 Direct measures  Semantic differential scale  Likert scale  Indirect measures  Physiological measurements  Projective tests

 How can we find out what people’s attitudes are?  What might be the advantages and disadvantages of each method?

 Should we observe people or ask people?

 Observing people tells you what they do but not necessarily why  Asking people might tell you why people do things but only if:  They actually know;  They tell you the truth

 Involve asking people questions about their attitudes  Could be used to obtain quantitative or qualitative data

 Direct, quantitative measures of attitudes  Ways of turning peoples attitudes into a set of numbers  Semantic differential scales  Likert scales

Kind Unkind Helpful Unhelpful Patient Impatient Calm Angry Friendly Threat’ing

 Chosen attitude object is rated on a series of bipolar adjective pairs  Adjective pairs relate to:  Evaluation (good or bad)  Potency (strong or weak)  Activity (active or passive)  Evaluation is the most important to most psychologists

This teacher is always helpful Strongly agree AgreeUndecide d DisagreeStrongly disagree This teacher is often angry Strongly agree AgreeUndecide d DisagreeStrongly disagree This teacher is always rushing me along Strongly agree AgreeUndecide d DisagreeStrongly disagree

 Respondent rates a series of statements (about the AO) according to how much they agree  Scores for each statement summed to give an overall attitude score

 Both:  Fairly easy to create  Easy to compare PPs responses  Likert:  More reliable  May oversimplify (one dimensional)  Semantic differential:  More valid (multi-dimensional)  Harder to analyse