lecture 2 - attitudes and rationalisation 1 Flashcards

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1
Q

why study attitudes

A

-attitudes can influence behaviour (way you feel influence way you behave)
eg those with strong pro environment attitudes are more likely to vote green

-behaviour can influence attitudes
environmentally minded individuals who drive petrol cars tend to convince themselves that automobile exhaust contributes very little to air or pollution or global warming-or that they don’t drive much anyway

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2
Q

what are attitudes
-dictionary definition
-psychologist definition

A

-dictionary
-a feeling or opinion about something or someone or a way of behaving that is caused by this

psychologist
-an evaluation of an object in a positive or negative fashion that includes three components : affect, cognition and behaviour

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3
Q

components and measurement of attitudes
-affect(emotion)
-cognition
-behaviour

A

affect : how much someone likes or dislikes an object

cognition : thoughts that typically reinforce a persons feelings, these include knowledge and beliefs about the object, as well as well associated memories and images

behaviour: attitudes are associated with specific behaviour. most generally, the affective evaluation of good versus bad is connected to behavioural tendency to either approach or avoid

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4
Q

chen and bargh (1999)
-specific attitudes primed

A

-when specific attitudes are primed (brough to mind ) even unconsciously- people are more likely to act in ways consistent with the attitude
-eg if you hear crying child you go to take care of them -

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5
Q

why when specific attitudes are primed people are more likely to act in ways consistent with the attitude?

A

neuroscientific studies indicate that our attitudes activate particular brain regions , areas of the moto cortex, that support specific actions (Preston and de Waal ,2002)

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6
Q

measuring attitudes
scales

A

likert scale - a numerical scale used to asses attitudes; includes a set of possible answers with labelled anchors on each extreme. a 5- or 7-point ordinal scale used by respondents to rate the degree to which they agree or disagree with a statement

response latency - the amount of time it takes to respond to a stimulus, such as an attitude question

implicit attitude measure - an indirect measure of attitudes that does not involve a self report
any procedure for evaluating attitudes in which a person is not consciously aware of the fact that their attitude toward something or someone is being assessed.

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7
Q

attitudes are typically measured through ___ ____ measures.
-what do simple scales like these miss

A

Attitudes are typically measured through self-report measures such as survey questions, where participants rate an attitude object on a Likert scale
-Likert scale ranges from 1-7, where 1is the least favourable answer and 7is the most favourable.

-Simple scales like Likert might miss some important elements when measuring complex attitudes (e.g., capital punishment, environmentalism).

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8
Q

approach to measure attitude developed by Russell Fazio

A

An approach developed by Russell Fazio and his team is to measure the accessibility of the attitude, or how readily it comes to mind.

-Accessibility is measured by response latency, which is the time it takes a person to respond to an attitude question.

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9
Q

assessing importance of an attitude
-centrality
-how is centrality measured

A

Another way to assess the strength and importance of someone’s attitude is to determine the centrality of the attitude to the person’s belief system.
-map out someone’s belief system
-Attitude centrality is measured by calculating how strongly each attitude within a domain is linked to the others

.E.g., if abortion is a defining issue, then the view on abortion is likely to be strongly correlated with your attitudes about stem cell research and sex education, and perhaps even with attitudes about same-sex marriage and taxation.

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10
Q

what are implicit attitude measures, and when are they used

A

-implicit attitude measures are used when people may be unwilling or unable to report explicitly their true feelings or opinions

-Implicit measures are designed to bypass conscious awareness and control, to get at attitudes that people might not be aware of or might be unwilling to disclose -nonconscious attitude

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11
Q

two widely used implicit measures

A

-affective priming
-implicit association test

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12
Q

affective priming
implicit association test

A

-affective priming is a measure of implicit attitudes by assessing the speed and accuracy of responding to target words that are preceded by subliminal primes

-implicit association test (IAT) measure the strength of associations between concepts (eg black people, gay people) and evaluations (eg good,bad) or stereotypes (eg athletic, clumsy)

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13
Q

the IAT is widely used as a tool to uncover ______ biases, specifically……

A

-implicit
-specifically bias in the form of racial or gender prejudices.

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14
Q

explicit vs implicit measures
-problems with implicit measures

A

explicit
-deliberate
-conscious
-introspective
-‘slow’ / ‘cold’
-self report

implicit
-automatic
-non conscious
-associative
-‘fast’ / ‘hot’
-response time

-implicit attitude measures are not always accurate, and they should be used in combination with other methods of assessment

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15
Q

-non verbal measures
-physiological indicators

A

non verbal measures
-smiling behaviour and degree of physical closeness, as indices or signals of positive attitudes toward others

physiological indicators
-increased heart rate, sweaty palms associated with fear can capture peoples attitudes

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16
Q

predicting behaviours from attitudes
-richard la piere 1930s
-how the study was carried out
-results

A

-he conducted a study in which he travelled the United states with a young Chinese couple, visiting numerous hotels, auto camps,restraunts and cafes.

-despite prevalent prejudice and discrimination against Chinese individuals at the time , la piere and his companions were denied service by only one of the 250 establishments they visited

-after the trip, lapiere wrote to all the establishments they visited and asked whether their policy was to serve ‘orientals’

-approximatley 90 percent of those who responded said they would not, a response rate that was inconsistent with la pieres observations during the tour

-this study suggested that attitudes dont predict behaviour very well and was surprising and unsettling for the field of psychological science which had treated attitudes as a powerful determinants of behaviours .

17
Q

predicting behaviour from attitudes
-attitudes about certain topics eg dieting are not always _____ ______ of related behaviour

A

strong predictors.

18
Q

attitudes compete with _____ __________ of behaviour…

A

-other determinants
-eg eating habits or situational factors like nearby distractions

19
Q

a persons understanding of prevailing norms can ______ the relationship between attitudes and behaviour

A

weaken

20
Q

predicting behaviour from attitudes
-how can attitudes be inconsistent

A

-when the affective and cognitive components are inconsistent, the attitude may not predict behaviour very well
-the cognitive component might determine the attitude we express, but the affective component might determine our behaviour (or vice versa)

21
Q

attitudes can be influenced by various factors-may be difficult to know exactly why one holds a certain attitude

A

-when asked to come up with reasons for ones attitude, one may focus on the most easily identifiable factors that are incorrect,rather than the real underlying reasons

-when this happens it is not surprising that the attitude you report after generating reasons doesn’t end up predicting your behaviour very well

22
Q

-attitudes, behaviour and specificity
-when is consistency between attitude and behaviour high?

A

-attitudes and behaviour do not always align, and the consistency between them is higher when they are both at the same level of specificity

-highly specific attitudes tend to predict specific behaviours, whereas general attitudes tend to predict how a person behaves across different instances

-to predict specific behaviours , attitudes towards that behaviour must be measured

23
Q

-lord et al 1984
-experiment about male college students

A

Lord et al. (1984) asked male college students to express their attitudes about gay men (i.e., stereotype of a “typical” gay man).
-Two months later, a different experimenter asked the participants if they would be willing to show some visiting students around campus

One visitor was “John B” and for half participants he was described to fit their own individualised stereotype of a gay man.Those with positive attitudes said they were willing, those with negative attitudes said they were not, but only if John B. matched their prototype of a gay individual.

24
Q

influence on attitude being deliberate

A

The influence of an attitude on behaviour is sometimes conscious and deliberate: we reflect on our attitudes and then decide how to behave. But often our behaviour is more reflexive than reflective, and the surrounding context elicits the behaviour automatically. When automatic behaviour is consistent with your attitudes - “go with your gut feeling” – fast and efficient.

25
Q

what does automatic behaviour due to context do to the relationship between attitudes and behaviour

A

Automatic behaviour elicited directly by the surrounding context can weaken the connection between conscious attitudes and behaviour.

-Priming Elderly = Slow walking (Bargh etal., 1996) Automatic behaviour can conflict with conscious attitudes without our knowledge, highlighting a limitation of how well attitudes predict behaviour.

26
Q
A