Lecture 5: Behavioural Influences on Attitudes Flashcards
1
Q
Regan & Fazio (1977) (5)
A
- Found that attitudes about things we’ve had direct experience with are more predictive of behaviour than attitudes about things we haven’t.
- Participants learned about 5 interesting puzzles: either played for 20 mins or just read about them.
- Completed a questionnaire measuring attitudes towards puzzles.
- Experimenter left and hidden camera recorded amount of time participants played with puzzles.
- For participants who formed direct experiences, their attitudes were strong predictors of time spent playing; reading about puzzles: attitudes were weak predictors.
2
Q
Fazio et al. (2004) (5)
A
- Found that we have a weighting bias for negative info when forming attitues.
- Participants played a game called BeanFest, where they explored for good beans and bad beans.
- Were more accurate in identifying a bad been as bad (vs. a good bean as good).
- Also more likely to assume that a new bean which looks similar to bad beans is bad (vs. assuming a bean that looks similar to good beans is good).
- Their feelings about their experiences correlated more with how many bad beans they found vs. good beans.
3
Q
Bem (1965, 1972) or self-perception theory (3)
A
- Behaviour can be driven by factors other than attitudes, which aren’t often apparent.
- Sometimes our attitudes are also weak, or we don’t know what it is.
- Self-perception theory says that at these times, we rely on observations of our own behaviour to deduce our attitudes or motivations.
4
Q
Salancik & Conway (1975) (6)
A
- Administered a questionnaire with pro- and anti-religious behaviours.
- The 1st version used “on occasion” for pro behaviours, and “frequently” for anti behaviours; the 2nd version reversed it: pro-religious frequently and anti-religious on occasion.
- Participants completing the 1st version agreed with more pro than anti-religious items, vice-versa for the 2nd version.
- Participants rated the extent they believed themselves to be religious, and 1st version rated themselves as more religious compared to 2nd version.
- Shows that participants inferred their religious attitudes from their responses to the biased questionnaire items.
- Why we need to have counter-balanced questionnaires.
5
Q
Chaiken & Baldwin (1981) (5)
A
- We gauge our attitudes using self-perception, but only when we’re unsure of our attitudes.
- Participants first indicated their attitudes toward protecting the environment, environmentalism, extent they believe themselves to be an environmentalist, etc.
- 2 weeks later, they completed a questionnaire containing items framed to remind them of their pro- or anti-environmental behaviours.
- Used the “frequently” vs. “occasionally” manipulation.
- Participants reported more favourable attitudes after being reminded of their positive behaviours, but only if they demonstrated ambivalence during the first round of questionnaires.
- Also, people who have high affective-cognitive consistency aren’t influenced by external cues.
6
Q
other findings about self-perception (4)
A
- Sufficient to induce belief of having performed a behaviour (Albarracin & Wyer, 2000).
- Or to imagine performing a behaviour (Critcher & Gilovich, 2010).
- Or even to watch someone else perform a behaviour (Goldstein & Cialdini, 2007), called vicarious self-perception: when people infer their own attributes (e.g. an attitude) by observing actions of others.
- Requires sense of merged identity with the target and the target’s actions to appear voluntary.
7
Q
Festinger (1957, 1964) or cognitive dissonance theory (2)
A
- When people have a set of two or more beliefs that don’t fit in together, or act against prior attitudes without sufficient reason, they experience dissonance.
- This aversive tension creates discomfort, which people try to reduce.
8
Q
techniques to reduce dissonance (3)
A
- Add beliefs to explain the gap between behaviour and attitude.
- Trivialize (dismiss the importance of) the inconsistency.
- Change attitude to match behaviour.
9
Q
ways dissonance occurs (3)
A
- Behaviours that commit us ahead of direct exposure to attitude object (e.g. you go to a concert for the first time, that you paid for, and then you end up not liking it).
- Behaviours that commit us to one of two equally preferred options (e.g. if you have to choose between two chocolate bars you like equally).
- Behaviours that contradict a non-ambivalent attitude (e.g. you believe in environmentalism but then you buy a plastic water bottle).
10
Q
Aron & Mills (1959) or the effort justification effect (5)
A
- Female participants recruited for a discussion group on the topic of sex, but first had to undergo a “screening.”
- Severe initation (reading graphic descriptions of sex with obscene words) vs. mild initation (reading list of non-obscene sexual words).
- Then told they couldn’t participate so just had to listen to a recording, which was a very boring discussion.
- Measured participants’ attitudes and found that they were more positive in the severe initiation condition.
- Demonstrates the effort justification effect: we arrive at more positive conclusions about something if we’ve worked harder to get it.
11
Q
Brehm (1956) or spreading of alternatives (4)
A
- Participants rated some household objects on an 8-point scale.
- Later asked to choose between 2 equally liked items as a reward for participating.
- Then re-assessed attitudes towards all objects; liked the chosen object more than the unchosen one.
- Demonstrates the spreading of alternatives effect: after being forced to decide between two equally liked options, we reduce dissonance by changing our attitudes to match our choice.
12
Q
further research on spreading of alternatives (5)
A
- If think decision is reversible, the opposite effect occurs – i.e. chosen alternative seems worse, unchosen alternative seems better (Gilbert & Ebert, 2002).
- Because option to switch prompts people to think about reasons they might want to (Bullens et al., 2013).
- People engage in spreading of alternatives in order to move on to other things (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2002).
- People who are more approach-oriented show greater spreading of alternatives than people who are more avoidance-oriented (Harmon-Jones et al., 2011).
- Receiving neurofeedback training that increases activity in the area of the brain that is associated with action-orientation increases spreading of alternatives (Harmon-Jones et al, 2008).
13
Q
Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) (4)
A
- Found that lack of sufficient external justification for counter-attitudinal behaviour can result in changing one’s attitude.
- Participants had to do boring tasks for 1 hour, and were then paid either $20 or $1 to lie to the next round of participants that the task was exciting; control: not asked to lie.
- Then completed a questionnaire about how much they enjoyed the tasks from the experiment.
- Had more positive attitudes towards the task if they were offered $1 vs. $20 to lie (or not at all).
14
Q
reasons for attitude change after counter-attitudinal behaviour (4)
A
- Threat to the self-concept? Effects are reduced if people are given opportunity to re-affirm their self-integrity – e.g. by expressing values that are important to them (Steele & Liu 1988).
- Desire to appear consistent? Less attitude change after counter-attitudinal behaviour when procedures make the behaviour seem truly anonymous (Gaes et al., 1978).
- Stronger effect for people who are more concerned about impression others have of them (Paulhus, 1982; Scheier & Carver, 1980).
- Desire to avoid hypocrisy? Shown in Stone et al. (1994) with behaviours.
- Also shown with attitudes: when failure (or people’s perception of your failure) to comply with an attitude seems harder to change, it may be easier to change the underlying attitude (Fried, 1998).
15
Q
Stone et al. (1994) (5)
A
- Making people aware of their hypocrisy brings discomfort and motivation to bring behaviour in line with attitude.
- Participants were recorded giving a speech about using condoms every time you have sex, then made a list about the times they didn’t use a condoms.
- Some controls did one or the other.
- All given 4 $1 bills and a chance to buy condoms for 10 cents each.
- Participants purchased more condoms after giving the speech and making the list vs. both controls.
