Attitudes

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Chapter 6

• Attitudes

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Chapter Outline

• The Nature of Attitudes
• Attitude Organization
• Cognitive Consistency
• The Relationship Between Attitudes and Behavior
• The Reasoned Action Model

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Attitude

• A predisposition to respond to a particular
  object in a favorable or unfavorable way.
• A persons attitudes influence the way in which
  he or she perceives and responds to the world.

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Three Components of Attitude

1. Beliefs or cognitions - An object label, rules to
   apply the label, and a set of cognitions
   associated with that label.
2. Evaluation - A direction (positive or negative)
   and an intensity (very weak to very strong).
3. Behavioral predisposition - A predisposition to
   respond or a behavioral tendency toward the
   object.

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Functions of Attitude

• Heuristic or instrumental function
• Attitudes provide a simple and efficient means of
  evaluating objects.
• Schematic or knowledge function
• Attitudes about a category provide us with a
  basis for making inferences about its members.

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Attitude Organization

• Attitudes are usually embedded in a cognitive
  structure, linked with other attitudes.
• Two types of structures
• Vertical structures signify that a minor belief
  is derived from or dependent on a primitive
  belief.
• Horizontal structures exist when an attitude is
  linked to more than one set of underlying beliefs.

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The Structure of Attitudes
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Cognitive Consistency

• The elements of a cognitive structure are called
  cognitions.
• A cognition is an individuals perception of
  personal attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
• Consistency among a persons cognitions (beliefs
  and attitudes) is widespread.

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Balance Theory

• Two types of relationships may exist between
  elements
• Sentiment relations - evaluations directed toward
  objects and people
• Unit relations - the association between elements.

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Balance Theory

• Balance theory assumes that people will try to
  restore balance among their attitudes.
• An imbalanced state is one in which two of the
  relationships between elements are positive and
  one is negative or in which all three are
  negative.

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Balanced Cognitive Systems Resolution of
Imbalanced Systems
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Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

• Dissonance theory deals with consistency between
  behaviors and attitudes.
• There are two common situations in which
  dissonance occurs
• After a decision.
• When one acts in a way that is inconsistent with
  their beliefs.

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Postdecisional Dissonance
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The Dissonance Effect

• The greater the reward or incentive for engaging
  in counter attitudinal behavior, the less the
  resulting attitude change.
• This is because there is no need to change your
  attitude the negates the dissonance.
• Conversely, the lesser the reward the greater the
  attitude change since you have a reason to
  alleviate the dissonance of saying the boring
  task was fun.

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The Incentive Effect

• The greater the incentive for engaging in counter
  attitudinal behavior, the greater the resulting
  attitude change.

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Which is Going to Occur?

• Dissonance is more likely when
• People choose (or think they choose) whether or
  not to engage in the behavior.
• Only occurs in some situations
• A person must be committed to a belief or course
  of action
• Person must believe he or she acted voluntarily
  and is thus responsible for the outcome of the
  decision.

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Relationship Between Attitudes and Behavior

• Four variables
• The activation of the attitude.
• The characteristics of the attitude.
• The correspondence between attitude and behavior.
• Situational constraints on behavior.

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Is consistency Inevitable?

• Many of our cognitions never come into contact
  with each other
• Another reason for inconsistency is some of our
  behavior is mindless (e.g. smoking)
• Third reason inconsistency occurs is each belief,
  attitude, or self-perception is embedded in a
  larger structure of consistent, related
  attitudes, beliefs, and self-perceptions.
• People vary in the strength of their preference
  for consistency.

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Activation of the Attitude

• When an attitude is activated, it is brought from
  memory into conscious awareness.
• An attitude is usually activated by exposure of
  the person to its object, particularly if the
  attitude was originally formed through direct
  experience with the object (e.g. a stereotype).
• The more accessible an attitude is, the greater
  its influence on categorizing and judging
  objects.
• More accessible ? more likely to guide future
  behavior

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Characteristics of the Attitude

• 1) Affective-Cognitive Consistency -
• The greater the consistency between cognition
  and evaluation, the greater the strength of the
  attitude-behavior relation.
• E.g. capital punishment is necessary to protect
  society is consistent with I support capital
  punishment

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Do attitudes predict behavior?

• 2) Direct Experience
• Attitudes based on direct experience are more
  predictive of subsequent behavior.
• Best predictor of future behavior is past
  behavior
• An attitude is a summary of a persons past
  experience
• The greater the strength of an attitude the
  greater its effect on behavior. E.g. vote for
  candidate
• The relevance of an attitude the extent to which
  the issue or object directly affects the
  personis important for its strength
• Time? The longer the time between measurement of
  the attitude and that of behavior the more likely
  the attitude will change

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3) Attitude-Behavior Correspondence

• Attitudes are more likely to predict behavior
  when the two are at the same level of specificity
  
• Italian, probably likes Italian food, but green
  noodles with clam sauce? Not so much
• The greater the degree of correspondence, that
  is, the number of elements that are the same in
  the two measures, the better we can predict
  behavior from attitudes. (e.g. an action
  (eating), an object or target (green noodles and
  red clam sauce), a context (in your home), and a
  time (tomorrow night)

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Attitude-Behavior Correspondence

• Every behavior involves a target, action,
  context, and time.
• In order to predict behavior from attitude, the
  measures of attitude and behavior should involve
  the same elements.
• The larger the number of elements in common, the
  greater the correlation between attitude and
  behavior.

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Correlations of Attitude Measures that Vary in
Correspondence with Behavior

• Researchers these measures of attitudes toward
  birth control from 244 women
• general attitude toward birth control
• attitude toward birth control pills
• attitude toward using pills
• attitude toward using pills in the next 2 years.
• The behavioral measure was actual use of pills
  during the 2-year period.
• As correspondence increased from 0 to 3 elements,
  correlation between attitude and behavior
  increased.

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Correlations of Attitude Measures that Vary in
Correspondence with Behavior
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The Influence of Attitude and Situational
Constraints on Behavior
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Situational Constraint

• Refers to an influence on behavior due to the
  likelihood that other persons will learn about
  the behavior and respond positively or negatively
  to it.
• Situational constraints often determine whether
  our behavior is consistent with our attitudes.
• The greater the agreement among others about how
  we should behave, the greater the situational
  constraint imposed on persons whose attitudes are
  different

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The Reasoned Action Model

• Based on the assumption that behavior is
  rational.
• This model incorporates several factors that have
  been shown to affect the consistency between
  attitudes and behavior.
• Behavior is determined by behavioral intention.
• Behavioral intention is influenced by attitude
  (positive or negative feelings about engaging in
  a behavior) and subjective norm (individuals
  perception of others beliefs about whether a
  behavior is appropriate or not).
• Subjective norm is one form of situational
  constraint

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The Reasoned Action Model
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Determining Attitude from Beliefs and Evaluations
Consequences of joining the Unification Church Belief Evaluation Product
Gain a sense of purpose 3 3 9
Have ones physical needs provided for 3 1 3
Loss of relationship 2 -2 -4
Loss of some personal freedom 1 -3 -3
Attitude 5
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Determining Subjective Norm - Normative Beliefs
and Motivation to Comply
Significant others Normative beliefs Motivation to comply Product
Parents -3 2 -6
Friends 3 2 6
Cindy -3 3 -6
Sum -6
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Assessment of the Model

• Perceived behavior control takes into
  consideration that behavior may be affected not
  only by intentions but also by whether we have
  the resources or the ability needed to carry out
  the intention.