Post-Lecture Notes on Attitudes PDF

Attitudes The Psychology Debrief Sam Fairlamb Department of Psychology @thepsychdebrief @thepsychologydebrief Aims of the session ▪ By the end of this session, you should have gained a better understanding of: ▪ What attitudes are ▪ Ho...

Attitudes The Psychology Debrief Sam Fairlamb Department of Psychology @thepsychdebrief @thepsychologydebrief Aims of the session ▪ By the end of this session, you should have gained a better understanding of: ▪ What attitudes are ▪ How they are assessed ▪ How attitudes form ▪ The link between attitudes and behaviour 1. Definitions, Structure and Functions 4 What are attitudes? ▪ A mental state of readiness that exerts influence on an individuals response to objects and situations to which it is related (Allport, 1935) ▪ Set of beliefs, feelings and intentions towards something (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Pratkanis et al., 1989) ▪ Object-evaluation associations that are stored in long-term memory (e.g., Fazio, 1990) ▪ Context-sensitive evaluations that are formed when needed (e.g., Schwarz, 2007) Bohner, G., & Dickel, N. (2011). Attitudes and attitude change. Annual review of psychology, 62, 391-417. How many components? ▪ One component (Feeling): affect (evaluation) for or against an object (Thurstone, 1931) ▪ Two components (Thought & Feeling): a mental readiness to act, and a guide to evaluative responses (Allport, 1935) ▪ Three components (Thought, Feeling & Action): affective, behavioural and cognitive What do you components think of Barney the dinosaur? Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp 150-152). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Affect & Attitudes ▪ Evaluate an unfamiliar person ▪ Subliminal exposure to affect-arousing image (positive vs. negative) prior to seeing pictures of person Krosnick et al., (1992) Krosnick, J. A., Betz, A. L., Jussim, L. J., & Lynn, A. R. (1992). Subliminal conditioning of attitudes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18(2), 152-162. Cognition & Attitudes ▪ Stereotypes reflect cognitions (beliefs) about social groups ▪ Negative stereotypes are a robust predictor of prejudicial attitudes (e.g., Riek et al., 2006) Behaviour & Attitudes ▪ Asked to evaluate new headphones when performing various movements ▪ Up-down motion (nodding head) vs. side-to-side motion (shaking head) while listening to arguments through headphones ▪ More likely to agree when participants nodded vs. shook head Brinol & Petty (2003) Briñol, P., & Petty, R. E. (2003). Overt head movements and persuasion: A self-validation analysis. Journal of personality and social psychology, 84(6), 1123-1139. The components of an attitude Attitude Thought Feeling Action (Cognitive) (Affect) (Behaviour) Can you see any problems with this three component view of attitudes? Haddock & Zanna (1998) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp 150-152). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Attitude Structure Which do you think is superior? Cacioppo, J. T., Gardner, W. L., & Berntson, G. G. (1997). Beyond bipolar conceptualizations… The case of attitudes and evaluative space. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1(1), 3-25. Attitude Structure ▪ Participant feminist attitudes – ambivalent vs. non-ambivalent ▪ Primed to think about positive agentic or negative interpersonal qualities of feminists ▪ Rated job application from a feminist MacDonald & Zanna (1998) MacDonald, T. K., & Zanna, M. P. (1998)....Can ambivalence affect intentions to hire feminists?. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(4), 427-441. What are the function of attitudes? ▪ Katz (1960): Ego Defence Value Knowledge Instrumental Ego Defence expressive Provide Maximize Protect Express one’s meaningful, rewards, one’s self- identity and orderly, minimize esteem core values structured punishments (e.g., failing (e.g., MAGA reality (e.g., (e.g., social a test) Caps) stereotypes) acceptance) ▪ Different objects are associated with different functions (e.g., air conditioners vs. national flags; Shavitt, 1990) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 152). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. 2. Measuring attitudes 14 How do we measure attitudes? ▪ Direct (e.g., explicit) measures: ▪ Thurstone’s scale of equal appearing intervals ▪ Guttman’s scalogram ▪ Osgood’s semantic differential ▪ Likert’s method of summated ratings Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 179). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Thurstone scale ▪ Procedure ▪ Generate 100 statements ranging in intensity ▪ Judges order statements into eleven categories denoting intensity ▪ 2 statements from each category used that have high inter-judge agreement ▪ Administer 22 statements – agree/disagree format ▪ Average sum of agreed statements Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 179). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Guttman scale ▪ Statements arranged in a hierarchy whereby agreement with statement implies approval of prior statements ▪ Measures a single, unidimensional trait “I would accept immigrants…” (1) In my country (2) In my town (3) In my neighbourhood (4) As my neighbour (5) As my spouse Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 179). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Osgood’s semantic differential ▪ Does not measure opinions, but evaluations of an object/person on a set of semantic scales Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 179). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Likert scale ▪ Likert Scale - Statements that respondents indicate their strength of agreement/disagreement using a scale e.g., Strongly Strongly approve disapprove Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 179). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Likert scale ▪ Strengths ▪ Convenient and easy to administer ▪ Provides standardised measure that can produce scores that can be compared ▪ Can have a range of positive and negative statements (acquiescence bias) Can you think of any problems with measuring attitudes this way? Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 179). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Likert scale ▪ Weaknesses ▪ Can force people to agree/disagree with ideas that may not correspond with how they see things ▪ Acquiescence bias ▪ Social desirability How do we measure attitudes? ▪ Indirect measures: ▪ Physiological measures ▪ Implicit Association Test Physiological measures ▪ Skin resistance, heart rate, and pupil dilation (Rankin & Campbell, 1955; Westie & DeFleur, 1959; Hess, 1965). ▪ Procedure: compare a physiological reading taken in the presence of a neutral object, with one taken in the presence of the attitude object Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 180-181). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Physiological measures ▪ What are some of the problems you can think of with physiological measures of attitudes? ▪ More sensitive to variables other than attitudes ▪ Denotes intensity, but not direction Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 180-181). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Implicit Association Test RT when [target category] & positive share a side Compared with RT when [target category] & bad share a side Take the test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html Greenwald et al., (1998) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 185-186). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Implicit Association Test ▪ Implicit attitudes correlate with explicit measures ▪ Implicit attitudes have stronger predictive validity in socially sensitive domains (e.g., race; Greenwald et al, 2009) ▪ Do implicit and explicit measures assess different things? (Karpinski & Hilton, 2001) ▪ Implicit = knowledge ▪ Explicit = endorsement Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 185-186). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. BREAK! 3. Attitude Formation 28 Attitude formation ▪ Attitudes are learned rather than innate: socialisation process (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) ▪ Direct or vicarious experience (positive or negative) Mere exposure effect Classical conditioning Instrumental conditioning Social learning theory Self-perception theory Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 171-176). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Mere exposure effect ▪ Repeated exposure to an object results in greater attraction to that object (Zajonc, 1968) ▪ Confederate women who attended classes more often evaluated more positively (e.g., attractive, likeable; Moreland & Beach, 1992) ▪ Repeated exposure diminishes effect ~ 10 exposures (Bornstein, 1989) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 171). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Classical Conditioning ▪ Classical Conditioning: repeated association of a formerly neutral stimulus can elicit a reaction that was previously elicited by another stimulus (Staats, 1957; Zanna et al., 1970) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 172). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Instrumental Conditioning ▪ Responses which yield positive outcomes or eliminate negative outcomes are strengthened (Kimble, 1961) ▪ Reinforcement influences child prosocial behaviour (Rushton & Teachman, 1978) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 173). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Observational (Vicarious) Learning ▪ Attitude formation is a social learning process. ▪ In modelling, one person’s behaviour is modelled by another by observing outcomes of other’s behaviour (Bandura, 1973) ▪ Instrumental conditioning can occur indirectly this way – thus observational learning can also be called vicarious conditioning Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 173-174). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Sources of learning Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 175-176). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Self-perception ▪ Self-perception theory: Our attitudes are informed by our behaviour and making internal attributions for that behaviour (Bem, 1972) ▪ “Why did I do that?” ▪ Electric shocks and pain perception (Bandler et al., 1968) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 175). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. 4. Attitude – Behaviour Link 36 Can attitudes predict behaviour? ▪ The attitude-behaviour problem (La Piere, 1934) ▪ Difference in prejudiced attitude and discriminatory behaviour ▪ Mixed-race group of diners ▪ 249/250 allowed the group in and Can you think of any served them other examples where ▪ 90% indicated that they would decline attitudes and the booking behaviours may not always align? Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 157). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. When do attitudes predict behaviour? ▪ Correspondence between attitude and behavioural measure (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977) ▪ Action of behaviour being performed (e.g., voting, recycling) ▪ Target of the behaviour (e.g. brand, political candidate) ▪ Context in which is performed (e.g., private, public) ▪ Time frame in which behaviour is performed (e.g., now, in a year) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 158-159). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. When do attitudes predict behaviour? ▪ Correspondence between attitude and behavioural measure (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977) ▪ Women’s use of birth control pills ▪ General (birth control generally) – r =.08 ▪ Specific (birth control pills) – r =.32 ▪ Very specific (birth control pills in next two years) – r =.57 Davidson & Jaccard (1979) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 158-159). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. When do attitudes predict behaviour? ▪ Depends on the domain of behaviour (Kraus, 1995) - e.g., ▪ Political voting – r =.58 ▪ Blood/organ donation – r =.35 ▪ Psychological research – r =.24 Kraus, S. J. (1995). Attitudes and the prediction of behavior: A meta-analysis of the empirical literature. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 21(1), 58-75. When do attitudes predict behaviour? ▪ Attitude strength (e.g., importance, accessibility ; Fazio, 1995) ▪ The stronger our attitude – the more likely it is accessible and important to us, thus more likely to enact on it ▪ Greenpeace attitude and donation – strength of attitude increased link to behaviour (Holland et al., 2002) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 165-168). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. When do attitudes predict behaviour? ▪ Role of individual differences e.g., ▪ Self-monitoring – low self-monitors have higher attitude-behaviour correlation (e.g., Snyder & Kendzierski, 1982) ▪ Habit (e.g., smoking, Oskamp, 1984) ▪ Habit can ‘break’ the attitude-behaviour link Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 170-171). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Theory of Reasoned Action ▪ People’s behaviour is dependent on their intentions (behavioural intention), which is informed by: ▪ Subjective Norms ▪ Other people’s beliefs about the behaviour ▪ Motivation to comply ▪ Attitudes towards the behaviour ▪ Beliefs about the behaviour ▪ Evaluation of the outcome (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1974) Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 159-164). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Theory of Reasoned Action Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 159-164). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. Theory of Planned Behaviour Vaughan, G. M., & Hogg, M. (2017). Social psychology (7th Ed, pp. 159-164). Essex, UK: Pearson Education. We have covered… ▪ Definitions, structure and functions of attitudes ▪ Attitude measurement ▪ Theories of attitude formation ▪ Considering when attitudes link to behaviour ▪ Attitudes are a central concept in Social Psychology, and underpin a large variety of human phenomena including things covered in this course (e.g., prosociality, aggression) ▪ You will revisit the topic of attitudes often throughout your degree e.g., ▪ Self-esteem ▪ Prejudice and conflict ▪ Attitude change, propaganda and persuasion