Attitudes and Persuasion

What are the elements that make up attitudes (the ABCs)?

Affect (emotions/feelings)

Behavior (actions/responses)

Cognition (thoughts/beliefs)

What are factors that influence the strength of an attitude?

Alignment of the components.

Importance to sense of self.

Importance to group members.

Knowledge on the topic.

What is the difference between an implicit and explicit attitude?

Implicit/System 1: attitudes that are held outside of conscious awareness, automatically activated, and utilizes/heuristics for decision making.

Explicit Attitudes/System 2: Attitudes that we consciously hold and are accessible to us, and takes time/effort for conscious evaluation.

What separates a moral conviction from a different type of strong attitude?

A moral conviction is a specific type of attitude, in which someone believes the attitude is either morally right or wrong.

Generally what evidence do we have for the impact of parents and peers on our attitudes?

Parents can control rewards and punishments, and young children seek parental approval and identify with their families.

Political attitudes in college are impacted by peers, and descriptive norms of peers are very impactful to many attitudes/behaviors.

What role do conditioning and the mere exposure effect have on our attitudes?

Conditioning: when an attitude object is repeatedly associated with something we already view positively or negatively will impact out judgement.

Mere Exposure Effect: the more we encounter an attitude object the more likely we are to have a positive evaluation of it.

What is cognitive dissonance?

Elements of our attitudes are out of alignment.

What are the different ways we reviewed in class that people may resolve their dissonance?

1. Change cognition

2. Add new cognition

3. Change behavior

What are Insufficient Justification, Effort Justification and Post-Decision Justification as they relate to dissonance?

Insufficient justification: dissonance arises when a person can’t find sufficient external explanations for their behavior.

Effort justification: dissonance arises when we spend a lot of effort to accomplish something.

Post decision justification: dissonance arises when we can’t find sufficient explanation for the choice between multiple alternatives.

What are the central and peripheral routes to persuasion?

Central processing: features that make a strong argument.

Peripheral processing: features unrelated to the main argument.

What features of the messenger are likely to influence people through the peripheral or central route?

Peripheral messenger: Matching scheme of someone who is correct, likeable person or desire to be liked, attractiveness, and authority.

Central messenger: Sources of bias, underlying motivators they have, and genuine expertise on a subject.

What features of the content of the message are likely to influence people through the peripheral or central route?

Peripheral content: anything other than the validity of the info or argument, length of argument/ use of large words/jargon, argument is funny or enjoyable.

Central content: quality of the argument being made, supported by evidence, logical and coherent.

What factors might influence whether someone is more likely to be persuaded by the central or peripheral route?

Peripheral persuaded: do not care about issue (motivation) bad mood (ability) little knowledge about the topic (ability).

Central persuaded: higher need for cognition (motivation) issue is important (motivated) expertise in topic (ability).

What are the consequences of having an attitude changed via the central or peripheral route to persuasion?

Via peripheral route: new attitude is likely to be weaker, less resistant to change, and relatively temporary.

Via central route: new attitude will be stronger, more resistant to change, and more stable/predictive of longer term behaviors.

What are some strategies that can be used to prevent people from having their attitude changed via persuasion?

Forewarning: warning people about potential future persuasion attempts and allowing them to form defenses.

Inoculation: mildly attacking attitude position and giving the person a chance to build up defenses.