Attitudes

Question 1

What is an attitude? Definition

Answer 1

(1) A relatively consistent organization of beliefs, feelings and behavioral tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols.
(2) A general feeling or evaluation about a person, issue or object

2 kinds: Belief based (reasoned) and cue driven (triggered by perception of the object)

Question 2

What are the different components of an attitude?

Answer 2

One component attitude model - Affect/evaluation towards or evaluation of an object

Two component attitude model - (1) Affect/evaluation towards or evaluation of an object and (2) mental readiness

Three component attitude model - Cognitive (knowledge/belief), affective (feeling/emotion) and behavioral (expressed behavior) - Later expressed in thrughts, feelings and more behaviour

Attitudes vary in valence (good/bad) and intensity (importancy)

Attitudes are also permanent and limited to socially significant objects and can be generalized

Question 3

What are the functions of attitudes?

Answer 3

1. Knowledge
2. Instrumentality (means to an end)
3. Ego defense
4. Value expressiveness

Question 4

What is cognitive consistency?

Answer 4

People try to maintain consistency between their attitudes (avoid cognitive dissonance).

Balance theory - The balance reached between a person (P), another person (O) and an attitude (X) - Think of the triangle

Question 5

How are attitude objects represented in memory according to Praktanis and Greenwald’s sociocognitive model?

Answer 5

1. An object label and the rules for applying that label (shark, has teeth)
2. An evaluative summary of that object (I should swim away)
3. A knowledge structure supporting that evaluation (threat to my well being)

Question 6

How do we decide what attitude to adopt?

Answer 6

Information integration theory - Average between the positive and negative evaluations of that object

1. Cognitive algebra
2. Automatic judgements
3. Attitude accessibility
4. Automatic activation - Attitudes with a strong evaluative link come stronger

Question 7

Can attitudes predict behavior?

Answer 7

There are conditions which promote or disrupt the correspondence between attitudes and behavior:

• Whether the attitude is accessible in memory
• Whether it is expressed publicly
• Whether the individual identifies strongly or weakly with a group claiming that attitude
• Whether the attitude is stable over time
• If there is vicarious experience
• If it is frequently reported

Fishbein - It depends on the strength and the value of the belief - But the question must be very specific to predict behavior. Unless you use multiple-act criterion.

Question 8

What is the theory of reasoned action?

Answer 8

Links between attitude and behavior are based on:

• Subjective norm - What the person thinks others believe
• Attitude towards the behavior - Calculus established earlier by Fishbein (strength * value of the belief)
• Behavioral intention - Internal declaration to act
• Actual behavior

Question 9

Can you always control over what you do?

Answer 9

No! Theory of planned behavior:

• Because of volition
• 1. Subjective norm
• 2. Attitude towards the behaviour
• 3. Behavioural intention
• 4. Perceived behavioral control
• 5. Actual behavior

There are also other factors like habits and moral values.

Question 10

How do we form attitudes?

Answer 10

1. Vicarious experience
2. Mere exposure effect
3. Classical conditioning (evaluative conditioning good/bad and instrumental conditioning reward/punishment)
4. Spreading attitude effect
5. Modelling
6. Parental influences
7. Mass media
8. Cognitive development - You go for the things you like best
9. Self perception theory - We conclude that we have certain attitudes from our own behavior
10. Values, ideologies and social representations

Question 11

Persuasion - Who?

Answer 11

1. Expertise
2. Popularity
3. Attractiveness
4. Speech rate
5. Similarity
6. Credibility

Question 12

Third-person effect

Answer 12

The belief that others are more easily persuaded/manipulated than yourself

Question 13

Persuasion - What?

Answer 13

1. Repetition
2. Fear? Mixed results, must be very scary, but still plausible (inverter U). Based on vulnerability and severity.
3. Facts v. feelings
4. The support of the message (video, audio, written)
5. Vocabulary used
6. The sleeper effect - Impact of the message increases as time goes because discounting cues (like invalid sources) are forgotten

Question 14

Persuasion - To whom?

Answer 14

1. Self-esteem
2. Women are more easily persuaded than men? Nope
3. Individual differences (need for cognition, need for closure, need to evaluate, preference for consistency)
4. Age (U curve)
5. Prior beliefs
6. Cognitive biases

Question 15

Persuasion - Dual-process models

Answer 15

Elaboratrion-likelihood model:

• 1. If the message is listened to carefully, you use a central route
• 2. Otherwise, use of peripheral route

Heuristic-systematic model:

• Same as above
• 1. Central route = systematic processing
• 2. Peripheral route = Heuristics (influence through cues)

En bref -> You’re more careful if you’re interested in the message

Question 16

What are the different tactics used for compliance?

Answer 16

1. Ingratiation - Get your audience to like you
2. Reciprocity principle
3. Foot-in-the-door - Small -> Agreed -> Big
4. Door-in-the-face - Big -> Declined -> Small
5. Low-ball - Committed to choice 1 -> Choice 1 is no longer available -> Chooses choice 2
6. Action research - Involving the participants actively

Question 17

How does cognitive dissonance influence our attitudes?

Answer 17

1. Cognitive consistency
2. Selective exposure hypothesis
3. Effort justification - If you’ve been through a lot to achieve a goal which is relatively low, you will persuade yourself that the goal was important
4. Induced compliance - A person is persuaded to behave in a way that’s contrary to his attitudes (creates cognitive dissonance)
5. People seek to justify their actions
6. Free choice dissonance reduction
7. Need for self-consistency (self-affirmation theory)
8. We can feel dissonance because we are part of a group
9. Self-perception theory - We draw our attitudes from our behavior, not vice-versa

Question 18

How can you resist persuasion?

Answer 18

1. Reactance - Where a deliberate persuasion attempt is suspected, people will actively try to not be persuaded
2. Forewarning - Knowing beforehand that you are going to be persuaded
3. Innoculation - Once you have been exposed to persuasion, you are more resistant to it (you hear and develop your own counter-arguments)
4. Attitude accessibility
5. Attitude strength

Question 19

How can you influence someone else’s attitudes?

Answer 19

1. Persuasion

2. Reinforcement (rewards and punishments = incentives)

Question 20

How do you measure attitude - behavior correlation?

Answer 20

Based on object, action, context and time

Question 21

Does behavior lead to attitude or the opposite?

Answer 21

1. If attitude is weak, behavior leads to attitude.

2. If attitude is strong, attitude leads to behavior.