VL7 - Attitude and Attitude Change

When do attitudes predict Behavior? Under what conditions will people’s attitudes dictate how they actually behave?

• predicting spontaneous Behaviors Attitudes predict spontaneous behaviors only when they are relatively accessible. attitude accessibility refers to the strength of the association between an object and an evaluation of it.

• predicting deliberative Behaviors According to the theory of planned behavior, deliberative (nonspontaneous) behaviors are a function of people’s attitude toward the specific act in question, subjective norms (people’s beliefs about how others view the behavior in question), and how much people believe they can control the behavior.

How do attitudes Change? Both internal and external factors influence our attitudes.

• Changing attitudes by Changing Behavior: Cognitive dissonance theory revisited: people engage in counterattitudinal advocacy for low external justification —> people find internal justification for their behavior, bringing their attitudes in line with their behavior

• persuasive Communications and attitude Change

  yale attitude Change approach, the effectiveness of a persuasive communication depends on aspects of the communicator, or source of the message; aspects of the message itself (e.g., its content); and aspects of the audience

• emotion and attitude Change

  fear- arousing communications can cause lasting attitude change if a moderate amount of fear is aroused and people believe they will be reassured by the content of the message.

• Confidence in one’s thoughts and attitude Change People’s confidence in their thoughts about an attitude object affects how much they will be influenced by a persuasive communication (nodding or shaking their head)

The power of advertising Advertising has been found to be quite effective at changing people’s attitudes, as indicated by split cable market tests, where advertisers show different advertisements to different samples of cable subscribers and then look at what they buy.

• How advertising Works Advertising works by targeting affectively based attitudes with emotions, by targeting cognitively based attitudes with facts, and by making a product seem personally relevant.

• subliminal advertising: a form of mind Control? There is no evidence that subliminal messages in advertisements have any influence on people’s behavior. Subliminal influences have been found, however, under controlled laboratory conditions.

• advertising, stereotypes, and Culture In addition to changing people’s attitudes toward commercial products, advertisements often transmit societal stereotypes, such as gender stereotypes and expe tations regarding both women and men. Analyses of Culture and advertising also reveal interesting differences that converge with other cross-cultural findings in social and self-perception.

Resisting persuasive messages Researchers have studied a number of ways by which people can avoid being influenced by persuasive messages.

• attitude inoculation One way is to expose people to small doses of arguments against their position, which makes it easier for them to defend them- selves against a persuasive message they hear later.

• Being alert to product placement Increasingly, advertisers are paying to have their products shown prominently in TV shows and movies. Forewarning people about attempts to change their attitudes, such as product placement, makes them less susceptible to attitude change.

• resisting peer pressure Teaching kids how to resist peer pressure ahead of time can make them less vulnerable to it later on.

• When persuasion attempts Backfire: reac- tance theory According to reactance theory, people experience an unpleasant state called reac- tance when their freedom of choice is threatened. Attempts to manage people’s attitudes can back- fire if they make people feel that their choices are limited.

The nature and origin of attitudes An attitude is a person’s enduring evaluation of people, objects, and ideas.

• Where do attitudes Come from? Although some attitudes may have a genetic component, they are based mostly on our experiences.

  • Cognitively based attitudes are based mostly on people’s beliefs about the properties of the attitude object.

  • affectively based attitudes are based more on people’s emotions and values; they can be created through classical conditioning or operant condi- tioning.

  • Behaviorally based attitudes are based on people’s actions toward the attitude object.

• explicit versus implicit attitudes Once an attitude develops, it can exist at two levels. explicit attitudes are ones we consciously endorse and can easily report. implicit attitudes operate outside of conscious awareness.