COMM 325 Ch 4: The Power of Our Passions

Neuroscience Perspective

attitudes have biological, as well a psychological, foundations

Latitude of Noncommittal

"don't know", "not sure", "haven't made up my mind"

Implicit Attitudes

-have unknown origins -are activated automatically -influence implicit responses, namely uncontrollable response and ones that people do not view as an expression of their attitude and thus do not attempt to control

SJT: Core Concepts

-latitudes of acceptance, rejection, and non-commitment -assimilation and contrast -ego involvement

STrong Attitudes

-persist over time -affect judgments -guide behavior -prove resistant to change Characterized by: importance, ego-involvement, extremity, certainty, accessibility, knowledge, and hierarchical organization

Neuron

a nerve cell, the foundation of the nervous system

Dual attitudes

an explicit attitude that operates on a conscious level and guides much everyday behavior, and an implicit attitude that influences nonverbal behaviors and other responses over which we lack control

Biased Assimilation

assimilating ambiguous information to their point of view, believing that it was consistent with their position on capital punishment

Social Judgement Theory

emphasizes that receivers do not evaluate a message purely on the merits of the argument. Instead, it stipulates that people compare the advocated position with their attitude and then determine whether they should be accept the position advocated in the message

Contrast Effect

in which we focus on how different reality is from expectation -individuals push a somewhat disagreeable message away from their attitude, assuming that it is more different than it really is

Assimilation

people pull a somewhat congenial message toward their own attitude, assuming the message is more similar to their attitude than it really is

Political Segregation

people's tendency to prefer media that support their side and live with people live themselves

Selective Perception

perceive events so that they fit their preconceived beliefs and attitudes

Latitude of Rejection

positions that the individual finds objectionable

Latitudes

ranges of acceptable and unacceptable positions, as well as positions toward which the individual has no strong commitment

Ego-Involvement

the arousal, singly or in combination, of the individual's commitments or stands in the context of appropriate situations -when the issue touches someone's self-concepts or core values

Accessibility

the degree to which attitude is automatically activated from memory "getting in touch with you feelings"

Lattitude of Acceptance

the positions on an issue that an individual find acceptable

Selective Exposure

the tendency to seek out communications that embrace one's worldview

Response Time

the time it takes someone to react to something