1. Attitudes and Attitude Change
Chapter 5
Attitudes and Attitude Change
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2. Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Attitudes
Attitudes are enduring dispositions with affective, behavioral, and cognitive components.

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

4. Attitudes Attitudes based on “ABC” information affective component
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Attitudes
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.

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Attitudes
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.

6. Theories of Attitudes Learning Theory Balance Theory
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Theories of Attitudes
Learning Theory
Balance Theory
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
Self-Perception Theory
Expectancy-Value Theory
Dual-Processing Theories
Cognitive Response Theory

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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

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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.

9. Theories of Attitudes Evaluation of Learning Approach:
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
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.

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Theories of Attitudes
Cognitive consistency approaches depict people as striving for coherence and meaning in their attitudes.

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Theories of Attitudes
Balance Theory (Heider) addresses the need to maintain consistency among our feelings and beliefs about what goes together.
the mutual evaluations of two people towards each other, and of each towards an attitude object.

12. The Balance Model Attitudes
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Attitudes
The Balance Model
There are eight possible configurations of two people and one object. According to this model, the imbalanced structures tend to become balanced by a change in one or more elements.

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Theories of Attitudes
Balance among such a system exists when all evaluations are positive, or when one is positive and two are negative.
Imbalance exists when one, or all three, evaluations are negative.
Imbalanced systems are unstable, and the system will tend to change into a balanced one, generally by changing as few elements as possible.

14. Theories of Attitudes Evaluation of Balance Theory
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Theories of Attitudes
Evaluation of Balance Theory
Research generally supports predictions.
However, balance pressures are much weaker when we dislike a person than when we like him or her.

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Theories of Attitudes
Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger) 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.

16. Theories of Attitudes Three ways of reducing dissonance
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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

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Theories of Attitudes
Dissonance can occur when we commit ourselves to a single course of action.
Festinger and his colleagues documented the behavior of members of a doomsday cult.
When the world failed to end as had been predicted, cult members claimed that their faith had helped save the world and began active recruiting. Finding additional supporters helped justify their original behavior.

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Theories of Attitudes
Attitude-discrepant behavior (counter-attitudinal behavior) also induces dissonance when a person’s attitudes are inconsistent with behavior.
This is typically relieved by changing the
attitude (since behaviors are difficult to
“undo.”)

19. Theories of Attitudes Insufficient Justification
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Theories of Attitudes
Insufficient Justification
The less incentive one has for performing a counterattitudinal behavior, the more dissonance is experienced.

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Theories of Attitudes
Factors increasing dissonance for performing counterattitudinal behavior
Small threat of punishment
Behavior is freely chosen
There is an irrevocable commitment
Negative consequences were foreseeable
Person feels responsible for consequences
Effort is expended
Questioning self-relevant expectations

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Theories of Attitudes
Self-Perception Theory (Bem) argues that we infer our attitudes from our behavior and perceptions of the external situation, the circumstances in which this behavior occurs, rather than from their internal state.

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Theories of Attitudes
Self-perception theory and cognitive dissonance theory make similar predictions but for different reasons.
Both theories may be correct:
Self-perception theory seems more applicable when people are unfamiliar with the issues or the issues are vague, minor, or uninvolved
Cognitive dissonance theory seems more applicable to explaining people’s behavior concerning controversial, engaging, and enduring issues.

23. Theories of Attitudes Expectancy-value theory assumes that people
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Theories of Attitudes
Expectancy-value theory assumes that people
develop an attitude based on their thoughtful
assessment of pros and cons:
Subjective Utility = Expectancy x Value
Expectancy-value theory treats people as
calculating, active, rational decision-makers.

24. Theories of Attitudes Dual Processing Theories
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Theories of Attitudes
Dual Processing Theories
People process a message systematically when they have both the motivation and the ability to do so; when they do not have the motivation or the ability, they process messages heuristically.

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Theories of Attitudes
Cognitive Response Theory seeks to understand attitude change by understanding the thoughts (“cognitive responses”) people produce in response to persuasive communications.
This theory assumes that people are active processors of information and generate cognitive responses to messages.

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Theories of Attitudes
Counterarguing: Actively rebutting the arguments made by the communicator.
Systematic Processing: Careful evaluation of the arguments in a persuasive communication.
Heuristic Processing: Processing information rapidly and efficiently using shortcuts to reduce complex problems to more manageable ones.

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Theories of Attitudes
Petty and Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood model draws a key distinction
The central route to persuasion involves detailed information processing and evaluation of arguments
The peripheral route to persuasion involves reliance on superficial cues without thoughtful consideration of the arguments.

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Persuasion
The more favorably people evaluate the communicator, the more favorably they are apt to evaluate the communication.
This idea reflects transfer of affect.

29. Model of the Persuasion Process
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Model of the Persuasion Process

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

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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.

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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.

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Persuasion
Elaboration-Likelihood Model: a theory of attitude change with a key variable regarding the amount of careful thought given to persuasive arguments (elaboration likelihood).
Peripheral Cues: factors that are irrelevant to the content of the message, but that may influence attitude change.

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

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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.

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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

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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.

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

39. Persuasion Aggression Arousal Fear Arousal
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Persuasion
Aggression 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.

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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.

41. Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Persuasion
People committed to an attitude position who are forewarned of an attempt to change their attitudes will be more resistant to persuasion
They can generate more counterarguments.
Those who are not committed to an attitude position are actually more likely to change their attitudes after a forewarning.

42. Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Persuasion
Distraction makes it harder to counter-argue and thus tends to enhance the effectiveness of a persuasive message.
Too much distraction, however, will prevent a message from being heard at all and will reduce persuasion to zero.

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Persuasion
McGuire suggested that inoculation (building resistance to persuasion by arguing against weak forms of a persuasive argument) helps people resist persuasion.

44. Attitude Change over Time
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Attitude Change over Time
Thinking about an attitude object tends to make the attitude more extreme
thinking allows people to generate more consistent attitudes (if they have a preexisting schema for the issue).

45. Attitude Change over Time
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Attitude Change over Time
The Sleeper Effect refers to a rebound in persuasiveness of messages delivered by low-credibility sources.
separation in memory of the source and the message
Separation in memory of the message and discounting cues

46. Attitudes and Behavior
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Attitudes and Behavior
A classic study of attitude-behavior consistency:
La Piere (1934) toured the United States with a Chinese couple, stopping at hotels and restaurants along the way.
They were refused service at only one establishment.
However, 92% of the institutions later said in a letter that they would refuse to accept Chinese people as guests.

47. Attitudes and Behavior
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Attitudes and Behavior
Later studies have shown higher degrees of attitude-behavior consistency
especially for attitudes that are
stable
important
certain
consistent between cognition and affect
easily accessed
formed through direct experience

48. Attitudes and Behavior
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
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.

49. Attitudes and Behavior
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
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.

50. Attitudes and Behavior
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
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.

51. Attitudes and Behavior
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
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.

52. The Reasoned Action Model
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The Reasoned Action Model
The model has been widely used to predict a variety of behaviors.
E.g., birth control use, decision to breast feed

53. Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
The Reasoned Action Model of Factors that determine a person’s behavior.

54. The Reasoned Action Model
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
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