L2 - Attitudes

Question 1

What is an attitude ?

Answer 1

Associations between attitude objects and evaluations of these objects
Summary of the object
Rules applying to that label
Knowledge of evaluation

Question 2

What are the behavioural theories of attitudes ?

Answer 2

Mere exposure - familiarity breeds contempt
Classical conditioning - neutral stimuli paired with another stimulus
Instrumental conditioning - attitude shaped by reinforcement
Observational learning - modelling in vicarious experience

Question 3

What are the cognitive theories of attitudes ?

Answer 3

Information integration theory - formed by averaging available information of an object
Mood as information hypothesis - decide if you like something depending on your mood
Heuristics - cognitive shortcuts in memory

Question 4

What is the theory for attitude formation ?

Answer 4

Self perception theory - infer attitudes from own behaviour
e.g. anxious people rated a date as negative unless there was positive reassurance

Question 5

What are the sources of attitude formation ?

Answer 5

Parents
- infer attitudes from those around you
- strength of association ranges
Mass media
- particularly Tv is an important influence

Question 6

How can you measure attitudes ?

Answer 6

Attitude scales
Physiological measures
Unobtrusive, indirect measures
Implicit measures of attitudes
Explicit = direct
Implicit = indirect

Question 7

What are the key explicit measures ?

Answer 7

Questionnaires, focus groups, interviews
Measured directly, good constructive validity, prone to self-presentation, predictive of deliberate behaviours

Question 8

What are the key implicit measures ?

Answer 8

Implicit association task, non verbal behaviour, examining behaviour, evaluative behaviour
Difficult to fake, measured indirectly, prone to reliability problems, predictive of automatic behaviours

Question 9

What is evaluative priming ?

Answer 9

Categorise target words as fast as you can
Positive words with positive prime were better remembered and recognised faster
Examines evaluations at the individual level

Question 10

What are some problems with evaluative priming ?

Answer 10

Internal consistency low
Test - retest reliability low
Predictive variability low
Convergent reliability low

Question 11

What are the underlying processes of the implicit association task ?

Answer 11

Spreading activation account - get priming stimulus, activation of prime spreads to other stimuli, prime activates related terms, secondary prime presented
Response conflict account - get priming stimulus, produces response, target stimulus is incongruent with prime

Question 12

How can we predict behaviour ?

Answer 12

Social sensitivity moderates predictive value of explicit measures of attitudes (much weaker for implicit)
Implicit and explicit correspondence increases predictive validity of both measures - we don’t control our inner monologue we have drives but we don’t know why

Question 13

What are the single and dual attitude model ?

Answer 13

Single - joint function of deliberative and spontaneous processes (explicit and implicit ways of measuring the same thing)
Dual - can hold two or more attitudes towards the same thing at the same time, dependant on the situation (motivation and cognitive capacity)

Question 14

What is the elaboration likelihood model ?

Answer 14

How motivated and able you are will determine information processing route
Central route - when message is followed closely with cognitive effort (weigh up every bit of data)
Peripheral route - superficial processing of peripheral cues, attraction rather than information (not motivated to listen)

Question 15

What is the heuristic - systematic model ?

Answer 15

Dual process model
Systematic processing - careful, deliberative scanning and processing of available information
Heuristic processing - people use cognitive heuristics to make judgements

Question 16

What are some other dual processing models ?

Answer 16

Sufficiency threshold - as long as heuristics used to a certain degree of confidence
Bias hypothesis - heuristic cues may bias effects of systematic processing
Use of systematic processing also haltered by mood and emotion

Question 17

What are the differences between the elaboration likelihood model and the heuristic systematic model ?

Answer 17

ELM - Inverse relationship between central and peripheral processing, difficult to predict outcomes
HSM - heuristic and systematic processing can occur simultaneously

Question 18

What are generalised dual process theories ?

Answer 18

Reflective impulsive model:
Reflective - relations between stimuli, tagged with truth values
Impulsive system - simple associations activated according to similarity and contiguity
Operate simultaneously but IS has priority

Question 19

What is persuasive communication ?

Answer 19

Experts more persuasive
Attractive people are more effective
People speaking faster convey expertise
More effective if perceived as not trying to influence
Repetition increases familiarity
People with low self esteem more suspectable to influence

Question 20

What is the persuasiveness of fear ?

Answer 20

Early research suggests low fear was optimal
High fear message prompted greater willingness to stop smoking
The inverted U hypothesis - messages with too little fear might not highlight potential harm

Question 21

What is a meta analysis of fear appeals ?

Answer 21

Strong fear appeals produce high levels of perceived severity and susceptibility and are most persuasive
Fear can motivate adaptive actions
Strong fear appeals and high efficacy messages produce the greatest behaviour change
Strong fear appeals with low efficacy messages produce the greatest levels of defensive responses

Question 22

What is outcome framing ?

Answer 22

Health psychology suggests that focusing on gain or losses is useful
Gains - behaviour perceived as low risk e.g. mitigating climate change, applying sunscreen
Losses - behaviour perceived as higher risk e.g. cancer screening (mixed evidence)

Question 23

How does the audience’s self esteem effect attitudes ?

Answer 23

People with low self esteem were more susceptible to persuasion and attitude change
Follows an inverted U relationship

Question 24

How does audience’s gender effect attitudes ?

Answer 24

Women are more easily persuaded than men
Socialisation into cooperative roles
Women are less familiar with male orientated topics
Men are resistant to influence by women
More persuasive in female doings e.g. nursing

Question 25

What is the cognitive dissonance theory ?

Answer 25

Unpleasant state of psychological tension when inconsistency occurs
1. Internal conflict arises when counter attitude arises
2. Dissonance motivates people to make alterations to behaviour
3. Dissonance can be reduced e.g. excuses

Question 26

How does cognitive dissonance relate to behaviour ?

Answer 26

Describes the tension between beliefs and behaviour
As dissonance is unpleasant we’re motivated to change
It can be induced
Engaging in socially undesirable action raises risk of cognitive dissonance
Only solution is to alter attitude
Alter future behaviours