Attitudes

1
Attitudes
2
Defining Attitudes

• an enduring response disposition toward a person,
  object or idea
• three components
• Affective
• e.g., transfer of affect
• transferring feelings for one object to another
  associated with it
• Behavioral
• e.g., Bems (1972) self-perception theory
• Cognitive
• e.g., weighing the pros and cons of different
  attitudes

3
Defining Attitudes
Affect(feeling)
Cognition(belief)
Overall attitude
Behavior(response)
4
Theories of Attitudes

• Biological Theory of Attitudes
• Twin studies
• fraternal vs. identical
• attitudes are probably indirectly affected by
  genes
• presence of attitude genes?

5
Theories of Attitudes

• Explicit vs. Implicit Attitudes
• Explicit
• conscious endorsement of attitudes
• Implicit
• involuntary, uncontrollable, unconscious
• measurement of these types of attitudes remains
  controversial

6
Theories of Attitudes

• Learning Theory
• Hovland et al., 1953
• attitudes as habits
• information/feelings acquired through association
• reinforcement/punishment ? learning
• imitation of attitudes ? acquisition

7
Theories of Attitudes

• Cognitive Consistency Theories
• attitude consistency
• Balance Theory
• Cognitive Dissonance

8
Theories of Attitudes

• Balance Theory (Heider, 1958)
• Assumes we are driven to maintain consistency
  between our sentiment and unit relations

9
Theories of Attitudes

• Balance Theory Diagrams

A Related Object, Person, Attribute, or
Consequence
O
P
The Person
X
The Attitude Object
10
Theories of Attitudes
11
Theories of Attitudes
O
O
O
O
-
-



-

-
P
P
P
P
-
X


X
X
X
-
Four Balanced Configurations
O
O
O
O

-
-

-
-


P
P
P
P

X

-
X
X
X
-
Four Imbalanced Configurations

• Main Assumption we strive to balance imbalanced
  situations

12
Theories of Attitudes

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger, 1957)
• the tendency to seek consistency among cognitions
  (e.g., beliefs, opinions)
• inconsistency creates dissonance
• attempt to eliminate dissonance

13
Theories of Attitudes

• Eliminating Dissonance
• ? importance of dissonant beliefs
• ? consonant beliefs to outweigh dissonant beliefs
• change the dissonant beliefs so they are no
  longer inconsistent
• Usually results in attitude change
• as opposed to behavior change

14
Theories of Attitudes

• Self-Perception Theory
• Bem (1967)
• we infer our attitudes from our behavior
• e.g., Youve noticed you tend to vote for
  younger candidates in elections so you infer that
  you have a preference for younger politicians
• Although outcomes tend to be the same, the
  processes described by self-perception theory and
  cognitive dissonance theory are fundamentally
  different

15
Theories of Attitudes

• Expectancy-Value Theory (Edwards, 1954)
• the pros and cons of holding an attitude and the
  likelihood that these outcomes will occur
  determine our decisions
• e.g., I'm more motivated to work on my English
  class because I know that I'm a good writer and
  can do well.
• attitude good writer, can do well
• behavior work on paper

16
Theories of Attitudes

• Dual Process Theories
• Heuristic vs. Systematic processing of persuasive
  message (Eagly Chaiken)
• Systematic Processing
• careful review and consideration of arguments
• Heuristic Processing
• using simple decision rules
• e.g., more is better an expert said it so it
  must be true

17
Theories of Attitudes

• Elaboration-Likelihood Model (ELM)
• Petty Cacioppo (1986)
• Central vs. Peripheral Routes to Persuasion
• Central Routes
• involved, need accuracy, recognize that a message
  is persuasive
• Peripheral Routes
• uninvolved, distracted, busy
• for most practical purposes, the ELM and the
  Heuristic/Systematic theory are identical

18
Theories of Attitudes

• Cognitive Response Theory
• Romero, Agnew Insko (1996)
• thoughts generatated in response to a persuasive
  message determine whether we support the message
  or not
• Counterarguing
• resisting discrepant communications by actively
  rebutting the arguments
• No counterarguments ? attitude change
• Lots of counterarguments ? no attitude change

19
Persuasion

• Persuasive messages are part of everyday life
• The effectiveness of a persuasive message depends
  on
• the communicator
• the communication
• the target

20
Persuasion

• The Communicator
• Credibility
• high credibility ? more persuasive
• Expertise
• expert sources ? more persuasive
• Trustworthiness
• trustworthy sources ? more persuasive
• those who seem to be making an argument contrary
  to self-interest are more persuasive
• multiple sources of information make a message
  more trustworthy

21
Persuasion

• Liking
• those we like ? more persuasive
• Reference Groups
• groups we like ? more persuasive
• Source Derogation
• when faced with a persuasive message inconsistent
  with our own attitudes, we can call the
  communicators reliability into question or make
  negative claims about the person
• future messages from the same source will carry
  less weight
• Communicator as Peripheral Cue
• e.g., An expert said it, so it must be true

22
Persuasion

• The Communication
• discrepancy from our own position
• low Discrepancy ? little attitude change
• high Discrepancy ? little attitude change
• moderate Discrepancy ? most attitude change
• greater credibility allows for more discrepancy
  (Bochner Insko, 1966)
• arguments close to our own are viewed as closer
  than they actually are (assimilation) and those
  very discrepant from our own are view as further
  away than they actually are (contrast)

23
Persuasion

• Strong vs. Weak Arguments
• persuasiveness depends on our level of processing
• Repetition of Argument
• Cacioppo Petty (1979)
• increases persuasiveness up to a point
• think of an annoying commercial that is always
  on
• in general, repetition helps strong arguments but
  hurts weak arguments

24
Persuasion

• Peripheral cues and message characteristics
• we use peripheral cues when
• an issue has little importance to us
• were uniformed or distracted
• source characteristics and the number and length
  of arguments will increase persuasion if the
  above conditions are met

25
Persuasion

• Matching the persuasive message to the nature of
  the attitude
• e.g., appealing to anger in an argument when the
  audience is angry is more likely to be persuasive
• recall the three components to attitudes
• Distorting the Message
• can achieve cognitive consistency between our own
  behavior and persuasive messages of others
  through distortion of the message
• Blanket Rejection
• dismissing an argument for no apparent reason

26
Persuasion

• The Target
• Aggression Arousal
• personal frustrations can cause us to advocate
  aggressive responses
• Fear Arousal
• increasing fear in the target increases the
  persuasiveness of a message up to a point
• moderate levels of fear are most persuasive

27
Persuasion

• Ego Involvement
• Attitudes highly relevant to the self are hard to
  change
• commitment to the attitude
• issue involvement (personal relevance)
• response involvement
• individual differences
• some people more persuadable than others

28
Persuasion

• The Situation
• Forewarning
• knowing that an argument is about to be made
  reduces persuasion
• counterarguments can be made in the intervening
  period
• Distraction
• mild amounts enhance persuasion
• counterargument process is affected

29
Persuasion

• Attitude Innoculation (McGuire, 1964)
• being exposed to weak arguments counter to our
  own attitude makes us more resistant to later
  exposure to complex counter-attitudinal
  persuasive arguments

30
Attitude Change Over Time

• Spontaneous Attitude Change
• Tesser (1978)
• merely thinking about an attitude object will
  make our attitudes about it more extreme
• Persistence of Attitude Change
• Sleeper Effect
• delayed attitude change not apparent immediately
  after exposure to the persuasive message

31
Attitudes and Behavior

• Do attitudes predict behavior?
• attitude strength
• attitude stability
• attitude accessibility
• automatic activation of attitudes
• relevance of attitudes to behavior
• salience of the attitude

32
Attitudes and Behavior
Theory of reasoned actionFishbein Ajzen, 1975
Beliefs about consequences of behavior X
Attitude toward behavior X
Intention to perform behavior X
Behavior X
Normative beliefs about behavior X
Subjective norm concerning behavior X
33
Attitudes and Behavior
Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991)