Section 5: Attitudes and Persuasion

Question 1

What 4 things do attitudes affect?

Answer 1

1. What we like and dislike
2. what types of groups we associate with or not (social identities)
3. affect opinions about social or political issues
4. and why we conform who we help and why we act aggressively

Question 2

What IS an attitude?

Answer 2

favorable or unfavorable evaluation of a person, object, or idea

Question 3

How do we form attitudes?

Answer 3

-Classical conditioning: Come to like people, objects, ideas that are repeatedly associated with things or people that we already like
Ex. Meeting someone new that your friend is friends with, or meeting someone new who that is friends with someone that we already do not like
-Operant condition: learn through Reward and punishment Ex. Cheering crowd impacts attitude
-Observation: observe what others do, we may gain those attitudes

Question 4

How can we measure attitudes (be specific!)

Answer 4

-Self-report: asking someone directly Ex. opinion polls, job interviews, friend’s opinions
Problems:
-Wording problems: in the way a question is asked, can influence how people answer Ex. Is Government spending too much money on the poor 23%? Or if too much on Welfare 53%? Same thing.
-Order effects: 1st question about religion, 2nd question about freedom of speech influence answers
-Social desirability bias: negative opinions about self that do not want to be expressed Ex. Sex, substance abuse, mental illness  anonymous questionnaire

Question 5

What is a priming task?

Answer 5

: reaction time captures how quickly people associate good vs bad things with particular people or objects –assume that an attitude is mental associated (most common)

Question 6

When do attitudes predict behavior?

Answer 6

Attitude Strength: degree of conviction that people have about their attitudes
4 factors:
1.Personal relevance
2.Linked to personal values
3.Issue is a concern to significant others
4.When attitude is acquired through direct experience

Question 7

What two factors make strong attitudes unlikely to change?

Answer 7

1. Commitment: certainty that your attitude is correct
2. Embeddedness: referring to a strongly held attitude that has connected features (values, social identity, culture) of a person

Question 8

What is the Theory of Planned Behavior? What four conditions must be present?

Answer 8

1.Attitude: Measured attitude toward a specific behavior of a question
2.Subjective norm: perception that important others will approve of the behavior Ex. Behavior inconsistent makes perception difficult to know
3.Perceived Behavioral control: perception of how difficult it would be to perform the behavior
4.(It based off the first three)Behavioral Intention: goal to act
All leads to Behavior
-lead to consistent behavior or inconsistent behavior depending on how strong it is

Question 9

What if our attitudes and our behavior don’t match? What does cognitive dissonance theory say about this situation?

Answer 9

Cognitive Dissonance theory (Festinger): like to think of ourselves as distant people, tendency to feel uncomfortable
• 2 options:
o 1. Change our attitude to make consistent to behavior
o 2. Change behavior to match attitude
• The need to justify our actions

Question 10

. What does the classic Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) study tell us about cognitive dissonance?

Answer 10

• Boring task: wooden peg board and turn peg for 30 minutes
• Ask participant to help out: effect of motivation, control group – motivation, experiment group – fun, exciting, tell next experimenter how fun it was
• Independent variable: amount of money offered, $1, $20, no money
• Dependent variable: how participant evaluated task to next experimenter
• Justifying behavior: subjects doing it for money with $20, $1 feels dissonance but feel motivation to reduce it and change attitudes, no money is not motivation and say that it sucks
• Results:

-Dissonance produces attitude change only under specific conditions

Question 11

Under what five conditions will dissonance produce attitude change?

Answer 11

• A: When behavior does not match attitude, it will lead to Negative consequences
• B: Cannot be justified due to big rewards or threats
• C: Behavior cannot be changed or withdrawn
• D: When person can foresee the consequences of their actions
• E: Person needs to understand the dissonance of that consistency

Question 12

What is persuasion?

Answer 12

change in one’s private attitude or belief after receiving a message

Question 13

. What does the Elaboration Likelihood Model say about persuasion? When is it likely to happen? When it is unlikely to happen?

Answer 13

most common
• Central route vs. Peripheral route
-Central (Systematic Route/Processing): careful information processing, pay attention to facts, details, and quality of arguments – relevant info, arguments are high quality
-Peripheral (heuristic route/processing): superficial information processing, how message make feels like attractiveness, visibility – how long it is, how official it looks, how it makes us feel

Question 14

. How does the amount of information affect whether or not we’re persuaded?

Answer 14

brief or long – know the audience

Question 15

How do fear appeals affect whether or not we’re persuaded?

Answer 15

-making people afraid to motivate persuasion but only in certain situations if
1. Arguments are strong
2. Communication contains reassuring message
No solution = make audience feel helpless and block out message

Question 16

. Do appeals to positive emotions work to persuade people? How or when? Why or why not?

Answer 16

increase persuasive power of message, feel good
2 reasons for superficial processing:
1.Mood maintenance: already good mood, so it makes it better
2.In good mood, more likely to do global thinking which means we see the big picture instead of just local

Question 17

Should you use a one or two sided argument to persuade others?

Answer 17

Audience members who disagree: better for two sided communication, can persuade easier to show both arguments

Question 18

What characteristics of the messenger help to persuade us or to not persuade us?

Answer 18

Most persuaded by people who are likeable, trustworthy, or experts, highly creditable

Question 19

How do audience members’ need for cognition and self-monitoring affect persuasion?

Answer 19

-Need for cognition
• High vs. low: how much people analyzing issues, search for clues
High = more influenced by systematic processing
Low = more influenced by heuristic processing
-Self-monitoring
• High vs. low: in tune with what other people are thinking and behavior is influenced by others
Low = less conscious about other behaviors and social images, more influence by info ads
High = interested in messages that can have desirable social image