1. Chapter 4: Behaviour and Attitudes

2. Overview of Week 4 Questions from last week? Behaviour and Attitudes (Chapter 4) Sample questions for examination(friday) Office hours: Friday 9:30 - 11:30 Note: If you require accommodations for the examination, please email me.

3. Definition of Attitude “A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour” (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) Our attitudes are stored in memory: when we see the object we can retrieve the memory(attitude)

4. Why are attitudes useful? (Katz, 1960) Knowledge Utilitarian Value-Expressive Social Adjustment Ego-defensive function

5. Knowledge function Our attitudes help us to manage and simplify info processing.(buying cereal)

6. Utilitarian function They guide our behaviour toward valued goals and away from aversive events Positive att towards success

7. Value-expressive function Our att serve to help us express our values and communicate them to others they are “part of who we are” Ex: environmentalisit groups

8. Social Adjustment function Our att can help us fit in with our social groups, we motivated to hold att that will be approved of by others. Ex. Att toward binge drinking But plurialistic ignorance: look at uni campus, many people had discomfort with binge drinking, but they thought other people enjoy it, but peers also had reservation. We falsely assume that other people has other attitude and it affects our behavior.

9. Ego-defensive function Our att can serve to protect our self-esteem or justify actions that make us feel guilty Ex. Terror management theory shows that after thinking about death people hold more negative views toward an outgroup Thinking of death need for self-esteem denigrate outgroups

10. How are our attitudes formed? Twin studies show some suggestion that there are genetic links Modelling/Socialization: Classical Conditioning: using celebrities on advertisements for products works in part beuz of classical conditioning Operant Conditioning:reinforce with punishment Mere exposure:only true if you have a initial tencency is mutual, if negative it only makes it worse

11. Types of Attitude Measures Direct Semantic Differential:rating scale Please rate your attitude toward capital punishment Indirect: Why would researchers sometimes use indirect measures? – Error-Choice Technique: hard – Lost Letter Technique:big towns vs.small townw Physiological Facial electrical myagraph 1234567 Very negative Very positive

12. The Tripartite Theory (ABC) Affect “yummy” -“raw fish?” Behaviour Cognition

13. The “Attitude-Behaviour Problem” Early studies: LaPiere (1934), Corey (1937) Wicker (1969, 1971) – Examined 42 studies dealing with the Attitude- Behaviour Relationship – The average correlation was about.15 (explained less than 3% of the variance in behaviour) – Recommendation: “It may be desirable to abandon the attitude concept”

14. When do attitudes predict behaviour? Specificity Matching – Action – Target – Context:situation – Time: what time it happens

15. Davidson and Jaccard, 1979 Asked 244 women about their attitudes toward birth control pills, using different levels of specificity Attitude MeasureCorrelation between attitude and behaviour Attitude toward birth control Attitude toward birth control pills Attitude toward using birth control pills Attitude toward using birth control pills during the next two years

16. Ajzen and Fishbein, 1977 Reviewed studies assessing attitude-behaviour consistency, with correspondence as a moderator No correspondence: no relationship between attitudes and behaviours Correspondence: 26 studies, 20 sig.

17. What are some of the reasons underlying the “A-B Problem”? Attitudes sometimes conflict with other powerful determinants of behaviour Attitudes are sometimes inconsistent Introspecting about our attitudes can sometimes interfere

18. Theory of Reasoned Action Attitude Subjective Norms IntentionBehaviour

19. Theory of Planned Behaviour Perceived Behavioural Control Subjective Norms IntentionBehaviour Attitude

20. The importance of intentions Intentions represent whether a person believes that he or she will engage in a specific behaviour Attitudes contribute to intentions, but they are not the only predictors. Subjective norms and Perceived Behavioural Control also predict intentions

21. Introspection Research (Wilson) Students tasted 5 different strawberry jams, which had been rated by expert tasters Control: Rated jams Reasons: Gave reasons, rated jams

22. Control group: Agreement with expert tasters =.55 Reasons group: Agreement with expert tasters =.11

23. Other predictors of strong attitude- behaviour relationships Shorter time intervals between measures of attitudes and measures of behaviour Attitudes are based on direct experience Regan and Fazio, 1977 Making participants self-aware: increase the relationship Attitude FormationA-B Correlation Indirect (puzzles described) Direct (played with puzzles)

24. Attitude Strength Persistence: Resistance: whether your att will survive in an attack(strong: wont change. Weak: I guess your right) Impact on information processing and judgment: Strong:effect info processing Impact on behaviour: strong : more likely to predict behaviour

25. Determinants of Strength Accessibility: strength/reaction time High: think of sth quickly() Knowledge Extremity Ambivalence

26. Accessibility Zanna and Fazio Fazio and Williams, 1986 – Measured response latency when participants were asked to report their attitudes toward Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan (5 mos. before the 1984 election) – Accessibility (quick responding) predicted respondents’ opinion of who won the debates, and most importantly, voting behaviour

27. Knowledge The number of attitude-relevant thoughts and experiences that come to mind when thinking about an attitude object Can be high or low in complexity. Complexity refers to the extent to which an individuals’ knowledge represents distinct dimensions

28. Extremity Extremity refers to the magnitude of the evaluation, usually defined as the deviation from the midpoint of the scale Rate your attitude toward bagels. 1234567 Very negative Very positive

29. Ambivalence Please rate your attitude toward assisted suicide 1234567 Very Negative x Very Positive

30. Ambivalence Please rate your attitude toward assisted suicide What would a scale response of 4 mean? 1234567 Very Negative X Very Positive

31. Ambivalence Please rate your attitude toward assisted suicide What would a scale response of 4 mean? – Neutral? – Conflicted? 1234567 Very Negative X Very Positive

32. Ambivalence Please rate your attitude toward assisted suicide 1234567 Not at all positive Very Positive 1234567 Not at all positive Very Positive 1234567 Not at all negative Very negative

33. Ambivalence Positive evaluation is lowPositive Evaluation is high Negative Evaluation is low Indifference/neutralpositive Negative Evaluation is high Negativeambivalence

34. Ambivalent attitudes are more susceptible to priming People often have ambivalent attitudes toward social groups (e.g., feminists) Participants were pretested: We chose some participants who were ambivalent toward feminists (respect/dislike), some who were not ambivalent Non-ambivalent and ambivalent participants matched on overall attitude

35. Laboratory session. All participants: – Listened to an audio recording of a male candidate being interviewed for a job. He was competent, but not warm – Rated the male job candidate on traits related to competence OR warmth – Evaluated three resumes of female job applicants. One was a Women’s Studies major and volunteered at the Women’s Centre on campus

36. Findings Ambivalent participants were influenced by the priming manipulation. Those primed with the competence words were more likely to rate the feminist applicant highly, and report intentions to hire her, than those primed with warmth words In contrast, the priming manipulation did not influence: – How the non-ambivalent participants rated the feminist applicant – How the other two (non-feminist) applicants were rated by either ambivalent or non-ambivalent participants

37. Cognitive Consistency Consonance: Dissonance: Irrelevance:

38. Types of Dissonance Effects Decision Justification Effort Justification – Aronson and Mills (1959) initiation study Induced Compliance and Attitude Change – Festinger and Carlsmith, 1959 – Zimbardo et al. (1965) grasshopper study Induced Compliance and Extinguishing Undesired Behaviour Belief Disconfirmation – Flying saucer study

39. Decision justification Suppose I give you a list of 10 different restaurants and ask you to rank them from most desired to least desired. If I give you a choice between a gift card for #1 and #10 and ask you to rank them again—would this affect your ratings? If I give you a choice between a gift card for #5 and #6 and ask you to rank them again—would this affect your ratings?

40. Effort Justification Justifying the time, effort, or money they have devoted to something that has turned out to be unpleasant or disappointing “Liking what we suffer for” Aronson & Mills, 1959

41. Fried Grasshoppers Study Participants were asked to eat a fried grasshopper Independent variable: Experimenter was either friendly or rude Dependent variable: ratings of grasshoppers

42. Conditions for Dissonance Arousal Aversive consequences Personal Responsibility – Free Choice – Foreseeabiliy Feel arousal, label it as negative Attribute Arousal to Inconsistency

43. Dissonance Reduction Change Cognition Change Behaviour Add other cognitive elements (bolstering) Reduce importance of elements (trivialization) Reduce perceived choice

44. Is Cognitive Dissonance the Only Way our Behaviour Influences our Attitudes ? Self-perception Theory Impression Management Theory Self-affirmation Theory

45. Dissonance vs. Self-Perception Theory (Bem, 1972) Self-perception Theory: States that people come to know their own attitudes by looking at their behaviour, and inferring their attitudes from their behaviour

46. Impression Management Impression management theory states that perhaps our internal attitudes really don’t change, we just report that they do in order to appear consistent

47. Self-Affirmation If we feel badly about ourselves because of cognitive dissonance, we can affirm another aspect of the self to reduce this dissonance

48. Self-affirmation (Steele, Hopp, & Gonzales, 1986) Participants were Arts or Business majors Ranked records, offered choice between 5 & 6 Wore lab coat, or did not wear lab coat Re-ranked records

49. Measured the “spread of alternatives” when participants re-ranked the records Science MajorsBusiness Majors No lab coat Wore lab coat

50. Comparisons Among Different Theories of Self-Persuasion Cognitive Dissonance Self-Perception Impression Management Self-affirmation Motivated by desire to reduce discomfort? Does a person’s attitude really change? Does the attitude change need to be related to the behaviour?

51. Application of dissonance theory (Stone et al., 1994) Participants (university students) called into the laboratory for a study on “health and persuasion” Randomly assigned to one of four conditions: – Hypocrisy – Commitment only – Mindful only – Information only Given the chance to buy condoms (10 cents)

52. Findings Proportion of students who bought condoms HypocrisyCommitment only Mindful onlyInformation only