Attitude Formation and Learning: Conditioned and Automatic Processes
Recapping Attitude Functions and Formation Factors
Value-Expressive Function: This function is centered on an individual's core values and self-concept. It serves to establish and communicate identity.
Congruent Attitude Networks: We often form new attitudes based on existing ones to maintain consistency. For example, if a person identifies as "liberal" and associates being liberal with "helping others," and believes "universal healthcare helps others," they will likely form a positive attitude toward healthcare.
Connectionist Thinking: Attitudes are often held in congruent networks. A person who dislikes "weapons" will likely dislike "guns," and therefore support "gun control" because it reduces the number of guns.
Utilitarian Function: Attitudes adopted purely for self-interest to maximize reward and avoid punishment.
Example: A homeowner opposing a property tax increase simply because they do not want to pay more money, regardless of potential community benefits like better schools or road repairs.
Knowledge Function: This helps make the world feel organized and predictable.
Just World Belief: The belief that "good things happen to good people." If something bad happens to "Bob," the observer may conclude Bob is not a good person to maintain the belief that the world is fair and that they (a good person) are safe from similar misfortunes.
Ego-Defensive Function: Derived from Freudian psychoanalytic principles, these attitudes serve as defense mechanisms to keep self-esteem high and the ego stable.
Downward Social Comparison: Derogating less fortunate others to feel superior, particularly after a blow to one's own self-esteem.
Temporal Dynamics of Ego Blows: After a misfortune (e.g., losing money in the stock market), an individual may feel "closer" to a marginalized group (e.g., homeless people). To restore the "comparison gap" to its original state (Time 1), the individual may derogate the other person at Time 3, even though the other person was not responsible for the misfortune.
Psychological Reactance and Relationship Dynamics
Psychological Reactance (Brehm): A state that occurs when people feel their freedom is being threatened or taken away, leading them to want the restricted object or behavior even more.
Forbidden Fruit Effect: If parents forbid a teenager from dating a specific person, the teenager often develops a stronger attraction to that individual.
Relationship Strategy: In a situation where one person is pursuing another who is non-committal, the pursuer may find more success by explicitly "taking the option off the table" (e.g., suggesting a month of no contact). This often triggers reactance in the other party, making them realize they value the pursuer more once the attention is removed.
Evaluative Conditioning: Automatic Attitude Learning
Classical Conditioning Foundations: Based on Pavlov's DOGS.
Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): Food.
Unconditioned Response (UCR): Salivation (innate).
Neutral Stimulus/Conditioned Stimulus (CS): A tone/bell.
Conditioned Response (CR): Salivation in response to the tone alone.
Higher-Order Conditioning: Once a tone (CS) is conditioned, it can be paired with a new neutral stimulus (e.g., a light). Eventually, the light alone can trigger the response. This pattern can continue (e.g., adding a scent of vanilla), though it weakens without occasional reinforcement of the original UCS.
Evaluative Conditioning (EC): Defined as a change in the liking of a stimulus due to its pairing with another positive or negative stimulus. While similar to higher-order conditioning, EC specifically refers to humans and attitude formation rather than behaviors.
Grossman and Till Study (The "Joro Toothpaste" Experiment):
Methodology: Used fictitious brand names (e.g., "Joro Toothpaste") to ensure participants had no prior attitudes. These were paired with pleasant images (e.g., beaches, kittens) or neutral images (e.g., a chair).
Results: Pairing with pleasant images produced significantly more favorable attitudes immediately.
Persistence: The effect reportedly persisted three weeks later.
Criticism: Numerical data showed that in the three-week follow-up, participants were actually fairly neutral toward the positive-paired items and developed a negative attitude toward the neutrally-paired items, a finding that is rarely explained in the literature.
Observational Evaluative Conditioning
Mechanism: Learning through observing others' reactions via "Mirror Neurons," which allow for empathy and mimicry of another's emotional state. This involves the amygdala and approach-avoidance motivations.
Baynes et al. Study:
Procedure: Children observed adults tasting drinks. The adult reacted with great pleasure to one and disgust toward another.
Findings: Children consistently chose the drink the adult liked. This illustrates why children often mimic the consumption habits (alcohol, smoking, energy drinks) of adults they observe.
Unconscious Influences and Marketing
Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM): Attitudes can be influenced by reasoning (Central Route) or peripheral factors (Peripheral Route) outside of awareness.
The Cola Test: While people claim to prefer Coke or Pepsi based on taste, most ignore cheaper "no-name" brands (e.g., RC Cola, Red Bull Cola, President's Choice) despite them being chemically similar. This preference is largely the result of billion-dollar peripheral-route advertising campaigns that make the brands ubiquitous in the environment.
The Mere Exposure Effect (Robert Zajonc)
Definition: The phenomenon where repeated exposure to a neutral stimulus increases liking for that stimulus. Zajonc (pronounced "Zience," rhymes with science) published a highly influential paper in 1968 cited over times.
Experimental Stimuli: Turkish words (nonsense), Chinese characters (nonsense), and unknown faces.
Frequencies of Exposure: Participants saw stimuli at frequencies of times.
Findings: Favorability increased with frequency. Notably, at frequency , liking was already slightly positive, illustrating the Positivity Offset from the Evaluative Space Model.
Subliminal Mere Exposure: When stimuli are presented for less than (below the threshold of conscious awareness), the mere exposure effect is actually stronger than when stimuli are seen consciously.
The Two-Step Theory of Mere Exposure
Daniel Berlyne (1970s): Proposed two steps for the exposure effect:
Step 1: Habituation (Perceptual Mastery/Fluency): Repeating a stimulus allows the brain to process it more easily. This "perceptual fluency" feels good, leading to increased liking.
Step 2: Tediousness (Boredom): After too many exposures, the increase in liking plateaus or slows down. Complex stimuli take longer to reach this plateau than simple stimuli.
Misattribution of Fluency (Bornstein & D'Agostino):
In subliminal trials, people cannot explain why a stimulus feels familiar or easy to process.
They misattribute this ease (fluency) to the positive qualities of the object itself.
In supraliminal (conscious) trials, they can attribute the ease to having seen it many times, which dampens the boost in liking.
Limitations of Mere Exposure
Uli Schimmack Study (UTM): Tested whether exposure always increases liking.
Methodology: Exposed participants to stimuli times. Stimuli were either positive (babies, kittens) or negative (roadkill, snarling dogs).
Exposures: Subliminal ( with backward mask) vs. Supraliminal ().
Conclusions: Exposure does not turn negative into positive. It simply strengthens the existing evaluative nature. Positive things become more liked; negative things (like roadkill) become more disliked.
Subliminal Priming and Behavior: Karremans et al.
Study Details: 35 University of Waterloo students were thirsty (asked not to drink for hours).
Priming: 26 trials. Neutral primes (e.g., "Pirate," "One") vs. Thirst-related primes (e.g., "Thirsty," "Dry").
Task: Participants viewed ads for two drinks: "Super Quencher" (thirst-quenching) and "Power Pro" (protein drink).
Behavioral Measure: Willingness to take coupons for free samples.
Results:
of thirst-primed participants chose the Quencher coupons.
Only of neutrally-primed participants chose the Quencher coupons.
Conclusion: Priming only influences behavior if it aligns with a current internal state (e.g., being thirsty).
Final Thoughts on Study Habits
SQ3R Method: Recommended for deep encoding.
Avoid Cramming: Five days of studying for is exponentially more effective than one session.
Memory Integration: Attitudes are essentially specialized memories. Deep encoding through rest and retrieval practice makes information faster and stronger to pull out during tests.