Chapter 6 - Attitudes and Social Behaviour

Question 1

Define: attitude

Answer 1

an individual’s evaluation of a target, can be an object, an issue, a person, a group, a behaviour, or any other identifiable aspect of the environment, the individual’s overall assessment of whether a particular target is positive or negative

Question 2

What are the three sources of attitudes?

Answer 2

1. emotional reactions
2. cognitive information
3. past behaviour

Question 3

Define: ambivalent attitudes

Answer 3

evaluations of targets that include both positive and negative elements, usually the conflict among the attitudinal elements is experienced as unpleasant

Question 4

Define: explicit attitudes

Answer 4

evaluations that people can report consciously, reflect higher-level evaluations (requiring extensive processing) that are based on rational beliefs about the object and its features

Question 5

Define: implicit attitudes

Answer 5

reflects how the individual evaluates the target at a subconscious level, automatic evaluative responses to a target, may occur without awareness, reflect low-level (minimal processing) associations between objects and evaluations

Question 6

What are the 2 functions of attitudes?

Answer 6

1. assessing objects

2. expressing values

Question 7

Define/explain: object-appraisal function of attitudes

Answer 7

a function of attitudes in which attitudes provide rapid evaluative, judgements of targets, facilitating approach or avoidance, allows people to make quick assessment of whether a target is helpful or harmful, do not rely on complex cognition, ex. dog

Question 8

Define/explain: value-expressive function of attitudes

Answer 8

a function of attitudes in which attitudes communicate individuals’ identity and values

Question 9

What are the 3 types of self report measures of attitudes?

Answer 9

1. Likert-Type Scales
2. Semantic Differential Scales
3. Opinion Surveys

Question 10

What are some problems with self-report measures for measuring attitudes?

Answer 10

if researchers are interested in implicit attitudes they cannot use self-report measures, they typically do not yield a clear and easy way to measure ambivalence of an individual’s attitude

Question 11

What are the 2 assumptions on which self-report measures rest?

Answer 11

1. people know what their attitudes are

2. people will report their attitudes honestly, ex. socially desirable responding

Question 12

What are: opinion surveys

Answer 12

respondent answers just one or two items on each issue, designed to access public opinion about an issue, event, or group, rarely used by social psychologists

Question 13

What are: Likert-type scales

Answer 13

an attitude measurement technique that requires respondents to indicate the extent of their agreement or disagreement with several statements on an issue, over the past 70 years this has been used more than any other technique to measure attitudes

Question 14

What are: semantic differential scales

Answer 14

an attitude measurement technique that requires respondents to rate a target on several evaluative dimensions, ex. top of page: health care system, adjectives running down page include, good-bad, fair-unfair, effective-ineffective, rate along a scale of 1-10 or 1-5 etc

Question 15

What are 3 types of nonverbal measures of attitudes?

Answer 15

1. Behavioural Measures of Attitudes
2. Physiological Measures of Attitudes
3. Implicit Measures of Attitudes

Question 16

What is: implicit association test (IAT)

Answer 16

a reaction time procedure that provides a measure of implicit attitudes, participants sort targets into a good or bad category, the speed at which the sorting is completed is taken as a measure of implicit attitude toward the object

Question 17

What is: facial electromyography (facial EMG)

Answer 17

a procedure for measuring muscle contractions in the face that may be sensitive to positive vs. negative responses to a stimulus

Question 18

Define/explain: evaluative conditioning

Answer 18

a process by which objects come to evoke positive or negative affect simply by their association with affect inducing events, ex. you like a song because you heard it on a date

Question 19

Define/explain: mere exposure effect

Answer 19

the tendency for increased contact with an object, even without reinforcement, to increase liking for the object

Question 20

Define/explain: attitude heritability

Answer 20

people’s inherited abilities and characteristics might predispose them to having certain kinds of experiences, such as success in sports, which then foster certain attitudes, thus the final attitudes reflect a combination of biology and experience

Question 21

Parenting styles influence children’s values in adulthood. What did adult children of restrictive vs. non-restrictive parents emphasize?

Answer 21

non-restrictive parenting was associated with adult children’s greater emphasis on imaginativeness and independence, restrictive parenting was associated with adult children’s’ greater emphasis on obedience and politeness

Question 22

Define: reference group

Answer 22

a collection of people that serves as a standard of comparison for an individual, whether in terms of attitudes, values, or behaviour, individuals try to conform to the norms and values of their main reference group, people conform to reference groups by joining them or copying them

Question 23

Define: jeer pressure

Answer 23

the conformity pressure that is produced by seeing someone ridiculed by another person, people do not have to be the direct target of ridicule to feel jeer pressure

Question 24

Define: theory of reasoned action

Answer 24

a model of behaviour that views humans as rational decision makers who behave on the basis of logical beliefs, attitude is seen as a overall evaluation of the positive and negative consequences of a behaviour, if most consequences are seen as positive then the attitude held towards the behaviour will be positive

Question 25

Define/explain: subjective norms

Answer 25

an individual’s feelings of social pressure to perform or not perform an action, may be more influential in collectivist cultures

Question 26

Define: behavioural intention

Answer 26

an individual’s plan to perform or not perform an action, the most immediate cause of a behaviour, based on attitude towards the behaviour and subjective norms held about the behaviour, if attitudes and subjective norms conflict then behavioural intentions may be uncertain and actions may be inconsistent

Question 27

Define/explain: IMB model of AIDS-preventive behaviour

Answer 27

a theory hypothesizing that information, motivation, and behavioural skills guide individuals’ protective actions in the sexual domain, conceptualizes behavior as involving deliberate choices among options, individuals must decide themselves whether to engage in risky sexual behaviors or not, the choices will depend on the information they possess, their motivation to perform risky or safer behaviors, and their skill at performing preventive behaviors correctly

Question 28

Define: hostile media phenomenon

Answer 28

the tendency for people who feel strongly about an issue to believe that the media coverage of the issue is biased against their side

Question 29

What are 4 qualities of strong attitudes?

Answer 29

• extremity; people with strong attitudes often endorse extreme positions near the end of the spectrum
• importance; the individual says the attitude is very important to them
• accessibility; how easy it is to activate a schema or attitude
• based on direct experience with the attitude object rather than indirect information obtained from other people

Question 30

When do attitudes predict behaviour?

Answer 30

When the Attitude is Strong
When Behaviour is Controllable
When the Measures Match

Question 31

What are 3 situations in which people lack or believe they lack control over their behaviour?

Answer 31

• external threat
  
  • lack of alternatives
  • biological needs or addictions
  • lack of time

Question 32

Define/explain: power distance

Answer 32

the extent to which a culture accepts an unequal distribution of influence within the society, higher in collectivist cultures