Ch 4 behaviour and attitudes

Question 1

What are attitudes?

Answer 1

are essentially an evaluation they are our opinion of something that we store in memory

Question 2

Why are attitudes useful? (there are 5 functions)

Answer 2

1) Knowledge Function our attitudes help us manage and simplify information processing because we learn and retain information, we know what we like and don’t like
2) Utilitarian Function they guide our behaviour toward value goals and away from aversive events
3) Value-Expressive Function our attitudes serve to help us express our values and communicate them to others - share positive interests
4) Social Adjustment Function our attitudes can help us fit in our social groups; we are motivated to hold attitudes that will be approved of by others
5) Ego-Defensive Function our attitudes can serve to protect our self-esteem or justify actions that make us feel guilty (Terror Management Theory)
ex one-way children might defend themselves against the feelings of humiliation they have experienced in P.E. lessons is to adopt a strongly negative attitude to all sports.

Question 3

Pluralistic Ignorance

Answer 3

when we think we have a good idea of what our group holds but we are not right

Question 4

Terror Management Theory

Answer 4

we are the only species to think about our death that one day we will die which causes anxiety. We want to feel like we have left something behind or we are good enough to go to the afterlife. It motivates us to keep good self-esteem. This need for self-esteem can be served by denigrating outgroups, we say my group is better than yours, we will leave something behind.

• Therefore, negative attitudes towards an outgroup can help us meet the need for self-esteem
• thinking of death to need for self-esteem-to denigrating outgroups

Question 5

The Tripartite Theory ( attitudes hold 3 components)

Answer 5

A ffect - is our emotional reaction to an attitude/object
B ehaviour - we approach/avoid an attitude
C ogition - is our knowledge about an attitude object
most attitudes are made up of these 3 components and vary depending on the person (diamonds for me)

Question 6

Attitudes not always predict behaviour so, The attitude-behaviour problem by Corey 1937

Answer 6

-assessed attitudes towards cheating
-he gave the students tests then he graded them, however, gave the test back to a student without a grade
-and told the students to grade their own tests
-then he measured between his graded work and their own
Found:
attitudes towards cheating did not actually predict cheating behaviour

Question 7

The attitude-behaviour problem by Wicker 1971

Answer 7

he found no good evidence that attitudes were a good predictor of behaviour

Question 8

When do attitudes predict behaviour? For a better predictor

Answer 8

When the attitude matched the behaviour
-the concept of specificity matching, the attitude will predict behaviour if you match them in terms of action target context and time

Question 9

Specificity Matching - Davidson and Jaccard (1979)

Answer 9

-asked women about their attitudes toward birth control using different levels of specificity
-asked 2 years later if they were taking birth control
-assessed the correlation between different classes of attitude measurement and behaviour
Found:
-when is matched their behaviour it does a good job predicting they were taking birth control pills two years later
-Attitude toward using birth control pills during the next two years was the highest level of correspondence

Question 10

Ajzen and Fishbein 1977 assed attitude-behaviour consistency with correspondence as a moderator

Answer 10

low correspondence (general attitudes) there is no correlation to attitudes and behaviour 
high correspondence (specific attitudes) there is a correlation to attitudes and behaviour

Question 11

Attitude and Behaviour Relationship - Theory of Reasoned Action Model

Answer 11

suggests that a person’s behaviour is determined by their intention to perform the behaviour and that this intention is, in turn, a function of their attitude toward the behaviour and subjective norms
ex if our attitude leads us to want to go out on a date but we have no money, our lack of money will prevent our attitude from causing us to go on a date.
-attitudes + subjective norms = intentions + = behaviour

Question 12

Theory of Reasoned Action Model became …

Answer 12

Theory of planned behaviour - used to understand and predict behaviours, which posits that behaviours are immediately determined by behavioural intentions and under certain circumstances, perceived behavioural control
-attitudes + subjective norms + perceived behaviour control = intentions + = behaviour

Question 13

Introspection Research by Wilson

Answer 13

Introspection is the examination of one’s own conscious thoughts and feelings
-ahead of time experts tested these samples and rated them
-he got students to taste 5 different strawberry jams and then rated them
-control group: just rated the jams
-reason group: rated the jams and gave reasons why
Found:
-control group scored high with these experts but
-reason group scored low with these experts
cognitively based attitudes are less likely than affectively based attitude to be disrupted by introspecting because we find it easier to come up with a reason for cognitively based attitudes and somewhat hard to come up with a reason or to articulate reasons for affectively based attitudes

Question 14

What are other predictors of strong attitude behaviour relationships (hint 3)

Answer 14

1) short time interval: less time to change the attitude
2) based on direct experience: (Regan and Fazio, 1977, played the puzzle or heard about it, then rated their attitudes on the puzzle, they were allowed to play with the puzzle, in the end, negative attitudes - those who heard about it, never played with it even if they had that chance in the end)
3) making participants self-aware: answer questions in front of a mirror vs not, they are more likely to behave accordingly with their attitudes facing the mirror

Question 15

What do strong attitudes predict? (hint 4)

Answer 15

persistent
resistance
impact in information processing and judgment
impact on behaviour

Question 16

How do we know that attitudes are strong? (hint 4)

Answer 16

1) Accessibility - is the strength at the link between the attitude object and evaluation. Therefore, if the attitude is highly accessible, as soon as we see the object our attitude will be automatically activated and it will influence our behaviour.
-Attitude accessibility is measured by your rejection time and the quicker the more accessible an attitude is. How attitudes become assessable is the frequency of activation.
Fazio and William (1986), Asked participants to report their attitudes toward the two presidential candidates. Researchers took know how quickly they reported their attitudes This was called response latency.
Found:
Those who to mind more quickly influence their behaviour
2) Knowledge - Is the number of attitude relevant thoughts and experiences that come to mind when we think of an attitude object. It can be high or low complexity, Which refers to the extent to which the knowledge represents Distinct dimensions. The more you know the more complex your attitude but some can a lot and have a low complexity with you die mentions or vice versa
3) Extremity - Refers to the magnitude of the evaluation usually I’s deviation from the point of the scale (high attitudes are more likely to stay stable, more likely resist persuasion, predict our thoughts and behaviours)
4) Ambivalence - either a neutral attitude or strong feeling about it but there conflicted (both positive feeling and negative feeling, equally as strong. Ambivalence can be hard to predict as its displaying two measures either neutral or strong attitudes.

Question 17

Cognitive Dissonance

Answer 17

Is the state of tension that is caused when our cognitions conflict with one another or When our attitudes conflict with other behaviour

Question 18

Type of Dissonance - Decision justification

Answer 18

Spread of alternatives - If it’s a hard decision you can bolster the choice that you did choose and you will derogate The choice that you didn’t choose
-For example, You may be saved money to buy your first car your choices between a ford and a Honda after a week you choose the Honda but this may cause a state of dissonance because you might say well I really like that ford but I didn’t buy it - To reduce this Dissonance you might think why buying a honda was just a great choice and think about all the reasons why the ford isn’t a good choice

Question 19

Type of dissonance - Effort justification

Answer 19

people sometimes come to love what they suffer to achieve.
Where we justify the time effort money and effort that we have spent for something that’s turned unpleasant or disappointing
Aronson and Mill 1959, Females arrived thinking you are going to have a discussion about sex, Either Woman had to list out words in front of individuals that we’re like virgin words And in the severe group Woman list words that we’re very explicit. They all had passed the test just know they found the effort justification
ex grasshopper - nice experimenter and rude experimenter

Question 20

Type of dissonance - Induced Compliance and Compliance Change (Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959)

Answer 20

conducted an experiment entitled “Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance”. … The results showed a significant difference between the groups in how much they reported to enjoy the experiment. Another large difference was observed between the $1 and $20 groups.
Found
1 dollar was more fun than 20, for a big lie

Question 21

Type of dissonance - Induced Compliance and Extinguishing Undersirded Bhevaiour

Answer 21

playing with a toy, mild threat condition didn’t play with the toy. server condition they knew why they wouldn’t play with the toy. the only mild threat you can change people’s behaviour because you can get them to comply = change their attitudes. however, the more severe threat they will not change their attitudes

Question 22

Type of dissonance - Belief Disconfirmation

Answer 22

seekers - these people believed that the world was going to end and as believers, they would be saved by a UFO. They were convinced the world would end.
Festinger recorded this: Found: this group saved themselves, they then believed they had saved the world by announcing what was going to happen
happens when an individual is presented with information which conflicts with their beliefs

Question 23

What are the conditions for dissonance arousal? (hint 4)

Answer 23

1) aversive consequences - It must be some negative outcome and don’t feel Dissonance from our actions
2) Personal responsibility - We don’t feel dissonance if we are forced to do something because if we are forced to do something we have good external justification for our behaviour. BUT if we feel like the consequence foreseeable and that we freely chose this behaviour we’re more likely to feel dissonance
3) Feel arousal and label as negative - And we attribute this arousal to the inconsistency between her attitudes and behaviour
4) Attribute of arousal to inconsistency

Question 24

Dissonance Reduction (hint 6)

Answer 24

1)Change cognition
2)Change behaviour
3)Add other cognitive elements = bolster
ex Smoking while pregnant she may say quitting smoking is stressful and anxiety may harm the baby or smoking my keep my weight down
4)Reduce the importance of elements = trivialization
ex Office workers seems to be honest but she takes things home from the office supplies and she may feel some sense of dissonance but will reduce these elements by saying for the most part I won’t ever do it again
5)Reduced perceived choice - External reasons that caused our behaviour which reduces the likelihood that we feel the need to justify our behaviour
6)Self-affirmation If we feel bad about cognitive dissonance we can affirm another aspect of ourselves to reduce this dissonance