Attitudes Flashcards
what is an attitude?
associations between attitude objects and evaluations of these objects
how is an attitude represented in memory?
- an evaluative summary of that object
- an object label and rules for applying that label
- a knowledge structure supporting that evaluation
(knowledge structure = information about a certain thing)
Mere exposure effect to explain attitudes
- familiarity breeds contempt
- e.g. hearing a song lots of times on the radio - learn to like it
classical conditioning to explain attitudes
- neutral stimuli paired with a + or - stimulus on that valence
- PAVLOV
Instrumental conditioning to explain attitudes
- attitudes shaped by a reinforcement system of reward and punishment
- encouraging a response/discouraging an undesirable response
observational learning to explain attitudes
- modelling in vicarious experiences
- see something happening and assume it’s the right thing to do e.g. bandura
why are attitudes said to be contagious?
- whatever attitude you are displaying people tend to pick up on that and act accordingly
information integration theory (cognitive theory of attitudes)
- formed by ‘averaging’ available information on object
- unobtrusive indirect measures
mood-as-informed hypothesis (cognitive theory of attitudes)
- emotion (mood) provides basis of evaluation of objects
- apply mood to situation to form ur attitude
- e.g. like psychology and therefore enjoy psychology lectures
Heuristic / Associative processing
- Decision ‘rule of thumb’ are used to make judgements and form ‘mental shortcuts’ in memory
Attitude formation: self-perception theory
- infer attitudes from own behaviour
HETEROSEXUAL ANXIETY- People who were nervous about attractive people of the opposite sex
- Attractive person had to respond positively to the conversation
- More anxious people rated the conversation disastrous unless given lots of positive prompts
Subsequently less anxious in further interactions with them
Parents as a source of attitude formation
- infer attitudes from those most close to you
- strength of association ranges from….
- strong for broad issues e.g. politics, religion
- very weak for specific attitudes
mass media as a source of attitude formation
- particularly television an important influence of attitude formation especially in children
- Links between television advertisements and children’s attitude ( ATKIN, 1982)
What are the measures of attitude
- attitude scales (e.g. likert)
- Physiological measures
- e.g. measure ur HR/pupil dilation and make inference about what ur attitude is doing, problem HR increases when excited or terrified
- unobtrusive, indirect measures
- e.g. watching from bushes
- Implicit measures
- e.g. asking if like dairy when trying to see if you like cheese
key explicit measures of attitudes
- questionnaires
- focus groups
- interview
strengths of explicit measures
- measured directly
- good construct validity
- prone to self-presentation bias
- predictive measures of deliberate behaviours
key implicit measures of attitudes
- implicit association task - present with stimulus and A and ask to respond using stimuli B
- non-verbal behaviour
- examining behaviour
- evaluative priming - queuing in certain behaviours researchers want e.g. using old people words if wanting people to move slowly
what is evaluative priming
- categorise target words as fast as you can
- precede by a positive or negative prime
- positive words with positive prime were better remembered more quickly categorised
- examins evaluations at individual level
- Get picture
- Followed by target word
- kitten and cute = fast to respond
- Spider and horrendous = fast to respond
- Spider and cute - slow
- Kitten and horrendous = slow
evaluation of evaluative priming
- test-retest reliability low
- predictive variability low
- convergeant reliability low
what is the implicit associations task (IAT)?
Measures the strength of associations between concepts and evaluations or stereotypes to reveal an individual’s hidden or subconscious biases
Spreading activation account for underlying processes of IAT?
- once one attitude has been activated it links the activation of other similar attitudes
- Prime: delightful activates related terms ( e.g. chocolate, holiday, hobbies)
- secondary prime chocolate presented, but already partially activated
response conflict account for underlying processes of IAT?
- get priming stimulus
- produces response
- target stimulus is incongruent with prime, slows rate of response
*
E.g. word delightful = produces response which is delightful e.g. chocolate = then presented with something that isn’t delightful e.g. spiders- As its incongruent the response is slower as wasn’t what you were expecting
outline the predicting behaviour experiement
- meta-analysis of predictive validity of implicit and explicit measures of attitudes (184 samples)
- implicit measures average r=0.27
- explicit measures average r=0.36 (greater variability)
- predictive validity higher when correlated
- across domains, both valuable as both predict variables independent of the other
how does social sensitivity affect predicting behaviour?
- explicit measures of attitudes are more controlled so more likely to act according to your attitude
- implicit measure have a much weaker connection
- implicit and explicit correspondence increases the predictive validity of both measures
- response factors reduce correspondence: demand characteristics; evaluation apprehension; role playing
- controllability of behaviour did not impact predictive validity
- complementarity of response categories for IATs