Attitudes

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Attitudes

• An attitude is a positive, negative, or mixed
  reaction to a person, object, or idea.
• Attitudes can be based on three general classes
  of information
• 1. Affect
• 2. Behavior
• 3. Cognition

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How are Attitudes Formed?

• Learning
• Mere exposurerepeated exposure to a stimulus
  increases our feelings about the stimulus.
• Direct experience
• Operant conditioning-reward and punishment
• Classical conditioning-association of CS with UCS
• Observational learning-imitation of others
• Media
• Genetics

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Attitudes and Judgment

• Existing attitudes bias judgments of new
  information.
• Death penalty study (Lord, Ross, Lepper, 1979)
• Fibrocystic disease and caffeine study (Kunda,
  1987)

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Attitudes and JudgmentData from Kunda (1987)
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Attitudes and Judgment

• Attitudes also bias recall of old information.
• Introversion/Extraversion study (Sanitioso et
  al., 1990)

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Attitudes and Behavior

• LaPiere (1934) study of attitudes and behavior
  towards Chinese people.

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Attitudes and Behavior

• Factors that moderate the attitude-behavior link
• Strength of attitude
• Specificity of attitude
• Self-focus
• Self-monitoring

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Self-Monitoring Scale

• 1. I find it hard to imitate the behavior of
  other people T F
• 2. I can only argue for ideas which I already
  believe T F
• 3. I have considered being an entertainer T F
• 4. I would probably make a good actor T F
• 5. I have trouble changing my behavior to suit
  different people and different situations T F

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Ajzens Theory of Planned Behavior
Attitude toward a behavior
Subjective norms
Intention
Behavior
Perceived Behavioral control
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Attitude
Action
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Cognitive Dissonance

• A state of psychological tension that is aroused
  when a person simultaneously holds two thoughts
  that contradict one another.

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Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

• Inconsistency between thoughts

Experience cognitive dissonance
Attempt to reduce dissonance
Change attitude
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Festinger Carlsmith (1959)

• Participants did boring tasks for 1 hour.
• Paid 1 or 20 to tell another participant that
  the tasks were enjoyable.
• During interview, asked how much they enjoyed the
  tasks.

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Three Dissonance-Arousing Conditions

• 1. Attitude-behavior inconsistency
• Leads to change in attitude
• 2. Exerting wasted effort
• Leads to effort justification
• 3. Making a difficult decision
• Leads to post-decisional dissonance

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Two Perspectives on Self-Persuasion

• 1. Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger)
  inconsistency between thoughts leads to
  unpleasant tension (dissonance), which motivates
  people to reduce dissonance by changing thoughts.

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Two Perspectives on Self-Persuasion

• 2. Self-Perception Theory (Bem) people form and
  modify their attitudes by observing their own
  behavior.

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Implications

• Behavior ? Attitude change
• Use of cognitive dissonance to promote healthy
  behavior.