The Three Witches

Question 1

What are the Three Witches of Attitudes?

Answer 1

Content, Structure, Function

Question 2

What is the definition of Content in the Three Witches?

Answer 2

The type of information we incorporate into our attitude

Question 3

What is the multicomponent model (Content)

Answer 3

Attitudes are summary evaluations of an object that have cognitive (beliefs), affective (feelings) and behavioural (actions) components

Question 4

What is the cognitive component to CAB

Answer 4

The thoughts,beliefs and attributes we hold towards an attitude object

Question 5

How can we measure the cognitive component of CAB

Answer 5

Semantic differential scale and thought-listing

Question 6

What is the affective component of the CAB

Answer 6

Feelings and emotions linked to the attitude object

Question 7

How can we measure the affective component of CAB

Answer 7

semantic differential (delighted-sad, relaxed-angry) and thought listing

Question 8

How did Breckler and Wiggins (1989) measure both affective and cognitive components of an attitude. What did they find about the speed of judgements?

Answer 8

Using the semantic differential scale but changed the wording. E.g
Cog- ‘Blood donation is….(good/bad)
Aff - Blood donation makes me feel (Good/bad)
People faster with affective judgements

Question 9

What is the behavioural component of CAB

Answer 9

Based on previous behaviours and experiences regarding the attitude object

Question 10

How can the behavioural component of CAB be measured? What is the positive and negatives to this measure?

Answer 10

Thought listing - list and evaluate actions
Limitation - people may find it hard to articulate thoughts, feelings etc. Social desirability
Advantage - Measure behavioural component unlike semantic diff. More personally salient

Question 11

What is self-perception theory?

Answer 11

People don’t always have access to their opinions on different attitude objects especially if feelings are vague or uncertain. Basing attitude on past behaviours

Question 12

What other measure of CAB did Rocklage and Fazio (2015) use?

Answer 12

Evaluative Lexicon
- Ptps free write about a particular attitude object
- Doesn’t separate cog and affective attitudes
- Looks at adjectives used and rates on emotionality and valence
- Can see WHAT component the ptp uses to base their attitude on most
- Good for large scale application

Question 13

How have CAB components been proven not to be the same?

Answer 13

(Breckler, 1984)
Emerge separately in factor analysis
- Ptps reported attitude toward snakes
- Asked if names were cruel or kind
- Made them feel anxious or happy
- If they’d like to hold the snake
ONLY CORRELATED MODERATELY

Question 14

What is the causal attitude network

Answer 14

Conceptualizes attitudes as networks consisting of evaluative reactions (CAB)
Considers interactions (e.g belief (cog) that snakes are dangerous causes fear of snakes (aff)) and causal relations amongst the CAB components
Insight in to the cog and affective drivers of behaviour

Question 15

How did Abelson et al (1982) demonstrate that the CAB components predict behaviour

Answer 15

• Looked at thoughts and feelings towards American Presidential Candidates
• Ascribed personality traits to Democratic and Republican cand. and feelings about them
• Asked to give attitude
• Favourability of affective responses correlated with overall attitudes compared with favorability of beliefs on their traits
• COG AND AFF PREDICT POLITICAL ATTITUDES

Question 16

Which component was shown to better predict attitudes on blood donation and abortion

Answer 16

Blood donation - Affective
Abortion - Cognitive

Question 17

What did Esses et al (1993) indicate about what cognitive and affective responses depended on to be predictive

Answer 17

Correlations on overall attitudes with cog and aff depended on target group under study
For example, Attitudes towards disliked groups best predicted by cognitive info whilst liked groups was predicted by affective info

Question 18

What can cause people to differ in their degree of which CAB component is dominant in attribution to an attitude

Answer 18

Personality
Need for cognition vs Need for affect

Question 19

What is cognitive-affective ambivalence

Answer 19

Conflict between how the person feels and thing about an object
E.g admire feminists but dislikes them

Question 20

What is attitude structure?

Answer 20

The way we organise the information according to valence

Question 21

What is the unidirectional (one-dimensional) view

Answer 21

Tendency to feel positive OR negative about an attitude object.
Pos and neg are at opposite ends of a SINGLE dimension

Question 22

What is the bidimensional view?

Answer 22

Attitudes reflect varying amount of favourability AND unfavourability
Evaluate objects on BOTH a positive and negative dimension

Question 23

What can be the issue with the uni-dimensional view? How does the bi-dimensional view help with this?

Answer 23

Ambivalent attitudes - If its at the midpoint does this mean no attitude or mixed attitude?
Bi-dimensional view allows us to reach a more nuanced conclusion about how ambivalent the person is

Question 24

What are the two types of Ambivalence

Answer 24

Potential/Objective = When the person has both positive and negative evaluations. May not be consciously perceived
Felt/Subjective = Actual feeling of tension that the person experiences

Question 25

What could ambivalence be adaptive of?

Answer 25

Self protection when you’re uncertain of future outcomes (judgement)

Question 26

What did McDonald and Zanna find about ambivalent attitudes and polarizing evaluations?

Answer 26

High ambivalence towards feminists caused participants to be more affected by a prime to try and change their employment decisions of a feminist. E.g when presented with a males resume that showed them to be admirable but unlikable and they were successful, they had stronger intentions to hire the feminist

Therefore, When made aware of their cognitive or affective ambivalence, their behaviour reflects what is made salient

Question 27

What is attitude function?

Answer 27

The needs or functions that are fulfilled by certain attitudes

Question 28

What 3 primary functions of attitudes were outlined by Smith, Bruner and White (1956)

Answer 28

Object appraisal - Navigate daily life by summarizing the positive and negatives of an object
Social-adjustive - Because the important people in life hold that attitude
Externalization - Protecting yourself e.g not liking something because you’re not good at it

Question 29

Why is object-appraisal important? How did Fazio et al’s study conclude?

Answer 29

Simplify interactions with the environment
Highly accessible attitudes increase the ease with which people make attitude-relevant judgements and decrease physiological arousal

Question 30

What did Zunick, Teeny and Fazio (2017) find?

Answer 30

Self-defining attitudes were more favourable, extreme and less ambivalent

Question 31

What 4 Functions did Katz outline for attitudes

Answer 31

Knowledge - organise information on attitude objects
Utilitarian - Maximise rewards and minimise punishments
Ego-Defense - Protect self
Value expression - Express core values

Question 32

What is the limitation to object appraisal

Answer 32

Hard to differenciate between the different functions

Question 33

What self-report measurement is used for assessing attitude function?

Answer 33

Attitude Function Inventory - assesses functions of attitudes towards an attitude object

Question 34

What did Shavitt (1990) find when using the Attitude Function Inventory on certain consumer products?

Answer 34

Coffee and air conditioners served a utilitarian function and attitudes towards certain brands were changed depending on utilitarian arguments ( e.g quality)
Watches and sunglasses served different functions (E.g sunglasses and UV protection vs style/prestige)

Question 35

What is a limitation of the Attitude Function Inventory

Answer 35

They need to know the function of their own attitude which is an issue for ego-defensive attitudes

Question 36

What individual difference can explain the extent to which someone can be persuaded to change their attitude

Answer 36

High vs Low Self-Monitors
High - Flexible and adaptive
Low - Value consistency between behaviour and core/internal values

Question 37

How does the self-monitor difference relate to Katz’ 4 functions

Answer 37

High self-monitors = Social adjustive
Low self-monitor = Value expressive