Chapter 8 - Basic Principles in how Attitudes are Shaped

Question 1

4 Principles in how Attitudes are Shaped

Answer 1

1. Attitudes can be influenced by information that has weak relevance to the attitude object (we’re generally irrational)
2. The relative impact of weak info can be reduced when people possess high motivation and ability to form correct attitudes (less irrational when motivated)
3. Attitude change partly depends on whether content/structure/function of message matches attitude (we’re not all the same)
4. Attitude change can occur w/o conscious awareness of persuasive factors (we can be oblivious)

Question 2

P1: Sources that increase persuasion (5)

Answer 2

Likeable, powerful, certain, famous, in-group

Question 3

P1: Name preferences (3)

Answer 3

1. Preference for letters that appear in our names (resume study)
2. Devote more attention to someone / brand w/ similar name to ours
3. How much you like your name as an implicit test of self-esteem

Question 4

P2: Backfire Effect

Answer 4

the more you try to prove someone wrong, the more they believe they are correct; Identity Protection Cognition

Question 5

P2: Identity Protection Cognition Study: Skin cream effectiveness vs. gun control effectiveness: Being good with numbers or not

Answer 5

Skin Cream Effectiveness: Base rates indicate the cream is not effective, those with strong math skills got this right (motivated to be correct)
Gun Control Effectiveness: Base rate indicates gun control not effective, those with strong math skills who were conservative still got it wrong (motivated to self-protect)

Question 6

P2: Self-Affirmation Theory

Answer 6

Self-affirmation conveys sense of self-integrity enabling people to be more open-minded w/o feeling threatened or that their self-integrity would suffer from being wrong (ex. caffeine dangers and self-affirmation exercise)

Question 7

P3: Why is matching an enabler and not an elicitor of persuasion?

Answer 7

Based on motivation to process messages relevant to one’s goals

Question 8

P3: Content matches (affect vs. cognitive based attitudes)

1. Attitudes toward fictitious beverage based on presentation order
2. Gender differences in film appeals

Answer 8

1. More attitude change if presentation of attitude creation and -ve persuasive message matched on content (ex. Affective then cognitive info and then affective persuasion and then cognitive persuasion)
2. Women rated films more +ve w/ affect frame and vice versa w/ men

Question 9

P3: Function matches (attitudes serve different needs)

Ex. High vs. low self-monitors study

Answer 9

High self-monitors more persuaded by social-adjustive appeals
Low self-monitors more persuaded by value-expressive appeals

Question 10

P3: Amplification Hypothesis

Answer 10

As an attitude ^ in certainty, it is more open to change if persuasion matches content and less open to mismatched info

Question 11

P3: Mood matching study (sad or angry) and tax ^ appeal

Answer 11

If Tax ^ appeal focused on sadness induced arguments it changed attitudes of sad Ps and vice versa w/ angry arguments

Question 12

P4: When is introspection accurate?

Answer 12

When we have high knowledge about an attitude object

Question 13

P4: Value-Account Model

Answer 13

Dual-process model which suggests that attitudes can be produced by implicit processing (adding info into hypothetical memory structure ‘value account’) and explicit processing (averaging new info w/ prior info)

Question 14

P4: Value-Account Study (TV ads w/ stock market ticker)

Answer 14

Spontaneous attitude judgments towards shares correlated w/ actual total yield of shares even though Ps could not remember info about each share

Question 15

P4: 2 factors leading to persuasion via subliminal priming

Answer 15

1. Subliminal priming activates goal-relevant cognitions

2. Motivation to pursue this goal

Question 16

P4: Subliminal priming studies

1. Thirsty x Satiated, Primed w/ thirst words x not
2. Primed w/ ‘to trust’ x not, read appeal about drinking tap water x not

Answer 16

For both, when goal matched motivation led to increase in behaviour / attitude change
Ex. 1. Thirsty AND primed individuals drank more water

Question 17

Minimizing subliminal primes (2)

Answer 17

1. Strong habits/preferences exist

2. Ps are forewarned about subliminal messages (before or after seeing it)

Question 18

Probabilogical Models of Attitude Change

Answer 18

predict how a person’s belief in a conclusion may change when their belief in a related premise is altered (ex. beginner skier and series of ‘I will’ statements)

Question 19

Socratic Effect

Answer 19

thinking about related beliefs cause people to make the beliefs more logically consistent with each other (reduce discrepancies)

Question 20

Meta-Cognitive Model

Answer 20

timing affects meta-cognitive responses to a message
Ex. learning about source credibility after hearing the message will make us more or less confident in our attitude if source was credible