7. Attitudes and Attitude Change

M Jan 6: Review core principles of TCPS 2, review feedback and discuss questions from REB applications with groups.

W Jan 8: Qualtrics tutorial, complete Qualtrics online survey for REB application submission.

M Jan 13 & 15: Lecture

M Jan 20: Lecture

W Jan 22: Lecture / Discussion of Fact-checking article / Group work

What are attitudes?

General evaluations of a person/ object/ idea

What are we evaluating?

  • Attitude objects - anything we can evaluate

  • people tend to evaluate what we see, what we interact with and based on observations and experiences we form attitudes

  • determines how we behave and make judgements

Attitude Components

ABCs of attitudes

  • Affective: emotional reactions

  • Behavioural: Actions

  • Cognitive: Thoughts and Beliefs

Where do attitudes come from?

  • Genetic origins?

    • Identical twins share more attitudes than fraternal

    • Even when they were raised apart and dont know each other

    • Temperament, personalities - predisposed and inherited traits

      • e.g.

        • Attitudes towards exercise, roller coasters

  • Social experiences and interactions

    • Our interactions with others in different environments can shape our attitudes.

      • e.g.

        • Engagement in political issues may influence our attitudes about Trudeau’s resignation

      • Attitudes may be based on one component or a combination of the ABCs

Cognitively based attitudes

An attitude based primarily on peoples beliefs about the properties of an attitude object

  • Sometimes our attitudes are based on the relevant facts

    • Cost/features of something

  • can quickly determine pros and cons and if we want to be associated with the object

Affectively based attitudes

  • attitude based on peoples feelings and values rather than the properties of an attitude object

    • sometimes we like an attitude object regardless of pros and cons

    • often related to sex, politics, and religion

  • Affectively based attitudes can come from: 

    • Values

      • might be based on moral or religious beliefs

    • Sensory reaction 

      • e.g., liking/disliking something because of how it feels or tastes

    • Aesthetic reaction

      • e.g., liking/disliking something because of how it looks

  • Affective attitudes tend to have 3 things in common:

  1. They don’t come from a rational assessment of an issue, person, or object

  2. They are not governed by logic 

  3. They are associated with people’s values

^ people tend to vote based on how they feel about a politician

Behaviourally based attitudes

  • Attitude based on observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object

→ Self-perception theory

  • Sometimes people do not know how they feel until they see how they behave

  • can form our attitudes based on our observations of our own behaviour

  • People infer their attitudes from their behavior only under certain conditions:

    • When initial attitude is weak or ambiguous

    • When no other plausible explanation for behavior

    After an attitude forms…

  • Explicit attitudes

    • Attitudes that we consciously endorse and can easily report

  • Implicit attitudes

    • Attitudes that are involuntary, uncontrollable, and at times, unconscious

** cultural aspect is important as we can have prejudices

→ SUMMARY

  • Attitudes are general evaluations toward an attitude object

  • Attitudes have three components (affective, behavioural, and cognitive) and come from different factors

  • Once attitudes are formed, they can be explicit or implicit

Pt 2

Attitudes → Behaviour

Evidence suggesting that attitudes don’t always predict behaviour

  • Hospitality Study by LaPierre (1934)

    • Demonstrated an inconsistency between people’s attitudes and behaviour.

      • Couple wasn’t aware they were apart of a study

      • 90% of establishments said they wouldnt serve Chinese people

      • in 251 requests Chinese couple was only refused service once

      • Discrepancy with attitudes and actions

  • Review by Wicker (1969)

    • Reviewed 42 experiments and found that the avg. correlation between attitudes and behaviour was only about .15

Linking attitudes and behaviour

  • Theory of planned behaviour

Moderators of the attitude-behaviour relationship

  1. the presence of other influences on behaviour

  • competing pressures

  • multiple-act criteria (or principle of aggregation)

Mediator → what explains the link to attitudes from behaviour

moderator → changing the strength of it in some way

  • Presence of other influences on behaviour

  • e.g. safe sex

    • “attitude that safe sex is the choice for us”

    • but we may let go, “I don’t want to ruin the moment”

    • Competing pressure

  1. Measuring attitudes

    • you can measure specific and general attitudes and use this to predict behaviours

Attitude towards birth control

  • More specific targeted question towards getting a specific attitude

Persuasive communication

  • Yale attitude change approach (Carl Hovland et al.)

    • What conditions are most likely to influence persuasive communication?

    • Who?

      • Source of communication

    • What?

      • Nature of the communication

    • To whom?

      • Nature of the audience

  • In general people:

    • Want to have “correct” attitudes and beliefs

People have to selectively pay more attention to some things than others

ELM - Elaboration Likelihood Model

→ When will people be persuaded by the central arguments and when they will be persuaded by superficial cues?

  • ELM: Wanting to be right vs. efficient

  • Central route:

    • Persuasion occurs when interested people focus on the arguments and respond with favourable thoughts

  • Peripheral route:

    • Persuasion occurs when people are influenced by incidental cues

      • e.g. attractiveness

-

Attitude resulting from the central route

  • Attitudes formed by the central route are more:

    1. Accessible

    2. Persistent and stable

Idea around routes of persuasion

  • Looking at this within the context of HIV prevention interventions

  • researchers wanted to increase awareness of HIV

  • Given scripts of people that were exposed to HIV

  • People would role play these

    • 3 conditions

  • looked at how well people remembered information

  • role playing the most positive

    • by engaging in the role playing its a more central route to persuasion

  • DV is attitudes towards standardized test

Resisting persuasion

Forewarning and resistance

  • Jacks and Cameron (2003)

    • people are asked about resisting persuasion strategies

  • Freedman and sears

  • People are most likely to be pursuaided to different beliefs when its a sneak attack vs when they are given warning ahead of time

    • they stick more closely to their beliefs