Attitudes and behaviours

Question 1

What is an attitude?

Answer 1

• “A favourable or unfavourable evaluative reaction towards something or someone, exhibited in beliefs, feelings, or inclination to act” (Olson and Zanna, 1993).
• “People’s evaluation or almost any aspect of the world” (Olson and Kendrick, 2008)
• there’s a question of what attitudes are composed of.. can’t simply be positive or negative attitudes

Question 2

What are negative attitudes?

Answer 2

• They’re expressed freely (overtly) when we know that we won’t be judged
• We can work out quickly if it’s okay to say by observing the social world

Question 3

Attitude strengths

Answer 3

• Some attitudes are stable and resistant to change
• Whilst others are more unstable and show variability depending on the situation
• Some attitudes are held with certainty whilst others are held with more uncertainty

Question 4

Centreless of attitudes in social psychology quotes ..

Answer 4

• “The concept of attitudes is probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept in Social Psychology (Allport, 1935).
• Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) and Watson (1930) defined social psychology as the scientific study of attitudes.

Question 5

How have attitudes evolved over time?

Answer 5

1920-1930 -> focused on attitude measurement

1950-1960 -> focus on attitude change

1980-1990 -> focus on social and cognitive structure and function of attitudes

Question 6

How are attitudes seen/defined in today’s society?

Answer 6

• They’re viewed as a construct
• Not directly observable
• Precede our behaviour and guide our choices

Question 7

Attitude dimensions: ABC model (3 components)

Fishbein & Ajzen (1970) ; Jain (2014)

Answer 7

• The tripartite model of attitudes breaks them down into their components:
• Affect – how we feel about something (positive or negative towards something)
• Behaviour- what we do about something (faultable or unfavourable towards something)
• Cognition- how we think about something

Question 8

Criticism of the ABC model

Answer 8

• Positive thoughts about something doesn’t mean that we act that way towards it

Question 9

What is attitude valence?

Answer 9

• A positive or negative evaluation of an object
• positive, neutral and negative valence

Question 10

What is implicit association?

Answer 10

• A method for measuring implicit attitudes by calculating the automatic association between attitudes held in memory.
• The more rapidly attitudes are categorized as being associated with one another the more strongly they are thought to be connected with each other in memory
• Explicit attitudes: Consciously accessible attitudes that are controllable and easy to report.
• Implicit attitudes: Unconscious associations between objects and evaluative responses.

Question 11

What are the three ways attitudes can be formed?

Answer 11

1) Classical conditioning
2) Instrumental conditioning
3) Social learning theory

Question 12

Classical conditioning

Answer 12

• learning based on association
• e.g. advertising to create positive attitudes towards their products

Question 13

Instrumental conditioning

Answer 13

• the right view
• Attitudes followed by positive outcomes are more likely to be strengthened and repeated
• Process of instrumental conditioning through differential rewards and punishments
• As children we tend to have similar views to our parents (political, social, religious). But peers can become more important as you get older. (New people, new experiences, new social networks) (Oskamp & Schultz, 2005)

Question 14

Social learning theory

Answer 14

• Observational learning, even when direct rewards are absent.
• Used in advertising, showing people you may identify with using a product.
• Social comparison (Festinger, 1954). Our views, ideas, attitudes must be correct if others agree?
• People often adjust their attitudes to hold views closer to those of others they value and identify with- their reference groups.
• Terry & Hogg (1996) found that positive attitudes towards sunscreen depended on the extent to which participants identified with the group advocating the attitude

Question 15

Why are attitudes important? (functions of attitudes)

Answer 15

• The tendency to evaluate something as positive or negative helps in our efforts to make sense of the world
• We have these because they are useful (cognitive energy savers)

Question 16

The 4 main functions of attitudes

Katz (1960)

Answer 16

• Knowledge, instrumentality, ego defence, value expressiveness

Question 17

Attitude behaviour link - study

LaPiere (1934)

Answer 17

• visited 250 establishments that would not serve ‘Orientals’ across Europe with a Chinese couple
• however, 92% did serve them
• survey was sent out to these establishments after - 90% of them said they would not serve them
• suggests that attitudes don’t predict behaviour

BUT - was a minority group, societal and contextual factors weren’t taken into consideration

Question 18

Theory of planned behaviour

Ajzen and Fishbein (1980)

Answer 18

• explains how attitudes guide behaviour
• the decision to engage in a behaviour is a result of a rational process where different options are considered, evaluated and a decision is reached
• decision is the behaviour intention, which can be a good predictor of whether we will act on our attitudes

Question 19

What three things is the theory of planned behaviour guided by?

Answer 19

1) Behavioural beliefs – beliefs about the likely consequences of behaviour
2) Normative beliefs – beliefs about the normative expectations of others
3) Control beliefs – beliefs about the presence of factors that may facilitate behaviour

Question 20

Evaluate TPB

Answer 20

• attitudes are assumed to be rational decision making process based on cost benefit analysis
• doesn’t take the role of identity into consideration
• relies on correlational data
• ignores emotional and impulsive factors in decision making

Question 21

What are the cognitive consistency theories?

Group of theorists in the 50’s and 60’s

Answer 21

• Cognitive consistency theories propose that people have a need for consistency and seek to maintain a balance between their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours

Question 22

Cognitive dissonance theory

Festinger (1957)

Answer 22

• Suggests that when individuals hold inconsistent beliefs, attitudes, or behaviours, they experience psychological discomfort or dissonance, which motivates them to change one of these elements in order to restore consistency.

Question 23

Can behaviour shape attitudes? Cognitive dissonance in action

Aronson & Mills (1959)

Answer 23

• Built on Festinger’s theory
• Engaging with behaviour that goes against one’s morals can create cognitive dissonance (mental discomfort)
• There was a severe initiation group (read aloud sexual text) and a light initiation group (read aloud polite sexual terms)
• Both asked to rate a recorded talk (WHICH WAS BORING)
• Severe initiation = greater cognitive dissonance, motivating a change in attitude to be consistent with their behaviour