attitudes and attitude change

• attitudes: evaluations of peoples, ideas, events, concepts, entities that we tend to respond to in a consistently favourable or unfavourable way
• likert scales paved the way for quantifying measurement of attitudes
• values are higher order abstract ideals and guiding principles

  • give a structure for organising attitidudes
• value

  • abstract
  • trans-situational
  • positive
  • relevant to self concept
• attitude

  • specific to entity
  • positive or negative
• why have an attitude - Katz

  • knowledge: helps organise what we know
  • utilitarian: want to maximise good and minimize the bad
  • value expressive: I am in a trade union because I value worker solidarity
  • ego-defensive: help protect self-esteem (i dont like skiing bc not good at it)
• attitude structure:

  one-component (Thurstine): positive or negative affect associated with a psychological object
• attitude structure

  two component (Allport): positive or negative affect associated with a psychological object + state of mental readiness
• attitude structure:

  • three-component (Eagly and chaiken)
  • affective: feelings, likes, dislikes (climate crisis makes you worried)
  • cognitive: beliefs, schemas (climate crisis is anthropogenic)
  • behavioural: intentions to act, (tendency to reduce air travel; lobby politicians)
• attitude - behaviour

  attitudes and behaviours have a dual relationship (breckler, olsen and wiggins)

  • past behaviours can influence attitudes (e.g. helmets and cyclying)
  • current attitudes can influence behaviours (e.g. LGBTQ and discriminatory behaviours)
• attitude -> behaviour?

  research has shown that attitudes are not always good indicators of how people will behave

  in 1930, USA LaPiere visited 251 establishments with a young chinese couple

  1 out of 251 refused entry

  90% expressed in writing that they would refuse entry
• Attitudes are stronger predictors when...

  – Attitudinal and behavioural measures correspond

  – Attitudes are strong

  – Attitudes are value expressive

  – Behaviours are less “difficult” (e.g., voting vs. blood donation)

  – Extent to which we think we have control over behaviour
• reasoned action

  attitude toward behaviour + subjective norm -> behavioural intention 0> behaviour
• theory of planned behaviour

  attitude toward behaviour + subjective norms + perceived behavioural control
• attitude change

  • when one persons evaluation of an attitude object changes from one value to another
• general approaches to attitude change

  persuasion:

  • use of arguments/images to convince people to change their mind and hopefully their behaviour
  • at the heart of political propaganda, public health campaigns and advertising and marketing
• general approaches to attitude change

  • behaviour induced
  • inducing someone to perform an act that runs counter to an existing attitude
• yale communication program

  US experimental research began during world war 2

  • us government contracted carl hovland to persuade reluctant citizens to join the war against japan
  • continued work on psychology of persuasion after war
  • kicked off industry of experimental studies
• who: source variables

  credibility:

  • credibility a function of trustiness and perceived expertise
  • experts more persuasive
• who: source variables

  confidence:

  confidence heuristic : people's confidence is a marker of their degree of certainty on the basis of their knowledge

  persuasiveness evaluated according to confidence
• who: source variables

  • attractiveness
  • popular or attractive sources more trustworthy: hence celebrity endorsent
• who: source variables

  similarity

  • people are more influenced by sources who are perceived as "one of them"
• who: source variables:

  • speech
  • rapid speech increases perceived experise
• linguistic style

  -arguments are less persuasive when communicator uses powerless linguistic style (frequent hedges, hesitations)
• who: source variables

  • knowledge
  • confidence
  • attractiveness
  • similarity
  • speech
  • linguistic style
• what: message variables

  repetition

  • increases the perceived truth of a statement
  • repetition increases with familiarity and individuals develop preference for a stimulus they are familiar with
  • mere exposure effect: the tendency for repeated exposure to a stimulus is sufficient to enhance an observer's liking for it or attitude towards it
  • most likely to occur when there is no pre-existing negative towards the stimulus object
• who: message * source variables

  sleeper effect

  • for most sources the impact of a persuasive message normally decreases over time
  • for low credibility sources, influence increases over time -> sleeper effect
  • disassociation: recipients either forget the source, or their reason for discounting the message
  • negative political campaigning works in the long run
  • difficult to replicate
• what: message variables

  fear appeals

  • often used in public health and political campaigns
• how fearful should a message be to be effective

  • there is a linear association
  • message is more effective when
  • high levels or fear appeal
  • high efficacy
  • stresses suspectiibility ( how vulnerable am i) and severity (how severe is the risk)
• what: message variables

  intended recipient

  • more easily persuaded if we think a message is not designed to manipulate us
• whom: recipient/ audience variabkes

  • self esteem
  • people high or low in self esteem less influenced
  • inverted u-effect here
  • rhodes and woord: generally confirmed this
• whom: recipient / audience variables

  age

  • political attitudes more stable in later adulthood than in 'impressionable years" (late adolescence and early adulthood)
• how: medium/ channel variables

  chaiken and eagly: study of mass media

  • low difficulty message: video > audio > printed text
  • high difficulty: written text is more influential
• how: medium / channel variables

  • face to face communication by far most effective of all
  • well replicated: meta-analysis hart et al
  • limits selective exposure
  • people tend to expose themselves to persuasive messages that reinforce their pre-existing attitudes
  • example: people on the left read the guardian or independent; conservatives: the times, telegraph or daily mail
  • social media platforms use use algorithms that feed material in line with individuals attitudes
• persuasive communication:

  source of communication

  • e.g. credibility, attractiveness, similarity, confidence, linguistic style

  characteristics message

  • repetition, fear appeals, counteragruments

  characteristics of audience

  • self-esteem, age

  channel of communication

  • e.g. face to face, video, audio, written