attitudes Flashcards
attitude
an enduring evaluation of a person, object, or idea expressed at some level of intensity. Can be positive, negative, or mixed. Can be strong or weak, explicit or implicit.
explicit attitude
conscious attitude
implicit attitude
unconscious attitude
cognitive based attitude
an attitude rooted in objective thinking
affectively based attitude
an attitude rooted in emotion and values versus objective thinking
behaviorally based attitude
an attitude towards observations of certain behaviors (i.e. “I really don’t like that I spend all my money going out.”)
self report
how attitudes are usually measured, advantages: (1) resistant to faking if the participant doesn’t know what the study is about, (2) participants tell you how they feel (direct), (3) inexpensive. Disadvantages: (1) participants may be faking (social-desirabilty effects), (2) may not always be aware of what their attitudes are.
Attitude-behavior link
attitudes aren’t necessarily correlated with behavior. They predict behavior best when they’re specific and strong, however, they still compete with other influences on behavior.
Persuasion by communication
two routes: (1) central, (2) peripheral route
Central route
the message prevails, audience thinks carefully about a message, and is influenced by the strength and quality of the message
Peripheral route
“bells and whistles,” doesn’t think critically of the message, audience is influenced more by superficial cues/factors that are irrelevant to their attitude towards the message.
Persuasion
process by which attitudes are changed
Message source (messenger)
Believable sources must be credible and likable
Message source (credibility)
to be seen as credible, the source must have two different characteristics: (1) perceived expertise, (2) trustworthiness.
Perceived expertise (credibility)
appearing knowledgeable/speaking confidently
Trustworthiness (credibility)
making eye contact or showing sincerity by arguing against self interest
Message source (likability)
two factors influence a source’s likability: (1) similarity, and (2) physical attractiveness.
Similarity (likability)
how similar the source is towards the messenger
Physical attractiveness (likability)
degree of physical attractiveness can make the audience more receptive to the communicator’s message (central route), or it can trigger positive associations (peripheral route). Can be purely physical.
The message
vary between strong (quality) to weak (low quality), the length of the message affects the strength of the message in the following ways: via the central route, the message length is a two edged sword, via the peripheral route, the longer the message the more valid it must be.
Order of presentation (Miller and Camel,1959)
both messages are delivered in succession followed by a week long delay leads to the primacy effect, a week long delay between the two message leads to recency effect, and no delay doesn’t lead to any order effect.
Primacy effect
the first message is most likely to be remembered.
Recency effect
most recently presented items will be most likely to be remembered best.
Need for cognition (the audience)
high need for cognition if taking the central route, low need if taking the peripheral route