1. Attitudes and Attitude Change: Influencing Thoughts and Feelings
Chapter 7
Attitudes and Attitude Change:
Influencing Thoughts and Feelings

2. The Nature and Origin of Attitudes
Attitudes - evaluation of people, objects, and ideas
People are not neutral observers of the world.
They evaluate what they encounter.
They form attitudes.
(Ajzen, 2001; Eagly & Chaiken, 1998; Fazio, 2000; Petty, Cacioppo, Strathman, & Priester, 2005).

3. The Nature and Origin of Attitudes
Attitudes are made up of three components:
Affective
Emotional reaction
Behavioral
Actions or observable behavior
Cognitive
Thoughts and beliefs
Example—attitudes about cars
Affective
Perhaps feel excitement about getting a new car
U.S. autoworker examining a new foreign-made model, may feel anger and resentment
Behavioral
Test-drive the car and actually buy it
Cognitive reactions
Admire hybrid engine and fuel efficiency

4. Where Do Attitudes Come From?
Social experiences
Not all attitudes are created equally.
Though all attitudes have affective, cognitive, and behavioral components, any given attitude can be based more on one type of experience than another.
(Zanna & Rempel, 1988)

5. Cognitively Based Attitudes
An attitude based primarily on people’s beliefs about the properties of an attitude object
Sometimes our attitudes are based primarily on the relevant facts.
Example—a car
How many miles to the gallon does it get?
Does it have side-impact air bags?

6. Affectively Based Attitudes (1 of 2)
An attitude based more on people’s feelings and values than on their beliefs about the nature of an attitude object
Occasionally we even feel great about something or someone in spite of having negative beliefs.
An attitude based more on emotions and values than on an objective appraisal of pluses and minuses is called an affectively based attitude (Breckler & Wiggins, 1989; Zanna & Rempel, 1988).
As a guide to which attitudes are likely to be affectively based, consider the topics that etiquette manuals suggest should not be discussed at a dinner party: politics, sex, and religion. People seem to vote more with their hearts than their minds, for example, caring more about how they feel about a candidate than their beliefs about his or her specific policies (Abelson, Kinder, Peters, & Fiske, 1982; Granberg & Brown, 1989).
In fact, it has been estimated that one-third of the electorate knows virtually nothing about specific politicians but nonetheless has strong feelings about them (Redlawsk, 2002; Wattenberg, 1987).

7. Affectively Based Attitudes (2 of 2)
Affectively based attitudes don’t come from examining facts
Values
Example—religious, moral beliefs
Sensory reaction
Example—liking the taste of something
Aesthetic reaction
Example—admiring lines and color of a car
Conditioning
Feelings about such issues as abortion, the death penalty, and premarital sex are often based more on their values than on a cold examination of the facts. The function of such attitudes is not so much to paint an accurate picture of the world as to express and validate one’s basic value system (Maio & Olson, 1995; Schwartz, 1992; Smith, Bruner, & White, 1956; Snyder & DeBono, 1989).

8. Behaviorally Based Attitudes
An attitude based on observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object
For example, suppose you asked a friend how much she likes to exercise. If she replies, “Well, I guess I like it, because I always seem to be going for a run or heading over to the gym to work out,” we would say she has a behaviorally based attitude. Her attitude is based more on an observation of her behavior than on her cognitions or affect. As a guide to which attitudes are likely to be affectively based, consider the topics that etiquette manuals suggest should not be discussed at a dinner party: politics, sex, and religion. People seem to vote more with their hearts than their minds, for example, caring more about how they feel about a candidate than their beliefs about his or her specific policies (Abelson, Kinder, Peters, & Fiske, 1982; Granberg & Brown, 1989).
In fact, it has been estimated that one-third of the electorate knows virtually nothing about specific politicians but nonetheless has strong feelings about them (Redlawsk, 2002; Wattenberg, 1987).

9. Self-Perception Theory (Bem, 1972)
People infer their attitudes from their behavior only under certain conditions:
When initial attitude is weak or ambiguous
When no other plausible explanation for behavior
Sometimes people do not know how they feel until they see how they behave
Can form our attitudes based on our observations of our own behavior

10. Explicit versus Implicit Attitudes (1 of 2)
Explicit Attitudes
Attitudes that we consciously endorse and can easily report
Implicit Attitudes
Attitudes that are involuntary, uncontrollable, and at times unconscious
Measurement - Implicit attitudes test (IAT)
(Bassili & Brown, 2005; Fazio & Olson, 2003; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000)

11. Predicting Spontaneous Behaviors
Attitudes will predict spontaneous behaviors only when they are highly accessible to people.
Attitude Accessibility
The strength of the association between an attitude object and a person’s evaluation of that object, measured by the speed with which people can report how they feel about the object
(Fazio, 1990, 2000; Fazio & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2005; Kallgren & Wood, 1986).
When accessibility is high, your attitude comes to mind whenever you see or think about the attitude object. When accessibility is low, your attitude comes to mind more slowly.
It follows that highly accessible attitudes will be more likely to predict spontaneous behaviors because people are more likely to be thinking about their attitude when they are called on to act.

12. Predicting Deliberative Behaviors
Subjective norms
beliefs about how people they care about will view the behavior in question.
Perceived behavioral control
ease with which they believe they can perform the behavior.
 In one study, researchers asked a sample of married women for their attitudes toward birth control pills, ranging from the general (their attitude toward birth control) to the specific (their attitude toward using birth control pills during the next two years; see Table 7.1). Two years later, they asked the women whether they had used birth control pills at any time since the last interview. As Table 7.1 shows, the women’s general attitude toward birth control did not predict their use of birth control at all. This general attitude did not take into account other factors that could have influenced their decision, such as concern about the long-term effects of the pill and their attitude toward other forms of birth control. The more specific the question was about the act of using birth control pills, the better this attitude predicted their actual behavior (Davidson & Jaccard, 1979).

13. The New-Car Decision While some behaviors result from spur-of-the-moment, spontaneous decisions, others emerge from more thoughtful processes in which we carefully weigh pros and cons. The theory of planned behavior helps us understand the link between attitudes and these sorts of deliberative behaviors.
Source: Hero Images/Getty Images

14. How Do Attitudes Change?
7.3 How do internal and external factors lead to attitude change?

15. Attitude Changes and Social Influence
When attitudes change, it is often due to social influence
Attitudes are social phenomena.
Sometimes attitudes change dramatically over short periods of time. For example, Americans’ approval rating of President Obama went up and down during his presidency.
Attitudes do sometimes change. In America, for example, the popularity of the president often seems to rise and fall with surprising speed. In the weeks before the tragic events of September 11, 2001, for example, only about 50 percent of Americans said that they approved of the job that George W. Bush was doing as president. In the days right after 9/11, his approval rating jumped to 86 percent. After that his approval rating when up and down. Right before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 his approval rating had dropped to 57 percent; a month later, it rose to 71 percent (PollingReport.com, 2003). In November of 2005, as the war dragged on, only 37 percent of Americans approved of President Bush’s performance.

16. Changing Attitudes by Changing Behavior
People experience dissonance:
When their image is threatened.
When they cannot explain behavior with external justifications
Leads to finding internal justification for behavior
Brings your attitude and your behavior closer together
Equals attitude change!
As we noted in Chapter 6, people experience dissonance:
When their image is threatened.
When they cannot explain behavior with external justifications.
Leads to finding internal justification for behavior.
Brings your attitude and your behavior closer together.

17. Persuasive Communications and Attitude Change
Yale Attitude Change Approach
The study of the conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to persuasive messages
“Who said what to whom”
Who: the source of the communication
What: the nature of the communication
Whom: the nature of the audience
Drawing on their experiences during World War II, when they worked for the United States armed forces to increase the morale of U.S. soldiers (Stouffer, Suchman, De Vinney, Star, & Williams, 1949), Carl Hovland and his colleagues (Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953) conducted many experiments on the conditions under which people are most likely to be influenced by persuasive communications. In essence, they studied “who says what to whom,” looking at the source of the communication (e.g., how expert or attractive the speaker is), the communication itself (e.g., the quality of the arguments; whether the speaker presents both sides of the issue), and the nature of the audience (e.g., which kinds of appeals work with hostile or friendly audiences).

18. Figure 7.3 The Yale Attitude Change Approach
This approach yielded a great deal of useful information on how people change their attitudes in response to persuasive communications. As the research mounted, however, a problem became apparent: Many aspects of persuasive communications turned out to be important, but it was not clear which were more important than others—that is, it was unclear when one factor should be emphasized over another.
For example, let’s return to that job you have with the American Cancer Society. The marketing manager wants to see your ad next month! If you were to read the many Yale Attitude Change studies, you might find lots of useful information about who should say what to whom in order to construct a persuasive communication. However, you might also find yourself saying, “There’s a lot of information here, and I’m not sure where I should place the most emphasis. Should I focus on who delivers the ads? Or should I worry more about the content of the message?”
Researchers at Yale University initiated research on what makes a persuasive communication effective, focusing on “who said what to whom.”

19. The Central & Peripheral Routes to Persuasion
Elaboration Likelihood Model – 2 ways in attitudes can be changed
Central route
When people are motivated and have the ability to pay attention to the arguments in the communication
Peripheral route
When people do not pay attention to the arguments but are instead swayed by surface characteristics
People do not elaborate on the arguments
The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Petty et al., 2005), for example, specifies when people will be influenced by what the speech says (i.e., the logic of the arguments) and when they will be influenced by more superficial characteristics (e.g., who gives the speech or how long it is).

20. Figure 7.4 The Elaboration Likelihood Model
What determines whether people take the central the peripheral route to persuasion? The key is whether people have both the motivation and the ability to pay attention to the facts. If people are truly interested in the topic and thus motivated to pay close attention to the arguments, and if they people have the ability to pay attention—for example, if nothing is distracting them—they are more likely to take the central route.
The elaboration likelihood model describes how people change their attitudes when they hear persuasive communications.

21. The Motivation to Pay Attention to the Arguments (1 of 2)
Personal relevance of the topic
How important is the topic to a person’s well-being?
More personally relevant, pay more attention.
Central route
For example, consider the issue of whether Social Security benefits should be reduced. How personally relevant is this to you? If you are a 72-year-old whose sole income is from Social Security, the issue is extremely relevant; if you are a 20-year-old from a well-to-do family, the issue has little personal relevance.

22. The Motivation to Pay Attention to the Arguments (2 of 2)
People high in the need for cognition
Form attitudes through central route
People low in the need for cognition
Rely on peripheral cues
Need for Cognition
A personality variable reflecting the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities
This is a personality variable that reflects the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities.

23. The Ability to Pay Attention to the Arguments
When people are unable to pay close attention to the arguments, they are swayed more by peripheral cues
Status of communicator
Liking or trusting communicator
Someone with a weak argument can still be persuasive if they distract their audience
An exchange of letters appeared in the an advice column about whether drugs such as cocaine and marijuana should be legalized. Readers wrote in with all sorts of compelling arguments on both sides of the issue, and it was difficult to figure out which arguments had the most merit. One reader resolved this dilemma by relying less on the content of the arguments than on the prestige and expertise of the source of the arguments.

24. How to Achieve Long-Lasting Attitude Change
People who base their attitudes on a careful analysis of the arguments will be:
More likely to maintain this attitude
More likely to behave consistently with this attitude
More resistant to counter-persuasion
(Chaiken, 1980; Mackie, 1987; Petty, Haugtvedt, & Smith, 1995; Petty & Wegener, 1998)
In one study, for example, people changed their attitudes either by analyzing the logic of the arguments or by using peripheral cues. When the participants were telephoned ten days later, those who had analyzed the logic of the arguments were more likely to have maintained their new attitude—that is, attitudes that changed via the central route to persuasion lasted longer (Chaiken, 1980).

25. Fear-Arousing Communications (1 of 2)
Persuasive messages that attempt to change people’s attitudes by arousing their fears
Strong amounts of fear fail if they overwhelm people.
Become defensive
Deny importance of threat
Cannot think rationally about issue
Public service ads often take this approach by trying to scare people into practicing safer sex, wearing seat belts, and staying away from drugs.
For example, as of January, 2001, cigarette packs sold in Canada are required to display graphic pictures of diseased gums and other body parts that cover at least 50% of the outside label (Carroll, 2003).

26. Fear-Arousing Communications (2 of 2)
Do fear-arousing communications work?
Moderate amounts of fear work best
Provide information on how to reduce fear
(Petty, 1995; Rogers, 1983)

27. Fear and Smoking Ads The FDA has tried to implement guidelines to require all cigarette packs sold in the United States to display pictures that warn about the dangers of smoking, such as the one shown here. Do you think that this ad would scare people into quitting?
Source: UPI/FDA/Landov

28. Figure 7.6 Effects of Fear Appeals on Attitude Change
Why? Watching the film scared people, and giving them the pamphlet reassured them that there was a way to reduce this fear—by following the instructions on how to quit. (Leventhal, Watts, & Pagano, 1967)
Seeing only the pamphlet did not work very well because there was little fear motivating people to read it carefully. Seeing only the film did not work very well either because people are likely to tune out a message that raises fear but does not give information about how to reduce it. This may explain why some attempts to frighten people into changing their attitudes and behaviors fail: They succeed in scaring people but do not provide specific recommendations to help them reduce their fear (Hoog, Stroebe, & de Wit, 2005; Ruiter, Abraham, & Kok, 2001).
People were shown a scary film about the effects of smoking, instructions about how to stop smoking, or both. Those who were shown both had the biggest reduction in the number of cigarettes the smoked. (Adapted from Leventhal, Watts, & Pagano, 1967)

29. Emotions as a Heuristic (1 of 2)
When using peripheral route
Use mental shortcuts (heuristics)
e.g., “Experts are always right”
Use emotions as heuristic
Problem is we can make mistakes about what is causing our mood
Misattribute feelings created by one source to another
How do I feel about it?”
If we feel good -must have a positive attitude about object
If we feel bad -thumbs down!
An explanation of the two ways in which persuasive communications can cause attitude change:
Recall from Chapter 3 that heuristics are mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently. In the present context, a heuristic is a simple rule people use to decide what their attitude is without having to spend a lot of time analyzing every little detail about the matter.
Examples of such heuristics include thinking that length equals strength (i.e., long messages are more persuasive than short ones).

30. Emotions as a Heuristic (3 of 3)
Advertisers and retailers want to create good feelings about their product
Pair product with appealing music or showing pleasant images
hope people will attribute feelings to the product
The problem is that sometimes it is difficult to tell where our feelings come from. Is it really the couch that made you feel great, or is it something completely unrelated? Maybe you were in a good mood to begin with, or maybe on the way to the store you heard your favorite song on the radio. Or perhaps a salesperson greeted you with a big smile and an ice-cold drink when you walked in the door, and that brightened your mood.
Advertisers and retailers want to create good feelings while they present their product (e.g., by playing appealing music or showing pleasant images), hoping that people will attribute at least some of those feelings to the product they are trying to sell.

31. Cartoon

32. Emotion and Different Types of Attitudes
Several studies have shown that it is best to “fight fire with fire”:
If an attitude is cognitively based
Try to change it with rational arguments
If it is affectively based
Try to change it with emotional appeals
The success of various attitude change techniques depends on the type of attitude we are trying to change. As we saw earlier, not all attitudes are created equally; some are based more on beliefs about the attitude object (cognitively based attitudes), whereas others are based more on emotions and values (affectively based attitudes).
(Fabrigar & Petty, 1999; Shavitt, 1989; Snyder & DeBono, 1989)

33. The Power of Advertising
7.4 How does advertising work to change people’s attitudes?

34. How Advertising Works Many take emotional approach of attitude change
Little difference between brands
Associate product with excitement, youth, sexual attraction
Attitudes that are more cognitively based:
Personally relevant?
Yes, then use logical, fact-based arguments
No, might use peripheral route
Peripheral route leads to attitude change that is not long lasting
Goal to make product personally relevant.
Consider the case of Gerald Lambert, who early in the twentieth century inherited a company that made a surgical antiseptic used to treat throat infections—Listerine. Seeking a wider market for his product, Lambert decided to promote it as a mouthwash. The only problem was that no one at the time used a mouthwash or even knew what one was. So having invented the cure, Lambert invented the disease. Look at the ad for Listerine, which appeared in countless magazines over the years. Even though today we find this ad incredibly sexist, at the time it successfully played on people’s fears about social rejec- tion and failure. The phrase “Often a bridesmaid, never a bride” became one of the most famous in the history of advertising. In a few cleverly chosen words, it succeeded in making a problem—bad breath—personally relevant to millions of people. Don Draper would be proud.

35. Do Brides Have Better Breath
Do Brides Have Better Breath? This ad is one of the most famous in the history of advertising. Although today it is easy to see how sexist and offensive it is, when it appeared in the 1930s, it succeeded in making a problem (bad breath) personally relevant by playing on people’s fears and insecurities about personal relationships. Can you think of contemporary ads that try to raise similar fears?
Source: The Advertising Archives

36. Advertising, Stereotypes, and Culture
Advertisements transmit cultural stereotypes in their words & images, subtly linking products with desired images.
can also reinforce and perpetuate stereotypical ways of thinking about social groups.
Advertising both reflects and shapes the biases present in our society.

37. Culture and Advertising
Western cultures
May base attitudes more on individuality and self-improvement
Ads stress independence
“It’s easy when you have the right shoes”
Eastern cultures
May base attitudes more on standing in social group
Ads stress interdependence
“The shoes for your family”
Ads more persuasive when match the thinking styles of target audience

38. Resisting Persuasive Messages
7.5 What are some strategies for resisting efforts at persuasion?

39. Attitude Inoculation Attitude Inoculation
Making people immune to attempts to change their attitudes by initially exposing them to small doses of the arguments against their position
By considering “small doses” of arguments against their position, people become immune to later, full-blown attempts to change their attitudes. Having considered the arguments beforehand, people are relatively immune to the effects of the later communication, just as exposing people to a small amount of a virus can inoculate them against exposure to the full-blown viral disease.
In contrast, if people have not thought much about the issue—that is, if they formed their attitude via the peripheral route—they are particularly susceptible to an attack on that attitude using logical appeals.

40. Being Alert to Product Placement
Advertisers increasingly place messages about their product in shows by paying the makers of a TV show or movie to incorporate their products into the script
When people are forewarned, they analyze what they see and hear more carefully and as a result are likely to avoid attitude change.
Without such warnings, people pay little attention to the persuasive attempts and tend to accept them at face value.
So before kids watch TV or go off to the movies, it is good to remind them that they are likely to encounter several attempts to change their attitudes.
If you were a fan of the NBC television program Chuck, for example, you may have noticed that the characters ate a lot of Subway sandwiches. That is no coincidence, because Subway was a sponsor of the show. In fact, one reason that NBC executives decided to renew the program in 2009 was because the Subway restaurant chain paid to have their products featured in the plots of the show (Carter, 2009). If you have ever watched American Idol, you’ve probably noticed that ever-present Coca-Cola cup in front of each judge. Maybe the revolving groups of judges over the years have all loved Coke, but more likely the Coca-Cola company paid to have their product prominently displayed.

41. Resisting Peer Pressure
Peer pressure in adolescence
Operates on values and emotions
Liking and acceptance by peer group
Not based in logical arguments
To make adolescents resistant to attitude change attempts via peer pressure
Attitude inoculation that focuses on inoculating against emotional appeals
One study found that the best predictor of whether an adolescent smokes marijuana is whether he or she has a friend who does so (Allen, Donohue, & Griffin, 2003; Yamaguchi & Kandel, 1984).
Consider Jake, a 13-year-old who is hanging out with some classmates, many of whom are smoking cigarettes. The classmates begin to tease Jake about not smoking, calling him a wimp. One of them even lights a cigarette and holds it in front of Jake, daring him to take a puff. Many 13-year-olds, facing such pressure, would cave in. But suppose that we immunized Jake to such social pressures by exposing him to mild versions of them and showing him ways to combat these pressures. We might have him role-play a situation where a friend calls him a chicken for not smoking a cigarette and teach him to respond by saying, “I’d be more of a chicken if I smoked it just to impress you.” Would this help him resist the more powerful pressures exerted by his classmates?
Several programs designed to prevent smoking in adolescents suggest that it would. In one, psychologists used a role-playing technique with seventh graders, very much like the one we described (McAlister, Perry, Killen, Slinkard, & Maccoby, 1980). The researchers found that these students were significantly less likely to smoke three years after the study, compared to a control group that had not participated in the program. This result is encouraging and has been replicated in similar programs designed to reduce smoking (Chassin, Presson, & Sherman, 1990; Falck & Craig, 1988; Killen, 1985).

42. When Persuasion Attempts Boomerang: Reactance Theory
People feel their freedom to perform a certain behavior is threatened, an unpleasant state of reactance is aroused, which they can reduce by performing the threatened behavior
In one study, for example, researchers placed one of two signs in the bathrooms on a college campus, in an attempt to get people to stop writing graffiti on the restroom walls (Pennebaker & Sanders, 1976). One sign read, “Do not write on these walls under any circumstances.” The other gave a milder prohibition: “Please don’t write on these walls.” The researchers returned two weeks later and observed how much graffiti had been written since they posted the signs. As they predicted, significantly more people wrote graffiti in the bathrooms with the “Do not write …” sign than with the “Please don’t write …” sign. Similarly, people who receive strong admonitions against smoking, taking drugs, or getting their nose pierced become more likely to perform these behaviors in order to restore their sense of personal freedom and choice (Bushman & Stack, 1996; Dowd et al., 1988).