attitudes

Question 1

how did Allport (1935) define attitudes?

Answer 1

• the concept of attitudes is probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary American social psychology
• no other term appears more frequently in the experimental and theoretical literature

Question 2

examples of research that looks at attitudes

Answer 2

• prejudice
  –> negative attitudes towards outgroups
• interpersonal attraction
  –> attitudes towards specific others
• self-esteem
  –> attitude towards oneself

Question 3

what is the single component (unidimensional) definition of attitudes?

Answer 3

• generally focused on affect (feelings)
• the term attitude should be used to refer to a general, enduring positive or negative feeling about some person, object or issue

Question 4

what is the tri-component/tripartite definitions? (Rosenberg & Hovland, 1960)

Answer 4

• affective
  –> positive or negative feelings about object
• behavioural
  –> tendencies to act toward object
• cognitive
  –> beliefs and thoughts about object

Question 5

what is an ‘attitude object’

Answer 5

• refers to the person, place, issue, thing (etc…) towards which we hold the attitude

Question 6

how do we measure attitudes?

Answer 6

• self report measures
• covert measures
• physiological measures

Question 7

self report measures to measure attitudes

Answer 7

–> interviews
–> focus groups
–> attitude scales (e.g. Likert scales & semantic differentials)

Question 8

covert measures to measure attitudes

Answer 8

1. behavioural measures
   –> based on behavioural observation
   –> e.g., seating distance, eye contact, body posture, approach and avoidance measures
2. affective measures
   –> The Implicit Association Test
   –> in the IAT, we are faster to classify things that are related in memory than things that are unrelated
   –> e.g. positive attitude to cats= faster response to pictures of cats paired with positive words vs. negative words

Question 9

physiological measures to measure attitudes

Answer 9

• pupillary response (dilation and constriction)
• facial electromyography (facial EMG)

Question 10

what is facial electromyography (facial EMG)?

Answer 10

• electrodes used to measure facial muscle activity (even very small changes in activity)
• activation of zygomatic major muscle (cheeks - smiling) vs. corrugator supercilli muscle (forehead - frowning) indicative of more positive vs. negative attitudes, respectively

Question 11

define explicit attitudes

Answer 11

attitudes that people can report and whose expression can be consciously controlled

Question 11

define implicit attitudes

Answer 11

attitudes to which people do not initially have conscious access and whose activation cannot be controlled

Question 11

how are attitudes formed?

Answer 11

1. behavioural approaches
   - mere-exposure
   - evaluative conditioning
2. cognitive approaches
   - self-perception

Question 12

what is the mere-exposure effect? (behavioural approach)

Answer 12

• tendency to develop more positive feelings towards more familiar objects
• advertising example:
  –> Ps exposed to banner ads at the top of a web article rated their reaction to the banner as more positive when they saw it 20 times vs. 5 times vs. 0 times
• interpersonal attraction:
  –> students rated women who had attended their class as more attractive when the women had attended 15 classes vs. 10 classes vs. 5 classes

Question 13

what is evaluative conditioning (behavioural approach)?

Answer 13

• pairing a new, neutral, stimulus with an already positive thing = positive attitude
• pairing a new, neutral stimulus with an already negative thing = negative attitude
• when a new stimuli is paired with an a old stimulus with an existing attitude, its likely to be tied to the previous attitude
• when paired in small time duration

Question 14

examples of evaluative conditioning

Answer 14

• advertising example:
  –> demonstrated that participants rated a fictitious anti-flu drug as more effective, safe and beneficial when it was paired with positive vs. negative images
• healthy eating example:
  –> demonstrated that participants showed more negative implicit attitudes to energy-dense snack foods after images of these snack foods were paired with images of potential adverse health consequences

Question 15

how does self-perception form attitudes? (cognitive approach)

Answer 15

• we form attitudes by observing our behaviour and the circumstances in which it occurs and making inferences (attributions)

Question 16

how did Strack, Martin & Stepper (1998) test self-perception and attitudes?

Answer 16

• participants that evaluated cartoons while holding a pen in their teeth thought the cartoons were funnier than those who held the pen in their lips
  –> facial feedback hypothesis = facial activity can influence affective responses

Question 17

how did Ito et al. (2006) test self perception and attitudes?

Answer 17

• participants who held a pen in their teeth while looking at photos of Black males showed significantly less implicit bias on the IAT than those who did the same while looking at photos of White males
  –> facial feedback hypothesis = facial activity can influence affective responses

Question 18

why do we have attitudes? (Katx, 1960)

Answer 18

• attitude formation should be understood in terms of the needs that attitudes serve
• different motivations underlie different attitudes, and there is unlikely to be any single cause of a specific type of attitude

Question 19

why are the 4 functions of attitudes?

Answer 19

1. utilitarian/instrumental
2. ego-defensive
3. value-expressive
4. knowledge/cognitive economy

Question 20

Utilitarian/instrumental function

Answer 20

• attitudes exist because they are useful
• we are motivated to obtain rewards and avoid punishment
• so we develop positive attitudes to objects that help us obtain rewards and reach goals
• e.g. a positive attitude towards a political party that “will advance [his/her] economic lot”
• we form negative attitudes to objects that bring punishment or prevent us achieving our goals
  –> e.g. a negative attitude towards peanuts if you are allergic

Question 21

ego-defensive function

Answer 21

• attitudes help protect our self-image
  –> i.e. protect us from unacceptable internal and external threats

Question 22

ego defensive function (Knight, Lapinski & Boster, 2001)

Answer 22

• students received information suggesting that their self-image as a ‘serious student’ was incorrect or correct
• students who received self-image inconsistent information rated it more negatively than students who received self-image consistent information
• more negative evaluation -> greater message discounting -> source derogation
  –> the message isn’t important and so the source is stupid and not reasonable

Question 23

value expressive function

Answer 23

• attitudes help us express values that are integral to our self-concept.
  –> i.e. they help communicate what the type of person we are
  –> e.g. having a positive attitude towards LGBTQ+ solidarity because you value equality

Question 24

knowledge/cognitive economy function

Answer 24

• attitudes act as ‘schemas’
• i.e. they help us:
  –> organise information and give a sense of predictability in our complex social world
  –> act as a frame of reference for sorting new information and streamline information-processing
  –> e.g. “I like fruit. Durians are a fruit, so I’ll probably like them”

Question 25

summarise the functions of attitudes

Answer 25

1. utilitarian/instrumental
   –> useful
2. ego-defensive
   –> protect self image
3. value-expressive
   –> express important values
4. knowledge/cognitive economy
   –> act as schemas

Question 26

what is attitude change?

Answer 26

modification of an individual’s general evaluative perception of a stimulus or set of stimuli (they change themselves)

Question 27

what is persuasion?

Answer 27

an active attempt to change a person’s attitude through information

Question 28

how can we change people’s attitudes? (models of persuasion)

Answer 28

1. those that model/try to change attitudes through COMMUNICATION
2. those that model/try to change attitudes by CHANGING BEHAVIOURS

Question 29

changing attitudes through communication (examples)

Answer 29

• Adverts
• arguments
• debates
• informational messages
  –> all types of persuasive communications

Question 30

The Yale approach to persuasion

Answer 30

• what characteristics of communications do we need to consider to change people’s attitudes?
• who says what to whom and with what effect?
• the factors we have to consider:
  1. source: who is trying to do the persuading?
  2. message: what is the content of the message, and how is that content expressed?
  3. audience: to whom is the message targeted?

Question 31

source characteristics (Yale approach to persuasion)

Answer 31

• attractiveness
  –> a substantial amount of research finds that more attractive sources are more persuasive than less attractive sources
• credibility:
  –> substantial amount of research finds that high credibility sources are more persuasive than low credibility sources

Question 32

message characteristics (Yale approach to persuasion)

Answer 32

• fear appeals:
  –> persuasive messages that arouse fear (common in public health campaigns)
  –> a substantial amount of research finds that messages containing strong ‘fear appeals’ are more persuasive than messages containing lower or no fear appeals
  –> however, in some cases, research has found that fear appeals are less persuasive or may backfire
  –> messages that threaten behavioural freedom prompt feelings of anger and other negative cognitions and can lead to reduced persuasion

Question 33

audience characteristics (Yale approach to persuasion)

Answer 33

• individual difference factors that affect the likelihood of persuasion
  1. need for cognition = a person’s tendency to engage in effortful cognition
  2. self-monitoring
  = lots of introspection, do a lot of self reflection
  3. regulatory focus/fit = promotion or prevention focus and how this fits with the regulatory orientation of the message
• those who engage in high cognitive effort, lots of self monitoring and the message fits the promotion vs prevention preference are likely to be persuaded

Question 34

is the Yale approach right?

Answer 34

• not that simple
• existing literature supported the view that nearly every independent variable studied increased persuasion in some circumstances, had no effect in others, and decreased persuasion in still other contexts
• so rather than looking at whether certain characteristics increased persuasion, researchers started to look at how persuasion works

Question 35

Elaboration-Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986)

Answer 35

• premise = the outcome of persuasion attempts depends on elaboration likelihood
• either take a central route to process or a peripheral route to process

Question 36

central route to processing (ELM)

Answer 36

• have motivation and ability to elaborate on the message
• more effortful processing
• persuaded by central cues (i.e., relating to argument strength)
• persuaded by strong argument
  not persuaded by a weak argument

Question 37

the peripheral route to processing (ELM)

Answer 37

• do not have motivation and ability to elaborate on message
• less effortful processing, more automatic
• persuaded by peripheral cues (e.g., heuristics)
• persuaded when cues are present
• not persuaded when cues are absent

Question 38

motivation in the ELM

Answer 38

people are more likely to be persuaded by central route cues if, for example, they are in a negative mood, have high personal involvement, and score highly on individual difference variables such as Need for Cognition

Question 39

ability in the ELM

Answer 39

people are more likely to be persuaded by central route cues if, for example they have sufficient time to process the message, sufficient cognitive resources, and are not distracted