility) or
o High school class

Question 32

personal interest results

Answer 32

Source cred. (peripheral cue – less important) mattered more for low pers. relevance (esp. those given weak arguments) – didn’t affect them so why would they bother?

Argument strength (central cue) mattered more for high pers. relevance students

Question 33

where do the ELM and HSM differ?

Answer 33

1. ELM – motivation to attain correct attitudes
   • HSM – motivation can be for attitude that is correct, but also socially desirable, or reflects personal identity/values (and predicts latter two can cause most biased processing) – more flexibility

2.ELM pays greater attention to attitude strength than HSM
• Less central to HSM

3. Differ in how they describe variables that influence attitudes when motivation and ability low:
   • ELM – processes involved can be emotion (e.g., mood) and behaviour (e.g., self-perception)
   • HSM – focuses on heuristic rules of thumb (if-then rules) – use cognitive shortcuts – constrain the way we process information
   • Differences may be more apparent than real
4. ELM says personal relevance leads to reduced use of cues, HSM additivity hypothesis says this is not always true

Question 34

1 process/2?

Answer 34

ELM and HSM say we go one of 2 ways: quick and dirty or slow and considered (and lots of other dual-process models exist that make such distinctions)

This is now subject of debate, e.g., Kruglanski* proposed persuasion involves single process

How can this be????

(*Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999)

Question 35

Kruglanski’s basic idea

Answer 35

Any info relevant to attitude judgement can be used to form attitude even when info is so-called cue

Example: anti-abortion message tells you foetus suffers if aborted at 20 weeks

Person might believe this more strongly if argument came from widely acknowledged expert on foetal development than priest.

Here the source is relevant as its own argument; there is no way to assess validity of message

So…Kruglanski argues that there is no real difference between cue and message content – what’s being said and by whom

Question 36

reconciling this idea with the dual-process findings

Answer 36

Kruglanski says most studies present cues early on and very briefly

Message arguments appear later and are longer and more complex

So, not much effort involved in understanding/using cues, but…higher levels of effort needed to understand/use message arguments.

How could you test this?

Question 37

example

Answer 37

The apparent difference between cues and arguments should disappear if…
o Cues (where the information is coming from/source) are made more complex
o Arguments are made simple
o e.g., Source expertise (cue) could be presented in complex way through lengthy resume of message source (need to work out who it is from what is said)
o Some evidence this view has validity – can be incorporated in same process model (Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999), but most still favour dual-process idea (Petty, Wheeler & Bizer, 1999)
 Most literature favours dual-process model

Question 38

affective influences on attitudes

Answer 38

Feelings and attitudes are closely linked

This are not so much about unified models, more about different ideas

We will (briefly) consider:
o Exposure
o Emotion learning
o Mood

Question 39

exposure

Answer 39

Zajonc (1968) – mere exposure can evoke positive attitude (the more you see something the more you like it)

Question 40

examples involving people and objects - demonstrating the mere exposure effect

Answer 40

Moreland & Beach (1992) – 4 similar women attend class of 130 students, either 0, 5, 10 or 15 times

Students rated slides featuring women at end of term

Despite no interaction with any of them, the one who attend 15 times was more strongly liked

Brickman et al. (1972) – showed increased liking for paintings previously rated as positive or neutral (but less liking for disliked ones) – strong mere exposure effect especially for positive attitudes

Question 41

mere exposure and persuasive messages

Answer 41

Weisbuch, Mackie, & Garcia Marques (2003)

ME to source of persuasive message increases agreement with message but ONLY when pps not aware of prior exposure to this topic.

220-word essays in favour of tax hikes to repair roads

Alleged author shown in small photo

Before essay, pps’ prior exposure to photo manipulated – some saw him mixed in with others, some exposed to him subliminally; some didn’t see him beforehand.

Results – greater agreement when source shown previously; effect eliminated if pps who had seen photo consciously were asked if they had seen photo (before rating attitudes); only those in subliminal exposure condition continued to show increased agreement with message even after answering Q (not aware they had been exposed to photo).

Mere exposure does have influence and provokes response – more likely to happen when not aware exposed to the information

Question 42

how mere exposure works

Answer 42

Familiarity and boredom

Conscious and non-conscious habituation

see diagram

Question 43

emotion learning

Answer 43

Attaching products to something positive
o Exposure conditioning
o Behaviour conditioning
o Observational conditioning – notice what someone else does what confronted with attitude object

Question 44

mood effects on attitude judgements

Answer 44

Our moods can have a powerful effect upon our attitudes!

Overall, evidence suggests we express attitudes in line with our current mood

Some field studies…happy/sad movie (Forgas & Moylan, 1987), finding change in a phone booth, or getting free gift (Isen et al., 1978)

Question 45

moderators of mood congruence

Answer 45

Mood doesn’t always elicit matching attitudes (Schwarz & Clore, 1883) – when our attention is explicitly drawn to cause of mood, it is less likely to influence attitudes
o Varied day made calls – sunny/rainy days
o Report on current mood states and general well-being
o Better moods and greater well-being on sunny days
o Use current mood to determine how felt about life overall
o Asked ½ about local weather conditions at start – focus Ps on maybe weather influenced mood states
o Weather no longer influenced well-being
o Awareness of mood makes you reflect on why you feel a certain way

Mood-as-information
- see diagram

Question 46

routes to mood effects

Answer 46

Can you see how this might link to the ELM?

Does mood make us think more or less carefully about attitude info?

It depends! We might strive to maintain a good mood (and become lazy)

Question 47

when do we resist persuasive communications?

Answer 47

Forewarning (of content or intent to persuade)

Inoculation (practice at generating counterarguments)

Need for cognitive closure (prefer a yes/no answer to confusion and ambiguity)

Defensive strategies (denial, bolstering, differentiation)