Chapter 7. Attitudes

1. Chapter 7. Attitudes

2. Definitions • “A general and enduring positive or negative feeling toward some person, object, or issue” • “an association between an object and an evaluation in memory” 

3. How attitudes are measured • Attitudes can be measured (Thurstone, 1928) • “The very title of this paper may strike the reader as a paradox, for how can one measure a value which is admitted to be psychological`?...“(ibid.) • Measurement of attitudes is uni-dimensional.

4. Self-Report • Single item measures • Likert scales (after Renis Likert, 1932) • Indicate to what extent agree with each statement about an attitude object. 1. strongly disagree 5. strongly agree

5. Bogus Pipeline Procedure Self-report measures can be biased by social desirability. Experiment: • Participants are connected to a „lie detector“ machine. • Participants are more honest when they expect the machine will detect lies.

6. Explicit vs. Implicit Measures • Explicit or Overt measures, such as self-report, are potentially biased • Therefore, attempt to measure the attitude with Implicit or Covert measure • Implicit or Covert measures utilize: • Behavioral measures. • Physiological reactions. • Reaction time.

7. Behavioral measures • Would you approach a snake? (Breckler, 1984) • Distance from another person (Hazlewood & Olson, 1986)

8. Facial EMG • Attitudes are reflected by imperceptible muscle movements in the face • Agreement is indicated by increased activity in depressor and zygomatic muscles and decreased activity in frontalis and corrugator muscles.

9. EEG Brain wave patterns change upon presentation of a disliked stimulus after a string of liked stimuli and vice versa

10. Reaction-Time Measures • Affective priming procedure • prime facilitates participants' response when the prime and the target are of the same valence. • IAT: Implicit Association Test

11. Attitude formation

12. Basis of Attitudes Tripartite view of the basis of Attitudes: • Affective reactions (emotions and feelings) • Behavioral information • Cognitive information (beliefs) An attitude can be based on one or more sources of information

13. Affectively Based Attitudes • Learning perspective • Classicial conditioning • Operant conditioning

14. Classical Conditioning and Affective Persuasion

15. Classical Conditioning - Olson and Fazio (2001) • Pictures of Pokemon cartoon character paired with positive • or negative images and words, apparently at random • CS US paired with OR ‘awesome’ paired with OR ‘awful’ IAT of Pokemon and an explicit evaluation showed effects of conditioning

16. Evidence for Instrumental Conditioning of Attitudes • Spring festival at the University of Hawaii? (Insko, 1965) • You agree that this would bring in tourist dollars? “Good!”

17. Didn’t They Run This Ad 5 Minutes Ago? Discovered by Robert Zajonc in 1968, the mere exposure effect relies on the power of repetition. Mere Exposure Effect: the finding that the more exposure we have to a stimulus, the more apt we are to like it. • When dealing with similar products familiarity makes a huge difference

18. Cognitive Basis for Attitudes • Attitudes based primarily on the relevant facts. • Objective merits • Most often, attitudes about utilitarian objects.

19. Behavioral basis for attitudes • Past experience • Bem, 1972. Ss. reported the shock to be more intense if they escaped it.

20. Evaluative-cognitive consistency • I like it, but I think it is bad. • Low consistency • Less stability • More context-dependency • Lower persuasion resistance

21. Attitudes to Acting • College students who disapprove of cheating do not cheat on test; it is only the students who view cheating as acceptable who do cheat. • When segregation was still legal, hotel and restarant owners with racial stereotypes toward CHineses people would not serve them food or allow them to stay at their establishments. • During the 1970-s, people who felt that the energy crisis was a significant problem used less energy than those peopel who did not really believe that ther was a crisis.

22. When do attitudes guide Behavior? • The effect of Situation • Vested Interest • E.g. Michigan drinking age low (1982). Younger students were more involved – more attitude/behavior consistency. • Time Pressure • No time for careful examination. Reliance on the existing attitudes. • Social norms • Wish somebody is dead – low attitude/behavior consistency.

23. Qualities of the attitude • Attitude accessability

24. Accessibility of the Attitudes • Fazio (1986) presented attitude questions. • Do you favor a woman’s right to have an abortion? Yes No DV: Response time Other measure : attitude expression

25. Accessibility of the Attitude • Attitudes that are accessible: • Guide attention • Influence interpretation and judgment • Determine behavior • Similar to schema? • More accessible – less deliberative processing. • Accessibility influenced by: • Direct experience with attitude object • Repeated use

26. MODE (Fazio, 1990)Motivation and Opportunity as Determinants of the attitude-behavior consistency.