WEEK 4 - attitudes and persuasion

Question 1

What are attitudes?

Answer 1

positive, negative, or mixed reaction to a
person, object, or idea

Question 2

Are attitudes learned or inhereted

Answer 2

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

Question 3

How to measure attitudes?

Answer 3

direct measures
indirect measures

Question 4

What are open-ended questions?

Answer 4

asks the person straight up for their attitude towards something

Question 5

What are closed questions

Answer 5

wants a yes or no answer or a scale (scales include Likert, semantic-differential)

Question 6

What are the advantages and disadvantages of open-ended questions?

Answer 6

• advantages: simple, lots of data
• disadvantages: time-consuming, differences in expressiveness

Question 7

What are the advantages and disadvantages of closed questions?

Answer 7

• advantages: easy, quick
• disadvantages: response sets (e.g., “Pollyanna” optimism) and choice of wording

Question 8

what are direct measures of attitudes?

Answer 8

open-ended or closed questions

Question 9

what are indirect measures of attitudes?

Answer 9

non-verbal/physiological/brain activity measures, duping, cognitive research, overt behavior

participants unaware that attitude being assessed (e.g., lost-letter technique)

Question 10

What are non-verbal/physiological/brain activity measures? (in indirect measures of attitudes)

Answer 10

things like pupil dilation etc. but some
may only assess intensity not valence (so not positive or negative direction)

Question 11

What is duping the participant? (in indirect measures of attitudes)

Answer 11

e.g., bogus pipeline lie detector, advising of cross-
referencing via public databases

Question 12

What are cognitive research methods? (in indirect measures of attitudes)

Answer 12

(e.g., implicit association test (IAT): association
between pairs of concepts from timing responses to pairings such as Black/White with Good/Bad)

Question 13

What is overt behavior (in indirect measures of attitudes)

Answer 13

presuming attitude based on actions

Question 14

What is Lapiere (1934)’s theory?

Answer 14

• 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

Question 15

what is the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975)

Answer 15

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

Question 16

What is Theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991)?

Answer 16

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:

1. attitudes
2. subjective norms
3. Perceived behavioural control (PBC) = perceived ease and control over performing or not performing the behaviour

Question 17

what are the two routes to persuasion in the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo)

Answer 17

central and peripheral

Question 18

What is the central route to persuasion? (in the Elaboration Likelihood model)

Answer 18

• when person pays close attention
• central route influenced by quality of the arguments

Question 19

What is the peripheral route to persuasion? (in the Elaboration Likelihood model?)

Answer 19

• person superficially notices things
• peripheral route influenced by persuasion cues (heuristics)

Question 20

What is the Yale studies of persuasion (Hovland et al.)

Answer 20

focus on source, message and audience characteristics

Question 21

What is source characteristics? (in Yale study of persuasion)

Answer 21

the more credible the source (e.g., experts and those we trust), the more persuasive the message

Question 22

What are Message characteristics (in Yale study of persuasion)

Answer 22

• 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):

Question 23

What is Protection motivation theory (Rogers, 1983)

Answer 23

how much motivation you have to protect yourself from threat influenced by severity of event, probability of event, response efficacy, self-efficacy beliefs

Question 24

What are Audience characteristics (in Yale study of persuasion)

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

What is the cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957)

Answer 25

Inconsistent cognitions arouse physiological
tension people are motivated to reduce

Question 26

How can people removed dissonance by:

Answer 26

• 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)

Question 27

What are the three Resistance to persuasion

Answer 27

reactance, forewarning, inoculation)

Question 28

What is reactance (in resistance to persuasion)

Answer 28

people react against threats to their freedom by
asserting themselves

Question 29

What is forewarning (in resistance to persuasion)

Answer 29

awareness allows time to prepare

Question 30

What is inoculation (in resistance to persuasion)

Answer 30

exposure to weak versions of an argument
increases later resistance to the argument