Lecture 6: How Attitudes Influence Information Processing

Question 1

Roskos-Ewoldsen & Fazio (1992) (6)

Answer 1

• Found that we’re more likely to notice objects we have stronger attitudes towards.
• Participants saw a circle of 6 objects flash on a screen for 1.5s.
• Wrote down as many objects as possible.
• Previously assessed accessibility of attitudes towards each object.
  
  • Made faster attitude judgements for objects they noticed.
• Objects participants expressed accessible attitudes about were more likely to be noticed later in the array.

Question 2

Knobloch-Westerwick & Meng (2009) (8)

Answer 2

• Found that we generally pay attention to messages that confirm our views.
  
  • Even if we look at the other side, it may not be a true effort to understand it.
• First surveyed attitudes towards 17 political issues on attitude, accessibility, certainty, and importance.
• Then browsed an online magazine for 5 mins: 8 headlines, 4 issues, 2 sides for both.
• Participants read more articles that were consistent with their attitudes, and also spent more time reading these articles.
  
  • Note that people didn’t complete ignore attitude-inconsistent articles.
• More certainty → fewer counterattitudinal articles, and spent more time on consistent articles.
• High accessibility and importance → more counterattitudinal articles, but didn’t spend more time on them.

Question 3

Sawicki & Clark (2013) (6)

Answer 3

• Participants completed a survey about attitudes toward euthanasia, including ambivalence and issue knowledge.
• Then presented 2 pro- and 2 anti-euthanasia article titles, and rated how much they wanted to read each article.
• Lower knowledge: less ambivalent → equally interested.
  
  • More ambivalent → more interested in articles that would “bolster” knowledge, likely to try and reduce ambivalence.
• Higher knowledge: less ambivalent → more interested in articles that would “strengthen” their attitude.
  
  • More abivalent → equally interested, likely because we don’t expect the info to reduce our ambivalence.

Question 4

Hastorf & Cantril (1954) (4)

Answer 4

• Demonstrated how attitudes can influence how we interpret information (e.g. what events have taken place, what others’ intentions are, etc.).
• Students from Princeton University & Dartmouth College watched a clip of a football game between the two schools.
• Participants recorded every penalty made by both teams.
• Princeton students reported more fouls by the Dartmouth team than by the Princeton team, and Dartmouth students reported the opposite.

Question 5

Vallone et al. (1985) (4)

Answer 5

• Demonstrated how our opinions can serve as filters that influence how we perceive info.
• Pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, and neutral participants watched news coverage of the conflict in the Middle East.
• Pro-Israel and pro-Palestine participants evaluated the news stories as being biased against their views.
  
  • Neutrals viewed stories as being neutral.

Question 6

Lord, Ross, & Lepper (1979) (5)

Answer 6

• Found that people’s attitudes become more polarized, rather than more neutral, after being exposed to balanced, unbiased info.
• Proponents and opponents of capital punishment read two studies, demonstrating its efficacy and inefficacy.
• Participants rated each on how well/poorly it was conducted and how convincing it was.
  
  • Proponents rated the prodeterrence study as more convincing than opponents, and vice-versa for the anti-deterrence study.
• Participants’ attitudes were measured after every single article, and by the end their attitudes were more extreme than they had been at the beginning.

Question 7

Houston & Fazio (1989) (3)

Answer 7

• Found that the more certain and accessible our attitudes, the less likely we are to interpret opposing facts as valid and worthy of consideration.
• Similar procedure to Lord et al. (1979): asked Ps to evaluate methodology of 2 supposed studies on capital punishment.
• Attitude polarization only for participants who had strong, accessible attitudes towards capital punishment.

Question 8

Balcetis & Dunning (2006) (4)

Answer 8

• Demonstrated how we see what we want to see.
• Participants were shown an ambiguous figure that could either be a letter or a number.
• Were told that one of these would mean drinking a yummy drink and one would mean drinking a yucky-smelling drink.
• Participants saw a number or letter depending on which would give them the yummy drink.