Social Psychology Chapter 6: Attitudes

The Message

audiences are heavily influenced by various source characterisitics and the strength of the message determines its impact

Role playing

coaxed into a behavior that is at odds with your sense of who you are.

attitude embodiment effects

the way we think and feel about things is influenced by the physical position, orientation, and movements of our bodies

Role playing: all the world's a stage

*Attitude change is more enduring even when people who read a persuasive message merely expect that they will later have to communicate it to others *we often shade what we say just to please a particular listener -> this role playing has powerful effects on our private attitudes

Attitudes in a Cultural Context

*Western views of attitudes are often person-centric, in other parts of the world attitudes depend more on contextual factors such as social norms, others' expectations, roles, and obligations *our evaluations of an object do not always determine our actions because other factors must be taken into account. However, when attitudes are strong and specific to a behavior, at least in Western cultures, the effects are beyond dispute.

The link between attitudes and behavior

*attitude and behavior do not always go hand in hand (according to LaPierre) his study was really flawed, but it did have some truth to it another study (by Stephen Kraus) found that attitudes significantly and substantially predict future behavior

Smith (2007) Study What healthcare disparity was discussed?

-health care prescribed to patients with heart attack symptoms -specifically, people with lower SES -treatment of African Americans

Problems with Self-Report Measures

-how the questions are worded -people don't want to tell you what they truly believe -reporting on past behaviors- memory flaws -are we aware of our attitudes/prejudices?

The Peripheral Route

-message is evaluated through the use of heuristics -attitude irrelevant factors -commercial messages: 1. speaker variables: expert, attractive, celebrity 2. message content: seemingly not designed to influence, humor

Assumptions of IAT

-our private attitudes may not always be the ones we are willing to express publicly -our attitudes may not even be accessible to our "conscious" "thoughts" and "feelings"

factors influencing attitude behavior relationship

-strongly held beliefs/values are better predictors -we act spontaneously -time between measuring attitude and observing behavior -measure general attitude to predict a specific behavior

The Central Route

-when a person thinks carefully about a message. the strength and quality -assumes recipient is attentive, and thinking critically (this is not always true)

What is it about feeling good that leads us to take shortcuts to persuasion rather than the more effortful central route?

1. a positive emotional state is cognitively distracting, distracting from thinking critically 2. assuming all is well and let down their guard 3. they become motivated to savor the moment and maintain their happy mood rather than spoil it by thinking critically about new information

The conditions that lead people to process information on one route or another

1. a source (who) 2. a message (says what and in what context) 3. Audience (to whom)

Theory of planned behavior four steps

1. behavior is influenced less by general attitudes than by attitudes toward a specific behavior. 2. behavior is influenced by subjective norms- our beliefs about what others think we should do 3. attitudes give rise to behavior only when we perceive the behavior to be within our control. 4. although attitudes contribute to an intention to behave in a particular manner, people often do not or cannot follow through on their intentions

Two ways our attitudes reveal a lot about us

1. dispositional attitudes (how we like or dislike things) 2. how quickly and strongly we react to things.

Two ways our attitudes reveal a lot about us

1. people differ in terms of their tendency in general to like or dislike things. -curious as to whether people have tendencies in general to like or dislike things are called *dispositional attitudes* 2. people differ in the extent to which how quickly and how strongly they react.

Factors that indicate the strength of an attitude and its link to behavior

1. people tend to behave in ways that are consistent with their attitudes when they are well informed 2. how information is acquired to form an attitude 3. can be strengthened by an attack against it from a persuasive message. 4. strong attitudes are highly accessible to awareness, so they are quick and easily brought to mind

The Implicit Association Test (IAT)

A covert measure of unconscious attitudes derived from the speed at which people respond to pairings of concepts—such as black or white with good or bad.

Are Attitudes Inherited?

Abraham Tesser argues that strong likes and dislikes are rooted in our genetic makeup. -individuals are disposed to hold certain strong attitudes as a result of inborn physical, sensory, and cognitive skills, temperament, and personality traits.

Fear Appeals

Attempting to change people's behaviors by use of a message that induces fear. **without specific instructions on how to cope with this anxiety/fear, people feel helpless and they panic and tune out the message (going against those who are trying to persuade) * the more personally vulnerable people feel about a threatened outcome, the more attentive they are to the message and the more likely they are to follow its reccommendations

Culture and Persuasion

Culture plays a subtle but important role. Messages will appeal to the culturally shared values of its audience (individualist or collectivist)

high and low self monitors

High self monitors may be particularly responsive to messages that promise desirable social images low self monitors are less image conscious and behave according to their own beliefs, values and preferencs

Positive Emotions

People are "soft touches" when they are in a good mood , and can be persuaded *positive feelings activate the peripheral route to persuasion, facilitating change and allowing superficial cues to take on added importance

Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)

Purpose 1. to test cognitive dissonance theory 2. examine impact of insufficient justification (paid little vs. paid a lot) for inconsistent behavior study: participants had to engage in rotating pegs for 60 minutes - BORING experimenter after asked if the participant will tell the next one that the task was enjoyable some were paid 20 dollars and others just 1 dollar results: participants tell the lie -I was paid 20 dollars that's why i did it -no dissonance i was only paid 1 dollar (dissonance) so it must be reduced- found support of the cognitive dissonance theory

Smith (2007) Study: What was the purpose of the study? How was the IAT used?

Purpose: is someone's attitude toward someone's race effect how they prescribe treatment? IAT- an attempt to see if participants have a bias they don't realize they already have

The audience

The impact of a message is influenced by two additional factors; the recipients personality and his or her expectations

Route Selection

The process that is engaged depends on whether the recipients of a persuasive message have the ability and the motivation to take the central route or whether they rely on peripheral cues instead.

Two routes to persuasion

This model assumes that we do not always process communications the same way. central route to persuasion- the process by which a person thinks carefully about a communication peripheral route to persuasion- the process by which a person does not think carefully about a communication and is influenced instead by superficial cues.

How discrepant should a message be from the audience's existing position in order to have the greatest impact?

Two opposite answers 1. take an extreme position in hope that the more change you advocate, the more you get 2. Exercise caution and not push for too much change so the audience will not reject the message outright.

Justifying Effort: Coming to like What We Suffer For:

We alter our attitudes to justify our suffering

self-persuasion

When people behave in ways that contradict their attitudes, they sometimes go on to change those attitudes without any exposure to a persuasive communication

Subliminal Messages

Words or pictures that are not consciously perceived but may nevertheless influence people's judgments, attitudes, and behaviors * there is no solid evidence of this people more perceive these messages rather than are persuaded into action

insufficient justification

a condition in which people freely perform an attitude-discrepant behavior without receiving a large reward

insufficient deterrence

a condition in which people refrain from engaging in a desirable activity, even when only mild punishment is threatened

Justifying Difficult Decisions: When good choices get even better

a decision is difficult when the alternative courses of action are about equally desirable according to dissonance theory, people rationalize whatever they decide by exaggerating the positive features of the chosen alternative and the negative features of the unchosen alternative

Self-report Measures

a method of gathering data by simply by asking people and giving them a public opinion survey. They are direct and straightforward

Attitude Scales

a multiple-item questionnaire designed to measure a person's attitude toward some object ex the Likert scale

Bogus pipeline

a phony lie-detector device that is sometimes used to get respondents to give truthful answers to sensitive questions

Attitudes

a positive, negative, or mixed reaction to a person, object or idea

Why are some attitudes stronger than others?

a study found that the attitudes people held most passionately were those that concerned issues that 1. directly affected their own self-interests 2. related to deeply held philosophical, political, and religious values 3. were of concern to their close friends, family, and social ingroups.

Implicit Attitude

an attitude, such as prejudice, that one is not aware of having

Smith (2007) Study: What was the Dependent Variable?

are they going to prescribe the clot busting medication or not

Smith (2007) Study: What was the conclusion of the study?

as doctors implicit bias increased, their decision to give medication decreased

Primacy Effect

belief that information presented first has more impact

Recency Effect

belief that information presented last has more impact

what forewarning does

cognitive- knowing in advance what position a speaker will take enables us to come up with counterarguments and as a result become more resistant to change

Promotion-oriented

drawn to the pursuit of success, achievement, and their ideals

New Look cognitive Dissonance Theory

four steps necessary for both the arousal and reduction of dissonance 1. attitude-discrepant behavior must produce unwanted negative consequences 2. feeling of personal responsibility for the unpleasant outcomes of behavior- consisting of two factors: freedom of choice and believe that the potential negative consequences of their actions were foreseeable at the time 3. physiological arousal 4. a person must make an attribution for that arousal to his or her own behavior

Importance of forming attitudes

it serves important functions- enabling us to judge quickly without much thought judge whether something is good or bad, helpful or hurtful, and to be sought or avoided Downside: can lead us to be closed-minded, bias how we interpret new information, and make us more resistant to change

Self-generated persuasion

more attitude change is produced by having people generate arguments themselves than listen passively to others making the same arguments

Are self-reports and IATs the same?

no, they reported they had no preference for white/black patients but IAT results showed they have an implicit bias

covert measures

observing behavior that cannot be controlled (facial expression, tone of voice, body language)

inoculation hypothesis

our defenses can be reinforced by exposure to weak doses of the opposing position before we actually encounter the full presentation

Are Attitudes Learned?

our most cherished attitudes often form as a result of our exposure to attitude objects; our history of rewards and punishments; the attitudes that our parents, friends, and enemies express; the social and cultural context in which we live; and other types of experiences.

Self-report measures

participants are asked to report their beliefs, emotions, opinions, -most common method -ask one, or many, questions

Regulatory Fit

people are more likely to be influenced by messages that fit their frame of mind and "feel right"

Informational Strategies

people believe that the longer the message is, the more valid it must be "more facts you tell, the more you sell" -when people process information carefully length becomes a two edged sword -

The need for cognition

people differ in the extent to which they enjoy and participate in effortful cognitive activities

Self-validation hypothesis

people not only elaborate on a persuasive communication with positive or negative attitude-relevant thoughts; they also seek to assess the validity of these thoughts

vicarious dissonance

people will feel discomfort and change their attitudes when they disagree with others in a group or when they observe inconsistent behavior from others with whom they identify

Persuasion by Communication

persuasion- the process by which attitudes are changed

Terror Management Theory

prediction that deeply rooted fear of death motivates people to rally around their leaders as a way to ward off anxiety

Prevention-oriented

protective of what they have, fearful of failure, and vigilant about avoiding loss

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

record of the electrical activity of the brain

need for affect

seeking out and enjoying feelings of strong emotion

Self-generated persuasion

the idea that "saying is believing" you convince yourself of a certain attitude by saying things that you don't necessarily mean.

What dissonace theory predicts

the more time or money or effort you chose to invest in something, the more anxious you will feel if the outcome proves disappointing *way to cope with this is to change attitude

evaluative conditioning

the process by which we form an attitude toward a neutral stimulus because of its association with a positive or negative person, place, or thing

Elaboration

the process of thinking about and scrutinizing the arguments contained in a persuasive communication.

Smith (2007) Study: What was the independent variable?

the race of the patient (2) black or white *the participants were the residents from boston and atlanta

Theory of planned behavior

the theory that attitudes toward a specific behavior combine with subjective norms and perceived control to influence a person's actions

Self-Perception Theory

we infer how we feel by observing ourselves and the circumstances of our own behavior *highly discrepant behavior produces attitude change through dissonance, whereas slightly discrepant behavior produces change through self-perception

Forewarning and Resistance

when our attitudes or values come under attack, we can succumb to the challenge and change the attitude or we can resist it and maintain the attitude

psychological reactance

when people think that someone is trying to change their attitude or otherwise manipulate them they get a red flag all of us want to think, feel, and act as we (not others) choose.