attitudes

• what is an attitude?

  • allport 1935 - 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
  • eagly & chaiken 1998 - an attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity
• measuring attitudes 


  • semantic differential scales
  • likert scales
• why attitudes are interesting

  • attitudes are an important part of individual psychology
  • the way in which people evaluate their social world has important consequences for their relationships and actions towards others
  • attitudes held by people guide decisions which they make, so have significant implications for the self
• attitude-behaviour gap

  • not all attitudes should relate to behaviour
  • specific attitudes should predict behaviour better than general attitudes
  • strong/accessible attitudes should predict behaviour better than weak attitudes
• theory of reasoned action - Fishbein & Ajzen (1975)


  :

  
• theory of planned behaviour - Ajzen (1989)

  → attitudes are related to behaviour but not directly

  → specific attitudes work in combination with norms, control beliefs and intentions

  
• What is the implicit association test (IAT) based on?

  Cognitive theories of associative networks
• How does the strength of the pathway between two concepts relate to their linkage?

  The closer linked, the stronger the pathway
• How do concepts become linked in a person's mind?

  Through repeated co-occurrence via experience
• What results from consistent patterns of linkage in experience?

  Closer association between concepts in thought
• What happens when concepts are linked in the IAT?

  Sorting words becomes easier when linked
• What do individual differences in sorting task speed reveal?

  Differences in implicit associations
• What is an example of an implicit association?

  Implicit self-esteem
• What is the general tendency of people's implicit self attitudes?

  People usually have positive implicit self attitudes
• What is the definition of implicit attitudes?

  Attitudes that are automatic and unconscious
• What does the IAT measure in terms of cognitive processing?

  It measures the strength of associations between concepts
• How does experience influence implicit attitudes according to the IAT?

  Experience leads to repeated co-occurrence of concepts
• how do attitudes change?

  1. persuasion
  2. dissonance
  3. social influence
• persuasion

  • early research suggests persuasion is influenced by;
  • communicator - experts are generally more persuasive than non-experts
  • message - strong arguments are more persuasive than weak arguments
  • audience - age, existing attitudes etc.
• elaboration likelihood model

  • when issue involvement is low, people engage in superficial processing of messages - attitudes are swayed by characteristics of the source
  • when issue importance is high, people engage in thoughtful processing - attitudes are swayed by argument quality
  • possible paths to persuasion
  • one thoughtful (central) → enduring change
  • one relatively thoughtless (peripheral) → fleeting change
• behaviour and attitudes 

  • people infer attitudes from behaviours
  • changing/influencing peoples behaviour can also be a way to change what they think
• cognitive dissonance theory - festinger 1957

  • people are generally motivated to perceive consistency between their beliefs, attitudes and behaviours
  • when people become aware of inconsistency between how they think and act, they experience dissonance
  • this dissonance motivates attempts to achieve re-alignment
  • how alignment can be achieved
  • change behaviour so its consistent with attitudes
  • change attitudes so they fit with behaviour
• zimbardo et al (1965)

  • eating grasshoppers is not something participants in this context had a positive attitude about
  • cadets who chose to eat the grasshoppers experiences dissonance
  • to reduce dissonance, people have to make sense of their behaviour “i did it because…”
• dissonance is most likely to change attitudes when people…

  • have expended effort
  • cannot attribute their behaviours to external factors
  • believe they have made a free choice

  → when behaviour is trivial or attributed externally, dissonance does not occur