Attitudes
The Nature of Attitudes
• Attitude
– A relatively stable organization of beliefs, feelings and
behavior tendencies toward something (attitude
object)
• Attitudes and Behaviors
– We don’t always behave the way we feel
• The correlation between attitudes and behavior is not
always high
– Self-monitoring
• Tendency of the individual to observe the situation for cues
about appropriate reaction
The Nature of Attitudes
• Attitude Development
– Much of our attitude is the result of experience
– Oskamp, 1991
• Early experiences (smiles and encouragement for
pleasing behaviors, punishment and disapproval for
displeasing behaviors) create enduring positive and
negative attitudes
– Parents, teachers, friends, celebrities shape our
attitudes
The Nature of Attitudes
• Attitude Development
– Bandura: Bobo the Clown
How are you influenced by what you see?
Social Identity Theory
• Tajfel & Turner (1979)
• No one “personal self”, but several selves of widening
circles of group membership.
• Different social contexts may trigger an individual to think,
feel and act on basis of his personal, family or national
“level of self.”
• Social identity is the individual’s self-concept derived from
perceived membership of social groups (Hogg & Vaughan,
2002)
– individual-based perception of what defines the “us” associated
with any internalized group membership. This can be
distinguished from the notion of personal identity which refers
to self-knowledge that derives from the individual’s unique
attributes.
Social Identity Theory
• Group membership creates ingroup/ self-categorization and
enhancement in ways that favor the in-group at the expense of the
out-group.
• Categorizing as group members leads them to display ingroup
favoritism.
– Seek positive self-esteem by separating ingroup from an outgroup
• Positive distinctiveness of ‘us’
– People’s sense of who they are is defined in terms of ‘we’ rather than
‘I’.
• Three main variables of ingroup favoritism
– Extent to which individuals identify with ingroup to internalize group
membership as aspect of self-concept.
– Extent to which prevailing context provides ground for comparison
between groups.
– Perceived relevance of comparison group,
• Shaped by relative and absolute status of the ingroup.
• Individuals are likely to display favoritism when an ingroup is central
to their self-definition and a given comparison is meaningful or the
outcome is contestable.
Social Identity Theory
• Schoolboys were assigned to groups, which were
intended as meaningless as possible.
• Assigned randomly, excluding roles of interpersonal
discrimination such as history of conflict, personal
animosity or interdependence.
• Assigned points to anonymous members of both their
own group and the other group.
• Conclusions
– even the most minimal conditions were sufficient to
encourage ingroup-favoring responses.
– Participants picked a reward pair that awarded more
points to people who were identified as ingroup members.
In other words, they displayed ingroup favoritism.
Prejudice & Discrimination
• Prejudice
• An intolerant, unfavorable and rigid view of a
group of people (Attitude)
• Discrimination
– An act or series of acts that denies opportunities
and esteem to an entire group of people
(Behavior)
Prejudice
• Sources of Prejudice
– Frustration-aggression theory (Allport, 1954)
• Displacement of hostility by exploited, oppressed, or
disenfranchised away from proper target and toward lower
social groups
– Authoritarian personality theory (Adorno et al, 1950)
• Rigidly conventional, rule-following individuals hostile to
those that deviate from the norms
– Cognitive misers
• Too much cognitive simplification, creates overgeneralizations and stereotypes
– Racism
• Members of certain racial/ ethnic groups are innately
inferior
Attitudes and Behavior
• Heavily researched because of belief that
attitudes can predict behavior
– NOT supported by evidence
– LaPiere (1930): attitudes & behaviors toward
Orientals in 1930s California
• Reported attitudes didn’t correlate with discriminatory
behavior
Measuring Attitudes
• Direct questions (Survey says…)
– Difficult to assess intensity
– No way to standardize answer
• Projection test
– LOOK INTO THIS
Measuring Attitudes
• Attitude scales (most common)
– Thurstone scale
• Evaluative statements about attitude object
– Wide range of positivity & negativity
– Osgood’s Semantic Difference
• Rate attitude object on bipolar adjective word pairs
– Limitations
• Social-desirability bias
Measuring Attitudes
• Physiological changes
– Arousal states associated with positive & negative
attitudes
– GSR
• Measures perspiration
– Limitation: doesn’t indicate type of emotion
– Pupilary response
• Hess (): subject wants to see what it like more than
what it dislikes
– Problems: fear dilates pupils, to, limited to visual
Measuring Attitudes
• Physiological changes
– Facial electromyogram (EMG)
• Assumptions: facial expressions are innate, people
learn only to control gross facial movements, unable to
control slight enervation
• Measures muscle enervation (tension)
• Limitations:
– Expensive, invasive, experiment may alter attitudes
Attitude Change
• How and why do attitudes change?
• How do we resist attitude changes we don’t
want?
Persuasion
• Pay attention to message, fully comprehend,
and accept message as convincing
• Resistance
– Identify underlying message, recognize attentiongetting techniques
– Awareness of techniques & tactics
Persuasion
Advertising Techniques
• Bandwagon: Popularity = desirability
– “Everyone’s doing it!”
• Celebrity Testimonial: Fame = taste
– “I’m Michael Jordan & I drink Gatorade!”
• Association Principle: product assoc. with qualities
– “Cool, sexy people smoke Kool cigarettes!”
• Emotional Appeal: Creates emotional response (fear)
– “If you don’t want YOUR family threatened, get an ADT security
system!”
• Repetition: Repeated exposure of logo & name
– Political ads immediately before election
• Use of Humor: Funny is noticeable
– GoDaddy commercial with Joan Rivers
Persuasion
• Compliance tactics
– Ingratiation
• Harder to resist requests from people we like
– Foot in the door
• Giving in to an initial, small request makes it harder to resist
a later, larger request
– Door in the face
• Refusing an initial, large request makes it harder to resist
later, smaller requests
– Hard to get
• Appearance of demand for goods/ services decreases
resistance to request
Attitude Change
Communication Model
• Each of the following manipulated in order to
change your attitudes
– Source
• Credibility is key
– Message
• When interested in, more important than source
– Medium of communication
• Face-to-face, personal stories, writing (complex ideas)
– Characteristics of the audience
• Difficult to alter
• Resistance because: commitment to current attitudes,
shared attitudes, early childhood formation by family of
attitudes
Attitude Change
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Occurs when a person holds two contradictory
beliefs at the same time.
– “I am a good friend.”
– “My boyfriend was my friend Jenny’s before I took
him”
• Attempt to resolve the dissonance
• More power to change attitude than past
behavior, so:
– “Jenny wasn’t really a friend; she was more like an
acquaintance.”
Attitude Change
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Why act contrary to belief?
– Every time we make a decision
– Enticement
• The greater the reward, the less cognitive dissonance
• Think about:
– Childbirth “It’s not that bad”
– High school “High school was awesome!”
– Marriage “You two should get married!”