Attitude change Flashcards
the link between beliefs and attitudes
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
what is persuasive communication influenced by?
Source – who communicates the message
Content – what is said
Audience – to whom it’s said
source factors
credibility
attractiveness
similarity
sleeper effect
credibility
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
attractiveness
Halo effect
Products more positive when associated with more attractive people
similarity
To communicator
Common ground
sleeper effect
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
content factors
Communication arguments
Appealing to emotions
communications
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
appealing to emotions
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.
audience factors
intelligence
gender
age
culture
intelligence - McGuire (1968)
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
gender - Cacioppo and Petty (1980)
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
age - Krosnick and Alwyn (1989)
Young adults have unstable attitudes – lots of flexibility – lots of life changes etc.
However, older people can be as equally as persuadable
personal v collective identities - Han and Shavitt (1994)
“You, only better” – appealing to the personal aspect
“Sharing is beautiful” – collectivistic approaches in marketing messages
precisely how does persuasion occur?
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
postulates (define) of the ELM
- People are motivated to hold correct attitudes
- The amount and nature of issue-relevant elaboration can vary
- Variables can affect attitudes by serving as arguments, cues, or factors that affect the nature and amount of elaboration
- The motivation to process a message objectively elicits argument scrutiny
- The motivation and ability to process arguments causes increased use of arguments and lower use of cues
- Biased processing leads to biased issue-relevant thoughts
- Elaborate processing of a message causes new, strong attitudes
postulates of the HSM
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)
illustration
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.
will he succeed? if so, with whom?
According to Cacioppo & Petty (1987) depends on whether audience use:
o Peripheral or central processing
2 main routes to attitude change in the ELM
Peripheral route (quite spontaneous)
Central route (quite deliberative)
peripheral route
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
central route
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
what determines which route is used?
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)
ability
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?
ability results
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
motivation
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
high in NFC
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
low in NFC
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
motivation results
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
personal interest
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
personal interest results
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
where do the ELM and HSM differ?
- 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
- 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 - ELM says personal relevance leads to reduced use of cues, HSM additivity hypothesis says this is not always true
1 process/2?
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)
Kruglanski’s basic idea
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
reconciling this idea with the dual-process findings
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?
example
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
affective influences on attitudes
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
exposure
Zajonc (1968) – mere exposure can evoke positive attitude (the more you see something the more you like it)
examples involving people and objects - demonstrating the mere exposure effect
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
mere exposure and persuasive messages
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
how mere exposure works
Familiarity and boredom
Conscious and non-conscious habituation
see diagram
emotion learning
Attaching products to something positive
o Exposure conditioning
o Behaviour conditioning
o Observational conditioning – notice what someone else does what confronted with attitude object
mood effects on attitude judgements
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)
moderators of mood congruence
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
routes to mood effects
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)
when do we resist persuasive communications?
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)
