Attitude Social Psychology

ATTITUDE

The defining characteristics of attitude is that it expresses the evaluation of some object.
Attitudes are evaluation of people objects and ideas
Anything that arouses evaluative feelings qualify as an attitude.

Origin of attitude- People have may have inherited a temperament and personality from the parent that make them predisposed have a specific attitude. Even if there is a genetic component, social experiences pays a major role in shaping are attitudes. 

Attitude distinguished from beliefs :

Beliefs are cognition or thoughts about the characteristics of the object .

Beliefs or opinion are assessed by how likely they are to be true. In addition we have evaluative feelings about beliefs and they will contribute to our attitude

Attitude thus is a summary of evaluation made of different aspects of the attitude object.

Measurement of attitude:

Public opinion attitude polling- public opinion polls are used either to predict something or to provide information.

The complexities of opinion polling can be reduced to 4 steps :

1. selecting the sample of respondent

2. Constructing the attitude items

3. Administrating items of the sample and

4.Tabulating the research for

Attitudes are measured by attitude items for self report measures

Attitude scale - attempts to obtain a precise  measure of extremity of peoples attitude. The accuracy of the measurement can be increased

The Galvanic skin response- This was one of the first measures tried out . The Galvanic skin response measures the electrical resistance of the skin ,this resistance decreases when a person is emotionally aroused.

EMG (Electromyogram)- Electromyographic recordings from the major facial muscles ,EMG record minute muscle movement.

               Theories of attitude

1.Balance theory:

Balance theory involves the relation between a person and two attitude object .The three elements are connected by either favourable attitude or unfavourable attitude. The structure formed by the relation among the elements may be balanced or unbalanced. In general ,a balanced state is one in which the element fit together harmoniously.

The basic tenant of balance theory is that there is a tendency to maintain or restore balance in one’s attitude structure and unbalance structure or somehow uncomfortable or unpleasant.

Balance theory predict how attitude will change in order to create a balanced structure ,but, it does not predict that imbalance will always be resolved only that there is a tendency towards resolving it.

2.Theory of cognitive dissonance:

Given by,Leon Festinger .

The focus of cognitive dissonance theory is on individuals, who are assumed to strive for harmony(consonance) among the elements in their  cognitive structures. The creation of dissonance similar to the creation of imbalance is thought to be distressful and to motivate the person today restore the consonance . Any two related cognitive element will be dissonant if they do not fit together because a violate general logic or the person expressions

The amount of dissonance created depend upon the importance of the elements to the person and the extent to which the element do not fit. The magnitude of dissonance increases as importance and lack of fit increases

Ways to reduce dissonance:

1.To change one of the cognitive element
2.To add new cognitive element

3.To change our behavior

The earliest test to the theory was conducted in the area of counter attitudinal role playing.

Counter attitudinal role playing involve situation in which people express attitude publicly that are opposite to that private attitudes.

Engaging in Counter attitudinal role playing may change the private attitude in the direction of the position that is publicly taken.

It also predicts that ,the less people are offered as an reward to agree to try counter attitudinal role playing the more they will change their private attitude ,the large reward justifies the discrepant behavior .

3.Cognitive response approach:

Cognitive response approaches focus on the fact that the recipient does more than react to the external information ,the recipient also generate thoughts about the information.

Recipient’s cognitive response is an important determinants of the attitude change . Greenwald gave the label cognitive response analysis .

He suggested that when people receive a persuasive message they relate the information to the message to their existing store of knowledge.

Components of attitudes:

There are three components of attitude on which it is based:

1. Cognitive component - Cognitively based attitudes an evaluation is based primarily on beliefs about the properties of an attitude objects . It allows us to evaluate the plus and minuses of an object .

2. Affective component - Affectively based attitude are attitudes rooted more in emotion and values . It comes from a variety of sources, such as people’s values and people's feeling about attitude object. Such attitudes are used to validate one’s specific value system. Effectively based attitude can result from a sensory reaction suggest liking the taste of a chocolate or aesthetic reaction or due to the result of conditioning.

3.Behavioral component- Behaviorally based attitude
stems from people's observation of their own behavior towards an attitude object.

Based on Daryl Bem’s self Perception theory ,according to this theory ,under certain circumstances people don't know how they feel until they see how they behave .

People infer attitude from their behavior only under two certain conditions:

1. The initial attitude has to be weak or ambiguous

2.When there is no other plausible explanation available.

Levels of attitudes:

Attitude can exist on two levels:

1.Explicit attitude -Explicit attitudes are the ones we consciously do and can easily report it. Explicit attitudes are rooted in their recent experiences

2.Implicit attitudes – Implicit attitude are involuntary ,uncontrollable and ,unconscious .Implicit attitudes are rooted more in people's childhood experiences.

 
People can have different implicit and explicit attitudes towards the same thing, one rooted more in childhood experiences and the other based on their adult experiences.

   Factors in attitude change

The effectiveness of persuasive communication to attitude change depends on who (source) says what (content) to whom (receiver) known as Yale attitude change approach


Attitude change can be characterized by

1.    Source of the message

2.    Content of the message

3.    Receiver of the message

1. Source of the message:

The originator of the message is known as the source and the various characteristics of the source can affect the impact of the message.

Two important characteristics of the source are important :

A. Credibility

B. Attractiveness

A.Credibility - The more reason we have to believe the person sending the message the more likely we are to be persuaded.

Persuasion by these messages depend upon the credibility of the sources
Messages attributed to highly credible sources are more persuasive than those attributed to source with low credibility.

People sometimes remember a message longer than they do information about the message , so, in this manner information from a low credibility source sometime become more persuasive with the passage of time known as the sleeper effect.



There are two main aspects of credibility:

Experience - Expertness in social knowledge and skills
Trustworthiness - Revolves around the truthfulness of the source

Expertness and trustworthiness are often interrelated


B. Attractiveness

The effectiveness of attractiveness has been shown for physical effectiveness, likeability and similarity


2.Content of the message:

Methods of persuading through contents of message:

Suggestion - Most common form of suggestion is Prestige suggestion , in which the message appeals to the people's regard for the source’s status or prestige.

Appeals to fear – This is the method of trying to scare people. However, it is effective only up to a point.

Strong appeals to prepare however may backfire as people may respond to them with the reaction called defensive avoidance. This means that they avoid information given by the communicator and refuses to accept the communicator conclusions.

One sided versus two sided message -one sided message is most effective when people are either neutral or already favorable to the message. Two sided approach is more likely convert people to opposite point of view.

3. Receiver of the message

Influenceability  - Some people are more easily influenced than others . Ex: Kids can be more easily influenced than adults.

Selective attention and interpretation - Whether a message will influence a recipient depends upon how it is perceived and interpreted. We tend to avoid very discrepant information so, we try to reduce the dissonance by paying attention to the points that fit our initial attitude possession and ignoring those that do not.



Predicting behavior through attitude:

Attitude can predict behavior but only under certain circumstances or certain specific conditions.
Key factor is knowing whether the behavior we are trying to predict is: Spontaneous or Planned.


A.Predicting spontaneous behavior:

Attitude will predict spontaneous behavior only when they are highly accessible to people

Attitude accessibility refers to the strength of the association between an object and an evaluation of it .

It is typically measured by the speed with which people can report it .

Attitude becomes accessible by the degree of experiences people have behaving with the attitude object.

Two types of experience people may be:

1.Direct experience - Attitudes are based on hands on experience is direct experience

2.Indirect experience - Attitudes are formed without much experiences are indirect

The more direct experience people have with an attitude object the more accessible their attitude will be and the more accessible it is the more likely the spontaneous behavior will be consistent with that attitude.

B.Predicting deliberate (Planned) behavior:

Based on the  Theory of planned behavior by Ajzen and Fishbein.

According to this theory, when people time to contemplate how they are going to behave the best predictor of their behavior is their intention.

Intentions are determined by three things:

1.Attitude toward the specific behavior or specific attitude- The more specific the attitude towards the behavior in question the better that attitude can be expected to predict the behavior.

2.Subjective norms - Subjective norms are peoples beliefs about how others they care about will view their behavior in question.

3.Perceived behavior control- People's beliefs about the ease with which they can perform the behavior is perceived control behavior.

Persuasive Communication and attitude change:

Elaboration likelihood model- Developed by Richard E. Petty and John Cacioppo .Model explaining two ways in which persuasive communication can cause attitude change. First, centrally, when people are motivated and have the ability to pay attention to the arguments in the communication and  Second, peripherally when people do not pay attention to the arguments but our instead swayed by the surface characteristics

1.Central route to persuasion - People sometimes elaborate on the message they hear, carefully thinking about and processing the content of the communication ,this is the central route to persuasion

2. Peripheral route to persuasion - Under some condition people are not motivated to pay attention to the facts ,they notice only the surface characteristics of the message ,such as how long it is ,who is delivering it . Here, people will not be effected by the logic of the argument this is called the Peripheral route to persuasion ,Because people are moved by things peripheral to the message itself.


Factors determining whether people take The central versus The peripheral route to persuasion:

This is determined by whether they have both the motivation and the ability to pay attention to the fact

Motivation - When people are truly interested in the topic they are motivated to pay close attention to the arguments .One thing that determine whether people are motivated to pay attention to the communication is the personal relevance of the topic.

The more personally relevant is the issue, the more willing people are to pay attention to the argument in the speech and therefore the more likely they are to take the central route of persuasion

When an issue is not personally relevant people pay less attention to the arguments and they take the peripheral route of persuasion

Ability to pay attention- If people have the ability to pay attention and nothing is distracting them, they are more likely to take the central route to persuasion.
When people are unable to pay close attention to the argument they are moved by peripheral cues, such as attractiveness of the speaker, and take the peripheral route to persuasion.

Achieving long lasting attitude change


A persuasive communication can change people's attitude in either two ways by the central or peripheral way.

People who based their attitude on a careful analysis of the argument will be more likely to maintain this attitude change over time, They are more likely to behave consistently with this attitude and more resistant to counter-persuasion than people who base their attitude on peripheral ways.


Emotions and Attitude Change

Emotions influence attitude change in a number of ways:

1.Fear arousing communication: Persuasive message that attempt to change people's attitude by arousing their fears. Effectiveness fear arousing communication depends on whether the fear influence people’s ability to pay attention to and process the arguments in a message .If a moderate amount of fear is created and peoples believe that listening to the message will teach them how to reduce the fear, then they are more likely to be motivated to analyse the message carefully by taking the central route to persuasion.

Fear arousing appeal fails if they are so strong that they overwhelm the people and when people are terribly frightened they become defensive and deny the importance of the threat and be unable to think rationally about the issue.

2.Confidence in one’s thoughts -In attitude change people's confidence in their thoughts about an attitude object effects how much day will be influenced by a persuasive communication . The more is their confidence , the less likely they are to change their attitude.


3.Emotion as heuristic: Another way in which emotions can cause attitude change is by acting as a signal feel how we feel about something

According to,

The Heuristic systematic model of persuasion which is an explanation of the two ways in which persuasive communication can cause attitude change .

1.    By systematically processing the messages of the arguments

2.    By using mental shortcuts or heuristics

According to the heuristic systematic model of persuasion -when people take the peripheral route to persuasion they often use heuristics.

The heuristics is simple rule people use to decide what their attitude is without having to spend a lot of time analyzing every last detail of the topic and our emotion and mood can translate themselves to acts as an heuristic to determine our attitude

Problem with the heuristic is that we can make mistakes about what is causing our mood by mis-attributing feelings created by one source to another source which leads to bad decisions

4.Emotion and different types of attitudes: The success of various attitude change technique also depend upon the type of attitude we are trying to change.

Not all attitudes are created equally , some are based more on beliefs about the attitude object, others are based on emotion and values. If an attitude is cognitively based it is best to try to change it with rational argument.

Resisting attitude change 

Ways by which people can resist attitude change.

1.Attitude inoculation- In this way people are initially exposed to small dose of arguments against their position, which makes it easier for them to defend themselves against a persuasive message later on.   

2.Being alert to product placement – Product placement in which a commercial product is incorporated into the script of a movie or television shows . Forewarning people about attempts to change their attitude such as product placement make them less susceptible to attitude change

3.When persuasion attempts backfires – According to reactance theory when people feel their freedom to perform a certain behavior is threatened  they experience an unpleasant state called reactance and  this unpleasant state can be reduced by performing the prohibited behavior . In short, attempts to change people’s attitude can backfire if they make people feel that their freedom of choice is being threatened.


Advertisement and attitude change

Power of advertisement has been found to be quiet effective at changing people's attitude

How advertising works? Advertising works by targeting effectively based attitudes with emotions, by targeting cognitive based attitudes with facts and by making a product see more personally relevant


Subliminal advertising –These are words or pictures not consciously perceived but may nevertheless influence judgements, attitudes and behaviors.

There is no evidence that subliminal messages in advertisements have any influence of people's behavior ,subliminal influences have been found however under control laboratory conditions


Advertising ,stereotypes and culture - In addition to changing people's attitude towards commercial product ,advertising often transmits societal stereotype such as gender stereotypes and its expectations regarding both women and men .