Attitudes and Attitude Change Flashcards
Attitudes consist of 3 components:
- An ____________ component that reflects a person’s liking for the entity or situation
- A _____________ component that consists of the person’s beliefs about the entity or situation
- A _____________ component that represents the person’s behavioral tendencies toward the entity or situation
- Affective
- Cognitive
- Behavioral
Research has generally found a _________ link between attitudes and behaviors, but has found that they are better predictors of behaviors when certain conditions are met; e.g., when the measures of attitudes and behavior are _____________ and when _____________ attitudes and behaviors are assessed.
- Weak
- Specific
- Multiple
According to Ajzen’s (1991) ________________________, attitudes are accurate predictors when the attitude measure assesses all three components of the behavioral intention - i.e., the person’s attitude toward engaging in the behavior; what the person believes other people think he or she should do; and the person’s perceived behavioral control.
Theory of Planned Behavior.
Much of the research on attitude change can be traced to _____________, ______________, and _______________ investigations at Yale University in the 1940s and 1950s, which focused on the characteristics of the communicator, the communication, and the audience.
- Characteristics of the communicator
- Communication
- The audience
Though _______________ of a communicator has been found to be a key contributor to attitude change, the difference between high and low-credibility communicators _______________ over time, however, as the attitude change produced by a high-credible communicator decreases and the attitude change produced by a low-credible communicator increases. This _________________ occurse because, over time, people tend to remember the message but forget its source.
- Credibility
- Declines
- “Sleeper effect”
An additional factor contributing to a communicator’s credibility is ________________, which is perceived to be greater when/if the communicator is arguing against his/her own self-interests.
Trustworthiness.
In general, change in attitude is greatest when the level of discrepancy between the positions of the communication and the recipient is in the ____________ range. As the communicator’s credibility increases, a somewhat _____________ initial discrepancy is associated with the most attitude change.
- Moderate
- Larger
When both sides of an argument are to be presented, a _______________ is likely to occur when the second communication immediately follows the first and the measure of attitude change is taken at a later time.
Primacy effect.
A _______________ is more likely when there is a period of time between the two communications and the attitude measure is administered immediately after the second communication.
Recency effect.
_____________________ (messages that are accidentally overheard by the recipient) are more likely than intentional messages to induce attitude change. Apparently, this is because a communicator is perceived as more trustworthy when his or her message is overheard.
Accidental messages.
_________________ is often an effective method of fostering attitude change, especially when the message focuses on negative consequences and includes information about how to avoid the negative consequences.
Fear arousal.
The following people tend to be __________ susceptible to persuasion than others:
- People with lower levels of intelligence
- Those with either low or high self-esteem
- Those in their teens or early 20s
More.
Festinger’s (1957) ______________________ theory predicts that, when people have two incompatible cognitions, they experience discomfort (dissonance), which they may attempt to relieve by changing attitudes or behaviors, or add consonant information or downplay the importance of the inconsistency.
Cognitive Dissonance Theory.
One of the findings on congitive dissonance theory is that, the more people suffer for something, the ___________________ they evaluate it.
More positively.
One of the best-known studies on Cognitive Dissonance Theory is _____________ and ___________________ (1959) investigation of forced-compliance, which involved requiring people to behave in ways that are counter to their private attitudes.
Festinger and Carlsmith.
Bonus: Participants paid $20 described the boring experiment accurately; participants paid $1 changed their cognition and described the experiment as more enjoyable.
Heider’s (1958) __________________ uses the principle of cognitive consistency to explain attitude change. It focuson on the relations among 3 entities:
- (P): Person
- (O): Another Person
- (X): A third person, idea, event, or object
It proposes that relations may be balanced/imbalanced, depending on the pattern of likes/dislikes among the entities.
Balance theory.
Petty et al.’s (1994) ______________________ (ELM) predicts that persuasion can occur in one of two ways:
- Persuasion can involve the _________________, which involves systematic processing of the information and is likely when the listener’s motivation is high because the message is interesting or important, the listener has the ability to process the information, and/or the listener is in a neutral or slightly negative mood; the extent of change depends on quality of the argument
- Persuasion can involve the _________________, which relies on mental shortcuts (heuristics) and is likely when the listener is unmotivated because the message is uninteresting or unimportant, the listener lacks the ability to process the information, and/or the listener is in a positive mood; attitude change depends on the quantity of arguments and persuasive cues
- Elaboration Likelihood Model
- Central Route
- Peripheral Route
Sherif & Hovland’s (1961) ______________________ proposes that we have 3 categories of judgment by which we evaluate persuasive messages: a latitude of acceptance, a latitude of non-commitment, and a latitude of rejection.
Social Judgment Theory.
We’re most likely to be persuaded when a message is within our latitude of _________________, which consists of all positions on the topic that we consider acceptable. The size of the 3 levels is affected by our level of ego-involvement; the __________ ego-involved we are with the topic, the larger the latitude of rejection and the smaller the latitudes of acceptance and non-commitment.
- Acceptance
- More
_______________ (1969) borrowed the notion of inoculation from the medical model and proposed that we’re better able to resist a persuasive communication when we’ve been “inoculated” against it.
McGuire.
