Attitudes

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Attitudes
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Lecture Overview

• Attitude Formation
• Attitude-Behavior Link
• Attitude Change
• Persuasion
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory

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The Nature and Origin of Attitudes

• We are not neutral observers of the world we
  evaluate what we encounter.
• We form attitudes evaluations of people, objects
  or ideas.
• Attitudes are often a matter of good or bad as
  soon as you know what something is, you start to
  know whether you like it or dislike it.
• Possessing an attitude increases the ease, speed,
  and quality of decision making.

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The Nature and Origin of Attitudes

• Attitudes are made up of three parts that
  together form our evaluation beliefs, feelings,
  and actions.
• Any given attitude can be based more on one type
  of experience than another.
• A cognitively based attitude is based on an
  objective appraisal of the properties of an
  object.
• An attitude based more on emotions and values
  than on an objective appraisal of pluses and
  minuses is called an affectively based attitude.
• Where do affectively based attitudes come from?
• Peoples values, such as religious and moral
  beliefs.
• Sensory reaction, such as liking the taste of a
  food.
• Aesthetic reaction, such as admiring a painting.
• Conditioning.
• A behaviorally based attitude is based on
  observations of how you behave toward an object
  (i.e., social perception theory).

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Explicit versus Implicit Attitudes

• Explicit attitudes are attitudes that we
  consciously endorse and can easily report.
• Implicit attitudes are involuntary,
  uncontrollable, and at times unconscious.
• The Implicit Association Test measures attitudes
  that people are unwilling or unable to report.
• Explicit and implicit attitudes may conflict with
  each other.

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Do Attitudes Predict Behavior?

• Do people act on the basis of what they like and
  dislike?
• LaPiere, 1934

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Attitude Formation

• Attitudes are based on mere associations (Lorge
  1936).
• A little rebellion every now and then is a good
  thing.

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Attitude Formation

• Are people irrational?
• Aschs Critique of Lorges Experiment
• Subjects were not responding to the same stimuli
  in phase 1 and phase 2.
• Subjects were being rational when they considered
  who wrote the statements.

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Attitude Formation

• Social Comparison
• Compare ourselves to others to determine whether
  we hold the correct views
• Genetic Factors
• May influence general dispositions

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Attitude-Behavior Link

• LaPieres evidence (1934) that attitudes dont
  always predict behavior
• When attitudes are strong, behavior is
  predictable
• Attitude Ambivalence
• We often have positive and negative evaluations
  of the same attitude object
• Strength predicted by attitude origins, attitude
  strength, and whether the person has a vested
  interest in the attitude they hold

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Attitude-Behavior Link

• Self Perception Theory (Bem, 1965)
• Attitudes are inferred from behavior.

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Attitude Behavior Link

• Self Perception Theory (Lepper Green, 1975)

Playing with Puzzle
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Attitude Change

• Persuasion
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory

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Persuasion

• Persuasion is a form of influence that
  predisposes, but does not impose. It alters
  others judgments, and not just their behavior.
  It affects their sense of what is true or false,
  probable or improbable, their evaluations of
  people, events, ideas, proposals their private
  and public commitments to take this or that
  action, perhaps even their basic values and
  ideologies.
• Herbert Simon

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Persuasive Communications and Attitude Change

• Yale Attitude Change Approach
• The study of the conditions under which people
  are most likely to change their attitudes in
  response to persuasive messages, focusing on who
  said what to whomthe source of the
  communication, the nature of the communication,
  and the nature of the audience.

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The Central and Peripheral Routes to Persuasion

• The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion
  (Petty Cacioppo, 1986 Petty et al., 2005),
  specifies when people will be influenced by what
  the speech says (i.e., the logic of the
  arguments) and when they will be influenced by
  more superficial characteristics (e.g., who gives
  the speech or how long it is).
• Central Route to Persuasion
• When people are motivated and have the ability to
  pay attention to the arguments in the
  communication.
• Peripheral Route to Persuasion
• When people do not pay attention to the arguments
  but are instead swayed by surface characteristics.

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The Central and Peripheral Routes to Persuasion

• The more personally relevant an issue is, the
  more willing people are to pay attention to the
  arguments in a speech, and therefore the more
  likely people are to take the central route to
  persuasion.
• Petty, Cacioppo, and Goldman,
• 1981

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The Central and Peripheral Routes to Persuasion

• Compared to people who base their attitudes on
  peripheral cues, people who base their attitudes
  on a careful analysis of the arguments will be
• More likely to maintain this attitude over time,
• More likely to behave consistently with this
  attitude,
• More resistant to counterpersuasion.

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Emotion and Attitude Change

• Do fear-arousing communications work?
• If a moderate amount of fear is created and
  people believe that listening to the message will
  teach them how to reduce this fear, they will be
  motivated to analyze the message carefully and
  will likely change their attitudes via the
  central route.
• Leventhal, Watts, and Pagano, 1967

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Information Processing as a Commodity Model
(Brock)

• Which of the following communications would you
  prefer?
• 1a. information that is common knowledge, or
• b. a juicy bit of gossip that no one else
  knows.
• 2a. a story a friend begs you to listen to, or
• b. a story you have to beg your friend to
  reveal.
• 3a. an official account of a government scandal,
  or
• b. an account the government has tried to
  censor.
• 4a. a story that reveals its ending from the very
  start, or
• b. a story that builds suspense by delaying the
  conclusion

According to Brocks model, factors that make
information valuable and increase
demand Scarcity, Effort, Restriction, Delay
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Cognitive Response Theory

• Theory holds that people actively compare
  persuasive messages to what they already know.
• Distraction Is all heckling bad?
• Should you personalize the message?
• What about message repetition?
• How can I keep those Ive convinced from changing
  their minds?

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Resisting Persuasive Messages

• Attitude Inoculation
• Making people immune to attempts to change their
  attitudes by initially exposing them to small
  doses of the arguments against their position.
• Reactance Theory
• The idea that when people feel their freedom to
  perform a certain behavior is threatened, an
  unpleasant state of reactance is aroused, which
  they can reduce by performing the threatened
  behavior.

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The Lazy Information Processor Approach

• Heuristic decision rules (quick, easy responses
  to messages) allow receivers to bypass message
  content.
• Let me have a favor from you because I need a
  favor.
• The case of a turkey and a polecat.
• Another example Expensive Good
• Conditions for Mindless Processing
• Low motivation, Low comprehension, or Heuristic
  cues highly salient

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Heiders Balance Theory

• Balance theory assumes that people will try to
  restore balance among their attitudes.
• When the relationship between all three cognitive
  elements is positive, or when one relationship is
  positive and the other two are negative, there is
  balance.
• When two relationships are positive and one is
  negative, or when all three are negative, there
  is imbalance.
• Balance is most often restored in whichever way
  is easiest.
• If one relationship is weaker than the two, the
  easiest mode of restoring balance is to change
  the weaker relationship.

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Cognitive Dissonance

• Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957)
  states that you want your thoughts, feelings, and
  behaviors to be consistent with one another.
• If there is an inconsistency, you will feel an
  unpleasant state of arousal (i.e., cognitive
  dissonance) as a result.
• Cognitive dissonance is strongest when your
  actions are discrepant from your view of yourself
  as smart, moral, and reasonable.

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Inducing Cognitive Dissonance

• Agree or disagree?
• Exercising at least three times a week promotes
  good health.
• It is important for all eligible citizens to vote
  if the government is to reflect the will of the
  people.
• Conscientiously recycling used materials helps
  the environment.
• It can be dangerous to drink and drive.

• Yes or no?
• Do you regularly exercise three times a week?
• Did you vote in the last election for which you
  were eligible?
• Do you regularly recycle cans, newspapers, and
  other recyclables?
• Have you ever driven a car after drinking more
  than two drinks?

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Reducing Cognitive Dissonance

• By changing our behavior to bring it in line with
  the dissonant attitude.
• By changing our attitude to bring it in line with
  the dissonant behavior.
• By attempting to justify our behavior by adding
  new cognitions.

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Insufficient Justification

• External Justification
• A reason or an explanation for dissonant personal
  behavior that resides outside the
  individual(e.g., in order to receive a large
  reward or avoid a severe punishment).
• Internal Justification
• The reduction of dissonance by changing something
  about oneself (e.g., ones attitude or behavior).
• The less external justification for the behavior,
  the more the attitude shifts to correspond to the
  behavior.
• Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959

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Insufficient Justification
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Insufficient Punishment

• Just as small rewards can sometimes produce more
  liking for a task than do large rewards, mild
  punishment can create greater disliking for an
  activity than severe punishment.
• Aronson and Carlsmith, 1963
• The dissonance aroused when individuals lack
  sufficient external justification for having
  resisted a desired activity or object, usually
  resulting in individuals devaluing the forbidden
  activity or object.

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Postdecision Dissonance

• You reduce dissonance by downplaying the negative
  aspects of the alternative you chose and the
  positive aspects of the alternative you rejected.
• Brehm, 1956
• The more permanent the decision, the greater the
  dissonance.
• Knox and Inkster, 1968

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The Ben Franklin Effect

• I did not ? aim at gaining his favour by paying
  any servile respect to him but, after some time,
  took this other method. Having heard that he had
  in his library a certain very scarce and curious
  book I wrote a note to him expressing my desire
  of perusing that book and requesting he would do
  me the favour of lending it to me for a few days.
  He sent it immediately and I returned it in about
  a week with another note expressing strongly my
  sense of the favour. When we next met in the
  House he spoke to me (which he had never done
  before), and with great civility and he ever
  after manifested a readiness to serve me on all
  occasions, so that we became great friends and
  our friendship continued to his death. This is
  another instance of the truth of an old maxim I
  had learned, which says, He that has once done
  you a kindness will be more ready to do you
  another than he whom you yourself have obliged.
  (Franklin, 1868/1900, pp. 216217)

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Justification of Effort

• The tendency for individuals to increase their
  liking for something they have put a lot of
  effort into to attain it.
• Aronson and Mills, 1959

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Hating Your Victim

• Do we hurt the people we hate, or do we hate the
  people we hurt?
• Why does war lead to the dehumanizing of the
  enemy?