Week 3 Social Attitudes

Question 1

What is an attitude?

Answer 1

a general and enduring picture about a person, object or issue

Question 2

What are beliefs?

Answer 2

Beliefs refer to information a person has about a person, object or issue

Question 3

Why do we have attitudes? (3)

Answer 3

1. It is a summary of our beliefs
2. It helps others know what to expect from yourself
3. Allows us to get rewards or punishments, ie. appeasing someone, appealing to them, avoiding conflict

Question 4

What are the 3 components of attitudes? (A-B-C)

Answer 4

1. Affective components = an emotional reaction towards an issue
2. Behavioural component = actions, observable behaviours that guide behaviour
3. Cognitive component = thoughts and beliefs on the issue formed by information we’ve gathered

Question 5

What are cognitive based attitudes + example?

Answer 5

These are attitudes based on beliefs about the properties of an object, we investigate features to inform our cognitive attitudes.

Example - wanting shoes from leather because we believe this material is good, we want an electric car because we believe it will be good for the environment

Question 6

What are behavioural based attitudes + example?

Answer 6

These are attitudes based on our behavioural experiences of an issue/object

Example - eg. trying on shoes, phones, cars and forming an attitude towards those types of shoes, phones, cars.

Question 7

What do we do when we are trying to form an attitude with a lack of affective or cognitive beliefs about something?

Answer 7

We form behavioural attitudes from observing our own behaviour in past experiences to form our attitudes

Question 8

What are affective based attitudes? + example

Answer 8

These are based on how feelings and values towards an object, not based on an examination of facts.

Example - simply liking the feel of driving a certain car, we feel good wearing certain types of clothing.

Question 9

Can we have attitudes with conflicting affective, behavioural and/or cognitive beliefs?

Answer 9

Yes!
For example, we can have positive affective based attitudes, while also having negative cognitive beliefs about it.
1. Liking meat (affective) but hating the way cattle is farmed and slaughtered (cognitive)
2. Liking a clothing brand (affective/behavioural) but not believing in sweatshops (cognitive)

Question 10

What major things make our attitudes usually irrational?

Answer 10

They are heavily influenced by our social environment

Question 11

What three things from our social environment influence how we form attitudes?

Answer 11

1. sensory reactions (tone of voice, laughter, body odour)
2. cultural values (israel vs. palestine)
3. conditioning (normative beliefs)

Question 12

How are the 2 ways attitudes can be expressed?

Answer 12

1. Explicit attitudes - conscious endorse and easily report overtly
2. Implicit attitudes - involuntary, unconscious and uncontrollable (Implicit Attitudes Test, IAT)

Question 12

How could operant conditioning influence the likelihood of attitude expression?

Answer 12

You could be socially rewarded / reproached for expressing or holding prejudicial beliefs about issues like abortion or religious groups.

Question 13

What 2 factors help attitudes predict behaviour?

Answer 13

Attitude specificality - The more specific the attitude the better the predictor of behaviour

Self-efficacy - We need behavioural self-efficacy to be able to perform the behaviour

Question 14

How are attitudes changed?

Answer 14

From social influence from relevant others - who are people that are close/similar to us

Question 15

What are the 3 factors that predict attitude change from the Yale Attitude Change Approach?

Answer 15

1. Who? - the source of the communication
2. What? - the nature of the communication
3. To whom? - the nature of the audience?

Question 16

What does the “Who? - the source of the communication” need?

Answer 16

1. Perceived credibility within their domain
2. Appearance of credibility, ie. attractiveness, likeability, charisma

Question 17

What does the “What? - the nature of the communication” need?

Answer 17

1. A comprehensible message
2. A goldilock number of arguments/points
3. An effective medium ie. social media, TV, newspapers
4. Goldilocks amount of fear arousal / emotional provocation

Question 18

What features of the audience help attitude change?

Answer 18

1. Intelligence of the audience
2. Self-esteem and confidence of the audience

Question 19

What are the two routes of persuasive communication?

Answer 19

Central & Peripheral route

Question 20

What are the features of the central route?

Answer 20

1. when people have the motivation and capability to pay attention to the arguments
2. usually has personal relevance

Question 21

What are the positive implications of the central route?

Answer 21

1. Careful analysis of an argument means one is more likely to maintain the attitude
2. More resistant to being counter-persuaded
3. More like to behave in alignment with your attitudes

Question 22

What are the features of the peripheral route?

Answer 22

When people do not have the motivation and capacity to the argument but becomes swayed by surface-level features / peripheral cues

Question 23

What features does the peripheral route rely on?

Answer 23

1. Who is delivering the message instead of what is the content of the message itself.
2. Perceived higher status and likeability of communicator increases listening to argument

Question 24

How much fear arousal is needed for effective persuasion?

Answer 24

Moderate amounts of fear + problem-solving ideas on how the fear can be reduced

Question 25

Are emotions a good way of predicting attitudes about something and how do advertisers exploit this?

Answer 25

No - emotions may be due to another source outside of the issue

Advertisers use this misattribution of emotions by creating positive feelings about their product.

ie. using music or scents, to invoke a positive feeling and to convince consumers that they want to the product + using product placement

Question 26

How can affective and cognitive based attitudes persuade attitude change?

Answer 26

Cognitively based attitudes use rational arguments, ie. price, efficient, reliability

Affectively based attitudes use emotional appeals, ie. the look, feelings, youthfulness

Question 27

What are criticisms of the IAT? (Implicit Attitudes Test)

Answer 27

1. often devoid of context, and consequently has weaker implications for real-life prejudice attitudes and behaviours
2. It’s a poor predictor of (prejudicial) behaviour
3. Associations can be both positive and negative, so a stronger association does not necessarily indicate a negative association