C82SAD: Attitudes What is an Attitude

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C82SAD Attitudes What is an Attitude?

• Social psychology is the study of attitudes
  (Allport, 1935)
• Distinction between social psychologists use of
  the word attitude and the generally used term
  i.e. He has an attitude problem, Wow, shes
  got attitude
• Attitude is defined as tendencies to evaluate an
  entity attitude object into some degree of
  favour or disfavour, ordinarily expressed in
  cognitive, affective and behavioural responses
  (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993).

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Attitude Definitions

• The concept of attitudes is probably the most
  distinctive and indispensable concept in
  contemporary American social psychology. No other
  term appears more frequently in the experimental
  and theoretical literature (Allport, 1935, p.
  798)
• Attitudes are a mental and neural state of
  readiness, organised through experience, exerting
  a directive or dynamic influence upon the
  individual's response to all objects and
  situations with which it is related
  (Allport,1935, p. 810).

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Attitude Definitions

• Attitudes involve associations between attitude
  objects and evaluations of these objects (Fazio,
  1989)
• Attitudes are evaluations of various objects that
  are stored in memory (Judd et al., 1991)
• Attitude is a psychological tendency that is
  expressed by evaluation a particular entity with
  some degree of favour of disfavour ... Evaluating
  refers to all classes of evaluative responding,
  whether overt or covert, cognitive, affective or
  behavioural (Eagly Chaiken,1993).

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Component Theories of Attitude

• Unitary model. Attitudes are a single positive or
  negative evaluation of an attitude object
• Dual model. A mental state of readiness and
  therefore guides some evaluation or response
  towards and object
• Tripartite model. Include feeling (affective),
  action (behavioural), and thought (cognitive)
  components ABC

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Tripartite Model?
Attitude object Beer
Cognitive Belief based e.g. Beer kills my brain
cells Beer helps me to relax Beer tastes good
after a hard days work
Affective Emotion based e.g. Harmful-Beneficial
Relaxing-Stressful Tasty-Bitter
Behavioural Intention based e.g. I will cut down
on my beer drinking I intend to drink beer when
Im stressed I plan to drink more beer after
work
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What are Attitudes Used for?

• Attitudes serve as conscious and unconscious
  motives and have four functions (Katz, 1960)
• They assist in helping us make sense of our
  world and to organize the information we
  encounter (c.f. cognitive economy) (KNOWLEDGE
  FUNCTION)
• They help us make behave in socially acceptable
  ways to gain positive and avoid negative outcomes
  (UTILITARIAN/ADJUSTIVE FUNCTION)
• They act as a guide to behaviour in social
  situations and help us in self- and social-
  categorization (SOCIAL IDENTITY/VALUE-EXPRESSIVE
  FUNCTION)
• They allow use to preserve a positive sense of
  self (EGO-DEFENSIVE FUNCTION)

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Attitude Formation

• Behavioural theories
• Direct experience expectancy value model of
  attitudes mere exposure can influence attitudes
• Classical conditioning neutral stimuli paired
  with salient response results in an attitude
• Operant conditioning attitudes shaped by a
  reinforcement system of reward and punishment
• Observational learning modelling in vicarious
  experiences

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Attitude Formation

• Cognitive theories
• Information integration theory attitudes formed
  by averaging available information on a object
• Self-perception theory infer attitudes from own
  behaviour (Bem, 1960)
• Mood-as-information hypothesis Emotion (mood)
  provides basis of evaluation of attitudes objects
• Heuristic processing decision rules of thumb
  are used to make judgements and form mental
  shortcuts in memory
• Persuasion Attitudes formed on the basis of
  persuasive information

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Attitude Formation

• Sources
• Parents Infer attitudes from those most closest
  to you (c.f. Bandura, 1965) but strength of
  association ranges from strong (Jennings Niemi,
  1968) to very weak (Connell, 1972)
• Mass media Particularly television an important
  influence of attitude formation especially in
  children (e.g., Chaffee et al., 1977) and links
  between television advertisements and childrens
  attitude Atkin, 1980)

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Common Sense Attitudes and Behaviour

• You cant stop parents feeding their kids what
  they are going to feed them, what you can do is
  try to create a situation where over time people
  realize that it isnt really any good for kids to
  be brought up on a poor dietIts a question of
  changing attitudes over time

Tony Blair speaking on BBC Breakfast Tuesday,
10th October 2006
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Attitude-Behaviour Relationship

• Of principle concern - if attitudes dont guide
  behaviour then their efficacy and utility as a
  construct is greatly reduced
• Classic study LaPiere (1934) restaurateur's
  attitudes towards Asians in 1930s USA-
  questioned validity of the attitude-behaviour
  link
• Wicker (1969) attitudes were very weakly
  correlated with behaviour across 45 studies
  (average r .15)
• Gregson and Stacey (1981) only a small positive
  correlation between attitudes and alcohol
  consumption
• Stimulated study into the personality,
  contextual, temporal and methodological
  influences on the attitude-behaviour relationship
  

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Attitude-Behaviour Relationship

• Reasons for lack of a relationship
• Methodological
• Unreliability and low validity of attitude and/or
  behavioural measures
• Time between attitude and behavioural measure
• Modality
• Lack of compatibility/correspondence between
  attitude and behaviour
• Target, Action, Context and Time
• Recent evidence e.g. Armitage and Conner (2001)
  strong indirect attitude-behaviour relationships
  within Theory of Planned Behaviour

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Expectancy-Value Models of Attitude

• Expectancy-value models Attitudes have two
  components
• Expectancy Behaviour will result in a certain
  outcome (e.g., studying hard will gain me good
  grades)
• Value Outcome is highly valued (e.g., getting
  good grades is important to me)
• Each expectancy is multiplied by each value to
  produce attitude score e.g.
• Attitude S (expectancyi x valuei)

i 1
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The Theory of Reasoned Action(Ajzen Fishbein,
1980)
Attitudes
Intentions
Behaviour
Subjective Norms
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Where do Attitudes and Subjective Norms Come From?
Behavioural Beliefs X Outcome Evaluations
Attitudes
Intentions
Behaviour
Normative Beliefs X Motivation to Comply
Subjective Norms
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Expectancy-value Models of Attitudes and
Subjective Norms
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The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)(Ajzen ,
1989)
Attitudes
Intentions
Behaviour
Subjective Norms
Control Beliefs X Perceived Power
Perceived Control
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The Effect of Including Perceived Behavioural
Control
Behaviour vitamins
Intentions vitamins
Behaviour sleep
Intentions sleep
Theory
SourceMadden, Ellen Ajzen (1992)
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Factors Affecting Attitude-Intention Relationship
in TPB

• Generality of attitude (Davidson Jaccard, 1979)
  confirmed TACT
• Attitude accessibility (Doll Ajzen, 1992)
• Attitude strength (Fazio et al., 1986)
• Social identity as a group member (self-identity
  for a particular behaviour) affects
  intention-behaviour relationship (Terry Hogg,
  1996)

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The role of norms and group identification in
attitude-behaviour consistencyStudents expressed
a stronger intention to engage in regular
exercise when they felt their attitudes towards
exercise were normative of a student peer group
with which they identified strongly.
Source based on data from Terry and Hogg (1996)
6.0
Group identification
Low
High
5.5
Intention to engage in regular exercise (7-point
scale)
5.0
4.5
4.0
Low
High
Ingroup normativeness of own attitude
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Protection Motivation Theory

• Balancing perceived threat vs. capacity to cope
  with healthy behaviour

Cognitive processes
Intrinsic reward Extrinsic reward
Perceived vulnerability Perceived severity
Threat appraisal
Protection motivation
(Maladaptive)
Perceived response-cost
Coping appraisal
Response efficacy Self-efficacy
Response efficacy Self-efficacy
Response efficacy Self-efficacy
(Adaptive)
Source Floyd, Prentice-Dunn, Rogers (2000)
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Measuring Attitudes

• Thurstones (1928) equal appearing interval scale
  developed from 100s of items (questions)
• Likert (1932) scale 5- point scales with ive
  and ive scoring
• Semantic differential scale (Osgood et al., 1957)
  uses word pairs
• Scalogram (Guttman, 1944) agreement with
  statements from single trait

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Scale Value of Items on an 11-point Thurstone
Equal-Intervals Scale T H U R S T O N E S
C A L E Attitude towards Contraception How
favourable Value on 11- Item point
scale Least 1.3 Practising contraception
should be punishable by law.
3.6 Contraception is morally wrong in spite of
possible benefits. Neutral 5.4 Contraception
has both advantages and disadvantages.
7.6 Contraception is a legitimate health
measure. 9.6 Contraception is the only
solution to many of our social problems. Most 10
.3 We should not only allow but enforce
limitation on family size.
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An Example of a Likert-Scale Item to Measure
Attitudes Towards Nuclear Power Plants I
believe that nuclear power plants are one of the
great dangers of industrial societies 2 Stro
ngly agree 1 Moderately agree 0 Neutral
or undecided -1 Moderately disagree -2
Strongly disagree
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A 7-Point Likert-Type Self-Rating Scale
Are you favour of having nuclear power plants in
Britain?
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
STRONGLY APPROVE
STRONGLY DISAPPROVE
NEUTRAL
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A 5-point Likert Summated Ratings Scale
LIKERT SCALE What are your opinions of the
following statements? Your answer is correct if
it expresses your real opinion. This is not a
test and you are not to be graded. Do not omit
any item. In each case place a tick in any one of
the five places which represents your own ideas
about each statement.
Item Strongly Agree Undeci- Disagree Strongly a
gree ded disagree

Farming is a great occoupation.
Farm work is drudgery.
To be a farmer for the rest of ones life would
be terrible.
The farm is a wonderful place to live.
The independence of farm life appeals to me.
Living on a farm sounds like too much hard work.
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Rating The Concept of Nuclear Power on a
7-Point Semantic Differential Scale
SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL SCALE Nuclear power

GOOD BAD STRONG WEAK FAST
SLOW
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Items on a Guttman Cummulative Scale GUTTMAN
SCALE Attitude towards mixed-ethnic housing
How acceptable Statement Least Generally
speaking, people should be able to live anywhere
they want. Real estate agencies should not
discriminate against minority groups. The local
council should actively support the idea of open
housing. There should be a local review board
that would rule on cases of extreme
discrimination in housing. Most There should
be laws to enforce mixed-ethnic housing.
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Attitude Accessibility Model

• Fazio (1989, 1995) proposed the attitude
  accessibility model
• Attitude is automatically activated on presence
  of situational cues that have a strong effect on
  life outcomes
• Attitudes are most influential when they are
  relevant and important

Attitude object in memory
Evaluation of attitude object
No link
Attitude object in memory
Evaluation of attitude object
Weak link
Attitude object in memory
Evaluation of attitude object
Strong link
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Fazios Automatic Activation Model
According to the attitude accessibility model
(Fazio, 1989), attitude accessibility the ease
with which attitudes can be retrieved from memory
plays a key role in the attitude-behaviour
link. Source Fazio (1989)
Presentation ofattitude object (activation)
Strong attitude activated-retrieved from memory
Evaluation of attitude object and situation
Information processing and behaviour
toward attitude object