PSY 321 Attitudes & Behavior Dr. Sanchez

1. PSY 321Attitudes & BehaviorDr. Sanchez

2. What is an attitude?

3. What is an Attitude? A positive, negative, or mixed reaction to a person, object, or idea, expressed at some level of intensity (e.g., love, like, dislike, detest)

4. Four Possible Reactions to Attitude Objects Cacciopo, et al. 1997

5. Attitudes are Pervasive • There are few things in which we truly feel neutral • When switch on a game (e.g. tennis match) you quickly pick sides, even if you don’t know the players.

6. Components of Attitudes: Tripartite View Cognitive Attitude Affective Behavioral

7. Components of Attitudes • COGNITIVE • beliefs about attitude object (pos & neg) • AFFECTIVE • emotions and feelings the object triggers (pos & neg) • BEHAVIORAL • reaction toward the object (pos & neg actions)

8. Attitude Object: DENTIST • COGNITIONS • Dentists are friendly. • Dentists are expensive. • AFFECTS • Dentists make me feel anxious. • I like dentists. • BEHAVIORS • I visit the dentist twice a year. • I am a very cooperative patient.

9. Why People Have Attitudes • Value-Expressive function: Express who we are • Ego-defensive function: Protect Self-Esteem • Instrumental function: Obtain awards, avoid punishments • Knowledge function: understand people and events

10. How Attitudes Are Measured: Self-Report Measures • Attitude Scale: A multiple-item questionnaire designed to measure a person’s attitude toward some object. • e.g., Likert Scale • 1 = not at all; 3 = somewhat; 5 = very much

11. How would you respond to these questions? • Old Fashioned Racism • “I would mind if a Black family moved next door” • “Whites are more intelligent than Blacks” • Old Fashioned Sexism • “Women should stay home and not worry about having a career” • “Men should be in charge of all major decisions”

12. How Attitudes Are Measured: Self-Report Measures • Bogus Pipeline: A phony lie-detector device that is sometimes used to get respondents to give truthful answers to sensitive questions.

13. How Attitudes Are Measured: Covert Measures • Observable behavior • Measures of arousal • Facial Electromyograph (EMG): An electronic instrument that records facial muscle activity associated with emotions and attitudes.

14. The Facial EMG When people hear a message they agree with, there is increase in depressor and zygomatic muscles and decrease in corrugator and frontalis muscles.

15. How Attitudes Are Measured: The Implicit Association Test (IAT) • Based on notion that we have implicit attitudes. • Implicit Association Test (IAT): Measures the speed with which one responds to pairings of concepts.

16. pleasant unpleasant toxic

17. RutgersPrinceton

18. Rutgers or pleasant Princeton or unpleasant happy

19. Rutgers or pleasant Princeton or unpleasant

20. Interpreting Reaction Times • Faster responding to positive words when Rutgers is paired with pleasant = positive implicit attitude toward Rutgers • Faster responding to positive words when Princeton is paired with pleasant = positive implicit attitude toward Princeton

21. Findings IAT • Self over Other • White over Black • Young over Old • Males with Careers over Women with Careers • Women with Family over Men with Family • Limitations of IAT?

22. Explicit & Implicit Correspondence • Average correspondence is .24

23. Where do attitudes come from?

24. GENES: Twin studies • high correlations on attitude strength and content for identicals raised together OR apart! • significantly lower for fraternals

25. Genetic Influences on Attitudes Olson et al., 2001.

26. Origins of Attitudes: Social Experiences • Affectively Based Attitudes • based on people’s feelings of an attitude object (not on beliefs) • Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes • values • mere exposure • classical conditioning

27. Origins of Attitudes: Social Experiences • Affectively Based Attitudes • based on people’s feelings of an attitude object (not on beliefs) • Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes • values • mere exposure • classical conditioning

28. Origins of Attitudes: Social Experiences • Affectively Based Attitudes • based on people’s feelings & values of an attitude object • Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes • values • mere exposure • classical conditioning

29. Mere Exposure The tendency to develop more positive feelings toward objects & individuals the more we are exposed to them.

30. Mere Exposure:Mita and colleagues (1977) • Photographed women students on campus • Showed Ps picture & mirror image of print • Which do you like better - “regular” or mirror image print?

31. Mere Exposure:Mita and colleagues (1977) • 2/3 of Ps preferred the mirror print • 61% of their close friends preferred the actual picture • Ps were more exposed to mirrored image so like them more

32. Origins of Attitudes: Social Experiences • Affectively Based Attitudes • based on people’s feelings & values of an attitude object (not on beliefs) • Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes • values • mere exposure • classical conditioning

33. Classical Conditioning The case whereby a stimulus that elicits an emotional response is repeatedly experienced along with a neutral stimulus that does not, until the neutral stimulus takes on the emotional properties of the first stimulus

34. Affectively Based Attitudes: Classical Conditioning Stimulus 1 (mothballs) Stimulus 2 visits to granny Pleasurable Feelings Stimulus 1 (mothballs) Pleasurable Feelings

35. Got Milk?

36. Affectively Based Attitudes: Classical Conditioning Stimulus 1 Milk Stimulus 2 Supermodel Pleasurable Feelings Stimulus 1 Milk Pleasurable Feelings

37. Where Do Attitudes Come From? • GENES • Twin study • SOCIAL EXPERIENCES • affectively based • behaviorally based

38. Origins of Attitudes:Social Experiences • Behaviorally Based Attitudes • based on people’s observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object • Sources of Beh. Based Attit. • Bem’s Self-Perception Theory • Operant Conditioning

39. What are your attitudes about liberal politicians? Self-Perception Theory Behavior “Now that I think about it, I only vote for conservatives.” Attitude “I guess I don’t like liberal politicians.”

40. Origins of Attitudes:Social Experiences • Behaviorally Based Attitudes • based on people’s observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object • Sources of Beh. Based Attit. • Bem’s Self-Perception Theory • Operant Conditioning

41. Operant Conditioning The case whereby behaviors that people freely choose to perform increase or decrease in frequency, depending on whether they are followed by positive reinforcement or punishment

42. Behaviorally Based Attitudes & Operant Conditioning Behavior Toward An Object + Reinforce- ment or Punishment . Pos or Neg Attitude toward the Object e.g., playing with a child of another race + reinforcement - parents’ approval Punishment - parents’ disapproval

43. Do attitudes predict behavior?

44. The Weak Link Between Attitudes and Behavior • Why did early work find a weak attitude-behavior link?

45. General Attitudes and Specific Behaviors • Must be correspondence between level of specificity of attitude and behavior. • For example, to predict recycling at work, do you ask: • How do you feel about recycling? • How do you feel about recycling office paper?

46. Correspondence of Specificity(Davidson & Jaccard, 1979) • Study of married women’s use of birth control • Ps asked a series of attitude questions - general to specific (e.g., will U use birth control in next 2 years) • Two years later asked Ps if they had used birth control since the interview

47. Correspondence of Specificity(Davidson & Jaccard, 1979) • Attitude Attitude-Behavior • Measure Correlation • Att. toward birth control .08 • Att. toward birth control pills .32 • Att. toward using birthing control pills .53 • Att. toward using birth control pills during the next two years .57

48. Predicting Planned Behaviors Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein) Behavioral Intention Behavior

49. Predicting Planned Behaviors Theory of Planned Behavior Specific Attitude Behavioral Intention Behavior Subjective Norms Perceived Behavioral Control

50. Predicting Planned Behaviors Theory of Planned Behavior Specific Attitude Behavioral Intention Behavior Subjective Norms Perceived Behavioral Control