Defining Attitude Concept

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Defining Attitude Concept

• Eagly Chaiken (1993) emphasize the tripartite
  (multicomponent) classification.
• tendencies to evaluate an entity with some
  degree of favor or disfavor, ordinarily expressed
  in cognitive, affective, and behavioral
  responses and formed on the basis of cognitive,
  affective, and behavioral processes.
• Evaluating refers to all classes of evaluative
  responding, whether overt (verbal) or covert
  (nonverbal), cognitive, affective, or behavioral.

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Defining Attitude Concept

• Tripartite (trilogy of mind) originally linked
  to Faculty Psychology
• Tripartite view of attitudinal responding do
  attitudes have all three aspects?
• Grounded in 18th C. Enlightenment view of
  attitude (Cognition, Affection, Conation act of
  striving).
• Kant, Leibniz, Scottish School interest in
  consciousness and introspection. Debates about
  how many innate faculties of mind existed.

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Defining Attitude Concept

• Preceded development of experimental psy in 19th
  C., and faded with its rise of latter in early
  1920s.
• Wundt, late 19th C in Germany, associationism was
  anti-introspection and discredited Faculty
  Psychology.
• But trilogy of mind remained in Psychologys
  vocabulary.
• William McDougall (1923), Outline of Psychology
  (wrote 1st social psy text in 1908)

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Defining Attitude Concept

• McDougall (1923)
• We often speak of an intellectual or cognitive
  activity or of an act of willing or of
  resolving, choosing, striving, purposing or
  again of a state of feeling. But it is generally
  admitted that all mental activity has these three
  aspects, cognitive, conative, and affective

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Defining Attitude Concept

• Tripartite view in contrast to Thurstone (1931
  Attitude is the affect for or against a
  psychological object.) later, Fishbein
  Ajzen.
• Influenced Allport (1935) An attitude is a
  mental or neural state of readiness, organized
  through experience, exerting a directive or
  dynamic influence on the individuals response to
  all objects and situations to which it is
  related.

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Defining Attitude Concept

• Tripartite view played central role in attitude
  theory and attitude change research in its heyday
  in 50s and 60s.
• Rosenberg Hovland (1960) model Attitude is an
  inferred property of the 3 response classes, and
  the consistency of responses (formed on the basis
  of 3 different types of processes).

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Defining Attitude Concept

• Zanna Rempel (1986) evaluative appraisal model.
  Do attitudes have to have all 3 aspects?
• ZR categorization of a stimulus object along an
  evaluative dimension based upon 3 general classes
  of information cognitive, affective/emotional,
  past behaviors or behavioral intentions.
• Model suggest that attitudes are separate
  cognitive entities which may be accessed from
  memory independent of the affective, cognitive,
  or behavioral information on which they are based.

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Defining Attitude Concept

• 6 implications of this view
• That these classes of information can determine
  evaluations separately or in combination.
• When evaluations are based primarily on
  utilitarian beliefs about an attitude object, the
  model is belief based.
• When evaluations are based primarily on affect
  produced by the object, the model becomes single
  component (evaluative, preferences)

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Defining Attitude Concept

• 4. When evaluations based on inferences from past
  behavior, model is like self-perception.
• 5. If attitudes are based on different sources of
  information, do equivalent evaluations based on
  different sources differentially predict and
  guide behavior? (Priming)
• 6. Are such attitudes differentially susceptible
  to different methods of persuasion?

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Defining Attitude Concept

• Attitudes as tendencies to evaluate - -there is
  an implicit or explicit response to an entity
  based on the evaluative residue of past
  experience (or beliefs or feelings) that
  predisposes the person to a favorable or
  unfavorable response.
• Attitudes can have varied antecedents on the
  input side, and varied consequences on the output
  side. But the attitude is not the response per
  se.
• Attitude is the tendency or latent property of
  the person that gives rise to judgments and
  categorizations.

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Defining Attitude Concept

• Attitudes as Enduring or temporary constructions.
• Some attitudes are relatively enduring (formed
  early in life and carry through life others are
  formed then changed some formed but fade)
• N. Schwartz Attitudes-as-construction view.
• Most if not all attitudes are unstable,
  constantly emerging anew in specific situations.
  Equates variability in the expression of
  attitudes with variability in the evaluative
  tendency that constitutes attitudes. Not same as
  context effects latent construct can be stable
  but sensitive to context.

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Implicit and Explicit Attitudes

• Chen Bargh (1999) categorize good vs. bad.
  Access attitude from memory. Nonconsciously
  predisposes behavior toward object.
• Attitudes of which the person is not conscious at
  the moment of action (implicit attitudes) are
  also strongly predictive of behavior.

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Implicit and Explicit Attitudes

• D. Myers (1990) our attitudes predict our
  actionsif, as we act, we are conscious of our
  attitudes (p.90). Bias toward the conscious
  operation of attitudes, not automatic activation.
  
• Greenwald Banaji (1995) on implicit attitudes
  Implicit attitudes are introspectively
  unidentified (or inaccurately identified) traces
  of past experience that mediate favorable or
  unfavorable feeling, thought, or action toward
  social objects.

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Implicit and Explicit Attitudes

• What about those times when people have more than
  one evaluation of the same attitude object, one
  of which is more accessible than the other?
• Dual Attitude Model (Wilson, Lindsey, Schooler,
  2000)

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Dual Attitude Model

• Working Example
• A White American reared in a racist family who
  learned to be prejudiced against African
  Americans. As an adult, he adopts egalitarian
  views and abhors prejudice of all kinds. What is
  this persons attitude toward African Americans?

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Dual Attitude Model

• Dual Attitude Model (Wilson, Lindsey, Schooler,
  2000)
• ?Model proposes that people can have dual
  attitudes, which are different evaluations of
  the same attitude object (one is automatic,
  implicit attitude other is explicit attitude).
• ?Proposes that the attitude people endorse at any
  point in time depends on whether they have the
  capacity to retrieve the explicit attitude, and
  whether explicit overrides implicit.

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Dual Attitude Model

• Remember Implicit attitudes are evaluations
  that have an unknown origin (people are unaware
  of the basis of their evaluation), are activated
  automatically, and influence implicit responses
  (uncontrollable responses and ones that are not
  seen as an expression of attitude and therefore
  are not controlled) Greenwald Banaji, 1995.

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Dual Attitude Model

• 5 Basic Hypotheses
• A(e) and A(i) toward same attitude object can
  coexist in memory.
• When dual attitudes exist, A(i) is automatically
  activated A(e) requires more capacity and
  motivation to retrieve from memory. When able to
  retrieve A(e), it overrrides A(i) and A(e) is
  reported.

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Dual Attitude Model

• 3. Even when A(e) is retrieved, A(i) influences
  implicit responses (i.e., uncontrollable
  responses like nonverbal behaviors) or responses
  that they do not view as an expression of their
  attitude and do not attempt to control (e.g.,
  neural imaging).
• 4. A(e)s change relatively easily, whereas Ai,
  like old habits, change more slowly. Attitude
  change techniques target A(e) but not A(i).

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Dual Attitude Model

• 5. Dual attitudes not same as ambivalent
  attitudes or attitudes with discrepant affective
  and cognitive components. People with dual
  attitudes report the attitude that is most
  accessible dont experience a subjective state
  of conflict from holding dual attitudes.
• Define attitudinal ambivalence vs. dual attitudes.

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Segue to Measurement

• Direct measures rely on self-reported attitudes.
  Asked direct questions about their thoughts,
  feelings, or behaviors toward attitude objects.
• Indirect measures do not alert respondents to
  the identity of the object of the attitude being
  measured. Indirect measures rely on more
  circuitous methods of obtaining info. Assume that
  self-reports are of questionable validity because
  people are frequently unaware of their attitudes
  or unwilling to disclose them publicly.

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Different Types of Evaluative Response
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Implicit-Explicit Measures (Hofmann, et al. 2005)

• 5 accounts for low rs between explicit and
  implicit
• Motivational biases in explicit self-reports
  (e.g., prejudicial attitudes).
• Lack of introspective access to implicitly
  assessed attitudes (introspection may increase
  awareness).
• Factors influencing the retrieval of information
  from memory dual attitudes model A(e) that are
  spontaneous correlate more highly with A(i)
• Method-related characteristics of the two
  measures (e.g., lack of correspondence).
• Complete independence of the underlying
  constructs.

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Implicit-Explicit Measures (Hofmann, et al. 2005)

• Quantitative meta-analysis (126 studies)
• Used IAT as implicit measure various explicit
  measures used.
• Overall effect size .24 (sd.14)
• Moderators (e.g., research topic involved
  awareness of A(i) effortful retrieval? higher
  rs with spontaneous self-report (less thought)

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Attitude Measurement
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Attitude Measurement
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Attitude Measurement
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Behavioral Indicators

• Assumption that proper measurement on the
  behavior side is equally important and that we do
  not have to abandon attitude construct as long as
  we use properly scaled behavioral criteria and a
  valid attitude measure.
• Fishbein Ajzens behavioral criteria
  Self-report validity problems can also be
  addressed by measuring behavior appropriately.

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Behavioral Indicators

• Specific act or single act criterion Should
  include 4 elements (action, time, context,
  target). Measure can be dichotomous or
  continuous.
• Repeated observations of same single act
  repeated observations of same behavior at
  different observation times (e.g., unobtrusive
  measure of popularity of an art exhibit).
  Observations combined into repeated observation
  criterion.

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Behavioral Indicators

• 3. Multiple act criterion Observation of
  different behaviors.
• 4. Multiple act, repeated observation Gold
  standard. Cell entries can be summed, averaged,
  scaled.

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Attitude Measurement
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Return to Multimethod Approach

• Guglielmi (199) Multidimensional view of
  prejudicial attitudes that makes use of
  multimethod strategies .
• Argues for both implicit and explicit measures of
  cognitive, affective, behavioral components.
• Esp. focused on psychophysiological methods.

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Return to Multimethod Approach

• Long history, beginning with Bogus Pipeline.
• Sigall and colleagues (1971) trying to account
  for decline in anti-Black sentiment using the
  adjective checklist procedure. Was the change due
  to social desirability?
• Hooked up participants to fancy machine attached
  electrodes used info collected earlier to
  establish accuracy

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Return to Multimethod Approach

• The asked to rate on 7-point scale how
  characteristic each of 22 traits was of Blacks
  and Whites (half rated each group).
• In order to determine to what extent people are
  in touch with their real feelings E allegedly
  checked participants verbal response against
  machines reading.
• Control same task, no machine.

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Return to Multimethod Approach

• Found that students were much more likely to
  assign negative traits to Blacks under the bogus
  pipeline condition than Control.
• Significant racial prejudice exposed. Same
  concept as polygraph and lie detection suspects
  need to believe that the machine will unmask
  their deception leads to them spilling their
  guts, and the polygraph industry claiming
  efficacy. Same with No Lie MRI, Inc.

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Return to Multimethod Approach

• Which approaches are best? How does one choose?
  Does it really matter which technique one uses?
  What general conclusions should be reached?

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Some general conclusions

• Caveat Answers depend in part on the attitude
  objects under investigation.
• Various assessment techniques are not
  interchangeable. Ones choice of measurement
  strategy can affect the results obtained and
  conclusions drawn about focal attitude (esp.
  intergroup attitudes).

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Some general conclusions

• Use of more subtle self-report measures and
  indirect measures yields a different picture.
  Responses that are difficult to control (e.g.,
  physiological reactions, reaction times following
  racial primes, etc.) uncover more negative
  feelings and beliefs.
• Which set of findings more closely represents
  true attitudes? Results from direct measures
  must be viewed with some skepticism, but social
  desirability biases more problematic in certain
  contexts than others (atts toward fat and toward
  gay/lesbian people vs. race, gender, ethnicity).

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Some general conclusions

• 4. A combination of indirect and direct measures
  may be needed to fully understand peoples
  attitudes toward some groups and other attitude
  objects. Need such an approach to detect
  attitudinal subtleties (e.g., Fazio et al, 1995)

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Some general conclusions

• Fazio et al Whites can be divided into three
  categories with respect to attitudes towards
  Blacks
• truly nonprejudiced no negative beliefs or
  feelings about Blacks low prejudice scores on
  both direct and indirect measures.
• truly prejudiced high scores on both direct
  and indirect measures do not try to hide their
  negative feelings (either because prejudice is OK
  or because they fail to recognize that their
  attitudes are prejudiced)

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Some general conclusions

• mixed group have automatic negative reactions
  to Blacks, but are motivated to control their
  prejudiced responses look nonprejudiced on
  direct, self-measures, but negative attitudes
  more apparent on more subtle measures (e.g., some
  behavioral measures) or measures that tap
  uncontrollable responses (e.g., RTs).
• Point one needs to adopt a multi-method approach
  and compare responses to both direct and indirect
  measures to detect these differences.

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Some general conclusions

• 5. Different instruments are designed to measure
  different aspects of intergroup and other kinds
  of attitudes. Physiological measures tap
  affective component stereotype measures more
  cognitive unobtrusive behavioral measures and
  social distance measures intended to assess
  discriminatory tendencies.
• 6. Tempting to always think that affective,
  cognitive, and behavioral measures are
  equivalent but in fact only modestly correlated.

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Some general conclusions

• e.g., (Dovidio, Brigham, Johnson, Gaertner,
  1996) Some people hold negative beliefs about
  outgroups, yet believe it is wrong to act on
  them. Others deny having negative beliefs about
  outgroups, yet experience negative feelings
  toward those groups. Cant assume that tripartite
  attitude model holds all or even most of the time
  (Schneider, 2004, pp.29-30).
• Point Researchers measurement strategies will
  be shaped by the particular facets of the
  attitudes of greatest interest to them, and often
  they will find it necessary to use more than one
  type of measure.

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Intra-attitudinal Structure Matters The allure
of safer tobacco products

• The more successfully a cigarette reduces risk,
  the more it might encourage smokers not to quit.
  Or lure ex-smokers to resume their habit. Or make
  kids smokers. It might, in other words, do
  exactly the opposite of what it is intended to
  do. In a worst-case scenario, it could reverse a
  half-century of antismoking education, policy and
  litigation in a flash. (Gertner, 2005, p.46)

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• Tobacco harm reduction
• Availability of low-yield cigarettes has led
  to public perceptions of safer cigarettes, but
  with no resultant decrease in morbidity
  (Fairchild Cosgrove, 2004, American Journal of
  Public Health, Out of the Ashes Myers, 2000,
  NEJM).
• Similar concerns have been raised about the
  marketing of reduced harm products, underscoring
  need for science to fill the information gap on
  attitudes toward harm reduction and federal
  regulation of reduced harm products (H.R. 140,
  Title V FDA Regulations of Tobacco Products,
  referred to House Subcommittee on Health,
  2/14/03)

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Two Key Background Concepts

• Harm reduction relates to actually seeing a
  reduction in mortality or morbidity with the use
  of a product.
• Potentially reduced-exposure products (PREPs)
  tobacco products that have been modified or
  designed in some way to reduce users exposure to
  tobacco toxins. Two categories variants of
  traditional tobacco cigarettes (e.g., smokeless
  tobacco new cigarettes that heat rather than
  burn tobacco), or pharmaceutical agents that are
  meant to aid in smoking cessation (e.g., nicotine
  gum, lozenges, nicotine patch).

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• The Psychology of Attitudes Role of Attitude
  Structure
• Cognitive versus affective bases
• Experience with smoking / harm reduction
• Knowledge about smoking / harm reduction
• Stark, Borgida, Kim, Pickens (2006) The
  psychological bases of attitudes may influence
  the way consumers respond to ads about reduced
  harm/reduced risk products. Consistent with prior
  research in other social issue domains.

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• Method
• Survey Minnesota Center for Survey Research
• sent to 1,300 randomly selected households in
  5-state Upper Midwest region (Minnesota, Iowa,
  North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin) Fall
  2003
• 438 adult participants returned the survey (38
  return rate)
• 58.9 Male, 95.7 Caucasian
• Mean age 54.2 years
• 21.9 smoked in last 30 days.

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• Predicting attitudes toward harm reduction
• Affective score and experience significantly
  predict
• More positive feelings, being a smoker, lead to
  more positive harm reduction attitudes
• Affective Score b.394, plt.0001
• Cognitive Score b.163, plt.099
• Knowledge b.055, plt.346
• Consistency b.163, plt.099
• Experience b -.551, plt.006

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• Predicting attitudes toward harm reduction by
  level of experience
• Smokers attitudes are best predicted by their
  feelings, non-smokers attitudes are best
  predicted by their thoughts and beliefs
• Smokers
• Affective score b.477, plt.0001
• Cognitive score b -.122, plt.44
• Non-smokers
• Affective score b.079, plt.534
• Cognitive score b.414, plt.0001

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Does structure matter and for whom?

• For smokers, their feelings about harm reduction
  were the primary predictor of overall attitudes
  toward harm reduction for non-smokers, thoughts
  and beliefs were the primary predictor.
• Feelings associated with smoking (taste,
  reduction of cravings, relaxation) may create
  positive attitudes that are difficult to counter
  with information on the health risks of these
  products.

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• Structural bases of attitudes may matter when
• Educating people about these products and their
  associated risks.
• Persuading smokers to use these products to
  reduce their health risk.
• Strong feelings toward harm reduction might
  result in resistance towards some types of health
  messages increased interest in resistance
  processes in persuasion field.