Lecture 1 Flashcards
(29 cards)
1
Q
What is an attitude?
A
- Allport: an attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organised through experience, exerting a direct or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related
- Fazio: An attitude is a mental association between an object and an evaluation of it = can be weaker and come to mind slower or opposite
- Zanna&Rempel: Overall evaluation of an object that is based on cognitive, affective and behavioural information(past behaviours) = attitudes can differ in intensity and valence
- e.g I like bananas vs I love bananas = valence is the same, but intensity is different
e.g we like bananas vs I hate marmite = different valence and intensity
2
Q
Why are attitudes important?
A
- Influence how we think and what we do and even what we see
- Two people watching the same report on news, but attitudes guide how you interpret the same objective information you see and remember
- Real world importance: product advertising, political opinions/voting behaviour, health, env sustainability
3
Q
How do we measure attitude?
A
- Basic issues: issues cannot be observed directly so measures need to be explicit/implicit
- Explicit (Direct) Measures: making respondent think directly about their opinion
- Implicit (indirect) Measures: respondent does not think about main issue but we can infer
- General criteria
4
Q
What are the kinds of explicit measures?
A
- Self-report: most common method historically
- Likert Scales: people rate extent to which they agree/disagree with statements that are pos/neg sentiments toward an attitude object
- Likert Scales construct many different attitude items, people respond, and item analysis eliminates non-discriminating statements using item-total correlations = creating single index based on responses
- Semantic differential scales: people rate attitude object on several bipolar adjective scales e.g bad to good, then item analysis = if it is highly correlated, person’s responses to individual items are averaged (used to compare people’s attitudes for different things)
5
Q
What are things to consider with explicit measures?
A
- Awareness of attitude
- Impression management: social desirability
- Explicit measures predict behaviour as you can focus on it if honest
5
Q
What are implicit measures?
A
- Evaluative Priming
- IAT
6
Q
What is evaluative priming?
A
- Measured extent to which presence of an attitude object primes positive vs negative evaluations
- Ppts will see pictures followed by words and then asked to say if the word is pos/neg
- Ppts will see a picture of a face that is either black/white, word comes up with pos/neg valence
- Looking at IF the response if quicker depending on what face primes them = when adjective is positive, people were faster at indicating pos with white face vs black face
7
Q
What is the IAT?
A
- Look at Rob Snowdens
- Critiques are if it measures cultural associations than personal associations
- IAT scores have substantive effects, and have since been updated for the best practises
- Better at responding to spontaneous measures rather than explicit stuff
8
Q
What is the general criteria for reliability?
A
- Reliability: degree to which test scores are free from errors in measurement
- Internal Consistency: whether the individual items in a measure are assessing the same construct, often assessed using Cronbach’s alpha
- Test-retest consistency: consistency in scores across time often assessed using Pearson’s correlation (should be high)
- Explicit measures show evidence of greater test-retest reliability
9
Q
What is the general criteria for validity?
A
- Extent that a scale assesses the construct it is designed to measure
- Convergent validity: related to other measures of same construct
- Discriminant validity: unrelated to measures of irrelevant constructs
- Predictive validity: predictive of future behaviour
10
Q
What are stronger attitudes?
A
- More stable over time
- Resistant to change
- Likely to influence information processing
- Likely to guide behaviour
11
Q
What is attitude content?
A
How we decide if we like or dislike something?
12
Q
What is attitude structure?
A
Can we like and dislike something at the same time
13
Q
What is attitude function?
A
Why do we hold attitudes
14
Q
What are the definitions of an attitude?
A
- A categorisation of a stimulus object along an evaluative dimension based upon cognitions, affect and behaviours
- Beliefs, feelings and actions lead to attitudes
15
Q
A
16
Q
How to measure affect of attitudes?
A
SD: delighted-sad, TL: people list and evaluate their feelings about the attitude object
17
Q
How to measure behaviour in attitudes?
A
- People list/evaluate actions in relation to attitude object
- Three factors independently predict overall attitudes & people differ in how much their attitudes are guided by cognitive and affective info
18
Q
What is an unidimensional view?
A
- Attitudes are tendencies to feel positivity or negatively about an attitude object: either like something or dislike something
- Can also feel neutral
- Has supporting evidence where attitudes that are measured via unidimensional measurement techniques predict behaviour
19
Q
What is the bidimensional view?
A
- Attitudes reflect varying amounts of favourability toward an object and varying amounts of unfavourability toward an object
- How to like something vs how much you do not like
- Supported by evidence that shows people evaluate objects on both positive and negative dimensions
- Kaplan separated objects from one dimension: thought about pos/neg separately e.g chocolate cake tastes good but gains weight = unidimensional would be in middle, but here you get clarity = shows ambivalence (mixed attitudes) as well as overall attitude
20
Q
Why is ambivalence so important?
A
Linked to how much attention we give to relevant information: we think about them more
21
Q
What are functions of attitudes?
A
Psychological needs that attitudes fulfil
22
Q
What are the theories of function?
A
- Object appraisal: knowing you like something helps navigate daily life = things that are more accessible attitudes are paid more attention to.
- Social-Adjustive Function: some attitudes held, the primary function keeps you in alignment to people close to you who have same attitudes
- Externalisation leads to social benefits of holding that attitude
23
Q
What did Katz do?
A
- Katz created new functions: knowledge and utilitarian function: holding attitudes helps us navigate and do things
- Ego-defence
- Value-expression: attitude is based on social perception = if political values do not align
24
What are self-defining functions?
Some attitudes predominantly function to define the self = self-defining attitudes are more extreme, less ambivalent and more likely to be shared with others
25
What are moral attitudes?
- Attitudes people perceive as distinguishing between right and wrong
- Moral attitudes tend to be stronger and more likely to predict behaviour
26
What is the expectancy-value model?
- Attitudes are formed based on beliefs about an object and the value assigned to those beliefs
- Therefore changing beliefs or altering their perceived importance can modify attitudes
27
What is the Theory of Reasoned Action?
- Predicts behavioural intentions based on attitudes and subjective norms
- Key components are attitude toward behaviour = personal evaluation & subjective norm: perceived social pressure to perform/avoid behaviour & behavioural intention: motivation to act
- Changing subjective norms or attitude strength influences behavioural intention
- Theory of planned behaviour is an extension of this with added perceived behavioural control
28
What is the MODE model?
- Motivation & opportunity as determinants of attitude-behaviour consistency
- Can be automatic: when M/O is low = attitudes shape behaviour
- Can be controlled: when M/O is high, attitudes are reasoned out
- Similar to ELM model: central vs peripheral route and Heuristic model
