WEEK 4 - attitudes and persuasion Flashcards
What are attitudes?
positive, negative, or mixed reaction to a
person, object, or idea
Are attitudes learned or inhereted
Both! but more evidence that we learn attitudes.
- The more familiar we are with attitude objects, the more we like them
- role of reinforcement and modelling in attitudes –> proven by Newcomb’s (1943) college study
of female students whereby attitudes
became less conservative over time in
a more liberal environment
How to measure attitudes?
direct measures
indirect measures
What are open-ended questions?
asks the person straight up for their attitude towards something
What are closed questions
wants a yes or no answer or a scale (scales include Likert, semantic-differential)
What are the advantages and disadvantages of open-ended questions?
- advantages: simple, lots of data
- disadvantages: time-consuming, differences in expressiveness
What are the advantages and disadvantages of closed questions?
- advantages: easy, quick
- disadvantages: response sets (e.g., “Pollyanna” optimism) and choice of wording
what are direct measures of attitudes?
open-ended or closed questions
what are indirect measures of attitudes?
non-verbal/physiological/brain activity measures, duping, cognitive research, overt behavior
participants unaware that attitude being assessed (e.g., lost-letter technique)
What are non-verbal/physiological/brain activity measures? (in indirect measures of attitudes)
things like pupil dilation etc. but some
may only assess intensity not valence (so not positive or negative direction)
What is duping the participant? (in indirect measures of attitudes)
e.g., bogus pipeline lie detector, advising of cross-
referencing via public databases
What are cognitive research methods? (in indirect measures of attitudes)
(e.g., implicit association test (IAT): association
between pairs of concepts from timing responses to pairings such as Black/White with Good/Bad)
What is overt behavior (in indirect measures of attitudes)
presuming attitude based on actions
What is Lapiere (1934)’s theory?
- shows how attitudes effect behaviour
- study of Americans’ attitudes towards Chinese
- sociologist accompanied a Chinese couple to 250 US establishments then sent a follow-up letter requesting couple’s acceptance at the places to gauge American
‘attitudes’ towards Chines - study had a trend towards a low correspondence between
attitudes and behaviour
what is the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975)
aims to explain the relationship between attitudes and behaviors within human action. Three things wordk together to create an action
- intention = estimate of the probability one will perform a certain behaviour
- attitude = how favourable or unfavourable a person feels toward the behaviour
- subjective norm = perceived social pressure to perform/not perform a behaviour
What is Theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991)?
Planned behaviour refers to the idea that intentions are the best predictor of behviour. If we plan to do something we are more likely to do it. Intentions are the product of three things:
- attitudes
- subjective norms
- Perceived behavioural control (PBC) = perceived ease and control over performing or not performing the behaviour
what are the two routes to persuasion in the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo)
central and peripheral
What is the central route to persuasion? (in the Elaboration Likelihood model)
- when person pays close attention
- central route influenced by quality of the arguments
What is the peripheral route to persuasion? (in the Elaboration Likelihood model?)
- person superficially notices things
- peripheral route influenced by persuasion cues (heuristics)
What is the Yale studies of persuasion (Hovland et al.)
focus on source, message and audience characteristics
What is source characteristics? (in Yale study of persuasion)
the more credible the source (e.g., experts and those we trust), the more persuasive the message
What are Message characteristics (in Yale study of persuasion)
- length:
- order: (primacy (remembering first presented) and recency (remembering last presented) effects at play)
- role of emotion: ( negative vs. positive)
- fear vs humour
- Protection motivation theory (Rogers, 1983):
What is Protection motivation theory (Rogers, 1983)
how much motivation you have to protect yourself from threat influenced by severity of event, probability of event, response efficacy, self-efficacy beliefs
What are Audience characteristics (in Yale study of persuasion)
- intelligence/need for cognition: people vary on how much they want to engage in effortful cognitive activities
- self-esteem: (curvilinear low = hostile; high = confident; medium = most persuaded)
- self-monitoring: high self-monitors, out of concern for public self-presentation, are more responsive to measures promoting desirable social images
- mood: in a good mood are we more influenced by peripheral cues? Does itdepend on strength of argument?
- gender identification, age, race, sexual identification –
if able to identify systematic differences
What is the cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957)
Inconsistent cognitions arouse physiological
tension people are motivated to reduce
How can people removed dissonance by:
- change attitude OR change behaviour OR justify dissonance
- For voluntary acts - effort justification paradigm
- Aronson and Mills (1959) - mild versus severe group initiation l
*For persuaded acts:
induced forced compliance paradigm - Festinger and Carlsmith (1959) - lying about boring motor task ($1 vs $20)
What are the three Resistance to persuasion
reactance, forewarning, inoculation)
What is reactance (in resistance to persuasion)
people react against threats to their freedom by
asserting themselves
What is forewarning (in resistance to persuasion)
awareness allows time to prepare
What is inoculation (in resistance to persuasion)
exposure to weak versions of an argument
increases later resistance to the argument
