Attitudes

the vascular theory of emotion

The idea that the *movement of facial muscles* may alter *blood flow to the brain*, which subsequently *alters temperature and mood* is: *the vascular theory of emotion*

Behaviourism and Cognitivism (Bem, 1967)

"...the theory of cognitive dissonance attempts to account for observed functional relations between current stimuli and responses by *postulating some hypothetical process within the organism*, in this case, - *an inferred process of the arousal (increase) and reduction of dissonance*." (Bem, 1967)

'Radical behaviourism' B.F. Skinner (1904-1990)

"It is possible to be a behaviorist and *recognize the existence of conscious events*. We may set up a *distinction between a public and a private* world...the latter forever *(private) reserved from scientific treatment.* But I preferred the position of *radical behaviorism*, in which the *existence of subjective entities is denied."*

Behaviourism (J. B. Watson)

"What we need to do is to start work upon psychology, making behavior, not consciousness, the objective point of our attack." (J. B. Watson)

Behaviourism and Cognitivism (Bem, 1967) 2

"the alternative formulation... eschews any reference to hypothetical internal processes and seeks, rather, to account for *observed functional relations between current stimuli and responses in terms of the individual's past training history."* (Bem, 1967)

Evidence for the cognitive dissonance theory

*Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)*: participants paid $1 to say the task was interesting rated the task more favourably than those paid $20

Attitude Change: Dual Process Approach

*Persuasive message* 1.) speed of speech 2.) mood 3.) self-relevance 4.) individual differences 5.) humor Option 1.) *Heuristic processing* = peripheral route Weak attitudes not predictive of behaviour Option 2.) *Systematic processing* - central route Strong attitudes that predict behaviour

How can dissonance be reduced? (inharmonious) not psychologically consistent with one another be made equally consistent!

- *Start with the alternative* - *Reduce the attractive* features of the alternative to the one chosen - *Exaggerate the attractive* features of the chosen item or course of action

Conclusions from study

- *what people say they will do is often very different from how they actually behave!* - LaPiere concluded that people responded more to appearance and self-confidence rather than race. - People claimed to be racist when they actually were not. Nowadays, we might be more concerned about the opposite pattern - people who claim not to be prejudiced, when their behaviour suggests otherwise. = *Key theoretical issue is that attitudes do not always match actions.*

Self-perception

- Bem argues that an observer aware of the facts (e.g. that someone said the task was interesting and fun and paid only $1) would conclude that the person really did enjoy the task.

How do we learn to ascribe attitudes to ourselves?

- Bem: we learn to describe our own attitudes *through publicly available behaviour* - *not through private, internal events.* - Participants more likely to endorse an attitude they were required to make when 'truth' light was on than when 'lie' light was on. - Attitudes are *influenced by the environment* and what *other think we should feel*

Dual Process Models of Attitude Change

- Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) - Heuristic-Systematic Model (Chaiken, 1980) Both suggest attitude change can occur via 2 routes: - *Central or Systematic route* - *Peripheral or Heuristic route* - Conditioning *works best when there is no prior knowledge* - The effect of emotion - e.g. more likely to use peripheral route if happy (affective)

Cognitive dissonance

- If various things that are *not psychologically consistent with one another*, we *will try* to make them *more consistent.* = over compensate with conditioning being stronger for non-words than words we know so we can make them consistent with the words we understand already - Two items of *information* that psychologically *do not fit together* are said to be in a *dissonant relation* to each other. - The word 'cognitive' simply emphasizes that the theory deals with *relations among items of information*

Formation of attitudes: Classical conditioning

- Pairing of Conditioned Stimuli with Unconditioned Stimuli - Staats & Staats (1958): *nationalities rated more positively or more negatively depending on the words they were paired with* The more *positive the words they were paired* with the *higher they rated the nationalities* and visa versa - Cacioppo et al. (1992): *conditioning stronger for non-words* (unfamiliar) *than for words (familiar)*

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)

- Participants are paid to do super *boring tasks* - When they are done they thank them and ask them to *tell the next participant that the task was intresting* for *$1* - And the other condition they tell them to do the *same thing for $20* - Both conditions were *asked if they found the task interesting* - The *people paid $1 found the task intreseting* as they had to *justify the boring task to themsevles as the gain was small* they made up by telling themselves the task was better then it was to keep their attitude consistent *(exaggeration of chosen)* - The people *paid $20 found it less interesting* as they didn't feel the need to recitfy their attitudes as they had gained $20 already (could reduce their alternative as their chosen had benefitted them enough)

How are these likes and dislikes formed? Where do they come from? Direct experience

- Presented people with *made up words* (said they were Turkish) told them they had to *learn the words* - *Presented with different degree of frequency* - Do they have a *good meaning or bad meaning* the participants had no idea what the words meant - He found the words that had been presented with *higher frequency* tended to have a *higher goodness in meaning* then lower frequency - When participants were shown *picture of their face* either how it was or the *mirror image or the other way* - *Participants favoured the mirror image* of themselves as that is mainly what they see on a day to day basis - But *friends* of the participant *preferred the actual image* of the friend as that what they see most frequenctly

Self-perception theory

- Put forward as an *alternative to cognitive dissonance theory* - Infer *attitudes from observing our own overt behaviour* - We don't have a attitude first we *observe our behaviour then form an attitude*

There are four basic needs that adopting different attitudes can address. These are ego-defensive, _______, utilitarian, _______.

- There are four basic needs that adopting different attitudes can address. - These are *ego-defensive, Knowledge, utilitarian, value-expression.*

Formation of attitudes: Mere exposure effect/Familiarity

- We react with *fear to a novel stimulus*, but the fear *diminishes* as it grows more *familiar* - Participants showed a *higher GSR* (goodness score rating) to *frequently shown nonsense words* than to those shown less frequently - Example: Zajonc - mere exposure effect - Rated 'goodness' of meaning - higher for those seen most frequently

An evolutionary explanation for the mere exposure effect

- We react with fear to a novel stimulus, but the fear diminishes as it grows more familiar - New/Novel situations could potentially be dangerous or a risk to survival so we tend to like situation which we know and can be predictive based on our knowledge of them. - Participants showed lower GSR to frequently shown nonsense words than to those shown less frequently

Common features:

- attitudes are motivating forces, - attitudes are relatively enduring in nature. Stable over time - attitudes are also evaluative in nature.

facial feedback hypothesis.

-Task repeated but evaluation was either given with pen between the mouth or between the teeth - When the pen was *between the teeth* people *assumed those cartoons were funnier* as the physiology of there face was *closer to a smile* then when between there teeth this goes back to behaviour coming before attitudue - Holding a pen in your teeth creates a facial expression that feels like you're smiling, whereas holding a *pen in your lips* creates a facial expression that *feels like you're frowning.* - Participants felt like they were *smiling* while forming an impression of the cartoon *misattributed* their facial expression as being indicative of their *opinion* towards it. - People who felt like they were *frowning* did the same and *formed a negative opinion*

3 components to attitudes:

1.) *beliefs/cognitions*; (individuals schemas for personal like and dislikes) 2.) *feelings*; (feeling of like or dislike) 3.) *behavioural/response dispositions* (acting on your like or dislike)

What are attitudes in social psychology?

Allport (1935): attitudes are "social psychology's most indispensable concept" Common definitions: "a learned *disposition* to respond in a *consistently favorable or unfavorable manner* with respect to a *given object.*" Fishbein & Ajzen (1975) Eagly & Chaiken (1993): "Attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by *evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor*." Bem (1970): "Attitudes are *likes and dislikes*" Let us first look at what psychologists have defined as an attitude - it is either *a mental state* or some sort of *emotional response to external stimuli*

Theory of Planned Behaviour

As well as intention, there is perceived behavioural control (extension of Theory of Reasoned Action) This latter *modulates the effect of attitude* and whether it *will translate into behaviour* 1.) *Attitude* is what you think 2.) *Subjective norms* what everyone else thinks 3.) *Perceived behavior control* do you think you can quit/stop do you think its with in your control or is it something you physically can't do. (MOST IMPORTANT FOR ESTABLISHING POTENTIAL BEHAVIOUR)

ego-defensive

Attitudes that function to protect the perceivers from a threatening truth about themselves are known to be: *ego-defensive*

infer their attitude towards an issue based on the way in which they had been asked questions

Chaiken and Baldwin (1981) demonstrated that people would *infer their attitude towards an issue* based on the way in which they had been *asked questions* about it, for example, perceivers asked about *pro-environmental* practices thought they were *more environmentally friendly* than those asked about anti-environmental practices. = the perceiver had *weak attitudes about the environment*

Attitude change

Different factors can influence our attitudes: - *Mere exposure* - like things you see more over time - *Conditioning* - social learning theory - *Self-observation* - change our opinion when we view and compare potentially down to raising our self esteem (so change attitude) - Desire for *consistency* (deals with actual content) - Some of these influences require thoughtful examination of the content of messages, others do not

Do attitudes relate to behaviour?

LaPierre (1934): Visits over 250 establishments with Chinese couple without ever being refused. - He and a Chinese student had entered a hotel in a small Californian town with some concern about whether they would be accommodated, but obtained rooms with ease. Some months later he telephoned the hotel to ask if they would accommodate 'an important Chinese gentleman' and were told a definite 'No'. Later writes to same establishments to ask: "Will you accept members of the Chinese race as guests in your establishment?" 128 replies: 1 yes, 9 depended, 118 no.

Behaviourism: ascribing attitudes to ourselves example

STUDY: - Presented with *cartoon* and have to *rate how funny they are* - They have to recorded the evaluation of these cartoons into a tape recorder which is scripted - When there recording some of the utterance are indicated with either a green light or amber light green meaning truth and amber meaning lie - When asked their actual feelings it was the same as the feeling correlated with the light system

The way in which animals and people learn by observing associations between stimuli in their environment is known, in general terms, as:

The way in which animals and people *learn by observing associations between stimuli in their environment* is known, in general terms, as = *associative learning*

The theory of planned behaviour suggests that the most proximal determinant of intentional behaviour is:

behavioural intentions