KLA210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Cognitive Dissonance, Physical Attractiveness, Impression Management
Social Psychology week 6: Attitudes and persuasion
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- People usually have an attitude toward many things
- Attitudes are broad, evaluative cognitions that tell us whether we are favorable
or not toward a concept
- Toward: behaviour, people etc.
- Is the result of a number of things: I like this or I don’t like this
oLearned preferences
oMedia exposure
oOthers’ opinions
oAge stereotypes
oGender stereotypes
oOwn behaviour
Infer from this
oPrevious experience
oValues in other domains
- Reasons for why we like or don’t like something are different between
everyone
- People evaluate objects along both positive and negative dimensions. As a
result, our attitudes can be positive, negative, ambivalent or indifferent
oReactions to events
oDual attitudes
- What do attitudes do:
oMotivate behaviour: not causing behaviour
Put us in a disposition toward thinking about doing something
for or against something
Prejudice can be constructed as an attitude: discrimination is
the behavioral outcome of this
- Tendency or predisposition: attitudes are internal states that exist over time
and predispose an individuals response to a given stimulus. Predispositions
may be lasting or ephemeral, important or trivial, learned or unlearned
oPart of the attitude that we have
- Evaluation: evaluations vary on 2 dimensions direction/valence and
strength/intensity, some theorists add a third dimension of activity
oDirection: positive or negative feelings
- ABC of attitudes:
oAffect: feeling a specific way
oBehaviour: tendency to behaviour to object in a particular way
oCognition: think about in specific way
- Eagly and Chaiken: 3 component model of attitudes
oObservable: stimulus denoting attitude
oInferred: attitude
oObservable responses:
Cognitive
Affective
Cognitive
- Objects: attitudes always refer to something.
oMay be abstract: multiculturalism
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oOr concrete: chilli
oSpecific
oCategorical
- Latent process: cognitive responses that underlie our responses
oAre attitudes real physiological events or simply convenient way for
psychologists to theorize the links between stimuli and responses
Fazio defines attitudes as associations in memory between
objects and evaluations
This implies an underlying physiological mechanism
Physiological; but need concepts to think about phenomena
oWhere are attitudes accessible:
Sometimes they are not accessible to us: don’t have an attitude
because we don’t know about it
No links: makes difficult to retrieve, form or have an
attitude about something
Weak link:
Strong link: think a lot about, very common and present
encountered
oActivations: attitude object in memory: evaluation of attitude object
The more we can access in memory, the more likely it is that
our attitudes will inform our information processing
Stronger attitudes: more selectively respond to information
Easier to retrieve in memory
The more likely they will influence your behaviour
toward something
oPriming categories activates stereotypes:
Either primed with words that were stereotypical toward age, or
non-stereotypical
Reaction times to age related words
Primed to age, took them longer than those not primed to
stereotypical words
More accessible mean there is sequential processing
that is influenced by priming and attitudes
- Measures of attitudes:
oSelf report
Likert Scale
Thurstone scale
Semantic differential
oLimitations of self reporting:
Likert scale assume that equal differences exist: a convenient
assumption
Thurstone scale tries to account for this not always being the
case
Semantic differential: rate at any point in between two poles
Honesty:
Social desirability: do what you should
Self-presentation: appear intelligent and helpful
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Non-attitudes:
We can spontaneously generate a response to an object
not previously considered
These are reactive to the content
We are good at forming attitudes about something we
don’t have an attitude about
Responses or artifacts that are highly dependent on the
situation, order of questions etc. context dependent
Likely not really to be our attitudes
Accessibility:
Can every attitude be recalled at the time of survey
Are all attitudes available for conscious evaluation
Do we just infer the most accessible thing that comes to
our mind first
May not be aware of all of these dimensions, or they
may not be accessible
oObservable/unobtrusive:
Face expressions: can do an electromyogram
Responses of facial muscles picked up by electrodes
Pick up patterns in expressions when we agree or
disagree with
EMG changes cannot be seen with the naked eyed
Cultural variability:
oDisplay riles determine what is appropriate and
what is not- not effected by EMG: only covert is
Webb et al/
Number of fingerprints on glass show popularity of art
Height indicates age
A degree of this
Recycling bin as indication of attitude about recycling
Weighing how full they are
Number of church services attended as a measure of religious
belief
Dropped letter technique:
Milgram, Mann, Hartner
How many/often
Addressed to an attitude relevant group: eg.
Greenspeace
Finder will post letter if they support cause
Can asses opinion in different suburbs
Presidential candidates
Bogus pipeiline:
Told it is lie detection machine
Photocopiers with electrodes
Compare attitudes with measured with and without
machine
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Document Summary
People usually have an attitude toward many things. Attitudes are broad, evaluative cognitions that tell us whether we are favorable or not toward a concept. Is the result of a number of things: i like this or i don"t like this: learned preferences, media exposure, others" opinions, age stereotypes, gender stereotypes, own behaviour. Infer from this: previous experience, values in other domains. Reasons for why we like or don"t like something are different between everyone. People evaluate objects along both positive and negative dimensions. As a result, our attitudes can be positive, negative, ambivalent or indifferent: reactions to events, dual attitudes. What do attitudes do: motivate behaviour: not causing behaviour. Put us in a disposition toward thinking about doing something for or against something. Prejudice can be constructed as an attitude: discrimination is the behavioral outcome of this. Tendency or predisposition: attitudes are internal states that exist over time and predispose an individuals response to a given stimulus.
