Attitudes and Attitude Change Unit 3 Attitudes and Attitude Change Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall

Key Concepts Defining attitudes Attitude theories Attitudes and behavior Persuasion and changing attitudes

How would you define attitude?

Attitudes example 1 – Jim Gaffigan Attitudes are enduring dispositions with affective, behavioral, and cognitive components. Attitudes function like schemas, helping us make sense of many kinds of social information. 2 simple examples of how attitudes have changed example 1 – Jim Gaffigan

Attitude toward condom use. + sign = favorable; sign = unfavorable

Attitudes based on “ABC” information affective component the person’s emotions and affect towards the object behavioral component how person tends to act towards the object

Cognitive component consists of thoughts and beliefs the person has about the object These are not always highly related to each other.

Attitudes are often cognitively complex but evaluatively simple. Attitudes make it possible to access related information and to make decisions quickly. Attitudes are one determinant of behavior but not the only one; conversely behavior also determines attitudes.

Activity 1 Brainstorm examples of attitudes What affect or emotion is likely to be associated with the attitude? What behavior is likely to be associated with the attitude? What cognition or thinking is likely to be associated with the attitude?

Theories of Attitudes Learning Theory: an approach that assumes that a person’s attitudes are based on principles of: association: link in memory between stimuli that are related reinforcement and punishment: person learns to exhibit a particular response Imitation: matching thoughts, feelings, and behaviors

Theories of Attitudes Transfer of affect: changing an attitude by transferring it to the affect associated with another object. For example, transferring emotions from a sexy model to the car the model is standing by.

Theories of Attitudes Evaluation of Learning Approach: The learning approach views people as passive recipients of external forces. Message learning is critical to this perspective but memory is uncorrelated with attitude change. This model appears to work well when people are unfamiliar with the material.

Theories of Attitudes Cognitive Dissonance Theory is concerned with discrepancies between people’ s attitudes and their behaviors. Dissonance is an aversive motivational state that results when our behavior is inconsistent with our attitudes It is greatest when the attitudes and behavior are important to the self. Dissonance creates psychological tension that people are motivated to reduce.

Experiencing and Analyzing Cognitive Dissonance Complete attitude survey Complete behavior survey

Theories of Attitudes Three ways of reducing dissonance changing our behavior (often difficult) trivializing the dissonance changing the attitude. Decision making usually arouses dissonance that is resolved by increasing liking for the chosen alternative and decreasing liking for the non-chosen alternative

Model of the Persuasion Process

Persuasion Several aspects of a communicator affect whether a person is evaluated favorably. Credibility Expertise Trustworthiness Liking

Persuasion We are persuaded by the opinions of our reference groups, those we like or identify with. This occurs both because of the motivational factors of liking and perceived similarity, and because messages from in-groups are more likely to be processed using the central route.

Persuasion Source derogation involves deciding the source is unreliable or negative in some way. It can make all future as well as current arguments from that source less powerful.

Persuasion The greater the discrepancy between the listener’s position and the message presented, the greater the potential for change. Attitude Change Discrepancy

Persuasion When message discrepancy is low, it is assimilated into the audience’s opinion (perceived as closer than it really is) When message discrepancy is high, it is seen as even further away (message contrast). Discrepancy may be reduced by distorting or misperceiving the message, or even rejecting it altogether.

Persuasion When people are not motivated or able to think about message content, peripheral cues become important in determining attitude change. source characteristics message length number of arguments

Persuasion Repetition and familiarity tend to increase liking, but only up to a point. Repetition may help people process strong arguments more completely but expose the flaws in weak arguments. Repetition may lead to tedium; this can be dealt with by having ads that provide slight variations on a theme.

Persuasion Attitudes that are high in ego involvement are resistant to change. Kinds of ego involvement include Commitment Issue Involvement Response Involvement

Persuasion Aggression Arousal Fear Arousal Personal frustrations may make a person more vulnerable to persuasive communications advocating aggressive actions. Fear Arousal Fear usually increases the effectiveness of a persuasive appeal, but if too much fear is aroused, the effect may be disruptive. Fear appeals are more effective if they not only arouse fear but also provide information about how to reduce the fear.

Persuasion People high in authoritarianism or dogmatism (closed-mindedness) tend to respond to the expertise of the source first and to argument strength only when the source is non-expert. People who are high in the need for closure typically more resistant to persuasion.

Activity 4 We will need your HW from Unit 3 – due this week. In groups discuss your advertisements. Using the worksheet: SP3450.U4.WS4 Advertisement Reaction exchange each other’s advertisements and complete the questionnaire.

Attitudes and Behavior Strong attitudes are typically stable, personally relevant, held about personally important issues about which one feels extreme and certain. They are often “embedded” or tied to other beliefs. They are often formed through direct experience and become highly accessible as a result.

Attitudes and Behavior Stable attitudes that are accessible in memory are most likely to predict behavior Maximum attitude-behavior consistency occurs when attitudes and behaviors are measured at about the same time. Longer time intervals diminish attitude-behavior correlations because attitudes, people, and situations change.

Attitudes and Behavior Attitudes that are more accessible in memory influence behavior more strongly. Attitudes that are expressed more frequently are more accessible and tend to become more extreme.

Attitudes and Behavior The more relevant an attitude is to a behavior, the more attitude-behavior consistency there will be. In most situations, several attitudes are relevant to behavior. The attitude that is most salient is most likely to influence behavior especially when the attitude is not a strong one.

The Reasoned Action Model of Factors that determine a person’s behavior.

The Reasoned Action Model The Theory of Planned Behavior adds an additional variable to the model: Perceived behavior control = people’s belief in their ability to control their outcomes. Other factors not included in the model may also be important: external constraints and opportunities, fear habit

Homework Sweet talking kids paper