Smith s Contextual Map of Social Attitudes and Behavior

1. Smith�s Contextual Map of Social Attitudes and Behavior Not a testable theory; a map that highlights landmarks for the course. An intellectual framework that emphasizes context and the interactionalist view. 5 major panels Arrows = causal relationships Dotted lines = interactive components

3. Panel 5 Arrows A & B suggest Lewin�s approach to social behavior Not a matter of P or S, but one may be more influential in a given case (�situations of action� play a role) Note G � behavior has consequences as well as causal status. Effects on social world � F, H, I. Short-term, long-term

4. Panel 3 Focus on the inferred dispositions or attitudes that the person brings to the situation. 2 aspects: (1) how does a person�s attitudes come to bear on social behavior; (2) how these attitudes arise and are sustained in relation to self and identity. M,N, O: situation plays dual role � engages some attitudes but not others (e.g., does a legislator base vote on own attitude or constituents modal view?)

6. Motivational or Functional Bases P, Q, R: motivation underlying any attitude Object appraisal � sizing up the social world and issues. Cognitive economy. Self-Other: what conception of self does person want to maintain? e.g., is it important to think of yourself as a fiscally conservative, socially liberal person? Ego-defense: attitude less concerned with avowed object, more concerned with containing inner conflict.

7. Individual Differences S, T at bottom of panel: attitudes and the way they engage in a given situation reflect individual differences as well as motives. Panel 2: socialization processes relevant to development, maintenance, and change of attitudes. U = informational influence; V = normative influence (e.g., Newcomb�s Bennington study)

8. Limitations Attitudes rooted in motives, but maybe more complex than typology suggests. Ignores selectivity process: 2 & 3, 3 & 4 � extant attitudes, motives, expectations deeply affect what we attend to and how we categorize and judge. �Na�ve realism� (Pronin, Gilovich, & Ross, 2004): people readily infer various biases in others, while denying such biases in themselves. Our views are �sovereign.� No explicit role for biology and behavioral genetics (e.g. political attitudes, yes; party ID, no)

9. Historical Background: The Psychology of Attitudes Overview �Links to experimental psychology �Sociological tradition � �definition of the situation� �Measurement tradition in psychology �Atheoretical nature of the early work

10. Overview: Some important developments �Late 1930�s: the science of public opinion polling �Late 1940�s: The Authoritarian Personality �Late 1940�s: experimental social psychology as an approach to the study of attitudes �Persuasion heyday: 1950�s and 1960�s �Late 1960�s and 1970�s: challenges, rise of interactionism �Rise of work on structural issues in 1980�s and 1990�s and dual process approach to persuasion in current decade.

11. Historical Background: The Psychology of Attitudes �Links to experimental psychology �Sociological tradition � �definition of the situation� �Measurement tradition in psychology �Atheoretical nature of the early work

12. For more on History, BTW Check out: McGuire, W.J. (1986). The vicissitudes of attitudes and similar representational constructs in twentieth century psychology. European Journal of Social Psychology, 16, 89-130.

13. Historical Perspective �Links to experimental psychology Allport (1935): history of concept grounded in 19th century experimental psychology: mental set, instructional set. �Sociological tradition � �definition of the situation� (~1918) W.I. Thomas: attitude refers to any disposition of a person toward an object, bears on actual or potential responses.

14. Historical Perspective �Measurement tradition in psychology 1. Thurstone (1928): application of psychophysics tradition to measurement of attitudes. 2. Attitudes have direction (pro, con), and intensity toward an object/issue. No interest in cognitive content. 3. Theory and measurement entwined.

15. Historical Perspective �Atheoretical nature of the early work Early studies used simple indices of attitude (single item measures, ad hoc scales). Research in early 1930�s was descriptive and correlational. E.g. among college students, radicalism was modestly associated with dissatisfaction (Duh�). No substantive psychology of attitudes. Little evidence of theory guiding research or emerging from research.

16. Overview: Some important developments �Late 1930�s: the science of public opinion polling �Late 1940�s: The Authoritarian Personality �Late 1940�s: experimental social psychology as an approach to the study of attitudes �Persuasion heyday: 1950�s and 1960�s �Late 1960�s and 1970�s: challenges, rise of interactionism

17. Survey Research �Late 1930�s: the science of public opinion polling Psychology of attitudes at low ebb at start of WWII. Several developments changed the field. First, late 1930�s, advent of public opinion polling. Attitudes studied off campus, �real� events, sociological emphasis (Lazarsfeld et al), methods developed in wartime studies (Stouffer, The American Soldier, 1949).

18. Survey Research 3. Influx of psychologists and social scientists from government wartime effort to the academy. Cartwright and war bond effort: focus on cognitive and motivational structure of attitudes. 4. Rensis Likert and Angus Campbell at Michigan�s SRC. Focused on how attitudes toward candidates, party, and issues converged to determine voting intention and voting behavior (eventually, The American Voter, 1960). 5. Paid more attention to the cognitive content of these attitudes and theory development.

19. Overview: Some important developments �Late 1930�s: the science of public opinion polling �Late 1940�s: The Authoritarian Personality �Late 1940�s: experimental social psychology as an approach to the study of attitudes �Persuasion heyday: 1950�s and 1960�s �Late 1960�s and 1970�s: challenges, rise of interactionism

20. �Late 1940�s: The Authoritarian Personality Second development was surge of interest on Anti-Semitism and ethnocentrism based on ideas from psychoanalytic and ego psychology. Infusion of theory from scholarly refugees. Cartwright: No one more influential on field�s development than Hitler! T. Adorno, Sanford, Frenkel-Brunswick, & Levinson�s 1950 book: motivational analysis of anti-Semitic and more generalized ethnocentric attitudes in terms of defensive personality processes. Theory, multi-method.

21. The Authoritarian Personality Bios, FYI Theodor Adorno: member of influential Frankfurt school of critical theory, a Marxist-inspired effort to diagnose deformities of capitalism. Nevitt Sanford: distinguished psychologist at UCB who, in the year the book was published, was dismissed from his professorship for refusing to sign a loyalty oath (remember Sen. Joseph McCarthy?)

22. The Authoritarian Personality Bios, FYI (Wolfe, 2005) Else Frenkel-Brunswick: trained at Freud�s U. of Vienna, practicing lay analyst in No. CA. Daniel Levinson: famous for 1978 book, The season�s of a man�s life; popularized term �midlife crisis�.

23. The Authoritarian Personality F-scale: 9 key dimensions of protofascist personality (conventionality, submissiveness, aggression, subjectivity, superstitiousness, toughness, cynicism, the tendency to project unconscious emotional responses onto the world, and heightened concerns about sex.) Exs.: �Obedience and respect for authority are the most important virtues children should learn.� (Submissiveness)

24. The Authoritarian Personality �Homosexuality is a particularly rotten form of delinquency and ought to be severely punished.� (Aggression and sex) �No insult to our honor should ever go unpunished.� (Toughness and aggression) �No matter how they act on the surface, men are interested in women for only one reason.� (Sex and cynicism)

25. The Authoritarian Personality But multi-method study, not just F-Scale (see Brown reading). Ethnocentrism also measured by TAT and clinical interviews (quasi-analytic sessions). Not a random sample (known groups like unions, merchant marine, prison inmates, psychology clinic patients, etc.)

26. The Authoritarian Personality Remember goal of the research was not an empirical study of r�s between authoritarianism and, e.g., social class, religion, political affiliation. Goal was a composite picture of people with authoritarian leanings. Key �finding�: that such people identify with the strong and are contemptuous of the weak. Case studies meant to convey message that people who seemed exceptionally conventional on the outside could be harboring radically intolerant thoughts on the inside.

27. The Authoritarian Personality Critique from Christie & Jahoda (eds.) 1954, Studies in the scope and method of �The Authoritarian Personality�; 2 criticisms of note (one political, one methodological) 1. How could one write about authoritarianism by focusing only on the political right? (Edward Shils, sociology, Chicago)

28. The Authoritarian Personality �Fascism and Bolshevism, only a few decades ago thought of as worlds apart, have now been recognized increasingly as sharing many very important features.� (Shils) 2. Hyman & Sheatsley: found every aspect of their survey methodology wanting. Sampling non-existent. Q�naire wording flawed. No method for assessing causality. Whatever participants said about themselves could not be verified. F Scale lacked coherence. (see Brown reading)

29. The Authoritarian Personality Overemphasis on F Scale concerns; don�t throw the baby out with the bathwater! Altemeyer�s research has revived interest. 1997 RWA Scale that captures submission and dominance. Also grounded in personality structure, but relies on social learning theory instead. Emphasis on early training in obedience, conventionalism, aggression, as modified by later life experiences. TAP deserves re-evaluation. As relevant now as then with the collapse of left-wing authoritarianism (e.g., Soviet Union) and rise of right-wing authoritarianism.

30. The Authoritarian Personality E.g., connections between authoritarianism and questions about sexuality. 6/19/05 NYT Magazine: Shorto�s analysis of anti-gay marriage activists: �Their passion comes from their conviction that homosexuality is a sin, is immoral, harms children and speads disease. Not only that, but they see homosexuality itself as a kind of disease, one that afflicts not only individuals but also society at large and that shares one of the prominent features of a disease: It seeks to spread itself.� F-Scale score?

31. The Authoritarian Personality E.g., The left frequently dismisses views of conservative opponents on abortion, church-state separation, or feminism as irrational bigotry, when the conclusions of most people who hold such views stem from deeply held, and morally reasoned, religious convictions. So by no means are all opponents of, say, gay marriage, incipient fascists!

32. The Authoritarian Personality Lots of other contemporary exs. Carl Ford Jr., former head of U.S. State Dept. intelligence, on John R. Bolton (during UN ambassador confirmation hearings), called him a �quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy.� Core quality: Identify with strength, disparage weakness. Right out of the clinical material in TAP

33. The Authoritarian Personality Or take Texas Rep. Sen. John Cornyn in spring 2005 on why violent attacks on (unaccountable) federal judges were understandable: �There are some activities so flagrantly un-American that, when responsible officials won�t take the proper steps, the wide-awake citizen should take the law into his own hands.� F-scale: �Too many people today are living in an unnatural, soft way: we should return to the fundamentals, to a more red-blooded, active way of life.�

34. The Authoritarian Personality TAP hoped that their analysis would enable democracy to protect itself better against political extremism. Concluded that this could not be done by changing the personality structure of incipient authoritarians since their beliefs were too ingrained to be altered and persuasion techniques were too weak. Authoritarian tendencies �are products of the total organization of society and are to be changed only as that society is changed.�

35. Overview: Some important developments �Late 1930�s: the science of public opinion polling �Late 1940�s: The Authoritarian Personality �Late 1940�s: experimental social psychology as an approach to the study of attitudes �Persuasion heyday: 1950�s and 1960�s �Late 1960�s and 1970�s: challenges, rise of interactionism

36. Experimental social psychology New, lab-based experimental social psychology emerged after WWII from two sources. First, wartime experimental studies of the impact of U.S. Army propaganda films. Carl Hovland was the key figure. An experimental psychologist who, as a consultant, coordinated the research program on Army orientation films.

37. Experimental social psychology Hovland carried over his research program (post-war, at Yale) into a research program on persuasive communications. Generally guided by theories in psychology, esp. S-R learning theory. (Hull and Spence at Yale; Harold Lasswell, Poli Sci, @ Yale: coined �who says what to whom, how, with what effects?�

38. Experimental social psychology Broad conceptual framework that mapped effects of persuasive communications into those attributable to the source, content, predispositions of the audience, and responses induced by the communication. Second source for exp. social psy was Festinger�s (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance. Heyday of exp. social psy in the late 1950�s and early 1960�s. Considerable gov�t support for these research programs on attitude change.

39. Experimental social psychology Key point: The study of attitude change had become integrally linked with the extension and elaboration (not just the application) of general theories in psychology) Split between content-oriented, survey approach and process-oriented, experimental approach. Different research traditions.

40. Overview: Some important developments �Late 1930�s: the science of public opinion polling �Late 1940�s: The Authoritarian Personality �Late 1940�s: experimental social psychology as an approach to the study of attitudes �Persuasion heyday: 1950�s and 1960�s �Late 1960�s and 1970�s: challenges, rise of interactionism

41. Challenges Toward the end of the 1960�s, some disillusionment set in (sign of the times) and the social relevance of exp. social psy approach to persuasion was questioned. Challenges were cultural, political, but also theoretical, professional, and empirical. �Crisis� word used. Ethics of experimentation challenged (deception debate; demand cues � Orne)

42. Challenges But conceptual and empirical challenges more telling. Festinger (1964): attitude change effects are weak. What should we expect from dispositional concepts like attitude, personality traits in accounting for social behavior? Attitude-behavior domain: Wicker (1969), r=.30. Attitudes weak predictors of specific behaviors.

43. Challenges Walter Mischel (1968): critique of cross-situational stability of personality traits, r=.30. Same critique in both domains about the links between attitudes and behavior, traits and behavior. Same �remedy� emerged in both domains. Can�t expect attitudes to predict behavior directly without taking �situations of action� into account. Lewin (B=f(P,S). Measurement approach, e.g., �correspondence� (Fishbein & Ajzen); moderator variable approach to A-B relations.

44. Challenges Situationalism: under what conditions would personality traits be more or less likely to account for behavior? Alone, they are weak predictors of specific behaviors. Measurement solution: aggregation (e.g., Epstein).

45. Thurstone (1928) �It will be conceded at the outset that an attitude is a complex affair which cannot be wholly described by any single numerical index. For the problem of measurement this statement is analogous to the observation that an ordinary table is a complex affair which cannot be wholly described by any single numerical index.� Attitudes can be measured. American Journal of Sociology, 33, 530-531.

46. Sears (1986) Thesis: that �the idiosyncracies of social psychology�s rather narrow date base parallel the portrait of human nature with which it emerges.� (p.527) Dependence of narrow data base with college students (reliance on undergrads; reliance on experimental, lab-based methods)

47. Sears (1986) Has this dependence biased substantive conclusions about attitudes and persuasion processes? May be accurate with regard to the attitudes and behaviors of American college students, but maybe not behavior more generally. So Sears is not arguing that the data base is invalid. Just asking if such dependence threatens the validity of the research, and leads to overstating the strength of various relationships.

48. Sears (1986) Extrapolate from extant data base (vs. testing ecological validity of each set of experimental findings). Suggests that college students (relative to older adults): �Have incompletely formulated sense of self. �Uncrystallized sociopolitical attitudes. �Stronger cognitive skills.

49. Sears (1986) �Stronger needs for peer approval. �Tendencies to be more compliant with authority. �Unstable group relationships, identities. �Less material self-interest in public affairs. ��Unusual� egocentricity.

50. Sears (1986) Portrait of human nature based on attitude and persuasion research: People have a weak sense of own preferences, emotions, abilities. Easily damaged self-esteem. Behaviorally compliant. Attitudes and judgments easily changed. Attitudes have weak effects on behavior.

51. Sears (1986) �People ignorant of own true attitudes. �Personality predispositions not important determinants of sociopolitical attitudes. �Material self-interest and group norms play little role in research on attitudes. �Stage-specific findings play little role in work on attitude formation and change. �Humans dominated by cognitive, rational models, not by affective processes or emotions. �People are highly egocentric.

52. Sears (1986) Argues for increased reliance on adults tested in their �natural habitats� with materials from everyday life. Break �dependence.� But times have changed since mid-1980�s to a certain extent, and there is more diversity of participants. Nevertheless, keep these concerns in mind.