Week 9: Attitudes and Behaviours Flashcards
Attitudes: conceptual definition
• Attitude: mental representation on summary of evaluation for an attitude object (stored in memory)
Variety of attitude objects:
• Things, actions, events, ideas,…
• Self: self-esteem
• Groups: prejudice (-)
• Other people: global impression
• In various domains: politics, health, business, education.
Explicit and implicit attitudes
• Explicit attitudes: attitudes that people openly and deliberately express: ‘I like apples’
They are Consciously accessible and Revealed in explicit measures
• Implicit attitudes: automatic, uncontrollable evaluations
• Might be consciously inaccessible and Revealed in implicit measures
Measurement: Explicit measures
• Explicit measures: asking a person to report on their attitudes
-using self report scale such as likert scale and Semantic differential (rater across dimension and average it)
Limitation of explicit measure
• Social desirability biases: people may distort their self-reports
• Implicit attitudes – may not be consciously accessed, thus can’t be reported on
Measurement: Implicit measures
• Some use physiological responses
• Some use fake physiological responses (bogus pipeline)
• Most common use response (reaction) time (RTs) paradigms
• Response time paradigms assume that patterns of response times to stimuli can reveal underlying attitudes
• Based on spreading activation accounts of mental processes
Attitude properties: ABC of attitude
• Affective: emotions, feelings about att. object (e.g., fear, anger, nausea,…)
• Behavioural: interactions with att. object (e.g., frequent use of att. object)
• Cognitive: beliefs about att. object (e.g., att. object is good for my health)
Most attitudes have mix of ABC bases; however different bases may carry more weight in determining the overall summary evaluation
Functions of attitudes
® Knowledge function: we have/express attitudes to make sense of the world – to ‘summarize’ our experiences with attitude objects.
® Instrumental/utilitarian function: we have/express attitudes to help guide our behaviour; achieve rewards and avoid punishments.
® Social identity/value expressive function: people have/express attitudes to express their identities and values.
® Impression management function: people have/express attitudes to fit into groups or relationships.
® Self-esteem/defensive function: we have/express attitudes to protect the self (from low-self-esteem, anxiety).
Properties of attitudes
® Strength: strong attitudes are those held with confidence/certainty, and are usually based on lots of one-sided information. Strong attitudes are persistent, resistant, and are predictive of intentions and behaviour.
Attitude formation
-Multiple route and process are involved
-Broadly Involve the ABC of attitude
Affective routes to attitude formation
Mere exposure: familiarity breeds liking
-Repeated exposure increases ease of processing attitude object; ease feels good/positive; this positivity becomes attributed to attitude object
Behavioural routes to attitude formation
o Direct behavioural influences – where the valence of performing a behaviour gets transferred onto the attitude object.
o Self-perception (Bem): we learn what we like from observing what we do.
o Cognitive dissonance reduction: often our attitudes are inconsistent with our behaviours and this inconsistency can be unpleasant –leading us to try to bring our behaviours and attitudes into line (by changing our attitudes).
Cognitive routes to attitude formation
o Reasoned inference: Where you think through the facts about an object, and draw evaluative inferences about it (e.g. believing something is good for your health, and thereby choosing to like it)
Attitude Change causes
• Many processes can result in attitude change
• Social influence (conformity, obedience)
• Perceived norms (descriptive and injunctive)
• Cognitive dissonance reduction (more later)
• Much research and application focuses on persuasion: change of an attitude via processing of a message about an attitude object
The standard persuasion frame
• Source – message – recipient – context/situation
• Amount/nature of attitude change depends on attributes of each of these elements
• In conjunction with…depth of processing
Dual process models of attitude
change
• Heuristic-Systematic Model (HSM; Chaiken et al., 1989) and Elaboration Likelihood Model
• Two processing routes: deep or superficial as a continuum
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Two important implications of Dual process models of attitude change
• Amount and kind of attitude change (e.g., persistent, predictive of behaviour) depends on processing route
• Factors influencing attitude change and manner of influence are contingent on processing route
ELM (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) Elaboration Likelihood Model
• Attitudes can be changed by processes that involve more or less attitude object-relevant elaboration or thinking
• Low elaboration characterizes the peripheral route of persuasion
• High elaboration characterizes the central route of persuasion
Consequences of route-specific
attitude change
• Central route persuasion:
• Attitudes formed (or changed) based on more elaboration are:
• Stronger
• More persistent over time (stable)
• Resistant to further change
• Predictive of intentions and behaviour
Peripheral route persuasion
Attitudes formed (or changed) based on less/lower elaboration are:
• Weaker
• Less persistent
• Less resistant to change
• Less predictive of intentions & behaviour
What influences route selection
® If one is motivated & capable, one will process the message more deeply (central route).
® Motivation is influenced by goals, values, or self-relevance; accountability; and the need for cognition (one’s desire for and enjoyment of thinking).
® Capacity is influenced by one’s ability, and their focus (level of distraction).
What influences attitude change in each route
Different factors matter in central vs peripheral route
• Message
• Source
What influences attitude change in each route central route
• Because people are thinking deeply, argument quality matters
• Petty & Cacioppo (1984)
• Present message containing strong or weak arguments
• To participants that had high or low involvement
• Low = peripheral; high = central
• Argument quality influences persuasion in the central route
Peripheral route factors (I): message
characteristics
• Because people are thinking superficially, they rely on heuristics
• Not argument quality, but quantity
• Argument quantity influences attitude change in the peripheral route
• Familiarity: repeated exposure to a message increases liking (link to ease of processing)
Attitudes & Behaviour
® Attitudes do NOT equal behaviours (LaPiere, 1934), but attitudes can predict behaviours and behaviours can shape attitude formation.
