Exam II: Attitudes

Attitudes

Learned predispositions to respond to an object or class of objects in a consistently favorable or unfavorable way

Attitudes are evaluations of:

• Objects

• People

• Places

• Brands

• Products

• Orgs

Cognition

Beliefs or knowledge

Beliefs

Expectations as to what something is or is not or what something will or will not do

Descriptive Beliefs

Connect object to a quality (ex. computer has large memory)

Evaluative Beliefs

Connect object to likes/dislikes/preferences (ex. I like the user friendly computer)

Normative Beliefs

Invoke ethical judgements (ex. cigarette companies should not advertise to youth)

Affect

Feelings a person has toward an object or the emotions that object evokes for the person

Conation

The action a person wants to take toward the object

Attitude Hierarchy

The sequence in which the three components occur (in any order)

Learning Attitude Hierarchy

Cognitive to Affect to Conative (ex. vacation cost)

Emotional Attitude Hierarchy

Affect to Conation to Cognition (ex. vacation fun)

Low Involvement Attitude Hierarchy

Conation to Affect to Cognition (ex samples)

Cognition, Affect, and Conation maintains what?

Consistency

Factors of Consistency: Valence

Refers to favorable and unfavorable thoughts, feelings, and actions

• Favorable thoughts = favorable feelings

Factors of Consistency: Intensity

Refers to the degree of commitment one feels toward a cognition or feeling or action

• Strong beliefs, feelings, etc

Avenues of Attitude Molding

1. Cognition

2. Affect

3. Conation

Learning Theory: Classical Conditioning

Pavlov’s Theory ex. ice cream truck music = ice cream

Attribution Theory: Self Perception Theory

People assigning the causality internally, they infer their attitude must have been positive

Festinger’s Cognitive Dissonance (Buyer’s Remorse)

2 cognitions are in dissonance

• Decision is made, but may not have been the best

• Consumers look for positive info

Heider’s Balance Theory (Cognitive Consistency)

When an opinion leader endorses an issue not initially favored by a person, the person would either low the opinion leader or become more favorable toward the endorsed issue

Elaboration Likelihood Model: High Involvement Processing

Customer attends to and scrutinizes message content actively and thoughtfully

• Central processing route

Elaboration Likelihood Model: Low Involvement Processing

Customer attends to the message only curiosity, and tends to make quick inferences

• Peripheral processing route