1. Attitudes & attitude change
Seminar 5:

2. Seminar outline What is an attitude? How do attitudes form?
Persuasion: attitude change
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3. When was the last time someone tried to…
Today’s Puzzle
When was the last time someone tried to…
Convince you to buy something you didn’t need?
Do something you didn’t like?
Did you give in?
Why or why not?

4. Why study attitudes? Attitudes are important because:
You have an attitude towards almost anything.
Attitudes strongly influence how we think, feel
Attitudes presumably influence our behavior 4 10 10

5. What is an attitude?
An opinion? A viewpoint?

6. Structure of attitudes (aka. attitude bases)
Thoughts and beliefs one has about an attitude object
Attitude object
Cognition
Affect
Behavior
 The way one behaves when exposed to an attitude object.
Emotional reaction one has toward an attitude object

7. Weightage differs by attitude object
Laptops
Cognition
Affect
Behavior
Donald Trump
Cognition
Affect
Behavior

8. Weightage differs by person
Car
Cognition
Affect
Behavior
Car
Cognition
Affect
Behavior

9. Weightage differs by situation
Starving
Satiated
Chocolate
Cognition
Affect
Behavior
Chocolate
Cognition
Affect
Behavior

10. How can you measure attitudes?

11. Explicit measure You ask. But be careful what/how you ask.
(Recall Tutorial 1)
“What is your attitude toward research on animal cloning?”
vs.
“If research on animal cloning could be used to advance our ability to prevent cancer, would you be in favor of such research?”

12. “true” attitude
Social desirability
Implicit measures
Fundamental problem: “how much” of response is due to one factor or other.
The IAT (implicit attitude test) is not the only implicit measurement. p
In fact, there are many others (e.g., name-letter effect), some more valid than others.
Beware of implicit attitude tests on “Facebook”

13. What other implicit measures can there be?
Example 1A: Covert behaviors
Imagine you’re on Delhi’s metro.
Where will you sit? 1 2 3 4

14. What other implicit measures can there be?
Example 1B: Covert behaviors - Lost letter technique
Stamped and self-addressed envelopes dispersed in public places (“lost letters”)

15. What other implicit measures can there be?
Example 2: Word stem completion tasks
“What do you think psychology is?”
“Complete the word stems.”
FR _ _D
FREUD and FRAUD are both possible words: a science sceptic might associate psychology with fraud; a student might associate psychology with Freud.
FREUD or FRAUD

16. What other implicit measures can there be?
Example 3: Evaluative decision tasks
“Is it a good or a bad word?”
prime
target
decision
chocolate
desirable
response
xxxxxx
desirable
response

17. Many more… Affect misattribution paradigm (Keith Payne)
Lexical decision task
Sentence completion task
Word association task, sometimes called free association task (sounds Freudian, but more scientific – Freud asked leading questions)
Go-No-Go task

18. How do attitudes form?

19. How do attitudes form? Genetics Social learning Mere exposure
Our behavior (covered previous class)

20. Genetics Somewhat controversial
Only some attitudes are “heritable” (Are attitudes phenotypes controlled by genes?)
Large-scale well-controlled genetic experiments about attitudes are rare
Even when a candidate gene is found, what does the gene actually do?

21. Example: Genopolitics
The study of the genetic basis of political behavior and attitudes
Gene
monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) 
serotonin transporter (5HTT) 
dopamine receptor (DRD2, DRD4) 
Attitudes
Political affiliation
Political ideology
Suppose these genes regulate impulsivity.
How do you think it would affect Trump and Clinton voters?
Fowler et al. (2008). Genetic variation in political participation. Am Pol Sci Rev.

22. Attitude Formation social learning - acquire attitudes from others
classical conditioning- learning based on association
instrumental conditioning - learn to hold the “right” views
observational learning - learning by observing actions of others and exposure to mass media 4 10 10

23. The mere exposure effect
Manipulation phase
Subliminal presentation (4 ms)
|我|爱|新|加|坡|
Test phase
“old” vs. and “new” symbols
|我|爱|新|加|坡|在|印|度|工|作
Recognition task: chance level
Liking: old symbols preferred
Zajonc. (1980). Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. Am Psy.

24. Attitude change

25. So, what works best? The debate “Emotional appeals work better”
“Just focus on the message”
“Colored ads are better than greyscale ads”
“Let’s put a sexy model in our ad”
So, what works best?

26. Elaboration-Likelihood Model
A jargon for a simple concept
Nonverbal
cues
important
Argument
strength
unimportant
Message
unimportant,
uninteresting
Heuristic
processing
Peripheral Route
Nonverbal
cues
unimportant
Argument
strength
important
Message
important,
interesting
Systematic
processing
Central Route

27. Source and message characteristics
Nonverbal cues
Credibility
expertise
trustworthiness
Attractiveness
Speaking style
Message characteristics
Strong arguments

28. Factors influencing information processing
We tend to use systematic processing when:
we are strongly motivated (e.g., issue is personally relevant)
we have a high ability to do so (e.g., not under stress)
We tend to use heuristic processing when:
we are unmotivated
we lack the ability to systematically process info

29. Summary: ELM Central Route Persuasive Response Appeal Peripheral
Analytical
&
Motivated
High effort;
Elaborate;
Agree &
counter-
argue
Strong
arguments
cause
enduring
agreement
Not
analytical or
involved
Low effort:
Use
peripheral
cues,
heuristics
Cues
trigger
liking
acceptance
Persuasive
Appeal
Response
Audience
Processing
Persuasion
Central
Route
Peripheral

30. Matching attitude bases to persuasion type
Most persuasive appeal
Recall:
Homosexuality
Cognition
Affect
Behavior
Laptops
Cognition
Affect
Behavior
Most persuasive appeal

31. Analyze the following advertisements
What are the cues? What is the message? What route(s) to persuasion was/were intended? Discuss in your groups.

34. Applications: Does subliminal advertising work?

35. Historical Background
The James Vicary incident (late 1950s)
Popcorn sales increase by 50%, he says.
Media reaction:
Minds have been “broken and entered” (The New Yorker, 9/21/57)
“The most alarming and outrageous discovery” since the invention of the machine gun (The Nation, 10/5/57)
Subliminal advertising banned

36. Evidence? Vicary’s claims were fabricated!
No evidence that subliminal advertising works in real-life contexts
Note: Regular advertising is effective; strangely people believe that they are immune to it.
Wilson & Blake (1994). Mental contamination and mental correction. Psy Bull.

37. Subliminal influence in laboratory settings
“Thank you for your participation. Take a complimentary beverage home!”
Subliminal priming phase
Verwijmeren et al. (2011). The workings and limits of subliminal advertising: The role of habits. J Consumer Psy.

38. Something to think about…
Why is North Korea so effective at convincing its citizen to love their leaders? Is indoctrination a kind of persuasion?

39. Summary The structure of attitudes affect persuasive attempts.
Effective persuasion depends on the receiver’s characteristics.