Attitude
Attitude vs. Belief
 Belief
is a thought (cognition) about
something


Raw fish is bad
Exercise is important
 Attitude



adds two components: ABCs
Affective: evaluation, emotion
Behavioral: tendency to take action
Cognitive: belief or thoughts
Components
 Affective:


I hate raw fish and sushi
I enjoy exercise
 Behavioral


I won’t eat sushi
I will exercise regularly
 Cognitive


Raw fish is bad
Exercise is good
Consistency
 We
always want our ABCs to agree
 What

Behavior will shape our attitude
 What

if we don’t have an attitude?
if our ABCs are inconsistent?
Caveats
Attitudes
 Explicit
attitude
 Implicit
attitude


Involuntary, uncontrollable, often unconscious
IAT
Attitudes toward groups

Prejudice



Stereotypes



Affective component
Hostile or negative attitude toward people just
because they are a group member
Cognitive component
Generalization in which identical characteristics are
assigned to all members
Discrimination


Behavioral component
Unjustified negative or harmful action toward a group
member because of their membership
Prejudice in the classroom

Jane Elliott






Prejudice can be taught
Told students blue-eyed people were better than
brown-eyed people
Brown-eyed children had to wear collars and sit in the
back of class
Over the course of one day: brown eyed children
became self-conscious, depressed, and demoralized
Next day: Elliott switched the stereotypes about eyecolor (brown=good)
Brown-eyed kids exacted their revenge
Why are stereotypes maintained?

Illusory correlation




Out-group homogeneity effect



See correlations where they don’t exist
Remember confirmatory examples more
Example: Cheerleaders are outgoing
Us vs. them
“All ______ are alike”
In-group bias


Positive feelings for people who are part of our ingroup
Alumni, state residency
Fundamental Attribution Error

Interpret behavior as a characteristic of the
individual rather than the situation
 Do not take into account the situation




Person unemployed is a bad worker
Bush caused war
Jeopardy player is really smart
Maintain stereotypes:


Attribute confirmatory examples to the individual
Ignore/attribute to the situation examples which don’t
fit or stereotype
Persuasion
 Yale Attitude
Change

Hovland, 1953
The effectiveness of communication depends
on who says what to whom.

Who: The persuader or source

• Credibility (expertise, knowledge)
• Attractiveness
Persuasion

What: The message
• One- vs. two-sided messages
• Blatantly persuasive
• Primacy vs. recency

Depends on when decision is made
• Fear arousing

To whom: The recipient
• Distraction
• Intelligence
• Age
Persuasive techniques
 Foot
in the door
 Door in the face
 Reciprocity—create an obligation
 Low-ball—obtain commitment then up the
price
 Sweeten the deal
 Exclusivity
 Prestige
Heider’s Balance Theory
 We
want to maintain consistency among
our attitudes


Prefer to agree with someone I like
Disagree with someone I dislike
Object
+
Object
+
Self
--
Other
+
+
Self
Other
--
Balance Theory
 What
if my attitudes are imbalanced?
Object
--
Object
+
Self
+
Other
Self
+


+
Other
--
Change beliefs about the object
Change beliefs about the person
• Change whichever is easier