Transcript Attitude

Attitudes & Behavior
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What is an attitude?
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What is Attitude?
Attitudes are evaluative statements,
judgements or feelings about objects,
people or events.
 In organizations, attitudes are
important because they affect job
behaviour.
 These are positive or negative
evaluations that employees hold
about job environment.
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Attitude…..
A positive, negative,
or mixed reaction to a person,
object, or idea, expressed at
some level of intensity (e.g.,
love, like, dislike, detest)
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Four Possible Reactions to
Attitude Objects
Cacciopo, et al. 1997
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Components of Attitudes:
Tripartite View
Cognitive
Affective
Attitude
Behavioral
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Components of Attitudes

COGNITIVE
beliefs about attitude object (pos & neg)

AFFECTIVE
emotions and feelings the object triggers
(pos & neg)

BEHAVIORAL
reaction toward the object (pos & neg
actions)
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Attitude Object: DENTIST

COGNITIONS
 Dentists are friendly.
 Dentists are expensive.

AFFECTS
 Dentists make me feel anxious.
 I like dentists.

BEHAVIORS
 I visit the dentist twice a year.
 I am a very cooperative patient.
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Why People Have Attitudes




Value-Expressive function: Express who
we are
Ego-defensive function: Protect SelfEsteem
Instrumental function: Obtain awards,
avoid punishments
Knowledge function: understand people
and events
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Where do attitudes
come from?
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
•
•
GENES: Twin studies
high correlations on attitude
strength and content for
identicals raised together OR
apart!
significantly lower for
fraternals
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Genetic
Influences on
Attitudes
Olson et al., 2001.
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences

Affectively Based Attitudes
based on people’s feelings of an attitude
object (not on beliefs)

Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes
values
mere exposure
classical conditioning
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences

Affectively Based Attitudes
based on people’s feelings of an attitude
object (not on beliefs)

Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes
values
mere exposure
classical conditioning
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences

Affectively Based Attitudes
based on people’s feelings & values of an
attitude object

Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes
values
mere exposure
classical conditioning
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Mere Exposure
The tendency to develop more
positive feelings toward objects
& individuals the more we are
exposed to them.
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences

Affectively Based Attitudes
based on people’s feelings & values of an
attitude object (not on beliefs)

Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes
values
mere exposure
classical conditioning
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Classical Conditioning
The case whereby a stimulus that elicits
an emotional response is repeatedly
experienced along with a neutral
stimulus that does not, until the neutral
stimulus takes on the emotional
properties of the first stimulus
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Where Do Attitudes Come From?

GENES
Twin study

SOCIAL EXPERIENCES
affectively based
behaviorally based
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences
 Behaviorally
Based Attitudes
based on people’s observations of how
one behaves toward an attitude
object
 Sources
of Beh. Based Attit.
Bem’s Self-Perception Theory
Operant Conditioning
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Self-Perception Theory
What are your attitudes about
liberal politicians?
Behavior
Attitude
“Now that I think
about it, I only vote
for conservatives.”
“I guess I don’t
like liberal
politicians.”
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences
 Behaviorally
Based Attitudes
based on people’s observations of how
one behaves toward an attitude
object
 Sources
of Beh. Based Attit.
Bem’s Self-Perception Theory
Operant Conditioning
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Operant Conditioning
The case whereby behaviors
that people freely choose to
perform increase or decrease in
frequency, depending on
whether they are followed by
positive reinforcement or
punishment
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Behaviorally Based Attitudes
& Operant Conditioning
Pos or Neg
Attitude
toward the
Object
Behavior
Toward
An Object
+ Reinforcement or
Punishment
e.g., playing
with a child of
another
race
+ reinforcement
- parents’ approval
Punishment - parents’
disapproval
.
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Do attitudes predict
behavior?
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General Attitudes and Specific
Behaviors
 Must
be correspondence between
level of specificity of attitude and
behavior.
 For example, to predict recycling at
work, do you ask:
– How do you feel about recycling?
– How do you feel about recycling office
paper?
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Correspondence of Specificity
(Davidson & Jaccard, 1979)

Study of married women’s use of birth control

Ps asked a series of attitude questions - general to
specific (e.g., will U use birth control in next 2
years)

Two years later asked Ps if they had used birth
control since the interview
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Correspondence of Specificity
(Davidson & Jaccard, 1979)
Attitude
Measure
Attitude-Behavior
Correlation

Att. toward birth control
.08

Att. toward birth control pills
.32

Att. toward using birthing control pills
.53
Att. toward using birth control pills
during the next two years

.57
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Predicting Planned Behaviors
Theory of Planned Behavior
(Ajzen & Fishbein)
Behavioral
Intention
Behavior
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Do Attitudes Predict
Behavior?
 IT
DEPENDS!
 One
Key Factor
Spontaneous Behaviors
Planned/Deliberative Behaviors
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