Chapter 12: Attitude & Behaviour Flashcards
Four key points of Attitude:
- Learned
- Stable and enduring
- Evaluations of people, objects, ideas
- Influential for our behaviour
What is an Attitude?
Positive or negative evaluation of an attitude object (person, object, idea, event)
What is an EXPLICIT attitude?
People openly state attitude and behave in a way that reflects it
Eg: Attitude= exercise good for health
Action= visits Gym often
What is an IMPLICIT attitude?
- Involuntary and uncontrollable
- Possible to be unaware of attitude until action reveals it
Eg. Attitude= Moths are harmless
Action= Screaming when seeing a moth
What are the three functions of attitudes?
- Predisposing
- Interpreting
- Evaluating
Describe function of attitude- PREDISPOSING
Help us behave in certain ways by avoiding what we don’t want and avoiding a reaction to it, hence save energy.
Describe function of attitude- INTERPRETATION
A summary of an attitude object to avoid worry and confusion thus help to understand and process information
Describe function of attitude- EVALUATION
- Help us stand up for what we believe in
- Help reflect on values
- Protect self esteem when we feel threatened/ uncomfortable
What is Attitude Salience?
- STRENGTH
- Stronger behaviour = quick behaviour
- Eg. Spontaneous cheering of team when they score a goal
What is Attitude specificity?
- Highly specific attitude characterised by particular behaviours
- Eg: Specifically prefer and buy one brand of shampoo regardless of price
Information about the attitude is:
- Attitudes confirmed by previous knowledge/ experiences thus reflected in our behaviour
- Eg. Brand loyalty: familiar with brand of mobile phone and likely to purchase same brand in future
Situation is:
Where specific circumstances we are in influence behaviour
Eg. Prefers organic food but low income will not allow expensive choice = purchasing processed food
What are the methods of attitude measurement?
- Measured in global rather than specific way thus measurement is unlikely to predict specific behaviour
- Eg. Interest in maths does not predict for specific aspect of maths
Structure of attitudes- what is the tricomponent model?
- Describes structure of an attitude
- A.B.C= Affective. Behavioural. Cognitive.
What is the Affective component?
- Persons feelings/ emotional response to attitude object
- Mostly learnt during course of daily life
- Eg. Love dogs
What is the Behavioural component?
- Person’s behaviour towards attitude object
- It is what we say/how we act towards object
- E.g get dog and spend time with it
What is the cognitive component?
- Person’s thoughts/ideas/understanding about attitude object
- It is what we know/think we know about the attitude object
- Eg. Dogs can be good guard dogs and companions
How is attitude formed?
- Classical conditioning
- Operant conditioning
- Observational learning
What is Classical conditioning?
Attitudes Are learned/ conditioned through steps
What is operant conditioning?
- Reinforcement (positive consequences) can create/ strengthen attitude
- Punishment (negative consequences) can weaken/ attitude from forming
What is Observational learning (modelling)?
- Children form attitudes by observing those expressed by important people (parents/ teachers) and as consequence express same attitude
- Eg. Parent drinks alcohol so child likely to drink too
What is direct experience learning?
- Direct encounter with an attitude object can influence formation of an attitude
- Eg. Doctor stitching patient’s womb and causing lots of pain = negative attitude to doctors in future
What is mere exposure effect learning?
- Repeated exposure to an attitude object resulting in negative or Positive attitude towards it
- Number of time person exposed to attitude object will correlate with stronger/ weaker attitude towards it
- Eg. Person continually swooped by magpie = greater intensity to dislike magpies
What are the sources of learning?
- Parents
- peer influence
- mass media
How parents are a source of learning?
They influence all kinds of learning: classical, operant, observational
How is Peer influence a source of learning?
- Attitude formation via actions of peer group/ others around us
- Eg. Peers influence attitude towards music, dress style, social activities
How is mass media a source of learning?
- Television has the potential to shape/ influence formation of everyone’s attitudes including children/adult consumers and public opinion
What is self perception theory?
We infer our attitudes from our observation of our own behaviour
What is attitude change?
- Any significant modification of an individual’s attitude
- e.g advertisers/ politicians all spend time and money trying to change people’s attitudes
What is Persuasive communication? (Yale approach)
- It uses arguments aimed at changing people’s attitudes
- Using reasoning to convince person to change cognition, affect and behaviour
What are the four focus areas of persuasive communication?
- The recipient of the message (audience) = music, bright colours to attract attention
- Source of the message (communicator) = celebrity to convey message
- Medium for communicating message (channel) = electronic, person, written
- Message (what) = two sided vs one side argument, repetition of message, emotion-arousing message
What is the elaboration-likelihood method?
- model attempts to explain whether people are more likely to be influenced by CONTENT of message or by SUPERFICIAL CHARACTERISTICS
What are the two routes of elaboration-likelihood model?
- CENTRAL route to persuasion: involve careful consideration of message and its source
- PERIPHERAL route to persuasion: only paying attention to superficial characteristics of the message, such as who delivers it/ its music/ colour/ duration
What is COGNITIVE DISSONANCE?
- An unpleasant feeling of psychological tension that comes when we perceive that our attitudes are inconsistent with our behaviour.
- Eg: always behave truthful and dislike dishonesty, but find yourself in situation where you have to tell white lie = you feel tense and stressed about your behaviour
What is EFFORT JUSTIFICATION?
Reducing the tension felt from cognitive dissonance, you change your attitude and devise a justification for lying under the particular cirtumstances
What are the three resistances to persuasion?
- reactance
- forewarning
- inoculation effect
What is REACTANCE?
- person experiences unpleasant feeling when freedom of choice is threatened and tries to protect/regain that freedom
What is FOREWARNING?
- People have advanced warning that a message is intended to change their attitude.
- more likely to analyse the information and prepare arguments against persuasive message
What is INOCULATION EFFECT?
A technique where person is exposed to small doses of an argument that it contrary to particular attitude they hold, thus making it easier to refute argument when it is encountered again (cognition-based attitude)
Situation is:
Where specific circumstances we are in influence behaviour
Eg. Prefers organic food but low income will not allow expensive choice = purchasing processed food
What are the methods of attitude measurement?
- Measured in global rather than specific way thus measurement is unlikely to predict specific behaviour
- Eg. Interest in maths does not predict for specific aspect of maths
Structure of attitudes- what is the tricomponent model?
- Describes structure of an attitude
- A.B.C= Affective. Behavioural. Cognitive.
What is the Affective component?
- Persons feelings/ emotional response to attitude object
- Mostly learnt during course of daily life
- Eg. Love dogs
What is the Behavioural component?
- Person’s behaviour towards attitude object
- It is what we say/how we act towards object
- E.g get dog and spend time with it
What is the cognitive component?
- Person’s thoughts/ideas/understanding about attitude object
- It is what we know/thunk we know about the attitude object
- Eg. Dogs can be good guard dogs and companions
How is attitude formed?
- Classical conditioning
- Operant conditioning
- Observational learning
What is Classical conditioning?
Attitudes Are learned/ conditioned through steps
What is operant conditioning?
- Reinforcement (positive consequences) can create/ strengthen attitude
- Punishment (negative consequences) can weaken/ attitude from forming
What is Observational learning (modelling)?
- Children form attitudes by observing those expressed by important people (parents/ teachers) and as consequence express same attitude
- Eg. Parent drinks alcohol so child likely to drink too
What is direct experience learning?
- Direct encounter with an attitude object can influence formation of an attitude
- Eg. Doctor stitching patient’s womb and causing lots of pain = negative attitude to doctors in future
What is mere exposure effect learning?
- Repeated exposure to an attitude object resulting in negative! Positive attitude towards it
- Number of time person exposed to attitude object will correlate with stronger/ weaker attitude towards it
- Eg. Person continually swooped by magpie = greater intensity to dislike magpies
What are the sources of learning?
- Parents
- peer influence
- mass media
How parents are a source of learning?
They influence all kinds of learning: classical, operant, observational
How is Peer influence a source of learning?
- Attitude formation via actions of peer group/ others around us
- Eg. Peers influence attitude towards music, dress style, social activities
How is mass media a source of learning?
- Television has the potential to shape/ influence formation of everyone’s attitudes including children/adult consumers and public opinion
What is self perception theory?
We infer our attitudes from our observation of our own behaviour
What is attitude change?
- Any significant modification of an individual’s attitude
- e.g advertisers/ politicians all spend time and money trying to change people’s attitudes
What is Persuasive communication? (Yale approach)
- It uses arguments aimed at changing people’s attitudes
- Using reasoning to convince person to change cognition, affect and behaviour
What are the four focus areas of persuasive communication?
- The recipient of the message (audience) = music, bright colours to attract attention
- Source of the message (communicator) = celebrity to convey message
- Medium for communicating message (channel) = electronic, person, written
- Message (what) = two sided vs one side argument, repetition of message, emotion-arousing message
What is the elaboration-likelihood method?
- model attempts to explain whether people are more likely to be influenced by CONTENT of message or by SUPERFICIAL CHARACTERISTICS
What are the two routes of elaboration-likelihood model?
- CENTRAL route to persuasion: involve careful consideration of message and its source
- PERIPHERAL route to persuasion: only paying attention to superficial characteristics of the message, such as who delivers it/ its music/ colour/ duration
What is COGNITIVE DISSONANCE?
- An unpleasant feeling of psychological tension that comes when we perceive that our attitudes are inconsistent with our behaviour.
- Eg: always behave truthful and dislike dishonesty, but find yourself in situation where you have to tell white lie = you feel tense and stressed about your behaviour
What is EFFORT JUSTIFICATION?
Reducing the tension felt from cognitive dissonance, you change your attitude and devise a justification for lying under the particular cirtumstances
What are the three resistances to persuasion?
- reactance
- forewarning
- inoculation effect
What is REACTANCE?
- person experiences unpleasant feeling when freedom of choice is threatened and tries to protect/regain that freedom
What is FOREWARNING?
- People have advanced warning that a message is intended to change their attitude.
- more likely to analyse the information and prepare arguments against persuasive message
What is INOCULATION EFFECT?
A technique where person is exposed to small doses of an argument that it contrary to particular attitude they hold, thus making it easier to refute argument when it is encountered again (cognition-based attitude)
