Psychology Chapter on Attitudes and Heuristics

Attitudes

• Attitudes are evaluations of people, objects, and ideas.
• They consist of three components: cognitive, affective, and behavioral.
• Explicit attitudes are consciously endorsed and controlled, while implicit attitudes are less accessible, harder to control, and measured by reaction time.
• The Implicit Association Test (IAT) attempts to measure implicit attitudes but has issues with reliability and validity.
• Research by Gawronski (2019) suggests that people are aware of their implicit attitudes, but these may differ from their explicit attitudes.

Schema

• Schemas are mental representations or blueprints of how we expect things to be.
• They help reduce cognitive load and save time, allowing us to go beyond the information given.
• Example: A schema for fast food restaurants includes lining up to order.

Heuristics

• Heuristics are mental shortcuts or rules of thumb used for decision-making.
• They help reduce problem-solving efforts and allow for quick attitude formation.
• Two types: Representative heuristics and Availability heuristics.
• Representative heuristics: Judging based on similarity to a known category.
• Availability heuristics: Judging likelihood based on how easily an event comes to mind.
• Schwarz et al. (1991) found that people believe information as more true when it’s easier to recall.
• Illusory correlations occur when we perceive a relationship between two things that are not actually related.

Cognitive Miser vs. Naïve Scientist

• Cognitive Miser: Conserves cognitive resources, utilizes schemas and heuristics, and makes quick, automatic judgments.
• Naïve Scientist: Looks for reasonable explanations, analyzes situations, uses cognitive resources, and makes considered decisions.
• The Motivational Tactician Framework explains how we choose between these modes based on factors like time, cognitive resources, and decision importance.

Attribution Theory

• Attributions are our beliefs about why things happen.
• We make attributions both for our own behavior and others’ behavior.
• Actor-Observer Bias: We make external attributions for our own behavior and internal attributions for others' behavior.
• Self-Serving Bias: We make attributions that support a positive view of ourselves.

Social Learning, Classical Conditioning, and Operant Conditioning

• Social Learning Theory: We learn by observing and imitating others.
• Classical Conditioning: Pairing a neutral stimulus with a stimulus that elicits an emotional response.
• Operant Conditioning: Behaviors rewarded become more frequent, while behaviors punished become less frequent.

Attitudes and Experience

• Direct experience and mere exposure can influence attitudes.
• Mere exposure effect: Increased liking of things we are repeatedly exposed to.
• Olson & Fazio (2001) demonstrated how classical conditioning can change explicit attitudes without awareness.
• Direct experience increases perceptual fluency and positive attitudes, but only if the experience is not negative.

Self-Perception Theory

• We infer our attitudes and feelings by observing our own behavior.

Cognitive Dissonance

• Discomfort experienced when holding inconsistent cognitions.
• Occurs when our behavior is inconsistent with our self-conception.
• Strategies to reduce dissonance:
  • Change behavior to match cognitions.
  • Change cognitions to match behavior.
  • Add new cognitions to justify behavior.
• Research by Brehm (1956) showed that selecting a choice strengthens our positive view of it and decreases our view of the rejected option.
• Mills (1958) found that behaviors can strengthen cognitions that led to them.
• Aronson & Mills (1959) demonstrated how behavior can change cognitions to justify actions.