Transcript LPPT-Ch07-ARS8

Chapter 7
Attitudes and
Attitude Changes:
Influencing Thoughts and
Feelings
Slides prepared by JoNell Strough, Ph.D. & Philip Lemaster, M.A.
West Virginia University
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert
©2013 Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
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Multimedia Directory
Slide 29
Implicit Attitudes Video
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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People have begun offering their bodies as venues for advertisers. A Utah woman, shown
here, received $10,000 to advertise Golden Palace casino on her forehead. She plans to
usethe money to send her son to private school.
Source: AP Photo/Deseret Morning News, Keith Johnson
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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Advertising Can Have Powerful
Effects
• Example
– Until early 20th century, men bought 99%
of cigarettes sold
• Advertisers began targeting women
– In 1955
• Twice as many male as female smokers in
the USA
– In 2004
• 23% of adult men smoked
• 19% of adult women.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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The Nature and Origin of
Attitudes
• People are not neutral observers of the
world.
– They evaluate what they encounter.
– They form attitudes.
Attitudes
Evaluations of people, objects, and ideas.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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The Nature and Origin of
Attitudes
• Attitudes are made up of three
components:
– Affective
• Emotional reaction
– Behavioral
• Actions or observable behavior
– Cognitive
• Thoughts and beliefs
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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The Nature and Origin of
Attitudes
• Example—attitudes about cars
– Affective
• Perhaps feel excitement about getting a new
car
• U.S. autoworker examining a new foreignmade model, may feel anger and
resentment
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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The Nature and Origin of
Attitudes
• Example—attitudes about cars
– Behavioral
• Test-drive the car and actually buy it
– Cognitive reactions
• Admire hybrid engine and fuel efficiency
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Where Do Attitudes Come
From?
• Genetic origins?
– Identical twins share more attitudes than
fraternal twins
• E.g., similar attitudes about jazz music
– Indirect function of our genes
• Temperament, personality
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Where Do Attitudes Come
From?
• Social experiences
– Not all attitudes are created equally.
– Though all attitudes have affective,
cognitive, and behavioral components, any
given attitude can be based more on one
type of experience than another.
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Cognitively Based Attitude
• An attitude based primarily on people’s
beliefs about the properties of an
attitude object.
• Sometimes our attitudes are based
primarily on the relevant facts.
– Example—a car
• How many miles to the gallon does it get?
• Does it have side-impact air bags?
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Affectively Based Attitude
• An attitude based more on people’s
feelings and values than on their beliefs
about the nature of an attitude object.
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Affectively Based Attitude
• Sometimes we simply like a car,
regardless of how many miles to the
gallon it gets.
• Occasionally we even feel great about
something or someone in spite of
having negative beliefs.
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Affectively Based Attitude
• Affectively based attitudes don’t come
from examining facts
– Where do they come from?
• Values
– Example—religious, moral beliefs
• Sensory reaction
– Example—liking the taste of something
• Aesthetic reaction
– Example—admiring lines and color of a car
• Conditioning
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Classical Conditioning
• The phenomenon whereby a stimulus
that elicits an emotional response is
repeatedly paired with a neutral
stimulus that does not until the neutral
stimulus takes on the emotional
properties of the first stimulus.
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Classical Conditioning
• A stimulus that elicits an emotional
response is paired with a neutral
stimulus
• Neutral stimulus takes on the
emotional properties of the first
stimulus
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Operant Conditioning
• The phenomenon 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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Operant Conditioning
• Freely chosen behaviors increase or
decrease when followed by
reinforcement or punishment.
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Figure 7.1
Classical and Operant Conditioning of Attitudes
Affectively based attitudes can result from either classical or instrumental conditioning.
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Affectively Based Attitude
Similarity
• Affectively-based attitudes are similar
for several reasons.
– Not a result of rational examination
– Not governed by logic
– Often linked to values
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Behaviorally Based Attitude
• An attitude based on observations of
how one behaves toward an attitude
object.
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Self-Perception Theory
(Bem, 1972)
• Under certain circumstances, people do
not know how they feel until they see
how they behave
– Can form our attitudes based on our
observations of our own behavior.
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Self-Perception Theory
(Bem, 1972)
• People infer their attitudes from their
behavior only under certain conditions:
– When initial attitude is weak or ambiguous.
– When no other plausible explanation for
behavior.
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Explicit Versus Implicit
Attitudes
• Explicit Attitudes
– Attitudes that we consciously endorse and
can easily report.
• Implicit Attitudes
– Attitudes that are involuntary,
uncontrollable, and at times unconscious.
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People can have both explicit and implicit attitudes toward the same topic. Social
psychologists have been especially interested in people’s explicit and implicit attitudes
toward members of other races.
Source: moodboard/Corbis
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Explicit Versus Implicit
Attitudes
• Example
– Sam—A white, middle-class college student
who genuinely believes that all races are
equal and abhors racial bias
• This is Sam’s explicit attitude
– It is his conscious evaluation of other races
– Governs how he chooses to act
» E.g., Consistent with his explicit attitude, Sam
signed a petition in favor of affirmative action
policies
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Explicit Versus Implicit
Attitudes
• Example
– Sam has grown up in a culture in which
there are many negative stereotypes about
minority groups
• Negative ideas have affected him in ways of
which he is not fully aware
– If, when Sam is around African Americans,
some negative feelings are triggered
automatically and unintentionally, this would
be an example of a negative implicit attitude
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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Implicit Attitudes Video
Click on the screenshot to watch Dr. Banaji discuss implicit attitudes and a
measure used to assess them — the Implicit Attitudes Test.
Back to Directory
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Explicit Versus Implicit
Attitudes
• We have explicit and implicit attitudes
about many things.
– Not just different races!
– Example:
• Students can believe explicitly that they
hate math
• At an implicit level, can have a more
positive attitude
• Measurement
– Implicit attitudes test (IAT)
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How Do Attitudes Change?
• Often due to social influence
– This is why social psychologists are
interested!
– Attitudes are social phenomena.
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Sometimes attitudes change dramatically over short periods of time. For example,
Americans’ approval rating of President Obama has gone up and down since he assumed
the presidency.
Source: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
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Changing Attitudes by
Changing Behavior
• People experience dissonance:
– When their image is threatened.
– When they cannot explain behavior with
external justifications
• Leads to finding internal justification for
behavior
• Brings your attitude and your behavior
closer together
– Equals attitude change!
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Changing Attitudes by
Changing Behavior
• Example
– Suppose you don’t want to rub your new
father-in-law the wrong way by arguing
with him about politics. You might go along
with a mildly positive remark about a
politician you actually dislike.
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Changing Attitudes by
Changing Behavior
• Example
– Counterattitudinal advocacy
• Process by which people are induced to
state publicly an opinion or attitude that
runs counter to their own private attitudes
– Creates dissonance.
» Without sufficient external justification, it
results in a change in people’s private attitude
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Changing Attitudes via
Persuasive Communication
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Persuasive Communication
• Communication (e.g., a speech or
television ad) advocating a particular
side of an issue.
• How should you construct a message so
that it would really change people’s
attitudes?
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Persuasive Communications
and Attitude Change
• Yale Attitude Change Approach
– The study of the conditions under which
people are most likely to change their
attitudes in response to persuasive
messages
• “Who said what to whom”
– Who: the source of the communication
– What: the nature of the communication
– Whom: the nature of the audience
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Figure 7.2
The Yale Attitude Change Approach
Researchers at Yale University initiated research on what makes a persuasive
communication effective, focusing on “who said what to whom.”
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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The Central and Peripheral
Routes to Persuasion
• Elaboration Likelihood Model
– An explanation of the two ways in which
persuasive communications can cause
attitude change
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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The Central and Peripheral
Routes to Persuasion
• Elaboration Likelihood Model
– Central route
• When people are motivated and have the
ability to pay attention to the arguments in
the communication
– Peripheral route
• When people do not pay attention to the
arguments but are instead swayed by
surface characteristics
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Figure 7.3
The Elaboration Likelihood Model
The elaboration likelihood model describes how people change their attitudes when they
hear persuasive communications.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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The Central and Peripheral
Routes to Persuasion
• The Central Route to Persuasion
– The case whereby people elaborate on a
persuasive communication, listening
carefully to and thinking about the
arguments, as occurs when people have
both the ability and the motivation to listen
carefully to a communication.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
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The Central and Peripheral
Routes to Persuasion
• Peripheral Route to Persuasion
– The case whereby people do not elaborate
on the arguments in a persuasive
communication but are instead swayed by
peripheral cues.
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Motivation to Pay Attention to
the Arguments
• Personal relevance of the topic
– How important is the topic to a person’s
well-being?
– More personally relevant, pay more
attention.
• Central route
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Figure 7.4
Effects of Personal Relevance on Type of Attitude Change
The higher the number, the more people agreed with the persuasive communication. Left
panel: When the issue was highly relevant, people were swayed by the quality of the
arguments more than the expertise of the speaker. This is the central route to
persuasion. Right panel: When the issue was low in relevance, people were swayed by
the expertise of the speaker more than the quality of the arguments. This is the
peripheral route to persuasion. (Based on data in Petty, Cacioppo, & Goldman, 1981)
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The Motivation to Pay
Attention to the Arguments
• People high in the need for cognition
– Form attitudes through central route
• People low in the need for cognition
– Rely on peripheral cues
Need for Cognition
A personality variable reflecting the extent to which
people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive
activities.
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The Ability to Pay Attention
to the Arguments
• When people are unable to pay close
attention to the arguments, they are
swayed more by peripheral cues
– Status of communicator
– Liking or trusting communicator
• Someone with a weak argument can
still be persuasive if they distract their
audience
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How to Achieve
Long-Lasting Attitude Change
• People who base their attitudes on a
careful analysis of the arguments will
be:
– More likely to maintain this attitude
– More likely to behave consistently with this
attitude
– More resistant to counter-persuasion
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Emotion and Attitude Change
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Fear-Arousing
Communications
• Persuasive messages that attempt to
change people’s attitudes by arousing
their fears.
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As of 2013, FDA rules call for all cigarette packs sold in the United States to display
pictures that warn about the dangers of smoking, such as the one shown here. Do you
think that this ad would scare people into quitting?
Source: UPI/FDA/LANDOV
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Fear-Arousing
Communications
• Do fear-arousing communications
work?
– Moderate amounts of fear work best
– Provide information on how to reduce fear
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Figure 7.5
Effects of Fear Appeals on Attitude Change
People were shown a scary film about the effects of smoking, instructions about how to
stop smoking, or both. Those who were shown both had the biggest reduction in the
number of cigarettes the smoked. (Adapted from Leventhal, Watts, & Pagano, 1967)
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Fear-Arousing
Communications
• Strong amounts of fear fail if they
overwhelm people.
• Become defensive
• Deny importance of threat
• Cannot think rationally about issue
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Emotions as a Heuristic
• Heuristic–Systematic Model of
Persuasion
– An explanation of the two ways in which
persuasive communications can cause
attitude change:
• Systematically processing the merits of the
arguments
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Emotions as a Heuristic
• Heuristic–Systematic Model of
Persuasion
– An explanation of the two ways in which
persuasive communications can cause
attitude change:
• When using peripheral route
– Use mental shortcuts (heuristics)
» e.g., “Experts are always right”
– Use emotions as heuristic
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Emotions as a Heuristic
• Use emotions and moods as heuristics
to determine attitudes
– “How do I feel about it?”
• If we feel good
– must have a positive attitude about object
• If we feel bad
– thumbs down!
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Emotions as a Heuristic
• Problem with the “How do I feel about
it?” heuristic
– Can make mistakes about what is causing
our mood
• Misattribute feelings created by one source
to another
• If so, people might make a bad decision
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Emotions as a Heuristic
• Advertisers and retailers want to create
good feelings about product
– Pair product with appealing music or
showing pleasant images
• hope people will attribute feelings to the
product
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Attitude Change and Different
Types of Attitudes
• Several studies have shown that it is
best to “fight fire with fire”:
– If an attitude is cognitively based
• Try to change it with rational arguments
– If it is affectively based
• Try to change it with emotional appeals
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Emotion and Different
Types of Attitudes
• Some ads stress the objective merits of
a product
– Price, reliability, efficiency
• Other ads stress emotions and values
– Sex, beauty, youthfulness
• Which kind of ad is most effective?
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Figure 7.6
Effects of Affective and Cognitive Information on Affectively and Cognitively
Based Attitudes
When people had cognitively based attitudes, cognitively based advertisements that
stressed the utilitarian aspects of the products worked best. When people had more
affectively based attitudes, affectively based advertisements that stressed values and
social identity worked best. The higher the number, the more favorable thoughts people
listed about the products after reading the advertisements. (Based on data in Shavitt,
1990)
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Culture and Different
Types of Attitudes
• Western cultures
– May base attitudes more on individuality
and self-improvement
• Eastern cultures
– May base attitudes more on standing in
social group
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Figure 7.7
Effects of Confidence in One’s Thoughts on Persuasion
People who nodded their heads up and down, compared to those who shook their heads
from side to side, had greater con- fidence in their thoughts about the message (e.g.,
“Wow, this is really convincing” when the arguments were strong, and “Wow, this is
really dumb” when the arguments were weak). (Figure adapted from Briñol & Petty,
2003)
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Resisting Persuasive Messages
• Attitude Inoculation
– Making people immune to attempts to
change their attitudes by initially exposing
them to small doses of the arguments
against their position
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Resisting Persuasive Messages
• Be Alert to Product Placement!
– Advertisers increasingly place messages
about their products shows
– Pay the makers of a TV show or movie to
incorporate their product into the script
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Product placement, in which a commercial product is incorporated into the script of a
movie or television show, is becoming more common.
Source: © Screen Gems/courtesy Everett Collection
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Resisting Persuasive Messages
• Being Alert to Product Placement
– When people are forewarned, they analyze
what they see and hear more carefully and
as a result are likely to avoid attitude
change.
– Without such warnings, people pay little
attention to the persuasive attempts and
tend to accept them at face value.
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Resisting Persuasive Messages
• Being Alert to Product Placement
– So before kids watch TV or sending them
off to the movies, it is good to remind them
that they are likely to encounter several
attempts to change their attitudes.
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Resisting Persuasive Messages
• Resisting Peer Pressure
– Peer pressure in adolescence
• Operates on values and emotions
– Liking and acceptance by peer group
• Not based in logical arguments
– To make adolescents resistant to attitude
change attempts via peer pressure
• Attitude inoculation that focuses on
inoculating against emotional appeals
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When Persuasion Attempts
Boomerang: Reactance Theory
• Reactance Theory
– The idea that when people feel their
freedom to perform a certain behavior is
threatened, an unpleasant state of
reactance is aroused, which they can
reduce by performing the threatened
behavior.
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A number of interventions designed to prevent smoking in adolescents have had some
success. Many celebrities have lent their names and pictures to the effort, such as actor
Jackie Chan, who was the spokesperson for an anti-smoking campaign in Taiwan.
Source: REUTERS/Kenny Wu
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Predicting Spontaneous
Behaviors
• Attitudes will predict spontaneous
behaviors only when they are highly
accessible to people.
Attitude Accessibility
The strength of the association between an attitude
object and a person’s evaluation of that object,
measured by the speed with which people can report
how they feel about the object.
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Predicting Deliberative
Behaviors
• Theory of Planned Behavior
– The idea that the best predictors of a
person’s planned, deliberate behaviors are
the person’s attitudes toward specific
behaviors, subjective norms, and perceived
behavioral control.
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Predicting Deliberative
Behaviors
• Specific behavior
– Only specific attitudes can be expected to
predict that behavior
• Subjective norms
– We also need to measure people’s
subjective norms (their beliefs about how
people they care about) will view the
behavior in question.
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Predicting Deliberative
Behaviors
• Perceived behavioral control
– Intentions are influenced by the ease with
which they believe they can perform the
behavior.
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Figure 7.8
The Theory of Planned Behavior
According to this theory, the best predictors of people’s planned, deliberative behaviors
are their behavioral intentions. The best predictors of their intentions are their attitudes
toward the specific behavior, their subjective norms, and their perceived behavioral
control of the behavior. (Adapted from Ajzen, 1985)
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The Power of Advertising
• People more influenced by advertising
than they think.
– Particularly for new products
– Effective ads worked quickly, increasing
sales substantially within the first six
months they were shown.
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This ad is one of the most famous in the history of advertising. Although today it is easy
to see how sexist and offensive it is, when it appeared in the 1930s it succeeded in
making a problem (bad breath) personally relevant by playing on people’s fearsand
insecurities about personal relationships. Can you think of contemporary ads that try to
raise similar fears?
Source: Advertising Archives
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert
©2013 Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
The Power of Advertising
• There is no evidence that the types of
subliminal messages encountered in
everyday life have any influence on
people’s behavior.
Subliminal Messages
Words or pictures that are not consciously perceived
but may nevertheless influence people’s judgments,
attitudes, and behavior.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert
©2013 Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
There is no scientific evidence that implanting sexual images in advertising boosts sales
of a product. In fact, subliminal advertising is rarely used and is outlawed in many
countries. The public is very aware of the subliminal technique, however—so much so
that advertisers sometimes poke fun at subliminal messages in their ads.
Source: Reprinted with permission of 4A’s
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert
©2013 Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Advertising, Cultural Stereotypes,
and Social Behavior
• Advertisements transmit cultural
stereotypes in their words and images,
subtly linking products with desired
images.
• Advertisements can also reinforce and
perpetuate stereotypical ways of
thinking about social groups.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert
©2013 Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Gender Stereotypes in
Advertising Imagery
• Gender stereotypes are particularly
pervasive in advertising imagery.
• Men are depicted as doers, women as
observers.
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert
©2013 Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Figure 7.9
Portrayals of Women and Men in Television Advertising
The ways in which women and men are portrayed in television commercials have been
examined throughout the world. In every country, women were more likely to be
portrayed in powerless, dependent roles than men were. (Based on data in Furnham &
Mak, 1999)
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert
©2013 Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Summary and Review
•
•
•
•
Origins of Attitudes
Attitude Change
Attitudes and Behavior
Subliminal Messages
Social Psychology, Eighth Edition
Elliot Aronson | Timothy D. Wilson | Robin M. Akert
©2013 Pearson Education, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.