ch 7

Attitudes and Attitude Change

Spring 2026

Definition of Attitude:
- An attitude is a psychological tendency expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.

How are attitudes formed?
- Social transfer of information:
- Attitudes can be learned from the society and culture around us.
- Direct Contact:
- Personal experiences provide firsthand contact which helps form attitudes.

Classical Conditioning:
- Involves the pairing of two stimuli: one appetitive (pleasant) or aversive (unpleasant) and a neutral stimulus.
- The neutral stimulus becomes associated with the positive or negative outcomes of the appetitive or aversive stimulus, leading to feelings reflective of those outcomes.
- Example of classical conditioning:
- Pairing of mothballs (Stimulus 1) with visits to grandmother (Stimulus 2) leads to pleasurable feelings associated with mothballs.
Operant Conditioning:
- In this process, a behavior occurs and is followed by reinforcement (positive or negative), which affects the attitude associated with that behavior.
- Example:
- Playing with a child of another race could lead to positive reinforcement (approval from parents) or punishment (disapproval from parents), impacting attitudes toward children of different races.

Attitude-Behavior Relationship:
- Attitudes can sometimes predict behavior, but this relationship is complex.
LaPiere (1934) Study:
- Demonstrated that attitudes do not always align with behavior.
Attitude Accessibility:
- Defined as the strength of association between an attitude object and its evaluation.
- Low Attitude Accessibility (AA) results in weak correlation between behavior and attitude.
- High Attitude Accessibility results in strong correlation.

Three Components:
- Attitude toward the behavior:
- People's specific attitude about the behavior, not just a general attitude.
- Subjective Norms:
- People’s beliefs about how significant others view the behavior in question.
- Perceived Behavioral Control:
- The perceived ease of performing the behavior.
Resulting Behavioral Intentions:
- These components lead to behavioral intentions, which then predict actual behavior.

Impact of Specificity:
- More specific questions regarding attitudes lead to better predictions of behavior.
- Study of women’s attitudes toward birth control highlights this, showing correlations with various levels of specificity:
- Attitude toward birth control: 0.25 correlation.
- Attitude toward birth control pills: 0.32 correlation.
- Attitude toward using birth control pills during the next two years: 0.57 correlation, indicating stronger predictive power.

Role of Social Influence:
- Attitudes, even those that are deeply held, can be changed.
Mechanisms of Attitude Change:
- Investigating systematic ways to predict attitude change and exploring persuasive communications.

Three Key Factors in Persuasion:
- Source of Communication:
- Importance of a credible speaker.
- Nature of Communication:
- Messages should not seem overly designed to influence; consideration of 1-sided versus 2-sided messages.
- Nature of the Audience:
- Factors such as distraction, intelligence, and age can affect persuasion effectiveness.

Uncertainty of Influencing Factors:
- Questions arise when two factors work in conjunction to persuade and their effects on attitude change are unclear.

Two Routes of Persuasion:
- Central Route to Persuasion:
- Requires motivation and opportunity to process information.
- Strong arguments lead to lasting change and less counter-arguing.
- Peripheral Route to Persuasion:
- Occurs when there is no motivation or opportunity.
- Quality of arguments does not significantly impact persuasion or the durability of attitude change.

Study Format:
- Students assessed regarding their views on Comprehensive Exams, presented with variables of immediate relevance versus relevance 10 years into the future, and considering argument strength and speaker expertise.
Summary of Findings:
- When personal relevance is high, strong arguments lead to central route processing.
- When personal relevance is low, even strong arguments may lead to peripheral route processing.

Example - Listerine Campaign:
- Aimed to associate the brand with healthier perceptions of halitosis and personal hygiene.

Fear-Arousing Communications:
- Designed to alter attitudes by inducing fear, which is effective only if guided and within reasonable limits.
- Example - Smoking Cessation Programs:
- Notable increase in cessation through fear-driven messages, as evidenced in studies showing reduced cigarette consumption over time in participants exposed to fear-inducing materials.

Attitude Inoculation Strategy:
- Cultural truisms (e.g., "Brush your teeth after every meal") can be strengthened through exposure to opposing arguments with refutation.
Reactance Theory:
- Suggests that when freedom is threatened, people may react against change, illustrated by a bathroom sign experiment.

Definition:
- Involves words or images presented below conscious perception which may influence attitudes and judgments.
Effectiveness in Marketing and Self-Help:
- Examined in various studies for real-world effectiveness.

Study on Subliminal Tapes:
- Comparisons of actual versus perceived benefits of tapes focused on self-esteem and memory, with results indicating people's belief in effectiveness despite no actual impacts.

Factors Needed:
- The participant must be unaware of the subliminal messages, focused on the screen, and free from competing distractions.
Murphy & Zajonc (1993):
- Conducted a study with Chinese ideographs, demonstrating how presentation duration impacted ratings of desirability.
- Results showed a higher preference for ideographs presented for longer durations, emphasizing the effects of subliminal exposure.

Summary of Key Points:
- Understanding the mechanisms of attitude formation, prediction, and change is critical in both psychology and real-world applications, impacting domains like marketing, health intervention, and social behavior.