Attitudes & attitude change

1. Attitudes & attitude change Seminar 5:

2. Seminar outline • What is an attitude? • How do attitudes form? • Persuasion: attitude change • Advertisements

3. Today’s Puzzle When was the last time someone tried to… • Convince you to buy something you didn’t need? • Do something you didn’t like? Did you give in? Why or why not?

4. Why study attitudes? Attitudes are important because: • You have an attitude towards almost anything. • Attitudes strongly influence how we think, feel • Attitudes presumably influence our behavior

5. What is an attitude? An opinion? A viewpoint?

6. Structure of attitudes (aka. attitude bases) Thoughts and beliefs one has about an attitude object  The way one behaves when exposed to an attitude object. Emotional reaction one has toward an attitude object

7. Weightage differs by attitude object

8. Weightage differs by person

9. Weightage differs by situation Starving Satiated

10. How can you measure attitudes?

11. Explicit measure You ask. But be careful what/how you ask. (Recall Tutorial 1) “What is your attitude toward research on animal cloning?” vs. “If research on animal cloning could be used to advance our ability to prevent cancer, would you be in favor of such research?”

12. Implicit measures • Fundamental problem: “how much” of response is due to one factor or other. • The IAT (implicit attitude test) is not the only implicit measurement. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/india/selectatest.jsp • In fact, there are many others (e.g., name-letter effect), some more valid than others. • Beware of implicit attitude tests on “Facebook” Social desirability “true” attitude

13. What other implicit measures can there be? • Example 1A: Covert behaviors • Imagine you’re on Delhi’s metro. Where will you sit?

14. What other implicit measures can there be? • Example 1B: Covert behaviors - Lost letter technique • Stamped and self-addressed envelopes dispersed in public places (“lost letters”)

15. What other implicit measures can there be? • Example 2: Word stem completion tasks “What do you think psychology is?” “Complete the word stems.” FR _ _D FREUD or FRAUD

16. What other implicit measures can there be? Example 3: Evaluative decision tasks “Is it a good or a bad word?” prime target decision desirable response chocolate xxxxxx desirable response

17. Many more… • Affect misattribution paradigm (Keith Payne) • Lexical decision task • Sentence completion task • Word association task, sometimes called free association task (sounds Freudian, but more scientific – Freud asked leading questions) • Go-No-Go task

18. How do attitudes form?

19. How do attitudes form? • Genetics • Social learning • Mere exposure • Our behavior (covered previous class)

20. Genetics • Somewhat controversial • Only some attitudes are “heritable” (Are attitudes phenotypes controlled by genes?) • Large-scale well-controlled genetic experiments about attitudes are rare • Even when a candidate gene is found, what does the gene actually do?

21. Example: Genopolitics The study of the genetic basis of political behavior and attitudes Gene monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A)  serotonin transporter (5HTT)  dopamine receptor (DRD2, DRD4)  Attitudes Political affiliation Political ideology Suppose these genes regulate impulsivity. How do you think it would affect Trump and Clinton voters? Fowler et al. (2008). Genetic variation in political participation. Am Pol Sci Rev.

22. Attitude Formation • social learning - acquire attitudes from others • classical conditioning- learning based on association • instrumental conditioning - learn to hold the “right” views • observational learning - learning by observing actions of others and exposure to mass media

23. The mere exposure effect Manipulation phase Subliminal presentation (4 ms) |我|爱|新|加|坡| Test phase • “old” vs. and “new” symbols |我|爱|新|加|坡|在|印|度|工|作 • Recognition task: chance level • Liking: old symbols preferred Zajonc. (1980). Feeling and thinking: Preferences need no inferences. Am Psy.

24. Attitude change

25. The debate “Emotional appeals work better” “Just focus on the message” “Colored ads are better than greyscale ads” “Let’s put a sexy model in our ad” So, what works best?

26. Nonverbal cues important Argument strength unimportant Nonverbal cues unimportant Argument strength important Elaboration-Likelihood Model A jargon for a simple concept Message unimportant, uninteresting Heuristic processing Peripheral Route Message important, interesting Systematic processing Central Route

27. Source and message characteristics • Nonverbal cues • Credibility • expertise • trustworthiness • Attractiveness • Speaking style • Message characteristics • Strong arguments

28. Factors influencing information processing • We tend to use systematic processing when: • we are strongly motivated (e.g., issue is personally relevant) • we have a high ability to do so (e.g., not under stress) • We tend to use heuristic processing when: • we are unmotivated • we lack the ability to systematically process info

29. Audience Processing Persuasion Analytical & Motivated High effort; Elaborate; Agree & counter- argue Strong arguments cause enduring agreement Central Route Persuasive Appeal Response Not analytical or involved Low effort: Use peripheral cues, heuristics Cues trigger liking & acceptance Peripheral Route Summary: ELM

30. Matching attitude bases to persuasion type Most persuasive appeal • Recall: Most persuasive appeal

31. Analyze the following advertisements What are the cues? What is the message? What route(s) to persuasion was/were intended? Discuss in your groups.

34. Applications: Does subliminal advertising work?

35. Historical Background • The James Vicary incident (late 1950s) • Popcorn sales increase by 50%, he says. • Media reaction: • Minds have been “broken and entered” (The New Yorker, 9/21/57) • “The most alarming and outrageous discovery” since the invention of the machine gun (The Nation, 10/5/57) • Subliminal advertising banned

36. Evidence? • Vicary’s claims were fabricated! • No evidence that subliminal advertising works in real-life contexts • Note: Regular advertising is effective; strangely people believe that they are immune to it. Wilson & Blake (1994). Mental contamination and mental correction. Psy Bull.

37. Subliminal influence in laboratory settings “Thank you for your participation. Take a complimentary beverage home!” Subliminal priming phase Verwijmeren et al. (2011). The workings and limits of subliminal advertising: The role of habits. J Consumer Psy.

38. Something to think about… Why is North Korea so effective at convincing its citizen to love their leaders? Is indoctrination a kind of persuasion?

39. Summary • The structure of attitudes affect persuasive attempts. • Effective persuasion depends on the receiver’s characteristics.