Attitudes

what is an attitude?

a mental and neural state of readiness, organised through experience , exerting a influence upon the individuals response to all objects and situations - Allport 1935

an attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluation a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour - Eagly & Chaiken 1998

how to measure attitudes?

1. semantic differential scales

2. likert scales

Why are social psychologist interested in attitudes?

people like to evaluate things - attitudes are important in individual psychology

the way in which people evaluate their social world has important consequences for their relationships with others

the attitudes that people have guide the decisions that they make

Attitude-behaviour gap

although attitudes and behaviour tend to be positively related, early research suggested that the relationship might be weak

not all attitudes should be related to behaviour

strong attitudes should predict behaviour better than weak attitudes

Fabio & Williams (1986)

study - 245 US citizens, examined accessibility of attitudes towards presidential candidates as well as judgements of performance of candidates in debates and actual voting behaviour

findings - attitudes were more strongly linked to judgments and actual voting behaviour when they were more accessible

Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbeing & Ajzen 1975)

attitudes + subjective norms (eg mum would approve of healthy eating) → intention (i’m going to get a salad for lunch) → behaviour

Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen 1989)

attitudes + subjective norms eg+ perceived behavioural control (i’m capable of giving up) → intention → behaviour

Attitudes & behaviour - fuller picture

research using more complete models has provided a better account of the attitude - behaviour relationship (eg 39% of variance in intentions and 27% variance in behaviour explained)

specific attitudes work in combination with norms and control beliefs and intentions

Implicit Attitudes

unconscious, automatic evaluations or associations we have towards an object or idea

the implicit association test draws on cognitive theories of associative networks

the more closely linked 2 concepts are in a persons mind, the stronger the pathway should be between those things

concepts become linked when they repeatedly co-occur

when concepts are linked, people find it easier to sort words when these concepts appear on the same side

Explicit attitudes

the conscious beliefs and evaluations that a person is aware of and can openly report, often through self-assessment in a survey or questionnaire

formed deliberately and can be influenced by personal values, direct experiences and social learning

Do implicit attitudes relate to explicit attitudes?

they can relate but their relationship is complex - implicit attitudes being more predictive of spontaneous behaviour while explicit attitudes predicting more deliberate behaviour

are implicit attitudes or true than explicit attitudes

neither are inherently “more true” as they represent different aspects of how a person feels and they both influence behaviour

explicit attitudes are conscious and reflect beliefs while implicit attitudes are unconscious and more realistic indicators of behaviour

Difference between explicit and implicit attitudes

explicit → deliberate behaviour that you can consciously judge

implicit → spontaneous behaviour, negative and positive evaluations that are much less accessible to conscious awareness

Frieze et al (2008)

study - 88 female students from switzerland, 1 week before testing - asked how much do you like chocolate vs fruit (application attitude)

then complete a chocolate vs fruit IAT (implicit attitude)

choice task under high (remember 8 numbers) or low cognitive load (remember 1 number)

findings - low cognitive load = explicit was predictor of choice

high cognitive load = explicit was a predictor but implicit was a stronger predictor

Summary of implicit vs explicit

1. attitudes involve more that what we consiously like and dislike

2. attitudes are also revealed in what we spontaneously associate with the attitude object

3. both these things are attitudes but they are likely to have different origins and consequences for behaviour

How to attitudes change?

1. Persuasion

2. dissonance

Persuasion

3 main factors:

communicator, message and audience

experts generally more persuasive than non-experts

strong arguments are generally more persuasive than weak

but relative influence also depends on aspects of individual audience members

Petty, Cacioppo & Goldman (1981)

study - 145 students presented with arguments for changing exam policy that were either: weak or strong, expert or not, personally impact participant or not

findings - high relevence less affect by expert or non-expert whereas low relevant is affected by whether expert or not

when highly involved strength of argument matters whereas low involvement matters much less

Elaboration likelihood model

when issue involvement is low, people engage in superficial processing of messages - attitudes are swayed by characteristics of the source

when issue importance is high, people engage in thoughtful processing - attitudes swayed by argument quality

2 possible paths to persuasion:

thoughtful → enduring change

thoughtless → fleeting change

Cognitive Dissonance theory (Festinger 1957)

people are generally motivated to perceive consistency between their beleifs, attitudes and behaviours

when people become aware of inconsistency they experience dissonance which motivates attempts to achieve re-alignment

this can be achieve in 2 ways:

change behaviour to consistency with attitudes

change attitudes so that they fit with behaviour

Zimbardo et al (1965)

study - had military officers ask (either in a cold or friendly way) cadets to eat a plate of grass hoppers

findings - cold officer = increased liking for eaters but decreased for non eaters

friendly officer = much less liking from eaters and decreased for non eaters

conclusion - liking increased for some to reduce dissonance, so people have to make sense of their behaviour

when is dissonance most likely to change attitudes?

when people:

have expended effort

cannot attribute their behaviour to external factors

believe they have made a free choice

when behaviour is trivial or attributed externally, dissonance does not occur

summary of attitudes

1. attitudes are evaluations

2. attitudes guid people’s behaviours sometimes, there are moderator an mediators of this relationship

3. different attitudes predict different types of behaviour

4. attitudes can change by persuasion and cognitive dissonance