Attitudes

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Attitudes Behavior

• June 19th

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Before we start

• Last-week-of-class treat bagels or donuts?
• Write last 4 digits of RUID on notecard
• Rate attractiveness of these on a scale from 0-9
• 0unappealing 9extremely appealing
• Coffee Donuts
• Coffee Bagels
• Its up to you to pick choose between them
• Must make a choice

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Todays Agenda

• Questions from last time?
• Judgment exercise
• Attitude-behavior consistency
• TPB/TRA
• Cognitive consistency theories
• Balance theory
• Cognitive Dissonance
• Self-perception theory

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Do Attitudes Predict behavior?

• Persuasion attempts, claims of attitude as the
  most important construct, etc.
• Do they matter?
• LaPierre (1934) study
• 249/250 aint too bad
• Later meta-analysis
• Attitude-behavior correlation lt.30

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Why might they not?

• Situational determinants of behavior
• Whether we think others would approve
• Self-control
• Attitude towards podcasting
• Do I have the equipment?
• Did I remember to bring it today?
• Do I have the time to do it?
• Do I know how?
• Will my advisor think its a waste of time?

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Are the correlations artificially low?

• Attitude-Behavior link is low when measured at
  single instance
• If you stick around, correlations get bigger
• Use several different situations multiple act
  criterion
• Measure several operations that are predicted by
  attitude
• Look for same behavior in several contexts
  repeated observation criterion
• Look for the same behavior across a longer time
  period
• Correlations here .6

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Consistency depends on Construal
I think it would be great to take a train
But what if he were thinking about a different
train?

• How do you feel about train travel?

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Consistency depends on Construal
I dont think I would ever want to do that.
Will his behavior match his attitude?Depends on
the similarity of the situation to his construal
of it when you obtained his attitude

• How do you feel about train travel?

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Consistency depends on measurement

• You need to measure specific attitudes to predict
  specific behaviors

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TRA/TPB

• the best predictors of deliberate behavior are
  peoples attitudes toward specific behaviors,
  their subjective norms, and their beliefs about
  whether they can successfully perform the
  behavior in question

The distinction between TRA and TPB
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Automatic behavior

• Not all behavior is reasoned or planned
• Bargh, Chen, Burrows (1996)
• Primed with elderly or not
• How long does it take you to get to the elevator?
• Prime
• A stimulus presented to mentally activate a
  concept

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Balance Theory
Fritz Heider
Festinger is a Johnny-come-lately

• First psychological consistency theory
• People try to maintain balance among their
  beliefs sentiments
• Focuses on Person (self), the Other person and X,
  the attitude object

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Balance Theory

• The product of the sides should be positive
• I like psychology
• You like psychology
• I like you
• Heider found people remembered balanced
  relationships better, and thought unbalanced
  relationships needed to change

P


X
O

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Cognitive Dissonance

• Holding inconsistent cognitions induces an
  unpleasant state of arousal called dissonance.
  This motivates people to work to make their
  cognitions consistent with one another.
• The king of social psych theories
• A cognitive consistency theory

Leon Festinger
Bow down to the king, baby!
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What about breakfast?

• Rate attractiveness of these on a scale from 0-9
• 0unappealing 9extremely appealing
• Coffee Donuts
• Coffee Bagels

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Three CD Paradigms

• Post-decisional dissonance reduction
• Effort justification
• Forced/Induced compliance

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Post-decisional d. reduction

• Choose between alternatives
• Should I major in psych or economics?
• I chose psychology
• Bad things w/ chosen good things w/ alternative
  are inconsistent w/ choice. Hello dissonance
• There dont seem to be too many jobs for psych
  majors, and there are a lot of psych majors.
• My parents would like me to major in econ.

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Post-decisional d. reduction

• Before decision, people weigh and
• After decision, dissonance motivates derogation
  of unchosen alternative, enhancement of choice
• Well, econ really isnt that interesting not too
  many jobs for them either, while psych courses
  are great!
• What about donuts versus bagels?

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Effort Justification

• If I worked for it, it must be worthwhile
• Suffering for something makes it more valuable
• Initiation rites increase liking for a group
• Aronson and Mills (1959) The effect of severity
  of initiation on liking for a group, Journal of
  Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59, 177-181
• Severe vs. mild initiation
• Boring discussion
• How interesting was the discussion?

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Forced Compliance

• Acting against your attitudes causes dissonance
• Festinger, L. and Carlsmith, J. M. (1959)
  Cognitive consequences of forced compliance,
  Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58,
  203-211
• Do an extremely boring task
• Before you go20 (130) vs. 1 (6.50)
• How much did you enjoy the study?

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Boundary Conditions

• Acting of free will
• Perception of free will is important
• Other is convinced
• If your lie is ineffectual, no dissonance
• Other is liked
• Lying to a jerk is fine by me ?

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Questions thus far?

• Well pick up with self-perception theory next
  time.