Understanding Attitudes

What is an attitude?

• There are different views and definitions on what an attitude is.
• It could be an affective or emotive orientation or state to the focus of our attention (an objective) which is emotion.
• It could be the thought or set of thoughts that organise our perspective on the object/focus of our attention, which is thinking and emotion.
• Additionally, it can be the thoughts, feelings, and behavioral intentions relating to the objective/focus of our attention, which encapsulates emotion and intention.
• Attitudes are specific to an attitude object.
• Values are sets of attitudes or beliefs related to higher-order situations, for example, equality.
• Ideologies are attitudes related to social or political context.

Function of attitudes

• Attitudes structure knowledge through schemas.
• They provide instrumentality, or goal orientation.
• They provide psychological defense for ourselves.
• Attitudes express value and position us in relation to others.

Attitude formation

• The mere exposure effect shows that the more we see something, the more we tend to like it
• Attitudes can arise from reinforcement and punishment.
• Attitudes can arise from operant or instrumental conditioning.
• Modeling and social learning theory impact attitude formation.

Do we believe what we say?

• People do not always report their attitudes openly.
• Example scenario is smoking: there are 10,000 deaths per day worldwide, and 420,000 deaths per year in the US more than all deaths from RTC, AIDS, suicide, alcohol, and drug use combined.
• In 1997, the US Surgeon General called tobacco executives "a sleezy bunch of people who misled us, deceived us, and lied to us for three decades."
• Detroit Free Press Magazine quoted Tobacco VP R. Roseblatt in 1994 saying, "Is addiction an issue? I don't believe it" adding that "smoking is just one of them, and not the worst".
• The title of an article written by Rosenblatt was "The buck stops somewhere else".
• Rosenblatt may not believe the information he is putting out, it may just be the "party line".
• The saying-becomes-believing effect is a bias in which statements that are repeated come to be believed.
• Edward Jones's and Harold Sigall's 'bogus pipeline' study in 1971 revealed a method to study of attitudes and bias.
• Participants filled out a questionnaire on attitudes.
• Later, half were hooked up to a 'machine' and were instructed to turn the knob right if they agreed and left if they disagreed.
• This machine was used to measure muscular activity in the arm, this then was told could give the true attitude.
• A second condition lacked the bogus machine and results showed that more negative attitudes were elicited in the lie detector condition.
• Questions in the study were based on attitudes towards African American college students.
• People don't always report their own attitudes honestly.

Behaviour

• A question to consider is to what extent attitudes drive behavior and under what conditions.
• We may hold in attitude but we do not follow up on this attitude.
• The LaPiere (1931) study focused on prejudice towards Chinese people.
• This study found anecdotal evidence that there was no correlation found.
• Hypothesis decided to be tested.

LaPiere (1931) Study

• Phase 1 involved traveling across the U.S. (10,000 miles) with a Chinese couple.
• They visited 67 hotels, camps, and restaurants and 184 restaurants.
• Researchers recorded actions of waiters etc. and allowed the Chinese couple to enter first.
• Phase 2 consisted of mailing a questionnaire to each establishment, asking "Will you accept members of the Chinese race as guests in your establishment?”
• 51% of recipients responded.
• It is possible that the interaction with the couple could have biased attitudes in the sample.
  • Restaurants Visited, in the Lodgings visited were 91% said no, 6% undecided, 2% yes.
  • In the Restuarants Visited Restaurants were 93% said no, with just 7% undecided, and 0% said yes.
• It is possible that behavior influences attitudes.
• Leon Festinger found that changing attitudes did not change behavior
• The person's attitudes towards specific behaviors, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control are the best predictors of one's planned, deliberate behaviors.
• LaPiere's study did not measure 'specific attitude towards behavior' but rather general attitudes on behavior.
• Subjective norms are norms held by close reference groups
• "Perceived behavioural control" asks can I engage in the behaviour.

Further Notes on Behaviour

• Considering scenarios with two tasks: valuing and not valuing
  • Given an choice the participant will say it is morally correct to use a coin flip to make a decision
• 80% the participant will assign themselves to the higher value task citing moral hypocrisy to justify actions.
• Attitude alone does not equate to behavior.
• Behaviour can drive one's attitudes as self-persuasion.
• Those who role-played prison guards in the Stanford study adopted negative attitudes towards prisoners.
• The 'foot-in-the-door' principle is the tendency for people who have first agreed to a small request to comply later with a larger request.
• Change behavior slowly to create a slow change in attitude.
• This underlines poker and car sales.

Why behaviour influences attitudes

• Cognitive dissonance explains that one might avoid inconsistency between behavior and attitude, as it would cause dissonance this change the attitude in the process.
• In the context of self-perception, witnessing someone engaged in an act could cause to infer as to their attitudes, and repeat the same act.
• Discern our own attitudes from our behavior.
• Ultimately, attitudes are important in terms of shaping behavior.
• The relationship between attitude and behavior is complex.
• It is not always directly linked or correlated.
• One may not always "believe" what they say or act on or vice versa.