Attitudes and Behaviours Flashcards
define what an attitude is
it is a mental representation of a summary evaluation of an attitude object
what is an attitude object? give some examples
something that we can hold an attitude towards
- things, events, ideas, the self, groups, politics, education
what is the difference between explicit and implicit attitudes?
explicit: consciously accessible and can be openly and deliberately expressed… can introspect
implicit: automatic, uncontrollable evaluations… might be consciously unavailable, might be accessible but not willing to be shared
how do we explicitly measure explicit attitudes?
- ask them to divulge their attitudes
2. self report scales (likert and semantic differential)
what are limitations of explicit measures of attitudes
- social desirability bias
2. implicit attitudes exist, some people may not be able to report their attitudes as they are not aware they have them
how are implicit attitudes measured?
- physiological measures (skin conductivity)
- fake physiological measures (bogus pipeline)
- reaction time paradigms
describe spreading activation and response time paradigm
- theory that when exposed to a stimulus, then subsequent responding to a related stimulus should be faster than to a less related or unrelated stimulus
describe evaluative priming
stimulus is delivered, then recorded if people respond quicker to positive or negative stimuli, thus uncovering if there is a positive or negative attitude to such thing
what are the 3 attitude bases? also, what are some other terms for bases?
Affect
Behaviour
Cognitive
structure/components
what is the affect (affective) bases for attitude properties?
feelings/emotion… eg, negative attitude towards spiders a you fear them
emotion grounds the attitude
what is the behavioural bases for attitude properties?
behaviours can shape/ground attitudes. eg, if you frequently interact/use an object in a certain way, this is likely to influence your positive/negative feelings towards it/them
what is the cognitive bases for attitude properties?
your beliefs form and ground your attitudes
eg, you might believe eating apples is good for your health so you have a positive attitude towards them
what is the strongest base in determining political attitudes?
what is the strongest base in determining utilitarian product attitudes?
affect (emotions); cognitive
list the attitude properties
- bases/structure/components
- function
- strength
- ambivalence
what are the different functions of attitudes?
- knowledge function
- instrumental/utilitarian function
- social identity/social adjustive function
- impression management/value expressive
- self esteem/defensive
describe the knowledge function of attitudes
sense making function… have/express attitudes to make sense of the world so we can summarise our experiences with attitude objects
describe the instrumental/utilitarian function of attitudes
have/express attitudes to help guide behaviour, achieve rewards and avoid punishments
eg, we have a negative attitude towards snakes so we avoid it… there is a sensical reason to this - safety
what motivation principle do knowledge and instrumental/utilitarian function most commonly associate with?
mastery
describe the social identity/adjustive function of attitudes
have/express attitudes to fit into groups or to maintain/adjust relationships
help us to fit in…
describe the impression management/value expressive function of attitudes
have/express attitudes to express one’s values,ideology… not which groups you belong to but who you are as an individual
describe the self esteem/defensive function of attitudes
hold/express attitudes that protect the self (perhaps from anxiety or low self esteem
what are two key components of strong attitudes?
- usually based on lots of one sided info
2. are persistent, resistant to change and are predictive of intentions and behaviour
define ambivalence when referring to attitudes
attitudes that contain both positive and negative evaluative components and bases
T or F, we can also use ABC theory to describe how attitudes form as well as attitude bases
T
what are the two affective (emotional) routes to attitude formation?
- mere exposure (familiarity breeds liking)
2. evaluative conditioning
describe mere exposure (familiarity breeds liking)
the theory that repeated exposure increases ease of processing… because ease feels good, this positivity becomes attributed to the attitude object
what does valanced me?
positive or negative
what is evaluative conditioning?
repeated pairings with neutral attitude object and valanced stimulus
what 3 ways can behaviours form attidues?
- direct behavioural influences
- self-perception
- cognitive dissonance reduction
describe direct behavioural influences in the formation of attitudes
where we behave in response to something, that behaviour is intrinsically negative or positive and then we associate that valence with the attitude object
describe self-perception in the formation of attitudes
we learn what we like from observing what we do
describe cognitive dissonance reduction in the formation of attitudes
sometimes our attitudes don’t align with our behaviour so there exists an inconsistency. as this feels uncomfortable, we can change our attitude to align with our behaviour