Lecture 4 - Attitudes Flashcards
Attitude
- mental and neural state of readiness
- organized through experience
- exerting influence on one’s responses to related objects and situations
4 interconnected components of attitudes
CABB
(1) Cognitions
(2) Affective Responses
(3) Behavioral Intentions
(4) Behaviors
Tripartite Model of Attitudes
ABC
(1) Affective Processes
(2) Behavioral Processes
(3) Cognitive Process
- NOT all required to have an attitude
Values
- Closely related to attitudes
- Standards for what is desirable for one’s actions
- Broad and abstract, whereas attitudes are directed toward people, objects, ands situations
- Attitude = expression of value
How Are Attitudes Formed?
- Mere exposure
- Self-percention theory
- Direct personal experience
- Classical/operant conditioning
- Observational learning
- Genetic?
Mere exposure (attitude formation)
- Mere exposure to an object results in positive attitudes toward that object
- Stimuli you’re exposed to must initially be neutral or held in positive regard (cannot start out with negative regard)
- If start with negative regard, will have increasing negative feelings/increased disliking
- Exposure must occur randomly and over time
- Applications: Advertising
Self-perception theory
- When attitudes are weak or ambiguous (do not have a strong attitude one way or the other)
- People observe their own behavior to determine their attitudes
Direct personal experience
- Tend to be strongly held/less vulnerable to persuasion and affect behavior
- Strong affective component
- More likely to discount contrary evidence that goes against attitude
Classical conditioning
Stimulus evokes a response it did not previously evoke to form an attitude
Operant conditioning
bx = strengthened or weakened by punishment or reward
Observational learning
Attitude formation via observing other people
Homogenous group
attitude change less likely
Heterogeneous group
attitude change more likely
Attitude-Behavior compatibility
- General attitudes tend to NOT predict specific behaviors
- To predict a specific behavior, you must ask about a specific attitude
Theory of Reasoned Action
- People think about their actions or behaviors
- Attitudes and norms influence our intentions and intentions influence our behavior
Theory of Planned Behavior
- We take into account whether we’re capable of performing a particular behavior, which informs our behavior intentions
- If a behavior seems our of our capabilities, you’re not going to form the behavioral intention
- good at predicting deliberative behaviors
Nonrational actor
View that humans are not always rational in their behavior and their behavior can be inconsistent with their attitude
Mindless bx
Overlearned and routinized behaviors rigid, preconceived patterns without thought
Rational vs. Nonrational Actors: A Resolution
- When attitude not important, behavior may be unpredictable and uncoupled from attitudes
- Attitudes we hold with conviction less susceptible to uncoupling with behavior
Types of attitudes
- Explicit
2. Implicit
Explicit attitude
- A self-reported favorable or unfavorable evaluation of an attitude object
- Measured with explicit/direct attitude measures
- Operates at the conscious level
Implicit attitude
- Attitudes that affect behavior on an automatic level
- Nondeliberative; below the level of awareness
- Automatic processing
- A favorable or unfavorable evaluation residing outside of awareness an conscious control
- Measures with implicit/indirect attitude measures
Explicit Attitude Measures
- Semantic Differential
- Feeling Thermometer
- Likert scale
Semantic differential
- Please evaluate “XXX” on the following dimensions
E.g.,: Ugly -3 -2 -1 0 +1 +2 +3 Beautiful
Feeling thermometer
- Rate your general level of warmth or coolness toward “XXX” by indicating the temperature on the feeling thermometer where you would place “XXX”
- More effective measure of explicit attitudes
Likert-type rating scale
Indicate your agreement or disagreement on a scale of 1-7
Problems w explicit attitude measures
- Self-Presentation Concerns
- Especially with self-esteem and prejudice - Self-Report Biases
- Acquiescence Bias – Say “yes” to everything - Can we report all attitudes?
- Problems with introspection
Eg why do you like your favorite color
Implicit attitude measures
A measure of attitudes that is impervious to conscious control o Implicit Association Test (IAT) o Automatic Activation Measure o Response Latency Measure o Expectancy Bias o Explanatory Bias
How the IAT Works - 5 stages
(1) Training Trial – Categorizing pleasant words vs unpleasant words (Learning Trial)
(2) Presented with Categories of Interest (Learning Trial)
(3) Combine categories (Critical Trial)
(4) Relearning of Categories of Interest – Categories on opposite side of screen
(5) Combine Categories of Interest – Opposite paired categories on same side (e.g., Pleasant + Insect on left vs. Unpleasant + Flower on right)
Karpinski’s Model of Attitudes
- Environmental association formulate our attitudes and beliefs
- Our evaluative beliefs comprise our explicit attitudes
- Environmental associations are tapped by the association measure
Evaluative beliefs are
controlled behavior
- explicit attitudes
Environmental associations are
automatic beliefs
- implicit
Nisbett and Wilson
- People have little introspective access, so can’t report accurately
- When explaining behavior, we don’t base on memory of event, but on a priori theories about causal relations between S and R
- When subjective causal theories are correct doesn’t reflect introspected awareness, but incidental use of correct causal theory
Evidence for Lack of Awareness
- People are unaware of response
- People are unaware of a change (i.e., attitude change)
Evidence for Reliance on Causal Theories
- Observers just as accurate as actors in explaining actions
- People make judgments about how plausible it is that a stimulus would have influenced the response based on the representative heuristic
o Based on available data to you
Why do we misunderstand the causes of our behavior?
- Many judgments, thoughts, behavior, and emotions produced by adaptive unconscious
- People cannot access adaptive unconscious
- People confabulate reasons for their behaviors (because they cannot access their adaptive unconscious)
