Lecture 7 - Principles Flashcards
What are the basic principles in how attitudes are shaped?
- The principles are broad themes that cut across CAB component and attitude shaping
- These principles are not laws of attitude chnage and formation, nor are they completely correct or valid under all circumstances BUT can be considereduseful guidelines in uunderstanding basic processes in attitude change
Attitude shaping
How attitudes towards new things are formed and how exisiting attitudes might change
What are the Principles?
Principle 1 - Attitudes can be infleuenced by information that has weak relevance to the attitude object
Principle 2 - The impact of weak information can be reduced by the motivation and ability to possess a correct attitude
Principle 3 - Attitude chnage in partilly dependent upon how persuasive messages match aspects of the recipient
Principle 4 - Attitude chnage can occur without conscious awareness
Principle 1
- Attitudes can be influenced by information that has weak relevance to the attitude object
- Attitudes are often influenced by variables that we would regard as being irrational e.g, Humour, source expertise
- Continuum - from high to low relevance
- ID + cultural differences in what we believe to be relevant information
Do we devote more attention to appeals where characteristics are more similar to ourselves or more different and WHY?
Pelham et al. (2002)
- In general, people have a positive view of themselves + tend to have positive feelings about anything that is loosely associated with themselves – e.g., name letters + birthday number
- We therefore devote more attention to appeals where the objects name has similarities to their own
- a form of implicit egotism or unconscious self enhancement
P1
Howard & Kerin (2011) Principle 1
Study 1: Ps spent more time reading and recalled more information from a persons CV when the target showed the same initials. Ps were more likely to pay attention to information that has similarities to their own name
Study 3: Ps had more favourable attitudes and consumed more of a beverage with enhanced name similarity (‘V Zack family’ - on the drink) when shown two drinks - one showing name similarity, the other not.
P1
Howard and Kerin (2014): What factors might moderate this effect?
These researchers assessed whether this name-similarity effect was stronger among individuals high in self-monitoring.
Results: They found larger effects of this name-similarity effect amongst those high in SM.
P1
Bang et al., (2019)
Looked at name similarity and narcisism.
* Researchers found that those who scored high on a measure of narcisism paid greater attention to ads that had name similarity AND had more favourable attitudes towards attitude objects
P1
What is principle 2
The impact of Weak information can be reduced by the motivation and ability to possess a correct attitude.
How principle links to the cognitive models
This links to ELM model - When individuals are motivated and they have the ability, thay are more likely to focus on the content of a persuasive appeal
This links to the HSM - less relevant information becomes more relevant in presence of contradictory information - effect focused on a source characteristic that has relevance e.g, credibility
This links to the MODE model - suggest that deeper consideration of information may cause relevant information to override the impact of irrelevant information particularly when irrelevant information is difficult to process
Petty, Cacioppo & Goldman (1981)
They provided Ps with persuasive communications about the implementation of oral comprehensive exams.
* Manipulated:
1. Involvement (Oral comprehensive exams NOW or 10 yrs)
2. Source expertise (Carergie commission Vs Grad students)
3. Argument strength (Helps with grades vs to avoid interaction
- Under low involvement (10 yrs), source expertise played a larger role
- Under high involvement (now), people scrutinise the information more carefully, meaning the argument strength has larger impact
Summary: we can overcome these less relevant peices of information when we are motivated and when we have the ability
P2
Principle 3
Attitude change is partially dependent upon how the content of a persuasive message MATCHES aspects of the recipient and/or the recipient’s attitude
Matching in P3 concerns matching things presented to the participant in line with their function and content.
Snyder & DeBono (1985)
Research that looks at attitude FUNCTIONS
They argued that people vary in Self-monitoring, causing attitudes to have different functions between high and low SM:
* High SMs → more likely to hold social adjustive attitudes. Thus, they predicted that high SM would be more persuaded by product IMAGE (e.g. how good something makes you look)
Low SMs → more likely to hold value-expressive attitudes, Thus, they predicted that low SM would be more persuaded by product QUALITY (e.g., how clean shampoo gets your hair)
They assessed Ps on SM. They then showed Ps persuasive appeals about a shampoo that either served social adjustive functions ot value-expressive functions. They then measured Ps attitudes towards these appeals
They found that the impact of an appeal was dependent on whether somone was high or low in SM. The matched appeals to peoples function of their attitude was most persuasive.
P3
Hirsh et al., (2019)
Research that looks at attitude FUNCTIONS
They looked at matching in the context of the big 5 personalities (ENACO). They presented individuals with different types of appeals that focused on different aspects of the big 5: e.g, this phone is super exciting (Extraversion). They then measured people attitudes towards the product
Results - The big 5 predicted effectiveness of each message frame. The big 5 also linked to individual differences in motivation (which impact attitude functions)
FUNCTIONAL MATCHING CAN LEAD TO ENHANCED PERSUASION
P3
Fabrigar & Petty (1999) - Methodoloy only
Research that looks at attitude CONTENT
Phase 1: presnted Ps +ve affective or +ve cognitive information about the ‘Lemphur’.
Phase 2: presented Ps -ve affective or -ve cognitive information about the ‘Lemphur’
Conditions
1. affective +ve, affective -ve
2. affective +ve, cognitive -ve - MISMATCH of CONTENT
3. cognitive +ve, cognitive -ve
4. cognitive +ve, affective -ve - MISMATCH of CONTENT
In phase 1, they formed an attitude based on either cognitive or affective info. In phase 2, they want to see if a matched or unmatched appeal leads to attitude change
P3
