Lecture 1: Attitude Content and Structure & Direct Measurement Flashcards
1
Q
attitude (1)
A
- A person’s summary evaluation (i.e. favorability vs. unfavorability toward) an attitude object.
2
Q
attitude object (2)
A
- Anything that can be liked or disliked.
- Includes things that are concrete and abstract.
3
Q
multicomponent model (1)
A
- Proposes that attitudes have three components: cognitive, affective, and behavioural.
4
Q
cognitive components (2)
A
- Beliefs, thoughts, and attributes we associate with an attitude object.
- What most people focus on when they talk about attitudes.
5
Q
affective components (2)
A
- Feelings or emotions linked to an attitude object.
- Aren’t completely separate from cognitive components, but are distinct.
6
Q
behavioural components (2)
A
- Past behaviours or experiences regarding an attitude object.
- e.g. If you’ve enjoyed playing sports in the past, you’ll probably conclude that you like sports.
7
Q
Breckler (1984) (3)
A
- Found that the three attitude components are empirically distinct.
- Participants, while in the presence of a snake, indicated factors relating to their cognitive, affective, and behavioural attitudes towards snakes.
- Responses were given scores, analyzed, and it was found that the components only moderately correlated.
8
Q
When is the weight of affective or cognitive components stronger than the other? (2)
A
- For blood donations and liked (in) groups, affective components were more predictive.
- For abortions and comprehensive exams, and disliked (out) groups, cognitive components were more predictive.
9
Q
Abelson et al. (1984) (4)
A
- Examined the roles of thoughts and feelings in predicting attitudes towards American presidential candidates.
- For each candidate, participants indicated their cognitive, affective, and overall attitudes.
- Favorability of affective and cognitive responses were uniquely predictive of overall evaluations of each candidate.
- Thus, both cognitive and affective components can inform attitudes.
10
Q
Huskinson & Haddock (2004) (8)
A
- Asked: Are some people more influenced by affect vs. cognition and vice versa?
- Experiment 1: Showed that some people relied more on affect and some on cognition, but many relied on both or neither.
- People who rely more on affect (E-A correlation above median, E-C correlation below median) were called “feelers.”
- People who rely more on cognition (E-C correlation above median, E-A correlation below median) were called “thinkers.”
- Experiment 2: Thinkers and feelers were presented with a new soft drink, receiving either a cognitive or an affective appeal.
- Affective appeal worked better on feelers, cognitive appeal worked better on thinkers;
- However, the cognitive appeal worked just as well as the affective appeal on feelers.
- Says that we can probably just use cognitive appeals all the time, and we should never use affective appeals with thinkers.
11
Q
one-dimensional perspective of attitudes (2)
A
- Positive and negative elements are at opposite ends of a single dimension.
- Not very useful unless you’re talking about something simple, or you want to find people with very polarizing attitudes.
12
Q
two-dimensional perspective of attitudes (2)
A
- Attitude is organized along two dimensions: 1) how much negative content there is, and 2) how much positive content there is.
- The scale moves from more negative, to neutral/ambivalent, to more positive.
13
Q
attitudinal ambivalence (1)
A
- When evaluations of the attitude object include both positive and negative elements.
14
Q
inter-component ambivalence (1)
A
- Ambivalence between components (e.g. negative cognitive elements but positive affective components).
15
Q
intra-component ambivalence (1)
A
- Ambivalence within components (e.g. both negative and positive cognitive components).
16
Q
potential ambivalence (1)
A
- May or may not be consciously perceived by the individual.
17
Q
felt ambivalence (1)
A
- The feeling of tension that people experience when thinking about an attitude object.
18
Q
simultaneous accessibility (1)
A
- When potential ambivalence depends on how quickly and uniformly conflicting evaluations come to mind.
19
Q
preference for consistency (PFC) (2)
A
- When people review past behaviors when making new decisions.
- If preference for consistency is high, they are more likely to ignore new information, biased to past behaviors.
20
Q
Newby-Clark, McGregor, & Zanna (2002) (8)
A
- Proposes that simultaneous accessibility of potential ambivalence determines the strength of the relation between potential and felt ambivalence.
- Proposes that people high in PFC who are aware of their ambivalence will feel the most discomfort.
- Participants were asked to express their views towards abortion and capital punishment: 1) in a control condition, 2) while only considering the positive aspects, and 3) while only considering the negative aspects.
- Simultaenous accessibility was measured by seeing how quickly and uniformly attitudes came to mind during each measure.
- Increased simultaneous accessibility of potential ambivalence increases the relation between potential and felt ambivalence.
- Whatever produces cognitive inconsistency, an experience of discomfort will result only when that consistency is simultaneously available.
- People will expend effort to maintain chronically low simultaneous accessibility to keep inconsistency low.
- Ambivalence and cognitive dissonance might share similar mechanisms.
21
Q
direct measurement (3)
A
- Explicitly asking people to introspect.
- Most commonly used because it’s relatively easy to administer and cheap.
- Likert method; semantic differential approach; and open-ended measures.
22
Q
problems with direct measurement (4)
A
- Individuals may not be aware of their attitudes.
- Subtle differences in item presentation can influence responses.
- Unclear how relative vs. absolute the scores are.
- Subject to impression management.
23
Q
impression management (2)
A
- Giving responses that present oneself in a favourable way, even if the responses are inaccurate.
- Most common when studying attitudes about sensitive issues or issues relevant to norms of political or social appropriateness.
24
Q
social desirability bias (2)
A
- Most common form of impression management.
- Presenting oneself in a way that’s most socially desirable.
25
Q
Likert scale (5)
A
- Presents a series of belief statements indicating a favourable or unfavourable attitude towards a topic.
- Using a scale, respondents indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement towards the statements.
- Need multiple items to: make sure people are answering honestly, that you’re measuring the right construct, and so that you can measure the 3 different attitude components.
- Pros: quick to administer, easy to answer, useful for comparing groups’ or individuals’ attitudes towards a single attitude object.
- Cons: can’t compare scores for different attitude objects because they would be using different scales.
26
Q
semantic differential approach (6)
A
- Respondents given set of bipolar adjective scales that use general evaluative terms and asked to choose the option best representing opinion.
- Scores across different scales are averaged—allows us to compare scores to different attitude objects;
- Must be careful that the adjectives mean the same thing for the different attitude objects.
- e.g. If you want to compare liking of celery and capital punishment, make sure your participants know that—otherwise people might indicate they like capital punishment more than celery.
- Pros: simple and effective.
- Cons: difficult to measure behavioural components.
- Differential framing approach and content-specific approach.
27
Q
differential framing approach (2)
A
- Using a semantic differential approach with the same dimensions but different instructions for each component.
- e.g. cognitive: x is bad/good; affective: x makes me feel bad/good.
28
Q
content-specific approach (2)
A
- Using a semantic differential approach with different dimensions for each of the different components;
- e.g. cognitive: useless/useful; affective: sad/delighted.
29
Q
open-ended measures (4)
A
- Participants write down all the thoughts, feelings, and behavioural experiences they associate with the attitude object.
- Asked to rate each item they listed in terms of how positive/negative it is. Scores are then averaged.
- Pros: more comprehensive and avoids biasing/restraining answers.
- Cons: time-consuming to fill out and analyze; it can also be difficult for people to articulate their thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviours.
