Attitudes, Behavior, and Persuasion

Attitudes

• Definition: A relatively enduring and general evaluation of an object, person, group, issue, or concept on a dimension ranging from negative to positive.
  • Examples: like, prefer, dislike, hate, love, find useful/unuseful, find helpful.

Attitude Development

• Influenced by factors such as genetic heritability and personality.
• Attitudes can develop through direct or indirect experiences with the object.
  • Direct experiences: Personal involvement with the attitude object.
  • Indirect experiences: Influences from observations, communications, etc.
• Mere Exposure Effect: The tendency to prefer things merely because they are familiar; repeated exposure increases liking. (Zajonc, 1968)

ABCs of Attitudes

• Affective: Emotional response to the attitude object (e.g., "Electric vehicles are cool and trendy").
• Behavioral: Actions taken towards the object (e.g., planning to purchase an electric vehicle).
• Cognitive: Beliefs about the object (e.g., environmental benefits of electric vehicles).

Attitude-Behavior Consistency

• Most behaviors are influenced by attitudes. Making changes often requires changing attitudes first.
• Direct experience contributes more to consistent attitude-behavior alignment than indirect experience.
• Various studies underline the importance of how attitudes are formed in predicting behavior.
  • Example: Regan & Fazio's (1977) experiment showed that students with direct experience displayed greater alignment between attitudes and actions.

Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) of Persuasion

• Dual Process Model: Two main routes to attitude change:
  • Central Route: High degree of thinking; deep processing of the message.
  • Peripheral Route: Low degree of thinking; surface-level processing based on cues.
• Factors impacting the route taken:
  • Ability: Time and complexity of the message affect cognitive engagement.
  • Motivation: Personal relevance and perceived benefits of engagement drive deeper processing.

Types of Cues in Persuasion

• Central route cues: Strength of the argument, factual content, organized structure.
• Peripheral route cues: Attractive speakers, positive associations, and design elements influencing perception.

Change Strategies in Persuasion

• Attitude Inoculation: Practicing resistance to weaker arguments prepares individuals to withstand stronger ones.
• Self-perception theory: Individuals use their behaviors to infer their attitudes.
  • Example: People shaking their heads up and down while reading persuasive content tended to agree with the arguments more (Bem, 1972).

Compliance Techniques

• Foot-in-the-door technique: Gaining compliance to a small request increases the chance of agreeing to a larger request later.
• Door-in-the-face technique: Rejecting a large request makes agreeing to a smaller request more likely.
• Low-balling technique: Initial agreement at a lower cost increases compliance even if the price unexpectedly rises later.
• Bait-and-switch: Offering one attractive option leads to agreeing to a less desirable option later.