Chapter 7: Attitudes (Social Psychology) - Aronson

Attitude

a mental representation of our physical and social world, mostly learned through experience, that influences our thoughts and behaviors

What are the three components of a behavior? (Hint: ABC)

affect, behavior, and cognition

Cognitively Based Attitudes:

thoughts and beliefs that people form about the attitude object

Affectively-Based Attitudes

people’s emotional reactions toward the attitude object

Behaviorally-Based Attitudes (Hint: self-perception theory)

based on one’s observation of their own behavior

Classical Conditioning

a stimulus that elicits an emotional response, accompanied with a neutral stimulus to produce a conditioned response through repetition

Operant Conditioning

behaviors we choose to perform become more or less frequent, depending on whether they are followed by a reward or punishment

Explicit Attitudes

evaluations we can consciously endorse and can easily report

Implicit Attitudes

involuntary, automatic, and at time unconscious evaluations

Attitude accessibility

the strength of the association between an object and the evaluation of it, measured by the speed of how they respond

Ambivalent attitude

a state of having simultaneous conflicting reactions, beliefs, or feelings toward an object

attitude change through self-justification

a process where individuals defend/change their attitudes to align their behaviors or to maintain a good self-image

Self-justification

the mental process of rationalizing our decisions, actions, or beliefs to relieve inner conflict

Those with highly accessiblity attitudes:

are more likely to predict spontaneous behaviors and are quicker to respond in situations that align with those attitudes

Those with low accessibility attitudes:

are less likely to predict spontaneous behaviors and may take longer to respond in situations related to those attitudes.

Theory of planned behavior

the best predictor of people’s planned behavior is their behavioral intention, attitudes towards the behavior, and subjective norms

attitude toward the behavior

people’s specific attitude toward the behavior, not their general attitude

subjective norms

people’s beliefs about how others they care about will view the behavior in question

perceived behavioral control

the extent to which people believe they can perform a behavior

attitude specificity, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control—

increases our ability to anticipate how they will act

Yale attitude change model

the study of the likelihood of people to change their attitudes, due to a persuasive message, and the factors involved

When attitudes change, they often do so in response to

social influence

If you wanted to change your friend's attitudes toward a problematic problem, like smoking, one way to succeed might be to get them to

give a speech against smoking

Elaboration Likelihood Model

A theory explaining how persuasive messages lead to attitude changes, focusing on two routes: central and peripheral. The model emphasizes the role of cognitive processing and motivation in this change.

Elaboration Likelihood Model

under certain conditions, people are motivated to carefully evaluate the facts in a communication, which means the more logical the facts are, the more persuasion occurs

Central route to persuasion

when people focus on the quality of the arguments (deep thinking, logic)

Peripheral route to persuasion

when people focus more on surface cues (attractiveness, expertise, emotions)

When people perceive an issue as highly important to them, they are more likely to be persuaded through the _____ route, whereas when the issue is less important, they rely on the ______ route

central; peripheral

A student is deciding whether to support a new tuition policy that will directly affect them. They carefully evaluate the arguments presented. This reflects the _____ route to persuasion

central

When personal relevance is high, attitude change is influenced by _____. When personal relevance is low, it is influenced by _____.

strength of arguments; expertise/credibility of the source

Informational influence

“I think they’re right”

Normative Influence

“I don’t want to be judged”

Fear-Arousing Communication

persuasive messages that attempt to change people’s attitudes by arousing their fears