Lecture 11: Attitudes

Question 0

What are attitudes based on?

Answer 0

Thoughts
Feelings
Behaviours

Question 1

Define attitude.

Answer 1

Attitude: an enduring evaluation, positive or negative, of a person, object, idea or behaviour.

Question 2

What are the 3 broad ways to measure attitudes?

Answer 2

Self report measures
Facial EMG
Reaction time measures

Question 3

What are self report measures? What are there disadvantages?

Answer 3

Self report measures are when people rate there opinions on a series of questions aimed at revealing attitudes. Disadvantages include answering the social norm response and not knowing or having attitudes about particular things.

Question 4

What is a facial EMG?

Answer 4

A facial EMG is where electrodes are placed on the face to determine which muscles are activated after a stimulus is presented. Smiling muscles=positive evaluation. frowning muscles = negative evaluations

Question 5

What did Fazio’s primary measure of reaction times suggest as a measure of attitude evaluation?

Answer 5

Fazio said that when primed with a positive object response times to identify positive words would be greater than negative words. When primed with a negative object response times would be faster for negative words and slower for positive

Question 6

What did Greenwalds Implicit Association Test (IAT) measure?

Answer 6

The implicit association test says that it is quicker to pair like evaluations (positive/negative) together.

Question 7

What 4 things shape peoples attitudes?

Answer 7

1. Direct experience
2. Evaluative learning
3. Instrumental learning
4. Observational learning

Question 8

How do we learn attitudes through direct experience?

Answer 8

We learn what we like and dislike. We weigh up the costs and benefits. The more we are exposed to something the more we like it.

Question 9

What is evaluative conditioning?

Answer 9

When formerly neutral stimulus (song) becomes more liked/disliked when consistently paired with positive/negative stimulus (chick)

Question 10

What is instrumental conditioning?

Answer 10

When we receive positive feedback or consequences for an attitude we are reinforced to continue it

Question 11

What is observational learning?

Answer 11

When you observe others behaviours and attitudes and their corresponding consequences to see what attitude is socially acceptable or the norm.

Question 12

What is Bems self perception theory?

Answer 12

The self perception theory says that if we don’t have an attitude or opinion about something then we look at our situation and past behaviours to Infer one. For example if you did the same behaviour over and over without being told you would probably infer that you like it

Question 13

What does Festinger say cognitive dissonance theory is ?

Answer 13

Cognitive dissonance and psychological tension occurs when an attitude is not coherent with it’s corresponding behaviour. When this discomfort is felt, people are motivated to change one aspect so that the attitude and behaviour are aligned.

Question 14

What did Festinger and Carlsmith find on cognitive dissonance and insufficient justification?

Answer 14

They had participants perform a boring, simple task for a long period of time. At the conclusion participants were either offered $1 or $20 to tell the next ps that the study was fun. The participants were then asked how enjoyable they personally found the study. The results found that ps who were given only $1 to tell the next person it was fun, changed their attitude and also believed it was fun. The ps who were given $20 had sufficient justification to call the study fun without feeling dissonance.

Question 15

What did Arson and Mills find regarding cognitive dissonance and justifying effort?

Answer 15

Arson and Mills looked at the effect of group initiations. They had ps initiate into a group for the reward of having a sexual conversation. The level of severity for the initiation was varied. Once initiation was complete they sat through the sexual conversation that was super boring. The results found the ps who had a severe type initiation rated the conversation the most exciting as they received dissonance between trying really hard to get into a group that was shitty. So they changed how they viewed the group to
Reduce this

Question 16

What are the 5 functions of attitudes and explain them.

Answer 16

Ego Defensive- to protect our self esteem
Social adjustive- to fit in with others
Value expressive- to express wider broader values
Object appraisal- to avoid things we don’t like and approach things we do
Utilitarian - help maximise positive outcomes

Question 17

What did LePierre test? And what did he find?

Answer 17

LePierre looked at whether attitudes predicted behaviour and he did this by travelling around the US with a Chinese man and measuring how many establishments served the Chinese man. He found that 250/251 served the man. But when LePierre sent letters to the same data establishments asking if they would serve him. all but one said no. Which suggested that attitudes don’t predict behaviour.

Question 18

So, when do attitudes predict behaviour?

Answer 18

Attitudes predict behaviour when the attitudes are highly accessible.

Question 19

What did Fazio’s, Powell and Williams study find regarding accessibility of attitudes?

Answer 19

Fazio et al. Found that when participants were quick to report their attitudes, they were more likely to choose their favourite snack in an array of many. And participants who were slow at reporting attitudes slowly tended to just choose items closest to them.

Question 20

What does the theory of planned behaviour suggest about acting upon attitudes?

Answer 20

The theory of planned behaviour says that you have to think about your attitude towards the behaviour, people’s response to this behaviour and if you can even achieve this behaviour before you even have a behavioural intention and then a behaviour is produced.

Question 21

What is the Elaboration likelihood model?

Answer 21

The ELM is based upon how much elaboration of a product is needed in order to sell it. It contains two routes of persuasion- the central route and the peripheral route

Question 22

What is the ELM based upon?

Answer 22

Motivation to think

Ability to think

Question 23

What types of motivation is needed for the ELM?

Answer 23

Personal relevance 
Cognition levels (higher cognition- higher motivation to think)

Question 24

What 3 things effect the ability to think?

Answer 24

Distraction
Fatigue
Knowledge about the issue

Question 25

What is the central route of persuasion in the ELM?

Answer 25

High elaboration so need for high levels of motivation and ability. The persuasion should focus on the quality of the message and the strength of the argument.

Question 26

What is the peripheral route of persuasion?

Answer 26

The peripheral route needs lower levels of elaboration so little motivation and low abilities to think. It is based upon superficial aspects - looks, credibility of the source, likability

Question 27

How was the ELM tested? And what did they find?

Answer 27

Tested the ELM by telling uni students that a massive exam would be implemented to in order for the to graduate uni. They manipulated the relevance of message (1 year v 10 yrs time), the quality of the argument and the credibility of the source. They found that when the exam was of high relevance (high motivation) to them they didn’t care about the credibility of the source. But when the exam was of low relevance to them (low motivation) they did care about the quality of the source.

Question 28

Which route is better for persuasion out of the central and peripheral routes and why?

Answer 28

The central route is better for persuasion as the message creates a stronger attitude and a long lasting impact on behaviour.

Question 29

How would you make the message be taken through the central route?

Answer 29

Have to make the message relevant to them and limit distractions

Question 30

What is reactance theory?

Answer 30

Reactance theory is the motion that if someone’s freedom is threatened by placing prohibition on things than people will rebel in order to regain this freedom.

Question 31

What did Pennebaker and sanders do to test the reactance theory and want effect does this demonstrate?

Answer 31

They placed a sign in two bathrooms that either strongly told them not to graffiti and another which asked for them to kindly not graffiti and they measured how much graffiti was on the wall after an amount of time. They found that when strong language was used there was more graffiti. This demonstrates the boomerang effect