Chapter 6 Attitudes. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.6 | 2 What is an...

Chapter 6Attitudes

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 6 | 2

What is an Attitude?

• A positive, negative, or mixed evaluation of a person, object, or idea expressed at some level of intensity.


Figure 6.1: Four Possible Reactions to Attitude Objects

Cacciopo, et al. 1997


Researchers can tell if someone has a positive or negative attitude by measuring physiological arousal.

Answer: False… Let’s see why!

Putting Common Sense to the Test…


How Attitudes Are Measured: Self-Report Measures

• Attitude Scale: A multiple-item questionnaire designed to measure a person’s attitude toward some object.

– e.g., Likert Scale

• Bogus Pipeline: A phony lie-detector device that is sometimes used to get respondents to give truthful answers to sensitive questions.


How Attitudes Are Measured: Covert Measures

• Observable behavior• Facial Electromyograph (EMG): An electronic

instrument that records facial muscle activity associated with emotions and attitudes.


How Attitudes Are Measured: The Implicit Association Test (IAT)

• Based on notion that we have implicit attitudes.– Attitudes that one is not aware of having

• Implicit Association Test (IAT): Measures the speed with which one responds to pairings of concepts.


Figure 6.2: The Facial EMG: A Covert Measure of Attitudes?

From Cacioppo, J.T., and Petty, R.E. (1981). Electromyograms as measures of extent and affectivity of information processing. American Psychologist, 36, 441-456. Copyright © 1981 by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.


Figure 6.3: The ImplicitAssociation Test (IAT)

From Essentials of Psychology by Saul Kassin, Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ.


The Link Between Attitudes and Behavior

• Is the assumption that attitudes influence behavior a valid one?

– LaPiere’s (1934) provocative but flawed study– Wicker’s (1969) conclusion that attitudes and

behavior are only weakly correlated

• Kraus (1995): “Attitudes significantly and substantially predict future behavior.”


Figure 6.4: Theory of Planned Behavior

Reprinted from Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 50, Professor Ajzen, pp. 179-211. Copyright (c) 1991, with permission from Elsevier.


Strength of the Attitude

• Why do some attitudes have more influence on behavior?

– Depends on attitude’s importance or strength

• Why are some attitudes stronger than others?– Because of our genetic make-up?


Psychological FactorsInfluencing Attitude Strength

• Does it directly affect one’s own outcomes and self-interests?

• Is it related to deeply held philosophical, political, and religious values?

• Is it of concern to one’s close friends, family, and social ingroups?


Factors That Indicatethe Strength of an Attitude

• How well informed is the person?• How was the information on which the attitude is

based acquired?• Has the attitude been attacked?• How accessible is the attitude to awareness?


Persuasion By Communication


In reacting to persuasive communications, people are influenced more by superficial images than by logical arguments.




Two Routes to Persuasion

• Central Route: Person thinks carefully about a message.

– Influenced by the strength and quality of the message

• Peripheral Route: Person does not think critically about the contents of a message.

– Influenced by superficial cues


The Central Route

• Hovland et al.: Persuaded when we attend to, comprehend, and retain in memory an argument.

• McGuire: Distinguished between the reception of a message and its later acceptance.

• Greenwald: Elaboration is an important, intermediate step.


The Central Route (cont.)

• Assumption that the recipients are attentive, active, critical, and thoughtful.

– Assumption is correct only some of the time.– When it is correct, the persuasiveness of the

message depends on the strength of the message’s content.

• The central route is a thoughtful process.– But not necessarily an objective one


The Peripheral Route

• People are persuaded on the basis of superficial, peripheral cues.

– Message is evaluated through the use of simple-minded heuristics.

• People are also influenced by attitude-irrelevant factors.


Figure 6.5: Two Routes to Persuasion


What Makes an Effective Source?

• Believable sources must be credible sources.• To be seen as credible, the source must have

two distinct characteristics:– Competence or expertise– Trustworthiness


What Makes an Effective Source? (cont.)

• How likable is the communicator?• Two factors influence a source’s likability:

– The similarity between the source and the audience– The physical attractiveness of the source


Table 6.1: Whom Do You Trust?


Chaiken (1979)

0

10

20

30

40

50

Percentage

Who Signed

Petition

Unattractive Attractive

Attractiveness of Student Assistant


Is the Source MoreImportant Than the Message?

• It depends…• How personally relevant is the message for the

recipient?


Figure 6.6: Source Versus Message: The Role of Audience Involvement

Petty, Cacioppo, & Goldman, 1981


Figure 6.7: The Sleeper Effect


What Makes an Effective Message?

• How should the argument be presented to maximize its strength?

• Are longer messages better?– If peripheral, the longer the message, the more valid

it must be.– If central, message length is a two-edged sword.

• Does presentation order matter?


Table 6.2: Effects of Presentation Order and Timing on Persuasion


What Makes an Effective Message? (cont.)

• How discrepant should the message be to have the greatest impact?

– The most change is produced at moderate amounts of discrepancy.

– An “upside-down U” relationship between discrepancy and persuasion.


What Makes an Effective Message? (cont.)

• Should the message use fear appeals or scare tactics?

– How strong is the argument?– Does the message contain reassuring advice?

• Are appeals to positive emotions effective?– People are “soft touches” when they are in a good

mood.


Why Might Positive FeelingsActivate the Peripheral Route?

• A positive emotional state is cognitively distracting, impairing ability to think critically.

• When in a good mood, we assume all is well and become lazy processors of information.

• When happy, we become motivated not to spoil the mood by thinking critically about new information.


People are most easily persuaded by commercial messages that are presented without their awareness.




Subliminal Messages

• Can subliminal messages influence behavior?• We do perceive subliminal cues.

– But the cues will not persuade to take action unless one is already motivated to do so.


Figure 6.8: Subliminal Influence

Strahan et al., 2002.


Audience Factors

• Very few people are consistently easy or difficult to persuade.

• People differ in extent to which they become involved and take the central route.

– Need for Cognition: How much does one enjoy effortful cognitive activities?


Table 6.3:Need for Cognition Scale

Copyright © 1982 by the American Psychological Association. Reproduced with permission. From J.T. Cacioppo and R.E. Petty "The Need for Cognition," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 116-131, 1982. No further reproduction or distribution is permitted without written permission from the American Psychological Association. Note, instructors are permitted to use the requested materials to create an in-class presentation (to address in greater depth topics presented in the textbook). Instructors may distribute paper copies of the materials to students (one copy per student) if necessary. However, no electronic reproduction or distribution is permitted.


Figure 6.9: Informational and Image-Oriented Ads: The Role of Self-Monitoring

From J.M. Snyder and K.G. DeBono (1985) "Appeals to Image and Claims About Quality: Understanding the Psychology of Advertising," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 586-597. Copyright (c) 1985 by the American Psychological Association. Adapted with permission.


Audience Factors (cont.)

• To what extent does the message meet the psychological needs of the audience?

• Cultural factors play a subtle but important role. – e.g., individualistic vs. collectivistic messages


Table 6.4: Strategiesfor Resisting Persuasion


Audience Factors (cont.)

• Has the audience been forewarned?• Advanced knowledge allows time to develop

counterarguments.– Inoculation hypothesis

• Being forewarned elicits a motivational reaction.– Psychological reactance

• Effects of forewarning depends on personal importance of message.


Persuasion by Our Own Actions


Role Playing: All the World’s a Stage

• What happens when we engage in attitude-discrepant behavior?

• Why does role-playing lead to enduring attitude change?

• Why can changes in behavior lead to changes in attitude?



The more money you pay people to tell a lie, the more they will come to believe it.



Cognitive DissonanceTheory: The Classic Version

• We are motivated by a desire for cognitive consistency.

• Cognitive Dissonance Theory: Inconsistent cognitions arouse psychological tension that people become motivated to reduce.

– Can lead to irrational and sometimes maladaptive behavior


Table 6.5: Ways to Reduce Dissonance

Insert table 6.5, p. 208, 7/e


Figure 6.10: The Dissonance Classic

From L. Festinger and J.M. Carlsmith, "Cognitive Consequences of Forced Compliance," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 58, 203-210, 1959. Copyright © 1959 by the

American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.


Justifying Attitude-Discrepant Behavior

• Subjects experienced cognitive dissonance because they had insufficient justification for lying.

• Contributions of Festinger & Carlsmith’s classic study:

– Showed the phenomenon of self-persuasion– Contradicted the accepted belief that big rewards

produce greater change


Justifying Attitude-Discrepant Behavior (cont.)

• Mild punishment is insufficient deterrence for attitude-discrepant nonbehavior.

– The less severe the threatened punishment, the greater the attitude change produced.



People often come to like what they suffer for.

Answer: True… Let’s see why!


Justifying Effort: Comingto Like What We Suffer For

• We alter our attitudes to justify our suffering.• Aronson & Mills’ (1959) “embarrassment test”

study• The more we pay for something, the more we

will come to like it.


Justifying Difficult Decisions:When Good Choices Get Even Better

• Whenever we make difficult decisions, we feel dissonance.

• We rationalize the correctness of our decision by exaggerating:

– The positive features of the chosen alternative– The negative features of the unchosen alternative


Figure 6.11: Necessary Conditions forthe Arousal and Reduction of Dissonance


Alternative Routes to Self-Persuasion

• Self-Perception Theory: Self-persuasion through observation of own behavior.

• Impression Management Theory: What matters is not a motive to be consistent but rather a motive to appear consistent.

• Self-Affirmation Theory: Dissonance situations create a threat to the self.


Figure 6.12: WhenSelf-Affirmation Fails

Galinsky et al., 2000.


Figure 6.13: Theories of Self-Persuasion: Critical Comparisons

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