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
what do dual process theories predict?
According to dual process theories:
* explicit measures of attitude = deliberate behaviour
*implicit measure of attitude = spontaneous behaviour
Outline the study on predictive validity (Asendorpf, Banse & Muckle, 2002)
- wanted to predict shy behaviour
- 193 heterosexual young adults
- videotaped in a shyness inducing situation e.g. talking to attractive members of the opposite sex
why were participants likely to be shy?
- unfamiliarity of others, opposite sex, attractiveness, evaluation by the confederate, the video recording
what behaviour was coded for ‘shyness’?
- speech, body movements, gaze aversion, tenseness of body posture
what is the single attitude model?
- joint function of deliberate and spontaneous processes (dual process theories)
- explicit and implicit different ways or measuring the same thing
what is the dual attitude model?
- can hold two (or more) attitudes towards the same thing at the same time
- which is endorsed will depend on the situation (motivation and cognitive capacity)
what is the elaboration likelihood model?
- how motivated and able you are will determine the information processing route
- central route: when message is followed closely, considerable cognitive effort expended
- peripheral route: superficial processing if peripheral cues, attraction rather than information
what 4 ways can persuasive factors influence attitudes?
- as a cue
- as an argument
- determining cognitive elaboration
- biasing processing of available information
what is the heuristic-systematic model?
systematic processing - careful deliberative scanning and processing of available information
heuristic processing - people us ‘cognitive heuristics’ to make judgements
- e.g. ‘longer arguments are always convincing’, ‘he looks knowledgeable’
what is the sufficiency threshold?
as along as heuristics used to a certain degree of confidence, if confidence low then systematic processing also used
what is the bias hypothesis?
heuristic cues may bias effects of systematic processing
what are the differences between the elaborative likelihood model and heuristic systematic systematic model?
-ELM: inverse relationship between central and peripheral processing
- HSM: heuristic and systematic processing can occur simultaneously
what is the reflective impulsive model?
- reflective (RS) - propositional relations between stimuli, tagged with truth values (e.g. truth/false)
- impulsive systems (IS) - simple association activated according to similarity and contiguity
- operate simultaneously but IS has priority as RS only operates when cognitive capacity
what are negatives of generalised dual process theories?
- IS can’t process negations or representations of the future
- motivation key role and can operate within IS in activating related actions, and schematic needs
what makes for persuasive communication?
- source or communication: experts more persuasive, celebs or if attractive more persuasive
- message: more effective if perceived as not trying to influence, repetition increases familiarity, belief and liking
- audience: people with low self-esteem more susceptible to influence
what effect does fear have on persuasiveness?
- low fear = optimal
- high fear = message promoted greater willingness to stop smoking
what is the ‘inverted-U’ hypothesis?
- message with too little fear may not highlight the potential harm of the target
- very disturbing images may distract people from the message itself or may evoke an ‘avoidance’ reaction (black and Keller, 1995)
what do strong fear appeals do?
- produce high levels of perceived severity and susceptibility, and are most persuasive
- high-efficacy (telling people you can do things to make a difference) messages produce the greatest behaviour change
- Strong fear appeals with low-efficacy messages produce the greatest levels of defensive responses.
What is gain or loss outcome framing?
- Gains = useful for behaviours perceived as low in risk. preventative behaviours, e.g. applying suncream
- losses = useful for behaviours perceived as higher in risk. Sometimes detection behaviours, e.g. cancer screening (short term risk of detecting negative outcome)
how does self-esteem affect people’s attitudes?
people with low self esteem were more susceptible to persuasion and attitude change
hoe does gender affect people’s attitudes?
women more easily persuaded than men:
- socialisation into cooperative roles
- women less familiar with male orientated topics?
- may be due to predominance of male researchers
men particularly resistant to influence by women - especially when communicating has a highly competent, powerful style.
what is cognitive dissonance theory?
- How attitudes, behaviour and self-esteem (self-image) are linked
- Cognitive dissonance – unpleasant state of psychological
tension when inconsistency occurs. - any inconsistency may motivate change.
- Part of family of balance theory models – people try to be consistent in thought and action
what are the 3 premises of cognitive dissonance theory?
- Premise 1: If a person behaves OR is presented
with information that is counter attitudinal an internal conflict arises – ‘dissonance’. - Premise 2: Dissonance motivates people to make alterations to their behavioural or internal states to restore equilibrium.
- Premise 3: Dissonance can be attenuated (reduced) using 3 means.
- Reducing the importance of one of the dissonant elements (attitude change).
- Adding a ‘consonant’ element (cognitive re-appraisal).
- Changing one of the dissonant elements (behaviour).
how does cognitive dissonance affect behaviour?
- Cognitive dissonance describes the tension caused by the discrepancy between individuals beliefs and their current behaviour
- As dissonance is unpleasant, we’re motivated to change either our actions, or our attitudes
- Cognitive dissonance can be induced
