Attitudes Flashcards
What are attitudes?
organization of beliefs, feelings, behavioral tendencies towards significant objects, groups, events
One component attitude model
Affect towards object positive or negative associated with the object
two component attitude model
knowledge, beliefs- guiding evaluative response
what we think about something- if we like it or not
Three component attitude model
cognitive, affective, behavioral components
cognitive component
knowledge, beliefs- characteristic of the object, subject
I believe spiders are dangerous
Affective component
feelings/emotions towards the object
I am scared of spiders
Behavioral component
behavior towards the object
avoiding spiders - screaming
belief based attitude
reasoned attitudes- based on outcome expectations and relative importance
conscious cost- benefit analysis
cue driven- attitudes
automatic attitudes
spontaneous evaluations triggered by perception of attitude object
automatic process of learned association
Why do we have attitudes?
- knowledge
- instrumentality (tool to achieve goals)
- ego defense (protecting self esteem) social sanctions
- value expressiveness (what defines our identity
Purpose of attitudes
saving cognitive energy: no need to gain new information from scratch, how we should behave or feel towards an object
Cognitive consistency theory
maintaining internal consistency among their different beliefs
-inconsistent beliefs are aversive
Inconsistency
thoughts contradict each other
Balance Theory
unbalanced triade- tension- motivation to restore balance
Restoring balance= least effort
Sociocognitive model
evaluative component- knowledge about an object in memory + summary
1. evaluation of an object of thought
2. storing attitude object in memory
3. labelling object - when to apply labels (rules)
supportive knowledge of the evaluation
Evaluation
Partie. kinds of thoughts, beliefs/judgements about an object
Accessible attitudes
can be recalled more easily - quicker expressed
- strong influence on behavior
- more stable
- more resistent to change
- more selective in judging relevant information
highly accessible attitudes
association in memory between an object and an evaluation
- functional/useful- how automatically it can be activated in memory
- coming faster in mind
- more influence. over behavior
when is there an likelihood of activation?
depends on strength of association between object and evaluation
= strong object- evaluation association = highly functional - helping in decision making
Automatic activation
only strong associations
more likely to come to mind from memory
What does automatic activation influence
- direct experience
- Great interest in it (strong affects on our lives)
= attitude are more accessible + strengthening effects on our behavior
direct experience
the more you think about attitudes, the more likely it its to come up = influencing behavior
more consistent related to behavior
How do we form attitudes?
direct experience
interaction with others
Mere exposure effect
repeated exposure to an object
greater attraction to that object = influences evaluations
- most effective when we lack information about an issue
Classical conditioning
neutral stimulus - repeated exposure simultaneously with another first presented stimulus
orignial stimulus produces response
second stimulus gets associated with the response
Result: only presence of second stimulus produces previous response
Evaluative conditioning
stimulus becomes more or less liked - when consistently paired with negative or positive stimuli
Spreading attitude effect
if a person is liked/ disliked, it also can affect how you like other people connected with that second person and also people who are in touch with the friends of the second person
Instrumental/ operant conditioning
reward and punishment for behavior
+ consequence = reinforcement
- consequence= no reinforcement
Observational learning
social learning process
Modelling
tendency to follow actions, beliefs, of a role model
requirement: observation
no direct experience
can become a habit
Attitude formation
elaborative process of building connections between more elements (beliefs)
higher number of elements - higher likeliness to become an attitude (generalized concept)
Integration theory
attitude learning; more information about an object has been processed
Bem’s self perception theory
gaining knowledge about ourself only by making self attributions
e.g. getting our ideas and thoughts from own behavior ; what we like or dislike
I go for a walk, therefore I must like it
Persuasive communication
message to intend to change an attitude /related behave of an audience
no behavior change without an attitude change
Attitude change
significant modification of an individuals attitude
Persuasion process
communicator - source - who
communication- message- what
audience - to whom
Persuasion
Communication meant to change opinions, attitudes or behavior
Steps in persuasion process
- attention
- comprehension
- acceptance
- retention
Rational message
providing cognitive information about an attitude model
Emotional appeals
affective information about an attitude object
Superficial processing
focus on accessible/ dominant information - simple evaluation about object
Systematic processing
considering validity/ importance of attitude- relevant information about object
Persuasion heuristics
association of superficial cues with positive/negative emotions
Heuristic processing
relying on persuasive heuristics to evaluate an attitude object quickly and without thinking to much about it
Heuristics
Expertise heuristic Attractiveness heuristic speech rate familiarity heuristic message length heuristic
Sleeper effect
impact of persuasive message can increase over time.
we can get more convinced by a message even If we cannot remember the source of the message (e.g. advertisement
Third person effect
people think they are less influenced than others by advertisement
Disconfirmation bias
if something contradicts our beliefs we evaluate it as weak and can refuse it
When is there a high correlation between attitude and behavior ?
- Attitudes are accessible (easy to recall)
- attitudes are stable over time
- direct experience
- frequently reporting attitudes
cognitive bias
people think a certain behavior affects others more than themselves
cognitive dissonance
feeling tension/ uncomfortable because two cognitions (thoughts, beliefs) contradict each other
cognitive consistency theory
maintaining internal consistency
order/agreement among different beliefs
the greater the dissonance - the stronger the attempts to reduce it
selective exposure hypothesis
avoiding potentially dissonant information
strong attitude: integration/ or arguing against contrary information
weak attitudes: better to discover the truth instead of making behavioral changes
Effort justification
Experienced inconsistency
first act voluntary - effort expended - commitment to do something
1st: goal rated negative
2nd: goal rated postive
Result: increased liking for the chosen option
Induced compliance
person is persuaded to act against his beliefs (contra-attitudinal way)
saying something about what you have experienced (e.g interesting task)
opposite is true (it was boring)
changing attitude / self- convincing
post-decisional conflict
behaving in a counter-attitudinal way
Reduction: bringing attitude in line with the behavior
self- affirmation theory
reducing impact of threat to their self-concept /beliefs
focusing on competence/ strength in other areas
e.g. threat to competence of cook - but a better football player
information integration theory
attitude assessment: looking at positive and negative ratings of the attitude object
Theory of reasoned action (ajzen/Fishbein)
links between attitude and behavior
asking questions whether a person intends to to something
Theory of planned behavior
people believe they have control over that behavior (will)
perceived behavioral control= extend to which a person believes it is easy or difficult to perform an act
Protection motivation Theory
adopting healthy behavior - cognitive balancing
- perceived threat of illness
- capacity to cope with the health program
Systematic processing (Part B)
careful processing of arguments/information
- attending to information
- comprehending information
- reacting to information - elaboration
- favorable / unfavorable reaction to information - accepting position
Advantage of systematic processing
stable and long lasting attitudes
resistent to future persuasion attempts
predictive of behavior
Elaboration-likelihood model
- carefull attendance to information (central route processing=
- otherwise peripheral route
Central route processing
reflecting on/ processing arguments (thinking deeply )
Peripheral route processing
influenced through cues
heuristics
Heuristic-systematic model (Shelley Caike)
systematic processing - looking at information carefully
otherwise using heuristics
motivation to think about a message deeply and thoughtful
lack of sufficient confidence- more systematic processing
Compliance
we just superficially change our attitudes and behaviors because of a request by someone /group
it is only temporary and not an internal change of the attitude in general
Conformity
influence of a group or norm on an individual
- more internalized change in one’s attitudes and behaviors
Tactics for compliance
- intimidation: fear- you are dangerous
- exemplification: guilt - regard you as morally respectable individual
- supplication: pity- helpless/ needy
- self-promotion: respect/confidence - competent
- ingratiation: liking- secure compliance with a request
Reciprocity principle
based on social norm
we should treat others the way we would like to be treated
- doing someone a favor - feeling forced to do the same
Foot-in-the-door tactic
agreement to small request - higher chance to go with a larger request later
1st. request too small- 2nd request too large
= doesn’t work
Door-in-the-Face tactic
1st large request - 2nd. small request
- will be denied - will not be denied
Low-Ball-Tactic
influencer changes the rules halfway
effectiveness: making customer to agree first before revealing hidden costs
- once committed - accepting slight increase in the costs of that action
e. g. could you do me a favor
reactance
(Brehm’s theory)
people try to protect their freedom
- if it is in danger, they try to get their freedom back
- result: becoming more opposed to the other position
Forewarning
advanced knowledge
-someone will be the target of persuasion attempt
-resistance to persuasion
time to think about counter-arguments (defense)
inoculation
making people resistance to persuasion
- providing counter argument
is used to build up stronger arguments later (comp. Vaccination - antibodies)
