5 - Attitudes

Question 1

Attitude?

Answer 1

(a) a relatively enduring organisation of beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols (b) a general feelings or evaluation - positive or negative - about some person, object or issue

Question 2

McGuire’s 3 main phases or history of attitude?

Answer 2

1. concentration on attitude measurement and how these measurements relate to people’s behaviour (1920s-30s)
2. focus on the dynamics of change in a person’s attitudes (1950s-60s)
3. analysis of the cognitive and social structure of attitudes, and on the function of attitudes and attitude systems (1980s-90s)

Question 3

One-Component Attitude Model?

Answer 3

an attitude consists of affect towards or evaluation of the object

Question 4

Two-Component Attitude Model?

Answer 4

an attitude consists of a mental readiness to act, it also guides evaluative responses

Question 5

Three-Component Attitude Model?

Answer 5

an attitude consists of cognitive, affective and behavioural components, this threefold division has an ancient heritage, stressing thought, feeling and action as basic to human experience

Question 6

What does the 3 component theory emphasise about attitudes?

Answer 6

1. relatively permanent
2. limited to socially significant events or objects
3. generalisable and capable of abstraction

Question 7

What did Katz (1960) propose about attitudes?

Answer 7

There are various kinds of attitudes, each serving a different function, such as:
- knowledge
- instrumentality
- ego-defence
- value-expressiveness

Question 8

Cognitive Consistency Theories?

Answer 8

a group of attitude theories stressing that people try to maintain internal consistency, order and agreement among their various cognitions

Question 9

Cognition?

Answer 9

the knowledge, beliefs, thoughts and ideas that people have about themselves and their environment.

Question 10

Balance Theory?

Answer 10

according to Heider, people prefer attitudes that are consistent with each other over those that are not. A person (p) tries to maintain consistency in attitudes to, and relationships with, other people (o) and elements of the environment (x)

Question 11

When is a triad balanced in balance theory?

Answer 11

if there is an odd number of positive relationships

Question 12

Attitude behaviour consistency can vary according to?

Answer 12

• how accessible an attitude is
• whether an attitude is expressed publicly
• how strongly someone identifies with a group for which the attitude is normative

Question 13

Multiple-Act Criterion?

Answer 13

term for a general behavioural index based on an average or combination of several specific behaviours

Question 14

Theory of Reasoned Action?

Answer 14

Fishebin and Ajzen’s theory of the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. A specific attitude that has normative support predicts an intention to act, which then predicts actual behaviour

Question 15

Subjective Norm? (reasoned action)

Answer 15

a product of what the person thinks others believe, significant others provide direct information about what is the proper thing to do

Question 16

Attitude towards the behaviour? (reasoned action)

Answer 16

a product of the person’s beliefs about the target behaviour and how these beliefs are evaluated; attitude towards behaviour, not object

Question 17

Behavioural Intention?

Answer 17

an internal declaration to act

Question 18

Theory of Planned Behaviour?

Answer 18

modification by Ajzen of the theory of reasoned action; it suggests that predicting a behaviour from an attitude measure is improved if people believe they have control over that behaviour

Question 19

Protection Motivation Theory?

Answer 19

theory related to the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour and that focuses on how people can protect their health, maintain better practices and avoid risky behaviour

Question 20

Self-efficacy?

Answer 20

expectations that we have about our capacity to succeed in particular tasks

Question 21

Accessible attitudes?

Answer 21

those that can be recalled from memory more easily and can therefore be expressed more quickly; they exert strong influence on behaviour and are associated with greater attitude-behaviour consistency

Question 22

Automatic Activation?

Answer 22

According to Fazio, attitudes that have strong evaluative link to situational cues are more likely to come to mind from memory

Question 23

As attitudes are being formed, they correlate more strongly with a future behaviour when?

Answer 23

• the attitudes are accessible
• they are stable over time
• people have had direct experience with the attitude object
• people frequently report their attitudes

Question 24

Mere Exposure Effect?

Answer 24

Repeated exposure to an object results in greater attraction to that object

Question 25

Evaluative Conditioning?

Answer 25

a stimulus will become more liked or less liked when it is consistently paired with stimuli that are either positive or negative

Question 26

Spreading Attitude Effect?

Answer 26

a liked or disliked person (or attitude object) may affect not only the evaluation of a second person directly associated but also others merely associated with the second person

Question 27

Modelling?

Answer 27

tendency for a person to reproduce the actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real life symbolic model (observational learning)

Question 28

Self-Perception Theory?

Answer 28

Bem's idea that we gain knowledge of ourselves only by making self-attributions: for example, we infer our own attitudes from our own behaviour

Question 29

Values?

Answer 29

a higher-order concept thought to provide a structure for organising attitudes

Question 30

Ideology?

Answer 30

a systematically interrelated set of beliefs whose primary function is explanation; it circumscribes thinking, making it difficult for the holder to escape its mould

Question 31

Terror Management Theory?

Answer 31

The notion that the most fundamental human motivation is to reduce the error of the inevitability of death; self esteem may be centrally implicated in effective terror management

Question 32

Social Representation?

Answer 32

collectively elaborated explanations of unfamiliar and complex phenomena that transform them into a familiar and simple form

Question 33

Expectancy-Value Model?

Answer 33

direct experience with an attitude object informs a person how much that object should be liked or disliked in the future

Question 34

Thurstone Scale?

Answer 34

An 11-point scale with 22 items, 2 for each point. Each item has a value ranging from very unfavourable to very favourable. Respondents check the items with which they agree. Their attitude is the average scale value of these items.

Question 35

Unidimensionality?

Answer 35

A Guttman scale consists of a single (low-to-high) dimension. It is also cumulative – that is, agreement with the highest-scoring item implies agreement with all lower-scoring items.

Question 36

Semantic Differential?

Answer 36

An attitude measure that asks for a rating on a scale composed of bipolar (opposite) adjectives. (Also a technique for measuring the connotative meaning of words or concepts.)

Question 37

Relative Homogeneity Effect?

Answer 37

Tendency to see outgroup members as all the same, and ingroup members as more differentiated.

Question 38

Bogus Pipeline Technique?

Answer 38

A measurement technique that leads people to believe that a 'lie detector' can monitor their emotional responses, thus measuring their true attitudes

Question 39

Priming?

Answer 39

Activation of accessible categories or schemas in memory that influence how we process new information

Question 40

Implicit Association test?

Answer 40

Reaction-time test to measure attitudes – particularly those unpopular attitudes that people might conceal

Question 41

Impression Management?

Answer 41

People's use of various strategies to get other people to view them in a positive light