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