Ch 6: Attitudes Flashcards
(39 cards)
Attitude
A positive, negative, or mixed reaction to a person, object, or idea.
Self-esteem: attitude about ourselves. Attraction/prejudice: attitudes about others.
an object toward which you hold one attitude can invoke different reactions because you are aware of one feeling but not the other (being open to racial equality while still having unconscious bias)
Dispositional attitude
A generally publicly shared attitude
Evolutionary rationale for attitudes
Attitudes allow us to make quick judgments, avoid bad situations. However, they make us closed-minded, biased, and resistant to change.
Self-report (the problem with it)
Self-report polls are problematic because the wording or context can change answers drastically
Attitude scale
A multiple-item questionnaire designed to measure a person’s attitude toward some object. (answers are often dishonest)
Bogus pipeline
A phony lie-detector device that is sometimes used to get respondents to give truthful answers to sensitive questions.
Covert measures
Discrete questioning to guage public attitudes (e.g. face to face, spread out questions in random places)
Facial electromyograph (EMG)
An electronic instrument that records facial muscle activity associated with emotions and attitudes.
Implicit attitude
An attitude, such as prejudice, that one is not aware of having.
Implicit association test (IAT)
A covert measure of unconscious attitudes derived from the speed at which people respond to pairings of concepts—such as black or white with good or bad. (mostly effective for topics not too sensitive to the subject)
Richard LaPiere (1934) on attitudes and behavior
Proved that attitudes and behavior don’t always align. Called businesses during great depression asking if they would turn away Asians. They confirmed they would, but did not act on this promise.
How are attitudes formed?
- Can be genetically inspired (twins are more likely to share opinions even growing up in different households)
- Can be picked up thru exposure in society, household, school
Evaluative conditioning
The process by which we form an attitude toward a neutral stimulus because of its association with a positive or negative person, place, or thing.
Correspondence
Similarity between attitude measures and behavior.
Theory of planned behavior
The theory that attitudes toward a specific behavior combine with subjective norms and perceived control to influence a person’s actions.
Subjective norms
Our beliefs about what others think we should do. (We are socially pressured to act in ways we don’t agree with)
When do we act on our attitudes?
- When we are socially allowed to
- When we are well informed on our attitudes (climate change experts help the planet)
Central persuasion
Persuasion using facts, in-depth information, explanation (works when people feel strongly about something)
Peripheral persuasion
Make cues and associations between positive stimuli and argument (people voted for kamala harris after taylor swift voted for kamala harris)
When does subliminal messaging work?
When the messages fuel a preexisting motivation (message saying “drink water” will only be convincing if someone is already thirsty)
Mere exposure effect
The more we see something, the more we tend to like it
Study on mere exposure effect with quiet girl in class
She never talked at all, never interacted with anyone, but she was always visible to everyone in the class. If she went to a class more often in a semester, she was more liked by the students.
Difference between subliminal messaging and unconscious priming
Subliminal persuasion cannot be long term if exposure to stimulus is so short term. Unconscious priming is exposure to an unnoticed stimulus over time.
