Social Psychology Chapter 7

Why did some people once believe that attitudes were not useful to study?

People who like something should want to engage with it more frequently. Attitudes should correlate with behavior. Wicker (1969) suggested that there was actually a weak or nonexistent relationship between a person's attitudes and their behavior.

What are attitudes and why do they matter?

A general evaluation of a person, place, thing or idea. Attitudes can range from negative to neutral to positive. Attitudes matter because they're used to guide us toward good experiences (maximizing rewards) and help us avoid bad experiences (minimizing punishment).

What is the Elaboration Likelihood Model and how does it work? What is elaboration? What are the central and peripheral routes to persuasion, and how do they differ?

A model describing when strong or weak attitude is likely to occur. It is based on elaboration continuum- the amount of thinking done about message arguments. Also defined two general types of attitude change processes: central and peripheral routes. Central Route: (A)Important message is logical and convincing (B)Message receives close attention. (C) Attitude change. Peripheral Route: Unimportant message is unconvincing but delivered by attractive or expert source. (B) Message receives little attention. (C)Attitude change.

What is reactance, and why is it a problem in persuasion?

A motivational reaction to offers, persons, rules, or regulations that threaten or eliminate specific behavioral freedoms. If a persuasion attempt threatens a person's sense of control, they may do the opposite of what is being advocated. Forbidding a behavior may actually encourage it.

What factors influence whether the Theory of Planned Behavior or the Attitude to Behavior Process Model better predict behavior? (The MODE Model)

Behavioral attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral norms. All three of these things go on to create a behavioral intention, which is a plan to behave a certain way.

What are overt measures of attitudes? What are covert measures of attitude?

Likert scale: Select from a range of responses (i.e positive vs. negative; agreement vs. disagreement). Most widely used method. Bogus pipeline: Make participants think they're connected to a lie detector when completing an attitude measure. Improves truthfulness. Cover measures of attitudes: Behaviors that reflect attitudes. "How far would you sit from a stigmatized person?" Physiological measures: Using EEG or heart rate to measure attitudes. Implicit measures: Implicit Associations Test (IAT) or sequential priming.

What is product placement, and how can you resist its influence?

Many products are placed in movies and TV shows in order to support an advertiser, and they can have an influence on our attitudes. If people are warned about product placements, they're less likely to be influenced by it.

What are fear appeals? When are they effective? When are they not effective?

Persuasive messages that attempt to change people's attitudes by arousing their fears. The goal is to scare people into changing their attitudes towards a behavior. Too much fear prevents persuasion, people my become defensive, defend the threat, etc. Fear appeals work when there's a moderate amount of fear. Because it grabs attention, people won't ignore the message.

Under what conditions do attitudes predict behavior?

Stronger attitudes predict behavior better than weaker attitudes. Attitudes based on experience or the central route to persuasion. Attitudes that come to mind very easily (accessible).

What does it mean when I say that variables can have multiple roles in the ELM?

The ElM stipulates that any variable can potentially affect persuasion in multiple ways. Source factors, message factors, and audience factors.

What are the Implicit Association Test and Sequential Priming, and how do they use principles of cognition to assess attitudes?

The Implicit Association Test is a test that attempts to measure the association between two or more concepts in a person's mind. Ex: For attitudes, how strongly do you associate an attitude or object with either good or bad. Sequential Priming: A prime is shown, usually outside of conscious awareness. A target word is shown and you are asked to judge the target word on an established criteria. (e.g word or not a word). If the prime and the target word are stored together in memory, you should respond more quickly.

How is the Tripartite Model of Attitudes different from the Single-Base Model?

Tripartite Model: Attitudes are based on all three bases (affect, behavior, and cognition). According to this view, the three components should relate to one another. However, they can be independent. Single-Base Model: Attitudes are often just based on one of the ABC's. Attitudes are based on either affect, cognition, or behavior.

What are the affective, behavioral, and cognitive bases for attitudes? What are attitudes based on these different sources like? Where do they come from?

Values: emotional reactions that drive moral attitudes. Sensory reaction: the object created a strong sensory experience. Aesthetic reaction: the object created a strong artistic reaction. Conditioning: an object elicits a response (classical); a behavior is rewarded or punished (operant).

How does behavior change attitudes?

Behavior can lead to negative emotions (cognitive dissonance) or new insight (self perception) that can change attitude toward the behavior. When they can't explain their behavior being caused by external circumstances, they may change their attitudes to be in line with their behavior.

What is attitude inoculation, and how does it help someone prevent persuasion?

Expose a person to weak arguments against their attitudes ("inoculate"). They defend themselves by generating counter-arguments to the persuasion attempt ("immune response"). Future attempts to change their attitudes will be less likely to succeed because they're ready with their counter arguments ("immunity").

What is the Theory of Planned Behavior, and how does it predict behavior? What are the different components of the theory? (Attitude, Subjective Norms, Perceived Control, Intentions)

How attitudes predict behavior when you're carefully thinking. It consists of: Attitude toward the behavior Subjective Norms Perceived Control

What is the Attitude to Behavior Process Model, and how does it predict behavior?

How attitudes predict behavior when you're not carefully thinking. Accessible attitudes can spontaneously influence behavior without conscious awareness.

Petty et al (1981): What did they do? What did they find?

IV: A "real" persuasive message about raising their tuition. 1. (happens next year) 2.(low or high expertise source) 3. strong or weak arguments. Source affected only low-relevance participants (peripheral route). If you're not motivated to pay attention, just judge the message based who delivers it.

What is the Yale Approach to attitude change? Why is it problematic?

The conditions under which people are most likely to change their attitudes in response to a persuasive message. Problems with the argument: (1) Sometimes people are not persuaded by strong arguments. (2) Sometimes people are persuaded by experts giving weak arguments, sometimes they are not. (3) It's not always clear when one factor is more important than another.