3.1 Attitudes and Behaviour

Question 1

What is an attitude?

Answer 1

• psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour

Question 2

What are the 3 features of attitudes?

Answer 2

1. affective component (feelings, emotions)
2. cognitive component (beliefs, thoughts)
3. behavioural component (actions, intentions)

Question 3

What did LaPiere find in terms of if attitudes predict behaviour?

Answer 3

• prejudice attitudes were assessed
• 1/184 restaurants actually refused service to a chinese couple
• whereas 92% said they would
• discrepancy between judgment and actual behaviour

Question 4

What 5 elements do each attitude and behaviour have?

Answer 4

1. action
2. actor
3. context
4. target
5. time

AACTT

Question 5

What is the principle of compatibility?

Answer 5

• correspondence between attitudes and behaviour will be greatest when both are measured at the same degree of specificity

Question 6

What is accessibility?

How does it relate to attitudes?

Answer 6

• how quickly does the attitude come to mind
• accessible attitudes can be recalled from memory more easily

Question 7

What is temporal stability in relation to attitudes?

Answer 7

• strong attitudes are resistant to change and remain stable over time

Question 8

How do attitudes based on feelings respond to change?

Answer 8

• less likely to change over time

Question 9

What did Wickers review on attitude studies find?

Answer 9

• it is considerably more likely that attitudes will be unrelated/only slightly related to overt behaviours than attitudes being closely related to actions

Question 10

What attitude measure did Davidson & Jaccard find to have the largest correlation between attitude and behaviour?

Answer 10

• attitudes towards using birth control
• more specific than general attitude of birth control

Question 11

What attitude measure did Shiloh et al find to have the largest correlation between attitude and behaviour?

Answer 11

• specific attitudes towards getting the COVID-19 vaccination
• better predictor than general attitudes towards vaccination

Question 12

What did Howe and Krosnick find in terms of personal importance and attitudes?

Answer 12

• attaching personal importance to an attitude causes crystallisation of attitudes via enhanced resistance to change

Question 13

What did Holland et al find in terms of attitudes to greenepeace and behaviour?

Answer 13

• relatively weak attitudes = weak negative correlation
• relatively strong attitudes = 0.36
• stronger attitude = more likely it is to predict behavior