Topic 1: Attitudes

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Topic 1 Attitudes

• Attitude Formation
• Lecture 1 of 3
• Kevin M. Williams
• July, 2005

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Attitudes

• Evaluations of various aspects of the social
  world
• The extent to which we hold positive/negative
  reactions to issues, ideas, persons, etc.
• More enduring than passing preferences
• Highly resistant to change
• Long history of psychological study
• e.g., Allport, 1924

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Why are attitudes important?

• Attitudes strongly influence two major aspects of
  our lives
• Social thought the way we think about social
  information
• Social behavior e.g., protesting, voting,
  interpersonal relations
• Attitudes are pervasive
• We hold attitudes about virtually all topics
• Range from major to minor issues

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We have attitudes about
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Attitude formation

• Most attitudes become solidified during teen
  years and early adulthood
• Social learning Acquiring new information,
  forms of behaviour, and attitudes from other
  persons
• We are influenced by the people around us
• friends, family, co-workers, etc.
• Types of social learning
• Classical conditioning
• Instrumental conditioning
• Observational learning

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Classical conditioning

• Based on association
• One stimulus becomes a signal for a second
  stimulus
• E.g., Pavlovs dogs bell eventually became a
  signal for food and produced salivating
• Attitudes may form in a similar fashion

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Classical conditioning

• Initially, the bell is paired with food to
  produce salivating
• Eventually, the food is no longer required to
  produce salivating
• Similarly, a certain person may be paired with a
  negative reaction by a parent, leading to the
  child becoming upset
• Eventually, the negative reaction is no longer
  required to make the child upset

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Classical conditioning

• Initially
• Parents reaction unconditioned stimulus
• Upset child unconditioned response
• Over time
• Person X conditioned stimulus
• Upset child conditioned response

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Classical conditioning
food
bell
salivating
parents negative reaction
person X
child upset
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Classical conditioning
food
bell
salivating
parents negative reaction
person X
Child upset
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Classical conditioning

• The initial conditioning behavior must occur
  several times
• Classical conditioning can occur unconsciously
  (i.e., without awareness) subliminal
  conditioning
• E.g., during a TV commercial photos of positive
  images flashed for a very brief period of time
• Over time, the product in the commercial becomes
  paired with positive feelings

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Instrumental learning

• Also called operant conditioning
• Rewards and punishments
• Strengthening of responses that lead to
• positive outcomes
• avoidance of negative outcomes

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Instrumental learning

• If a child is praised for holding a certain
  attitude, they will be more likely to continue
  holding this attitude
• On the other hand, punishment leads to rejecting
  attitudes
• Positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement

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Instrumental conditioning

• Explains why
• Children may have attitudes about topics they do
  not fully understand (e.g., politics)
• Children and adults hold similar attitudes up
  until teen years
• Subsequently, teens begin to evaluate attitudes
  independent of parents reactions

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Observational learning

• Learning by example
• Attitudes may be transmitted unintentionally by
  parents
• Child may observe their parent smoking, which may
  lead to a positive attitude towards smoking
• Child may overhear a certain attitude being
  conveyed by a parent that they were not meant to
  hear

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Observational learning

• Attitudes also learned from media
• Individuals want to imitate the people around
  them, or people they look up to
• Observational learning is evident in trends
• E.g., attitudes towards clothes, etc.

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Social comparison

• Festinger (1954)
• We compare ourselves to others in order to
  determine whether our view of social reality is
  correct or incorrect
• If our attitudes match those of others, then we
  must be correct (desirable)
• Thus, we often change our attitudes to conform
  with those of other people (e.g., friends)
• Occurs even if you had no previous experience
  with the topic

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Maio, Esses, Bell (1994)

• Participants learned of a (fictitious) group of
  people the Camarians
• Told that many Camarians were applying to
  immigrate to Canada
• Received either positive or negative ratings of
  Camarians from England raters
• After receiving negative ratings, participants
  less likely to give positive ratings of Camarians
  or support their immigration
• Why? Participants motivated to be similar to
  England raters (want to be correct)

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Cultural factors The study of Values

• Cultural differences in attitudes are often
  examined by focusing on cultural values
• principles of life that include moral beliefs and
  our standards of conduct
• Differ from attitudes in that they are broader,
  more abstract
• Like attitudes, values convey what is important
  in our lives

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Values

• Ten types (Schwartz, 1992)
• - Power - Universalism
• - Achievement - Benevolence
• - Hedonism - Tradition
• - Stimulation - Conformity
• - Self-direction - Security
• E.g., value of security relates to various
  attitudes (e.g., war, gun control, expectations
  of privacy, etc.)

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The stability of values

• There are typically no sex differences in values
• The same values are found across cultures
• e.g., Schwartzs ten values
• Peoples value preferences tend to remain
  constant over time

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Values, behaviour and culture

• Values predict attitudes, which predict behaviour
• Like attitudes, values can be culturally
  transmitted via social learning and shaped by
  social comparison at home/school/by friends
• E.g. Western cultures value individualism more
  so than Eastern cultures

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Canadian/American differences

• Canadians value equality more so than freedom,
  Americans are opposite
• but both values are regarded highly in both
  countries
• Canadians are more communitarian
  (community-minded) than Americans

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Canadian trends

• Temporal trends Canadians values are shifting
  towards
• (1) higher individualism,
• (2) devaluing of institutions, and
• (3) greater diversity (i.e., more diverse set of
  values, and greater acceptance of diversity)
• However, these changes are very gradual, and more
  traditional values are still most popular

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Genetic factors Are attitudes inherited?

• We typically think of physical characteristics
  such as height, eye color, etc. as inherited
• However, thought occurs within the brain, and
  brain structure is genetically influenced
• Studies have demonstrated that there is in fact a
  small genetic component in attitudes

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Attitudes Twin studies

• The attitudes of identical twins are more common
  than those of non-identical twins or unrelated
  people
• Also true for twins raised apart
• Some attitudes are more heritable than others
• attitudes involving relatively basic topics
  (e.g., music) are more heritable than those
  involving more cognitive or abstract ideas
  (e.g., equality)
• Highly heritable attitudes are
• more resistant to change
• more likely to influence behavior

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Personality factors

• Personality traits tend to have a strong genetic
  component
• How does personality relate to attitudes and
  values?
• Roccas et al. (2002)

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Other personality traits related to attitudes

• Right-wing authoritarianism
• Deference to established authority
• Think in terms of in-groups and out-groups
• Negative attitudes towards out-groups
• Support traditional values
• Social dominance orientation
• Desires superiority, dominance for their in-group
• Negative attitudes towards out-groups
• Do not value equality

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Summary Attitude formation

• Attitudes are evaluations of various aspects of
  the social world, which influence thought and
  behavior
• Attitudes may be formed via classical
  conditioning, instrumental conditioning,
  observational learning, or social comparison
• Once formed, attitudes tend to be highly
  resistant to change
• Cultural, genetic, and personality factors are
  all highly relevant to attitudes
• Next lecture Attitudes and behavior

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Topic 1 Attitudes

• Attitudes and Behaviour
• Lecture 2 of 3
• Kevin M. Williams
• July, 2005

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Attitudes and behaviour

• Why is it important to study attitudes?
• Presumably, attitudes are a strong predictor of
  actual behaviour
• but does scientific research support this claim?

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Attitudes predict behaviour

• Research has demonstrated that attitudes predict
  a multitude of behaviours, including
• church-going behaviour (Rokeach, 1968)
• contraceptive use (Sheeran et al., 1999)
• classroom cheating (Whitley, 2001)
• voting (Britt, 2003)
• dieting (Conner et al., 2003)
• sexual assault (Malamuth, 2003)

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When attitudes dont predict behaviour

• Other researchers have argued that attitudes do
  not predict behaviour (e.g., Wicker, 1969)
• e.g. LaPiere (1934)
• Traveled around the US with a Chinese couple,
  stopping at restaurants, hotels, etc. (250
  locations in total)
• Received polite service from almost every location

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When attitudes dont predict behaviour

• Afterwards, LaPiere wrote back to these
  establishments and asked them if they would offer
  service to Chinese visitors
• Of those that responded, over 90 stated that
  they would NOT serve Chinese customers
• Thus, attitudes clearly unrelated to behaviour in
  this example

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When attitudes dont predict behaviour

• Similar findings have been made in subsequent
  studies (e.g., Wicker, 1969)
• Attitudes unrelated to
• Pro-environmental behavior (Kasapoglu and Ecevit,
  2002)
• Risky sexual behavior (Shearer et al., 2005)

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Attitudes and behavior

• Sowhen and how do attitudes actually predict
  behavior?
• There appear to be two important factors
• (1) aspects of the situation
• (2) aspects of the attitudes themselves

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When attitudes predict behaviour Situational
factors

• Situational constraints
• Factors that prevent us from expressing attitudes
  in overt behavior
• Situations where me must be polite
• Places where we are expected to be quiet,
  respectful
• Situations where it is important for us to make a
  certain impression

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Situational constraints

• There are many examples of situations that
  constrain our behaviour
• In each of these examples, society dictates that
  we act in a certain manner, and we may not be
  able to reveal our true attitudes

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Choosing situations

• Situations influence the attitude-behaviour link,
  but our attitudes predict the situations we enter
  into
• We tend to prefer situations where we are free to
  express our attitudes openly
• We prefer to surround ourselves with other people
  who share our attitudes

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Aspects of attitudes Attitude origins

• Aspects of attitudes themselves also affect when
  attitudes influence behavior
• Attitude origins
• Attitudes formed on the basis of direct
  experience (as opposed to ones we may overhear
  from other people) are more likely to influence
  behavior
• Attitudes with these origins are stronger and
  more accessible (easier to bring to mind)

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Attitude strength

• Attitude strength
• Stronger attitudes are more likely to predict
  behavior
• Several components to strength
• Intensity (strength of emotional reaction)
• Knowledge (of the attitude object)
• Importance (extent to which the person cares
  deeply about the attitude and is personally
  affected by it)
• Vested interest is related to importance (i.e.,
  relevance, important personal consequences)
• Higher vested interest more likely to influence
  behavior

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Attitude specificity

• Attitude specificity
• extent to which attitudes are focused on specific
  objects or situations rather than on general ones
• Attitudes predict behaviors to the extent that
  the two are measured at the same level of
  specificity
• E.g., going to religious services is more
  strongly associated to service-going attitudes
  than to general attitudes towards religion

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Triandis Attitude-Behaviour Model

• Attitudes contain three components, which
  influence ones intention to act
• 1) Perceived consequences of action (C)
• Will be the effects of my action be positive?
• 2) Affect evoked by the action (A)
• Will this action produce positive emotions?
• 3) Social factors (S)
• e.g., Do I have a social obligation to act?

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Triandis Attitude-Behaviour Model

• These three aspects are summed to predict
  Behavioural Intention (I)

Consequences (C)
Behavioural Intention (I)

Affect (A)


Social Factors (S)
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How attitudes influence behaviour

• Theory of planned behaviour individuals
  consider the implications of their actions before
  deciding to perform various behaviors
• Also called the theory of reasoned action
• A rational process that is goal-oriented and
  follows a logical sequence
• We consider our behavioral options, evaluate the
  consequences/outcomes of each, and reach a
  decision as to how to act or not to act
• This decision is reflected in our behavioral
  intentions (our intentions to act a certain way)

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Theory of planned behavior Example

• You are considering getting a piercing or tattoo
• You will likely ask three questions to yourself
• 1) what are my attitudes towards this behavior?
• 2) how will other people react to this behavior?
  (subjective norms)
• 3) how easy/difficult will this behaviour be to
  accomplish? (perceived behavioural control)

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Theory of planned behavior
Attitudes
Subjective norms
Behavioral Intentions
Behaviour
Perceived control
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Attitudes and immediate behaviours

• What about when we dont have time to consider
  these factors or we act impulsively?
• Attitude-to-behaviour process model
• a more automatic process
• The process is initiated when a situation
  activates an attitude thus the attitude becomes
  more accessible

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Attitude-to-behavior process model

• E.g., you typically dont think about your
  attitude towards panhandling until you are
  confronted by a panhandler
• Once activated, the attitude influences your
  perceptions of the attitude object
• Knowledge of social norms is also activated
  (i.e., you may politely so sorry, no change to
  the panhandler rather than yell and swear at
  them)
• Together, the newly-accessed attitude and the
  social norms influence behavior

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Gender or culture differences in the
attitude-behaviour link?

• Limited evidence
• Blanchard et al. (2003) Exercise behaviour
• For students of European heritage, the
  attitude-behaviour link is stronger for females
• For students of African heritage, the
  attitude-behaviour link is stronger for males
• More research is necessary

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Summary Attitudes and Behaviour

• Although attitudes tend be strongly related to
  behaviour, the link is not always that clear
• When attitudes influence behaviour depends on
• Aspects of the situation
• The attitudes themselves
• How attitudes influence behaviour is explained
  by
• the theory of planned behaviour
• the attitude-to-behavior process model
• Next lecture how attitudes can be changed, and
  what happens when our attitudes differ from our
  behaviour

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Topic 1 Attitudes
Attitude Change and Attitude-Behaviour
Discrepancies Lecture 3 of 3 Kevin M.
Williams July, 2005
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Persuasion

• Evidence suggests that attitudes are very stable
  and resistant to change
• Persuasion attempts to change someones
  attitudes
• but what makes a persuasion effective?

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Hovlands Three Component Model

• There are three components involved in
  persuasion
• Source
• The communicator
• Message
• The communication
• Target
• The audience (can be a person or group)

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The communicator

• Various aspects of the communicator increase
  their persuasiveness
• Credibility
• expertise, trustworthiness, sincerity
• Attractiveness
• good looks, popularity, likeability
• Speaks rapidly
• rapid speech suggests expertise

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The message

• Similarly, aspects of the message increase its
  persuasiveness
• Non-obvious persuasion
• seems like the goal of the message is apparently
  not to influence
• Present both sides of the issue
• especially if the audience is knowledgeable about
  the issues
• refute an opponents perspective
• Arousing emotion
• e.g., use of fear is effective if the level is
  moderate and ways to avoid the feared situation
  are included

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The audience

• Finally, aspects of the audience are also
  important
• Research suggests that some audiences are easier
  to influence
• Low/moderate self-esteem
• Younger age groups
• i.e., less than 25 yrs old

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How does attitude change occur?

• A cognitive approach
• The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
• Petty Cacioppo, 1990
• Persuasion can occur in either of two different
  ways
• Central route
• systematic processing of information message
  content
• Peripheral route
• use of persuasion cues information concerning
  the status or expertise of the persuader

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ELM A tale of two routes

• Peripheral route relies on heuristic processing
  mental shortcuts (rules of thumb)
• low cognitive effort
• e.g., experts can be trusted
• Central route requires more cognitive effort

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Central vs. Peripheral routes

• Decision to use central vs. peripheral depends on
  our mental capacity and our motivation
• We tend to use the central route when
• We are knowledgeable about the subject
• We have sufficient ability/time to engage in
  careful thought
• We are highly motivated
• Issue is important to us

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Applications of ELM

• Persuaders tend to target the peripheral route
  b/c it is more conducive to attitude change
• e.g., attractive spokespersons, well-dressed,
  well-spoken (as opposed to message content)
• When a topic is unimportant, the arguments
  related to message/content have virtually no
  impact on persuasion
• Because the audience is using the peripheral
  route
• People are more easily persuaded when they are
  distracted
• capacity to process info is limited, thus
  audience adopts heuristic processing

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Long-term effects of ELM

• Attitude change via peripheral route is more
  effective initially, but
• Attitudes that are changed via the central route
  seem to last longer than those changed via the
  peripheral route (Petty Cacioppo, 1986)
• Central route persuasion is also more resistant
  to subsequent change (Petty et al., 1994)
• Central route attitudes are more closely linked
  to behavior
• Central route attitudes are stronger

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Cultural values and persuasion cues

• Han Shavitt, 1994
• North American, European magazines contain
  advertisements with more individualistic slogans
• individuality
• self-reliance
• competition
• Eastern Asian magazines contain more
  collectivistic slogans
• family/group well-being
• harmony

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Ad slogans

• Individualistic slogans
• A leader among leaders
• Shes got a style all her own
• You, only better
• Collectivistic slogans
• Sharing is beautiful
• The dream of prosperity for all of us
• Successful partnerships

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Do these differences matter?

• Han Shavitt (1994) also found that
• American subjects were more persuaded by
  individualistic ads
• Korean subjects were more persuaded by
  collectivist ads
• Thus, cultural factors play an important role in
  persuasion

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Resisting persuasion

• Despite the fact that we are constantly exposed
  to persuasion attempts (e.g., ads) our attitudes
  tend to remain stable
• Why? Some main reasons
• Reactance
• Forewarning
• Selective avoidance
• Biased assimilation
• Attitude polarization

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Reactance

• Our negative reaction to perceiving that our
  personal freedom is being threatened
• Occurs anytime we feel that a persuader is simply
  trying to get us to do what they say
• Extreme reactance leads to negative attitude
  change
• we do the opposite of what the persuader is
  asking

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Forewarning

• Advance knowledge that someone is going to try to
  persuade us
• We are less likely to be persuaded if forewarning
  is present
• Being caught off guard makes persuasion more
  effective
• Why? Advance knowledge of persuasion allows us
  to build up our defenses
• form counterarguments
• recall relevant info and facts from memory
• Forewarning is especially useful at resisting
  persuasion when the topic is personally important

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Selective avoidance

• Tendency to direct attention away from
  information that challenges existing attitudes
• e.g., changing the TV channel on when we
  encounter something we dont agree with
• The opposite also occurs pay more attention to
  information that supports our views
• Together, these two processes are called
  selective exposure
• Not only is this method used as a defense against
  attitude change, but it is also a strong method
  of reinforcing our existing attitudes

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Biased assimilation

• Evaluating information that disconfirms our
  existing views as less convincing or reliable
  than information that confirms our views
• e.g., gun owners evaluate gun control research as
  poor quality pro-gun research as high quality
• People who dislike guns make the opposite
  evaluations, even though both parties read the
  same research

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Attitude polarization

• Tendency to evaluate mixed evidence in such a way
  as to strengthen our initial views and make them
  more extreme
• People pick out the aspects of the evidence
  that confirm their existing attitudes
• Why? One reason people tend to react
  negatively (e.g., annoyance, contempt) to
  information that conflicts with their own
  attitudes
• One consequence is of these negative reactions is
  the hostile media bias
• perceiving that the source of conflicting
  information is biased

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Changing our own attitudesCognitive dissonance

• Cognitive dissonance an unpleasant internal
  state that results when individuals notice
  inconsistency between
• two or more attitudes, or
• between attitudes and behaviour
• i.e., being hypocritical
• e.g., Induced compliance (forced compliance)
• situations in which we are forced by
  circumstances to say/do something that
  contradicts our attitudes
• Often, behaving in ways that are inconsistent
  with our attitudes causes us to change our
  attitudes
• Attitude change decreases the discrepancy and
  thus reduces negative affect

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How do we reduce dissonance?

• There are direct and indirect modes of reducing
  dissonance
• Three direct modes of reducing dissonance
• 1) actual change of attitudes/behavior so that
  they are consistent
• 2) acquiring new info i.e, that is consistent
  with attitudes or actions that seem inconsistent
  at first
• 3) trivialization minimizing the importance of
  the inconsistency by minimizing the importance of
  the attitude or behavior

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Indirect strategies

• Indirect strategies leave the discrepancy intact
  but reduce the unpleasant internal state
• i.e., making ourselves feel better while
  ignoring the discrepancy
• Indirect strategies more likely to be used when
  the discrepancy involves important attitudes

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Self-affirmation

• One indirect strategy for reducing cognitive
  dissonance is self-affirmation
• restoring positive self-evaluations that are
  threatened by the dissonance
• Self-affirmation is accomplished by focusing on
  positive self-attributes (i.e., good things about
  yourself)
• e.g., I broke my diet today, but Im still a
  healthy person in general
• Other indirect strategies
• drinking alcohol
• engaging in distracting activities
• simple expressions of positive affect (e.g.,
  smiling)

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The Less-Leads-to-More Effect

• If there are strong reasons for behaving in ways
  that contradict our attitudes
• Dissonance will be low or non-existent
• No motivation to make our attitudes match our
  behaviour
• But, if there is no good reason for your
  counter-attitudinal behaviour
• Dissonance will be strong
• Strong motivation to make our attitudes match our
  behaviour
• Hence, the Less-Leads-to-More effect

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The Less-Leads-to-More Effect
Good reason for hypocritical behaviour
Low Dissonance
small attitude change
No good reason for hypocritical behaviour
High Dissonance
LARGE attitude change
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The Less-Leads-to-More Effect

• The Less-Leads-to-More effect occurs only under
  certain conditions
• Person believes they have a choice as to whether
  or not to perform the attitude-discrepant
  behavior
• Small rewards lead to greater attitude change
  only when person believes that they are
  personally responsible for both the chosen course
  of action and any negative effects it produces
• Occurs only when person perceives the reward they
  receive as a well-deserved payment for their
  action, not as a bribe

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Using dissonance for the forces of good

• Dissonance can be used to produce beneficial
  changes in behaviour
• e.g., promoting non-smoking, seat-belt use, etc.
• Dissonance especially useful when used to
  generate feelings of hypocrisy
• publicly advocating some attitude or behavior and
  then acting in a way that is inconsistent with
  this attitude or behavior
• For example

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Public attitude-behaviour discrepancies
August 1998
January 1998
I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
Oops.
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Public attitude-behaviour discrepancies
July 2005
March 2005
I have never used steroids. Period.
Oops.
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Dissonance and beneficial behaviour change

• For this strategy to work, several conditions
  must exist
• persons in question must publicly advocate the
  desired behaviors
• must be induced to think about their own failures
  to show these behaviors in the past
• must be given access to direct means for reducing
  their dissonance

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Does dissonance actually work in promoting
beneficial behaviour?

• Dissonance theories suggest that when
  discrepancies are public, the dissonance should
  be so strong that indirect methods of reducing it
  will not work
• Research has demonstrated that dissonance is
  effective in promoting safe-sex behavior

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Summary Attitude change and attitude-behaviour
discrepancies

• Aspects of the three main elements of persuasion
  communicator, message, and audience
  influence the effectiveness of persuasion
• The Elaboration Likelihood Model states two
  routes to persuasion central or peripheral
• Peripheral is more effective initially, but
  central produces more lasting changes
• Cultural factors are important in persuasion
• We use several strategies to resist persuasion,
  including reactance and selective avoidance
• Cognitive dissonance motivates us to resolve
  attitude-behaviour discrepancies, using either
  direct or indirect strategies