Lecture 8 - Attitudes and attitudinal change

Question 1

what are the two major theories that attempt to explain the relationship between attitudes and behaviour?

Answer 1

• TOPB and TORA

Question 2

Based on the Yale studies, what factors influence persuasion and thus attitude change?

Answer 2

1. Audience (recipient)
2. communicator
3. context: context in which the message is presented influences the persuasiveness of the message
   - example: roomful of cheerful audience might make a political message seem more persuasive
4. channel: refers to how a message is delivered (words, images, verbally, non-verbally etc.

Question 3

what three processes must be somewhat present for the message to be persuasive/communicated to viewers?

Answer 3

1. attention
2. comprehension
3. acceptance - i.e. understand the point of the message and what it is conveying

Question 4

how does the credibility of the communicator influence the degree of persuasion of a particular message? what does figure 6.2 say about persuasion and degree of credibility?

Answer 4

• higher credibility of the message correlates to higher level of persuasion

Question 5

what does Hovaland and Weiss study say about persuasion and credibility? Look at graph below (on notes)

Answer 5

• initial periods of message exposure -> messages with higher credibility has higher levels of persuasion but after a period of time a dissociation between the source and the message occurs, known as the sleeper effect and thus the effectiveness of the message diminishes. The level of persuasiveness in the less credible message is similar to the message with a high credible source

Question 6

What 4 factors must be present in order for the sleeper effect to exist?

Answer 6

1. A persuasive message with considerable initial impact
2. A strong discounting cue that works against the message
3. Dissociation of the cue and message overtime
4. A quick enough dissociation that the message is still impactful at the later time

Question 7

why is it important to understand the sleeper effect when conveying important messages?

Answer 7

it is important to understand the sleeper effect when conveying important messages as it shows that message s may be effective/persuasive during initial periods of exposure but decreases overtime from sleeper effect
- this therefore implies that checkups are needed

Question 8

according to research is it all messages experience the sleeper effect?

Answer 8

• change of messages impacting indiviuslas overtime depends on the TYPE of message
• as seen in Hovaland and Weiss study -> sleeper effect can happen overtime
• BUT if message (eg. in an add) is funny -> the impact of the message can actually INCREASE overtime
  
  • this is opposite to the sleeper effect
• it is therefore important to acknlowegde that the TYPE of message is also important in determining the amount of persuation/change in attitudes overtime

Question 9

What does the graph below say about the communicators attractiveness affect the degree of persuading people?

Answer 9

• overall when the communicator of the message is attractive, there is higher levels of persuasion
• highest level of persuation when the message is strong and the communicator is attractive

Question 10

How does the inverted U-curve explain fear and persuading an individual?

Answer 10

• Inverted U-curve saids that as the level of fear increases -> the level of persuasion/ attitude change increase
• but this is only to an extent -> only increases up tp medium level of arousal/fear
• after medium level - level of fear gets too much -> results in indivusals not engaging in the message/discouraged -> this results in less effectiveness -> decrease in attitude change

Question 11

what is the problem with the inverted U-curve hypothesis?

Answer 11

It is too general - the relationship between fear and persuasion is not as simple as X amount of fear = X amount of persuasion

• > other complex cognitive factors must be taken into consideration
• > hard to determine what optimum levels of fear is

Question 12

after evaluation of the inverted U-curve hypothesis, what theory was developed that includes more complex factors?

Answer 12

• protection motivation theory

Question 13

How is PMT different to inverted U-curve hypothesis?

Answer 13

• Rogers Brought the idea that it is NOT as simple in that X amount of fear = X amount of persuation
• MUST think about other cognitive complex factors that mediate the relationship between fear and persuasion

Question 14

what two components does PMT introduce that is not within the inverted U-curve hypothesis. What components are within these two main ideas?

Answer 14

The two components PMT includes is perceived self efficacy and perceived threat. Perceived self efficacy includes perceived response efficacy and self efficacy
perceives threat includes perceived severity an suceptibility

Question 15

what is the aim of protection motivation theory?

Answer 15

• aim is to NOT scare people
• educate people
• show people that something can be done to prevent it
• shown to be more affective than focussing on fear alone -> must be able to promote fear AS WELL as educating ppl on how to manage/what they can do about it

Question 16

what is the channel of a message?

Answer 16

• it is the message medium

* depends on the complexity of the message

Question 17

How does the complexity level of the message influence the effectiveness of the channel?

Answer 17

• messages with high complexity are more persuasive when it is in written form
• > this allows the audience to properly digest the information given
• messages with low complexity are more persuasive when it is in video form

Question 18

what factors of audience influence how well a message is coneveyed and therefore persuades audience?

Answer 18

• there are multiple factors of the audience that influence how well a message is conveyed
  1. intelligence: when ppl are more intelligent, they are more persuaded with messages that have high complexity
  2. self esteem
• low self esteem: may not take any information given to them due to hostility
• moderate: persuaded the most
• high: may not believe the information given to them as they believe that their opinion is correct/does not need changing
• mood: individuals who are more happy are more easily persuaded

Question 19

what are the two models of persuasion?

Answer 19

1. elaboration likelihood model

2. heuristics model

Question 20

what is the elaboration likelihood model?

Answer 20

• sometimes we think of what the message is saying
• other times we think less of the message and more about visual (peripheral) factors
• a theory that specifies when people are more likely to be influenced by the content of persuasive communication instead of superficial characteristics, and vice versa

Question 21

what is the difference between information taken from the central route as appose to the peripheral route?

Answer 21

• Central route: high level of elaboration on a persuasive argument, listening carefully and thinking logically about the message
• Peripheral route: when people do NOT evaluate on the argument and is swayed by surface characteristics that are peripheral to the messaging

Question 22

what are the two factors that influence whether or not someone will take the central or peripheral route to persuasion?

Answer 22

1. motivation
2. ability
   - both factors must be present for the individual to take the central route to process information
   - if only one is present - the individual will process information through the peripheral route

Question 23

What is the heuristic-systematic model of persuation?

Answer 23

• Model suggests that attitudes can change in two different ways
  1. Systematic processing:
  
  • indiviasual evaluates any available information to form an opinion on whether or not the information is accurate or invalid
  • Attitudes are based on this consideration of facts
• Systematic processing takes a long time and effort - people have limited time and ability to think carefully TF model suggests peoples attitudes are formed in more simple manner
  2. Heuristic processing
  
  • Using rules of thumb known as heuristics to decide what ones attitude should be
  • Consensus heuristics: attitudes are based on the opinions that the majority of the people hold
    
    • Individual infers “if everyone believes in something, then that must be right”
  • Expert heuristics:
    
    • Attitudes are based on opinions or recommendations of trusted/knowledge experts
    • Inference is that “experts are usually right”

Question 24

what is cognitive dissonance theory?

Answer 24

• everything talked about in lecture has been about attitudes change -> change behaviour
• CDT is opposite of this -> idea that exisiting behaviour -> causes attitudinal change
• Cognitive dissonance refers to the feelings of discomfort that result from two opposing beliefs
• Cognitive dissonance theory states that people experience tension/discomfort when their attitudes/beliefs do not match their behaviour
• People tend to seek consistency between their beliefs and perception and thus when there is a discrepancybetween attitudes and behaviour, something must be changed/modifyed to reduce the dissonance
• in the event where people fail to change their behaviour -> they change attitudes
  
  • example: If Sam fails to stop smoking her attitude may change to “oh smoking isn’t even that bad, I haven’t been smoking for that long and I only smoke 2 times a week)

Question 25

What is the motivational aspect as to why people perform cognitive dissonance?

Answer 25

people are motivated to maintain consistency among cognitive elements -> i.e. we want to be consistent in what ew feel and what we do

Question 26

How do you remove dissonance?

Answer 26

1. change attitudes
2. change behaviour
3. justify dissonance