Lecture 4: Reading Flashcards
Breckler & Wiggins (1991)
Presented ppt’s with pro & anti abortion message
Following each message, p’s rated their mood & listed their thoughts
Mood was a significant predictor of thoughts
Petty (1993) Exp. 1 Methods
Mood (positive mood induced through Ps recalling a recent life event that made them feel positive Vs neutral mood induced through listening to classical music)
Argument quality (strong arguments had justified conclusions compared to weak arguments) - the arguments were about foster care programs
Need for cognition (completed an 18-item Need for cognition Scale)
Dependent variables:
* Attitude index - attitudes towards foster care program
Thought index - listing thoughts that when through their minds as they listened to the editorial about foster care
Petty (1993) Exp.1
Likelihood of message processing was varied by selecting individuals who differed in their need for cognition (NC)
Individuals high in NC enjoy thinking. Individuals low in NC tend to avoid cognitive work
Those high and low in NC were placed in a positive or neutral mood and then exposed to a persuasive message containing moderately strong or weak arguments
Petty (1993) Exp 1 Results
Argument quality had a significant effect on attitudes. Subjects exposed to the strong attitudes had higher +ve attitudes than subjects exposed to weak arguments
There was a significant main effect for mood. Subjects in the +ve mood condition showed more agreement with the message than subjects in the neutral condition
Petty (1993) Exp 2
+ve mood induction was selected that did not require much cogntiive activity. Ps were exposed to a TV comedy show.
In the 2nd experiment they also manipulated high or low amounts of thinking rather than identifying individual differences
The message stimuli in E2 was an advertisement for a new product rather than a social issue
Petty (1993) Results of Exp 2
Subjects in a +ve mood held more favorable attitudes towards the pen (only sig. result)
Olson & Fazio (2006) Exp 1
Over the 6 blocks; viewed images, sometimes alone or in pairs
Appeared at the centre of the screen - asked to press screen
CSs - 16 photos (8 black / 8 white) individuals in different occupational roles. Matched in terms of status.
USs - Positive / negative words and images.
DV:
Contingency estimation task following conditioning (to gauge the awareness of the P’s on if they knew there were pairings)
Participants were unaware of repeated conditioned stimulus (CS) - unconditioned stimulus (US) pairings (CS-US) of black-good and white-bad
P’s were unable to recall the CS-US contingencies.
Experimental group was no more likely to accurately recognise the image pairs
P’s showed no explicit recollection of the pairings they saw.
Olson & Fazio (2006) Exp 2
Address the effectiveness of the conditioning on actual attitude change.
Same conditioning procedure as Exp 1. Followed by a priming measure of AA racial attitudes.
P’s shown black-positive and white-negative pairings were predicted to show more positive attitudes towards black people than controls (same stimuli but no pairings).
No P reported any amount of awareness of the CS-US pairings.
Conditioning:
P’s in the experimental condition showed less negative, AA racial attitudes than control participants.
Attitudes were affected by the conditioning procedure.
Evaluation of Olson & Fazio (2006) Experiments
- Ppts may have become aware of US and CS parings although rigorous methods were used to attempt to avoid this
+ used a validated priming measure
Olson & Fazio (2006) Exp 3
Same procedure as the previous 2 experiments, however P’s completed the dependent measure after a 2-day delay to investigate whether the conditioning procedure had lasting effect
Experimental Ps showed more positive racial attitudes on the priming measure, even with a 2-day delay between conditioning and the attitude measurement phase
Brickman et al., 1972
Measured ppts attitudes toward paintings & rated likeability - attitudes were more +ve after frequent exposure to the paintings
-Following exposure: Ppts exhibit lower liking of disliked paintings even after high exposure
What is the 2 factor model of exposure effects (Berlyne, 1970)
First factor: Habituation arises from an instinctive tendency to percieve new stimuli as threatening (elicits -ve reaction)
Habituation makes the stimulus seems less threatening - becomes positive thus becomes mere exposure effect
Second Factor: Boredom; Boredom causes negative affective reaction
How does mere exposure work?
Murphy et al., 2000: exposure creates general +ve affect, which then can be attached to new objects that are similar to the old ones
What is the associative - propositional model?
automatic, associative route & a route that embraces role for thoughtful mental representations of links between stimuli
How does specificity & uncertainty effect emotions?
Effects of emotions may also depend on the amount of uncertainty they elicit (Smith & Ellsworth, 1985)
Tidens & Linton (2001): certainty-related emotions (happiness, disgust, anger) causes ppl to process persuasive info less carefully than uncertainty-related emotions (fear, surprise)
Anger - associated w/ retributive justice
Gratitude- associated w/ equality
