Attitudes and behaviour I Flashcards
attitude revision
Attitudes are assumed to guide behaviour - huge implications for health, environment - in short, attitudes are important for our social lives
Individual level - attitudes influence perception, thinking and behaviour
Interpersonal level - knowledge of others’ attitudes makes the world more predictable – part of everyday interactions
Intergroup level - attitudes towards one’s groups and other groups is at the heart of intergroup cooperation/conflict.
attitude revision
“People love and hate, approve and disapprove, like and dislike. They agree or disagree, persuade and sometimes even convince each other. Every day we are the targets of countless attempts through personal communication and the mass media, aimed at changing or reinforcing our attitudes.” (Bohner, 2001, p. 241)
attitudes matter
They influence how we see our world
What we think…
What we do… and what we think others do
They are vital in understanding human thought and behaviour
Social psychologists have spent a lot of time studying them
definitions
“a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor” (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, p. 1)
“an association in memory between a given object and a given summary evaluation of the object” (Fazio, 1995, p. 7)
“a general and enduring positive or negative feeling about some person, object, or issue” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981, p. 7)
attitude common thread
All definitions stress the evaluative judgment (having to make a decision about liking versus disliking, favoring or disfavoring an object, person or issue)
what can we have attitudes about?
Anything that can be evaluated in terms of favourability can be conceptualised as an attitude object – target of attitude
Can be concrete (an iPhone, a film) or abstract (conservatism), about yourself (self-esteem) or others (Boris Johnson), or issues (social policy)
Some As have a special name depending upon attitude object (e.g., towards social group = prejudices; self = self-esteem; to abstract entities = values)
what is in an attidue?
The multicomponent model of attitudes (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993)
Cognitive Information – Knowledge – factual Information - thoughts
Affective Information – emotional responses - feelings, emotions
Behavioural Information – past behaviours and experiences
LaPiere road trip
The classic LaPiere road trip
- Young Chinese couple around the States
- Could behav towards ethnic minority be affected by self-reported attitudes
- 251 hotels and resorts – all but 1 – treated courteously
- Wrote to institutions – 128 replies – 92% said wouldn’t accept Chinese people as guests
- Discrepancy between attitudes and behavs
- Person that saw couple and answered Qs may not have been the same
Does the link exist? Remember Wicker?
- Wondered if there were links at all
As per usual, it’s a bit more complicated
Last year…you considered attitude accessibility and Theory of Reasoned Action/Planned Behaviour; role of norms, control beliefs and intentions
life after LaPiere
Wicker (1969) – reviewed lots of studies and concluded that average A-B correlation = 0.15. If this is so, it’s a bit gloomy!
- Some studies are very specific
Kraus (1995) - 100 studies compared, A-B correlation = 0.38; Glasman & Albarracin (2006), A-B correlation = 0.52
- Not a fair comparison – response not that different
Why the difference?
We need to consider what variables influence the magnitude of the relationship…
things to bear in mind
Qualities of the attitude itself (accessibility, specificity, strength, components)
Factors about YOU (whether you ponder your attitudes, past experience with attitude object)
What others think about what you think (role of subjective norms in ABCs)
Methodological issues
attitude accessibility - Fazio, Powell and Williams (1989)
People rated attitudes => products (inc. gum and candy)
- Do as quickly as they could – recorded – faster = more accessible
Accessibility measured - how?
Behaviour measured - letting pps pick 5/10 products as reward – do people choose diff as function of whether attitudes accessible or not
ABC high for people with accessible As – picked in line with attitudes
Low for people with inaccessible As (picked item based on proximity)
Fazio & Williams (1986) voting behaviour study would also fit here
the MODE model - not all behaviour is deliberate
Attitudes often assessed very consciously
Fazio (1990)
MODE = Motivation and Opportunity as Determinants of Behaviour
It is a dual process model
If individuals have both sufficient motivation and opportunity, they may base behaviour on measured consideration of attitudes – do things consciously and deliberately – attitude and behaviour correlations should be high
If they don’t…spontaneous information processing ensues – other factors decide what attitude components are important
Think about what this may do to A-B link…
more on accessibility
How does an attitude become accessible?
Like other constructs we have encountered, associations between any two constructs in memory are strengthened by repeated pairing
Applying this to attitudes…strength of association between evaluation of attitude object and mental representation of object
Bottom line… “People become faster at reporting an attitude when they have previously been given many opportunities to express that attitude” (Maio &Haddock, 2010).
If you can retrieve attitude more quickly it is more accessible
MODE model is perfect for helping us understand how accessibility impacts upon the A-B link in spontaneous processing settings
attitude specificity - Davidson and Jaccard (1979)
Women asked attitudes - general or specific (Birth control vs their using the pill)
Did these correlate with actual behaviour?
Attitude => Birth control ABC = .08
Attitude => using pill in next 2 years = .57 – more specific attitudes – greater chance of higher A-B correlation
So - more specific attitude, better ABC
attitude strength/vested interest - Sivacek and Crano (1982)
Proposal to raise drinking age from 19 to 21
Those most affected were the ones who opposed it most and…
Were more prepared to campaign against it (46% youngest, 26% middle-aged, 12% oldest)
Vested interest - issues associated with well-being
attitude components - Norman (1975)
Students asked feelings re volunteering for psych expts (+ or -) and…
Thoughts about volunteering
Later, another experimenter tried to recruit pps
+ve feelings and thoughts pps volunteered
-ve feelings and thoughts pps didn’t
different thoughts/feeling pps, no ABC– correlation very low – inconsistency doesn’t allow for it
introspection - Wilson et al. (1989)
Students’ dating relationships: half (A) introspect on reasons for liking partner; half (B) didn’t
All then reported attitudes towards current relationships
‘B’ students: current attitudes predicted future attitudes well
‘A’ students: no ABC link
Thinking about why you hold an attitude can disrupt ABCs
- Don’t always know why – access most easily accessible motives – stuff that’s on the top of your head
- May not be consistent with original attitude
- Reasons may decay over time and won’t be consistent with later attitudes
- Short delay = more correlation
direct experience - Fazio and Zanna (1978)
Tried to predict whether attitudes to volunteering in psych expts would predict participation in specific experiments
A’s predicted behaviours more accurately for pps with past experience
Why?
Past experience = more knowledgeable, and less influenced by subjective norms… - more resilient to what other people might think – buffer that prevents you from being so influenced by what they think
subjective norms - Manstead et al. (1983)
Theory of Reasoned Action - see Manstead Chapter, Maio & Haddock Chapter
TRA: attitude = feelings about outcomes and subjective norms
First-time mums asked about breast vs. bottle feeding (2 mths before birth) - attitudes
Subjective norms (views of partner) – significant other
Results - attitudes fairly good predictors of intention to breastfeed – behavioural intentions – don’t measure actual behaviour
So too were subjective norms, but…
Attitudes and SNs combined = best predictors
TRA useful for predicting lots of behaviours (see also Theory of Planned Behaviour - control element; Maio & Haddock chapter – build on what you learned last year)
study characteristics
self-report
use of non-students
lab vs. field
