Behavior and Attitudes

1
Behavior and Attitudes

• Attitudes and Behavior
• Chicken and then the Egg
• Egg and then the Chicken.

2
Definition

• Attitude
• A favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction
  toward something or someone exhibited in ones
  beliefs, feelings, or intended behavior.
• Sometimes referred to as the ABCs of attitudes
  (affect, behavior, cognition)

3
Attitude-Behavior Consistency

• Despite intuitive belief that attitudes determine
  behavior, large body of research indicates that
  attitudes are actually a poor predictor of
  behaviors
• This begins with LaPiere (1934) and his travels
  with a Chinese couple
• 1 out of 184 refuse them service, when he writes
  after the trip 91 of the 128 who respond say
  that they would refuse service to Chinese
• Question can be asked why the inconsistency?

4
Attitude-Behavior Consistency

• Wicker (1969) presented seminal review article on
  the lack of correspondence between expressed
  attitudes and behavior. Domains include
• Cheating
• Church attendance
• Racial attitudes
• Breast feeding

5
Do attitudes ever guide behavior?

• Yes! What factors lead to attitude-behavior
  correspondence?
• Real vs. expressed attitudes. A measured
  attitude may not be a persons true attitude.
• Bogus pipeline convince subjects that you have a
  machine that measures hidden attitudes. Once
  convinced they are more truthful.

6
Do attitudes guide behavior?

• One instance vs. aggregate
• Think of sports statistics
• Look at attitudes that are specific to the
  behavior (Ajzen and Fishbein)
• Do you like to go out to eat vs. do you like Thai
  food.
• Attitudes are more likely to guide behavior if
  attitude is made salient (e.g., ask people to
  consider their attitudes, make self-conscious).

7
Does Behavior Determine Attitude?

• Role Playing
• Stanford Prison Study
• Foot in the door phenomenon
• Agreeing to a small commitment frequently leads
  to larger commitments
• Tendency for both good and evil acts toward
  others to escalate.

8
How does behavior cause attitude?

• Self-presentation theory
• Suggests that it is an issue of impression
  management. That is, we desire, and it is
  favorable, to appear consistent.
• True at times, however, does not indicate how
  people may internalize and come to adopt these
  new attitudes.

9
How does behavior cause attitude?

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Proposed by Leon Festinger
• Original definition a state of tension that
  occurs whenever an individual simultaneously
  holds 2 cognitions that are psychologically
  inconsistent.
• For example, if I say I hate someone and then I
  am nice to them (without being forced to be) I am
  likely to view them more positively.
• However, attitude wont change if there is
  sufficient justification for having been nice to
  them.

10
Dissonance as a consequence of making a decision

• Dissonance arises when choosing between 2 equally
  attractive alternatives.
• After our choice we reduce dissonance through
  confirmation bias
• Jack Brehm Participants rate two gifts as
  equally desirable. Give participants choice of 1
  of these 2 gifts. Immediately after, chosen gift
  is now evaluated as more attractive.

11
Educational and Parenting Implications

• Both reward and severe punishment provide
  external or sufficient justification.
• If we desire students to internalize educational
  lessons and to form a desire to learn, we must
  avoid rewarding them too much for their efforts
• Mark Lepper children who play with a puzzle in
  order to gain a greater reward are much less
  likely to spontaneously play with that toy in the
  future
• Can explain previous effort on the puzzle in
  terms of external justification, not enjoyment.

12
Parenting Implications

• If we want the child to internalize an attitude,
  severe punishment may not be effective
• Severe punishment external justification (e.g.,
  I am doing this because my hide will be tanned
  otherwise, not because I want to)
• Aronson and Carlsmith mild threat and toy choice
• Children who received a mild threat were much
  less likely to choose that toy in the future than
  were those exposed to a severe threat (e.g.,
  forbidden fruit)

13
Self Perception Theory

• First proposed by Daryl Bem
• Effects are nothing more than reasonable
  inferences that people make about their own
  attitudes based upon their perceptions of their
  behaviors.
• Similar to how observers draw conclusions about
  our attitudes from our behaviors
• Does not work well when applied to important
  attitudes, but may explain ambivalent situations

14
Overjustification Effect

• Rewarding people for activities they enjoy may
  backfire.
• According to self-perception theory a person may
  observe the situation and attribute their actions
  to the reward not their intrinsic motivation.
• For example, professional athletes who begin to
  view their sport as opposed to something they
  used to love.