Attitudes and Attitude Change Flashcards
What is an attitude?
How is an attitude formed?
- a settled way of feeling or thinking about something
- learned from the environment
- evaluate: liking, disliking, good-bad, beneficial-harmful
- persistent
What are the 3 components of an attitude?
affective component
behavioural component
cognitive component
Do we sometimes think/say one thing and do the opposite?
Attitudes are ……. (not tied down to a specific situation) whilst behaviours are ……….
Attitude may not mirror behaviour
general
specific
What problems arise when attempting to measure attitude?
Extremely difficult as it relies on people reporting
Problems with self report scales (accuracy, honesty, self-knowledge)
Problems with measuring attitudes using behaviour as they do not always match up
It assumes that people are aware of their own beliefs and that their attitude is consistent
Descibre Osgood’s semantic differential sacle
Describe Likert Scale
Osgoods: bipolar objects, with a line between. Draw X anyway on line depending on attitude
Likert: 5-7 ite scale e.g. strongly agree, agree, neither, disagree, strongly disagree
What are the two aspects of attitude changes?
cognitive dissonance
persuasive communication
What is cognitive dissonance?
Give an example e.g. smoking
What does this lead to?
Having 2 thoughts that are contradicting
E.g. I smoke, I know that smoking kills = cognitive dissonance
When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance .
Reaction:
- removing dissonance (ignoring)
- reduce importance of dissonant cognition
- adding a consonant cognition e.g. it helps me relax
What are the 2 components of a persuasive message that can lead to an attitude change?
quality of argument
emotional appeal
usually a mixture of the two
