(automatic) attitudes and behaviour 1 lect 3

Question 1

why are attitudes studied

Answer 1

may be able to predict, change, cause behaviour

Question 2

do attitudes guide behaviour

Answer 2

LaPiere (1934)
-reported trip around america with chinese friends (prejudice against chinese at this time)
-visited hundreds of hotels and restaurants and only got refused entry to 1 place
-6 months later, sent a questionnaire to each place they visited
-92% responses said they would refuse entry to chinese people BUT this was not the reality
-clear discrepancy between attitude and behaviour

Wicker
-meta analysis
-average correlation between attitude and behaviour was .15
-maybe attitudes do not predict behaviour

Question 3

what do smith and mackie claim we should be asking about attitudes

Answer 3

how and under what conditions do attitudes predict behaviour?

Question 4

what is the function of attitudes for behaviour

Answer 4

-efficient processing of info, processing shortcuts (smith and mackie)
-efficient guides to behaviour
-pre established evaluations that easily come to mind
-we might not even be aware there is a decision e.g escalator or stairs

Question 5

historic characteristics of automatic processes (Bargh and Kunda)

Answer 5

-occur outside of awareness
-unintended (un volitional)
-uncontrollable
-efficient (do not need many cog. resources)

Question 6

what are the two main characteristics of social behaviours

Answer 6

kunda
-efficiency
-lack of awareness/intention

Question 7

what is automatic activation of attitudes

Answer 7

when attitudes come to mind effortlessly and inescapably (fazio)

Question 8

when do automatic attitudes come to mind

Answer 8

Fazio: attitude = association between internal representation of an object with an evaluation
-memory event, attitude target has become mentally associated with evaluation
-when object comes to mind, evaluation follows as the two have been associated in memory
-stronger mental link = stronger the attitude

Question 9

what is attitude strength

Answer 9

association of an object representation and the evaluation of it
-strong object evaluation association leads to faster attitude accessibility

Question 10

what is attitude accessibility

Answer 10

speed and ease of attitude activation

Question 11

how are automatic attitudes developed

Answer 11

-evaluation is incorporated into the representation of the object over time (smith and mackie)
-associative memory
-more frequently they occur, the stronger the association

Question 12

roskos , ewoldson and fazio study

Answer 12

-pp evaluated series of attitude objects (attitude rehearsal)
-control pp presented with objects but instead of giving attitudinal response (pos/neg), they give non attitudinal response (is it animate or inanimate)
-subsequent testing involved pp asked to provide evaluations
-experimental group were able to respond faster due to rehearsed more accessible attitudes
-repeated object evaluation pairings enhanced attitude accessibility

Question 13

are attitudes accessed automatically

Answer 13

Fazio
-evaluative priming task
-phase 1: pp presented with objects and respond whether they think it is good/bad, response speed recorded, faster response = stronger attitude
-phase 2: pp shown normatively pos (delightful) and neg (repulsive) words, pp respond as quickly as they can
-these words presented with primes just before presentation of target words
-primes were words from previous phase 1 which pp responded quickly to (had stronger attitude towards)

-where target and prime shared same valance (pos/neg), pp responded quickly compared to diff valance
-automatic evaluations of the prime occurred effecting evaluation of target

Question 14

automatic attitudes and spontaneous behaviour

Answer 14

-spontaneous behaviour will occur when attitudes are easily activated (Fazio and Zanna)
-automatic attitudes influence spontaneous behaviour not volitional ones
-stronger the attitude = more likely spontaneous behaviour will follow (be attitude consistent)

Question 15

fazio et al study on spontaneous behaviour

Answer 15

-pp rehearse attitude towards set of puzzles
-pp given free reign to play with puzzles if they want to
-whether pp engaged in puzzle depended on their attitude
-pos attitude = more likely to play with puzzle
-more attitude was rehearsed = more they would engage
-highly rehearsed post attitude = more likely to engage in puzzle

Question 16

how do attitudes guide spontaneous behaviour

Answer 16

focusing attention
-strong like/dislike grabs attention
-people attend things that are salient

Calitri et al
-strong link found between strength of automatic attitude towards exercise and peoples likelihood to respond visually to exercise cues

Question 17

fazio theory on attitude consistent behaviour

Answer 17

-attitudes make certain objects more salient
-we respond to salient features of object
-approach likeable things and avoid dislikeable things
-behave in a way consistent with accessible attitude

Question 18

how do automatic attitudes influence behaviours

Answer 18

biasing interpretations
-assimilation and contrast effects
-ambiguous info may be interpreted as supportive of strongly held attitude

Question 19

Lord, Ross and Lepper study on automatic attitudes

Answer 19

-pp shown ficticious reports about: pro/ anti capital punishment
-both reports had strengths and weaknesses
-pp divided into supporters and opponents of capital punishment
-reporters found supportive report more convincing
-death penality opponents found opposing report more convincing
-pre existing attitudes had clouded or influenced interpretation of capital punishment
-attitudes act as a filter through which we precieve the world and this effects the way we interpret incoming info and impacts our behaviour

Question 20

what is the mode model

Answer 20

-hewstone: when either the motivation or opportunity to make a reasoned decision is low, only attitudes that are highly accessible will predict spontaneous behaviour

Question 21

what is the nature of memory associations

Answer 21

single tag evaluation
-we have mental representation of entire entity of object when linked to an evaluation

Question 22

what is the idea that memory is involved

Answer 22

when encountering an attitude object we refer to an existing memory of an evaluation

Question 23

critique of the idea memory is involved

Answer 23

Bargh
-pp not aware they are making evaluations
-asked to read words from screen (normatively pos or neg words)
-words primed by another valance loaded word
-pp asked to read target word
-when prime and target word share valance = fast responding
-when valance is inconsistent = slower responding

Question 24

what does study by Bargh show

Answer 24

as the only thing in common was the valance, the process involving memory of shared meaning cannot be involved

Question 25

does context influence automatic attitudes

Answer 25

Mitchell
-black athletes and white politicians
-either emphasised target person’s occupation or race
-pp automatically evaluated black athletes as more pos than white politicians when task emphasised occupation
-when task emphasised race, white politicians viewed more pos
-attitudes are effected by context

Question 26

how do we explain context effects on automatic attitudes

Answer 26

attitudes automatically derived from memory BUT not attitude object as entire entity that now has a single tag to an evaluation
-many things come to mind per moment that are valance loaded
-attitude towards object in valance loaded context is the sum of all pos and neg in that moment