1. Journalism 614: Attitudinal Perspectives on Opinion Expression

2. Outline for today Key concepts: Behavioral approach:
beliefs; attitudes; values; opinion
Behavioral approach:
classical conditioning
Cognitive processing:
ELM; heuristics
Consistency theories:
balance theory; cognitive dissonance
Motivational approach:
functional theory of attitudes
Attitude-behavior link:
theory of planned behavior
Emotions & attitudes:
cognitive approaches; social approaches

3. The Psychological Antecedents
Public opinion = beliefs, attitudes & values
Beliefs: The information that individuals have about objects or actions (cognitions)
Often unrecognized, sometimes incorrect
May be grouped together in a belief system
Often conflict between belief systems
Sometimes referred to as “schema”
Categories of knowledge about a topic
Schema may not be internally consistent

4. The Psychological Antecedents
Public opinion = beliefs, attitudes & values
Attitudes: positive or negative feelings
Evaluative component is central
Built upon our beliefs
Derived from sampling available thoughts, schema
Attitudes are often constructed “on the fly” based on what cognitions are most recently or frequently available.

5. The Psychological Antecedents
Public opinion = beliefs, attitudes & values
Values: Overarching goals we want to reach
Instrumental and terminal values
Values about modes of conduct
Honest, Courageous, Helpful
Values about end states of existence
Equality, Freedom, Love
Central to expression on many issues and topics
Most stable element of opinion expression
Often evoked by political leaders in speeches
The basis for issue publics around controversies

6. Opinions as Expressions
A hierarchy
Belief: People learn through schooling
Attitude: I favor public schooling
Value: Education is a right
All may lead to expression of opinion:
Support a tax increase for schools

7. Beyond Behavioral Approaches
Based on models of classical and operant conditioning in animals
People are “conditioned” to respond in certain ways to specific stimulus – automatic reaction
Repeated pairing of negative words, e.g. “bad, dirty, stupid,” with a particular group, e.g. “Italians, Indians, Irish”, conditions a response
Generates a negative reaction whenever the group is encountered, even absent the cue word
This reaction triggers the behavioral response

8. Classical Conditioning
Combine conditioned and unconditioned stimulus to produce conditioned response

9. Drawbacks of Behavioral Theories
There are times when people think carefully
Elaboration Likelihood Model
Attitudes come in packages, are interconnected
Attitude Consistency Theories
People hold same attitude for different reasons
Functional Theories of Attitudes
People often do not act consistent with attitudes
Theory of Reasoned Action

10. Cognitive Response Theories
Brain is a “noisy, busy” place, always active
Ongoing mental activity interacts with incoming information to produce an attitude
People connect new information with their existing feelings and beliefs about a topic
Highly interactive process
Motivation and ability are key issues
Cognitive responses mediate effects

11. Elaboration Likelihood Model
Central and peripheral route attitude change
Persuasive communication has lasting effect on attitudes when…
Motivated to process the information
Ability to process the information
Cognitive responses are valenced
Otherwise, we rely on peripheral cues
Attitude change is temporary and unstable

13. Attitude Consistency Theories
Effort to maintain balance among network of interconnected attitudes
Explain how opinions are networked and how this networking affects opinion expression
Key issues: Are they consistent, inconsistent (dissonant), or irrelevant to one another?
P = Perceiver, O = Other person, X = Attribute

15. Cognitive Dissonance
Inconsistency between two cognitions creates an uncomfortable state
Cognitive dissonance - magnitude depends of importance of cognitive elements
Something must be done to alleviate stress
Change one of the cognitions to create consonance
Add consonant cognitions to create balance
Alter the importance of cognitions

17. Functional Theories
Attitudes serve various needs and have diverse motivational bases
Ego-defensive functions
Protect self from unflattering truths
Value-expressive functions
Convey cherished ideals to others
Knowledge functions
Understand events and people
Utilitarian functions
Help people gain rewards and avoid punishments
Attitude function dictates form of persuasion

18. The Attitude-Behavior Relation
Measurement Issues
Principle of correspondence
Individual Differences
Low self monitors = more consistent
Social and Situational Differences
Attitude accessibility and social context

19. Theory of Planned Behavior

20. Yet most of the time, people do not put much cognitive effort into information processing, cognitive consistency, or planning behavior