Chapter 6-Attitudes Flashcards
Defenition of attitude
An overall evaluation of an object that is based on cognitive, affective and behavioral information.
“A mental and neural state of readiness, organised
through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic
influence upon the individual’s response to all objects
and situations with which it is related’
• Allport, 1935
Leader in field: Alice Eagly
Research on attitude change. Understanding of psychology of gender.
Multicomponent model
The summation of evaluations that have been processed by cognitive, affective and behavioral information.
Leader in field: Mark Zanna
Contribution to concepts like prejudice, discrimination and how attitude models can be related to health.
The cognitive component of attitude
Beliefs, thoughts, and attributes that we associate with an object.
-Research by Fishbein and Ajzens: Expectancy x value=The beliefs that a person considers the most relevant.
The affective component of attitude
The feelings and emotions associated with an attitude.
Evaluative conditioning
Changes the liking for an object by repeatedly pairing it with a more positive/negative stimulus.
Leader in field: Robert Zajonc
Research on mere exposure effect and the role of unconscious processes in determining preferences and behavior.
The behavioral component of attitude
Past, present and future behavior associated with an attitude object.
Bem’s self perception theory
When inner states are ambiguous (tvetydliga) people can infer these states by observing their own behavior.
5 Attitude functions we see as particularly important
- Object appraisal function: When attitudes help serve as an energy serving device (by summarizing positive and negative attributes of objects)
- Utilitarian function: When attitudes help us maximize rewards and minimize punishments
- Social-adjustment function: When attitudes help us identify with liked others
- Ego-defensive function: When attitudes help to protect our self-esteem (poor football player-don’t like the sport)
- Value-expressive function: When attitudes help express our values
Self-monitoring
Monitoring your own in company of others
- High-self monitoring: Able to change behavior depending on context
- Low self-monitoring: less influenced by situation,follow own core values
4 Indications for strong attitudes
- Persistence: Stable over time
- More resistant to change
- More likely to influence information processing
- More likely to guide behavior
The MODE model (Strack and Deutsch)
A model of attitude-behavior relations in which motivation, and opportunity are necessary to make a deliberative consideration of available information.
MODE: Motivation, Opportunity, and DEterminants
Why do we have attitudes?
Attitudes make the evaluations of objects faster and
easier
• No need to start from scratch (over and over again).
• Attitudes are energy-saving devices.
• Especially when they are strong and highly accessible.
Multicomponent model of attitudes:
› Three components (ABC)
A. Affective component: Emotions & Feelings (I feel happy sitting in this car)-Evaluative conditioning
B. “Behavioral” component: Behavior (I have been driving this brand for many years) -Experiences, self-perception
C. Cognitive component: Thoughts & convictions (It’s very fuel-efficient) -Systematic processing of facts
What is attitudinal ambivalence? (connected to dimensional views)
We both like and dislike an attitude object.
How do you measure implicit attitudes? What did the experiment show us? (From slides)
Implicit Association Test: Experiment showed us that people prefer young people. People also prefer white people in the white house.
What did the study of LaPiere (1934) show us? (slides)
The restaurants served the Chinese couple, but almost everyone when called said they wouldn’t.
Behaviour and attitudes are somewhat correlated, Although attitudes and behaviour were correlated
positively and significantly, the effect was very
small (average correlation r = .15)
Theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen)
Attitudes influence behaviour, but not directly. It’s through intentions. (Negative attitude towards smoking-intention: to stop smoking). Subjective norm influences the intention (friend’s don’t think it’s that bad).
Theory of planned behaviour
The extended version of the theory of planned action. They added the perceived behavioural control (can I do it?). It affects the intention (I don’t think I can quit).
