attitude and attitude change

Question 1

Define ‘attitude’

Answer 1

-Organisation of beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies towards socially significant objects, events or symbols
-General feeling or evaluation (positive or negative) about someone, an object or issue

Question 2

Describe the 3 component model (Rosenburg and Holland, 1960) - what do attitudes consist of

Answer 2

-Affective
-Cognitive
-Behavioural

Question 3

Describe the affective component

Answer 3

-Expressions of feelings towards an attitude object
-E.g. ‘The thought of eating meat makes me feel sick’

Question 4

Describe the cognitive component

Answer 4

-Expressions of beliefs about an attitude object
-E.g. ‘It is unhealthy and wrong to eat meat’

Question 5

Describe the behavioural component

Answer 5

-Overt actions/verbal statements concerning -behaviour
-E.g. ‘I will only eat vegetarian food’

Question 6

Describe complex attitudes

Answer 6

-If attitudes are complex and evaluated consistently then they becomes strong, either extreme positive or negative
-Simple dimension
-Complex dimension
-However, if they are inconsistent they become weaker as they are more complex

Question 7

What are the 4 function of attitudes? (Katz, 1960)

Answer 7

-Knowledge function
-Utilitarian function
-Ego-defensive
-Value expressive

Question 8

Describe the knowledge function

Answer 8

-Organise and predict social world
-Provides sense of meaning and coherence

Question 9

Describe the utilitarian function

Answer 9

-Help people achieve positive outcomes and avoid negative outcomes e.g. right attitude = no punishment

Question 10

Describe the ego-defensive function

Answer 10

-Protecting self esteem from harmful world e.g. justifying smoking by saying loads of people do it

Question 11

Describe the value expressive function

Answer 11

-Facilitate expression of one’s core values and self concept

Question 12

What is the mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968)?

Answer 12

-Repeated exposure of stimulus -> enhancement of preference for that stimulus (more positive view)
-E.g. ppts are more likely to say that novel words that are familiar are also positive (Harrison and Zajonc, 1970)

Question 13

What is classical conditioning (Pavlov)?

Answer 13

-Repeated association
-Previously learnt neutral stimulus elicits reaction that was previously elicited only by another stimulus
-E.g. Celebrity endorsement - transfer positive image of celebrity can transfer to a product

Question 14

What is instrumental conditioning?

Answer 14

-Behaviour followed by positive consequences are more likely to be repeated
-E.g. Insko (1965) showed that ppts reported a more favourable attitude towards a topic if they received positive feedback on the same attitude a week earlier

Question 15

What is self perception theory (Ben, 1972)?

Answer 15

-Gain knowledge of ourselves by making self-attributions
-Infer attitudes from behaviour e.g. you read once a week and so you must enjoy it

Question 16

How can attitudes be revealed?

Answer 16

-Self report and experimental paradigms
-Physiological measures
-Measures of overt behaviour

Question 17

Describe self report and experimental paradigms

Answer 17

-Attitude scales
-Implicit association task (used to measure prejudice)

Question 18

Describe physiological measures

Answer 18

-Such as skin resistance, heart rate and pupil dilation

Question 19

Describe overt behaviour

Answer 19

-Frequency of behaviour
-Trends and preferences over various subjects
-Non-verbal behaviour

Question 20

Describe LaPiere (1934) study on racial prejudice

Answer 20

-When a chinese couple visited more than 250 restaurants, cafes and hotels, they received service 95% of the time without hesitation
-In response to a letter of inquiry after, 92% of establishments replied saying they wouldn’t accept members of Chinese race

Question 21

What problems can occur in this study?

Answer 21

-Specifics (are they the same people)
-Time (behaviour came first)
-Attitude strength and direct experience (simply yes/no doesn’t show complications in life)

Question 22

What things can impact how well attitudes predict behaviour?

Answer 22

-How strong the attitude is
-Whether it is formed through direct experience
-How it’s measured

Question 23

Describe ‘whether it is formed through direct experience’

Answer 23

-Haddock et al., (1999) found attitudes towards assisted dying was influenced by people’s experience of having direct encounter with assisted dying

Question 24

Describe ‘how it’s measured’

Answer 24

-How specific the questions are
-e.g. Davidson and Jaccard (1979) found women’s general attitudes toward birth control didn’t predict their use of contraceptive pill as well as specific attitudes towards using contraceptive pill within the next two years
-How closely the questions (intentions) relate to behaviours

Question 25

Describe the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)

Answer 25

-Proposes people make decisions as a result of rational thought processes (Ajzen, 1991)

Question 26

What are the 3 parts of TPB?

Answer 26

1: Attitude = whether it's positive or negative 2: Subjective norms = whether there is social pressure to either perform or not to perform the behaviour 3: Perceived behavioural control = whether it's easy and difficult it would be to carry the behaviour out

Question 27

Is it replicated across cultures?

Answer 27

-Cho and Lee (2015) polled Korean and US participants and found strong evidence for theoretical constructs but also boundary conditions -Personal control = strong association with intentions in individualistic culture -Subjective norms = strong predictive power in collectivist culture

Question 28

Describe the idea of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957)

Answer 28

-“Unpleasant state of psychological tension generated when a person has two or more cognitions that are inconsistent or do not fit in together” -Counter attitudinal behaviour -> feel discomfort and dissonance -Strive to reduce dissonance -> reduce dissonance by changing inconsistent cognition

Question 29

What task was conducted to look into cognitive dissonance?

Answer 29

-Telling people that they enjoyed it the task which was very boring (some were given money and some were not to lie to the people outside) -Asked whether they actually enjoyed it or not -Ppts who received $1 compared to no money or $20 said that they enjoyed (have dissonance)

Question 30

What 3 strategies are used?

Answer 30

1: Reduce importance (cognition) - 'I know lots of people who smoke and they haven't got lung cancer' 2: Add an element - 'I'm addicted, I can't help it, I need to smoke or the stress I'll suffer will be unhealthy' 3: Change one element - 'I'll stop smoking'

Question 31

What are the 2 dual process models in the power of persuasion?

Answer 31

-Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986) -Heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, 1980)

Question 32

Describe the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986)

Answer 32

-Suggests that pathways are independent -Central route - deep thinking, when the individual is interested, leads to strong attitude -Peripheral route - quick impression, when the individual doesn't care about the argument, weak attitude

Question 33

Describe the Heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, 1980)

Answer 33

-Systematic processing - slow and careful, care about the thing and so do deep analysis, look at facts and data -Heuristic processing - fast thinking, uses simple cues as you aren't motivated to know about the topic

Question 34

What is the application to the real world?

Answer 34

-Political campaigns -Advertising/sales -Encouraging socially valuable behaviours e.g. organ donation