Lecture 7: How Attitudes Influence Behaviour Flashcards
1
Q
LaPiere (1934) (7)
A
- Traveled across the US with a young Chinese couple stayed in a number of hotels and ate at a number of restaurants.
- Despite widespread anti-Asian prejudice, they were only once refused service once.
- Two months later, LaPiere phoned each establishment they had visited and asked whether they would serve “members of the Chinese race as guests.”
- Of the establishments that replied, only 1 indicated that they would serve such a customer and 90% said they definitely would not.
- Conclusion: People’s actions can be dramatically different from their attitudes.
- Problems: People who were there when LaPiere was might not have been the ones answering the questionnaire.
- Also doesn’t tell us what the reasons behind those responses were.
2
Q
How well do attitudes predict behaviour? (5)
A
- More studies conducted by various researchers and a review was published in the late 1960s (Wicker, 1969).
- Almost 40 studies conducted, and found the average correlation between attitudes and behaviour was only 0.15.
- Conclusion: Maybe attitudes don’t matter at all
- Problems: Many of these early studies examined attitudes that were only tenuously linked to the behaviours they were trying to predict.
- Also inconsistent measurement practices.
3
Q
ways correspondence issues can occur (3)
A
- Specificity of the behaviour and/or target of a behaviour; e.g. attitude toward politicians → voting for a specific politician.
- Context in which the behaviour is performed; e.g. alone vs. in presence of others.
- Attitude and behaviour are not assessed at the same time.
4
Q
Davidson & Jaccard (1979) (4)
A
- Found that attitudes are predictors of behaviour if there’s high correspondence.
- Asked sample of women general, somewhat specific, and very specific atttiudes towards birth control: attitude toward birth control/pills/using pills in the next two years.
- Contacted 2 years later and asked if had used birth control pills.
- Their attitudes correlated more if they were more specific.
- General attitude measure: r = 0.08 (not significant).
- Somewhat specific attitude measure: r = 0.32.
- Very specific attitude measure: r = 0.57.
5
Q
Dovidio et al. (1997) (8)
A
- Demonstrated that explicit measures of attitudes better predict deliberate behaviours, and implicit measures better predict spontaneous behaviours.
- Participants completed explicit (questionnaire) and implicit (IAT) measures of their attitudes toward African Americans.
- Completed another “unrelated” study, where they were interviewed by a black and a white female.
- Then had their deliberate (evaluation of interviewers) and spontaneous (eye contact and blinking frequency) behaviours measured.
- Higher racism on explicit attitude measure resulted in lower evaluations of the black interviewer (deliberate behaviour).
- More bias on IAT associated with more blinking and less eye contact (spontaenous behaviour) with the black interviewer.
- No correlation between explicit attitude measure and implicit attitude measure or spontaneous behaviour.
- Could be people who were socialized in racist environments but are now actively trying to suppress it.
6
Q
influence of topic of investigation on predicting behaviour (4)
A
- Some topics tend to show high attitude-behaviour correlations; e.g. attitudes toward political candidates and voting behaviour.
- Others tend to show relatively low attitude-behaviour correlations; e.g. attitudes toward blood donation and the act of donating blood.
- May be due to some behaviours being inherently more difficult to execute over others.
- But also could be due to what function different attitudes have.
7
Q
influence of function of attitudes on predicting behaviour (3)
A
- People report feeling more comfortable acting on attitudes that are seen as being expressive of core moral values and convictions—especially when they have no material stake in the issue.
- Perhaps political attitudes tend to be more value-expressive and attitudes toward blood donation more utilitarian?
- Or perhaps attitudes toward some topics tend to be stronger or less ambivalent than others?
8
Q
Norman (1975) (6)
A
- Demonstrated that less ambivalent attitudes are more predictive of behaviour.
- Participants completed questionnaires regarding attitudes towards participating in psychology research: included general attitude and cognitive components.
- Also measured their evaluative-cognitive consistency (i.e. extent attitudes and beliefs are congruent).
- 3 weeks later, were asked to participate in an experiment.
- Higher EC-consistency → behaved in line with their attitudes.
- Lower EC-consistency → didn’t behave consistently with their attitudes.
9
Q
university students in attitude research (3)
A
- One problem with a lot of attitude research is that it tends to use university students.
- University students tend to have less crystallized attitudes compared to older individuals.
- Thus, tend to show lower attitude-behaviour correlations than non-students.
10
Q
need for cognition (2)
A
- Desire to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982).
- Theory: Higher need for cognition leads to thinking more carefully about attitudes, making them stronger and thus more predictive of behaviour.
11
Q
Cacioppo et al. (1986) (4)
A
- Demonstrated the influence of need for cognition on attitude-behaviour predictability.
- Two months before the election, they asked people who they planned to vote for and assessed their need for cognition.
- After the election, assessed actual voting behaviour.
- Results: pre-election voting preferences were more predictive of actual voting behaviour for those higher in need for cognition.
12
Q
self-monitoring (3)
A
- The extent that people vary their behaviour across social situations (Snyder, 1974, 1986).
- High self-monitors strive to tailor their behaviour to the situation, to fit with social and interpersonal expectations.
- Low self-monitors base their behavioural choices on more internal sources such as values, feelings, and dispositions.
13
Q
Snyder & Kendzierski (1982) (5)
A
- Demonstrated the influence of self-monitoring on predictability of behaviour.
- Gathered participants who were pro- or anti-affirmative action.
- Given opportunity to participate in social situation that would (behaviourally) demonstrate support for affirmative action policies.
- For low self-monitors, decisions to participate were predicted by their attitude towards affirmative action.
- For high self-monitors, there was no correlation between their attitude and their decision to participate.
14
Q
Snyder & DeBono (1985) (6)
A
- High self-monitors are more aware of their image in social situations, thus are more attentative to messages that convey info about the image a product creates.
- Low self-monitors care more about correspondence with their own attitudes and values.
- Participants filled out a 12-item questionnaire judging 2 different ads for 3 products: choosing between an image-based and quality-oriented ads.
- High self-monitors rated the image-based ads more favourably and low self-monitors rated the quality-oriented ads more favourably.
- Were also willing to pay more for the products and actually use the products in the type of ad they preferred.
- However, this preference doesn’t mean that they’re aversive to the other type of ad.
15
Q
self-consciousness (1)
A
- The degree that someone is aware of their personal, internal characteristics vs. their public image (situational).
