PSYC20009 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Guttman Scale, Implicit-Association Test, Likert Scale
14 Jun 2018
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Lecture 7 - Monday 4 September 2017
PSYC20009 - PERSONALITY & SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
LECTURE 7
ATTITUDES
WHAT IS AN ATTITUDE
•(1) There are many definitions of attitudes. For example:
•Attitudes are associations between attitude objects and evaluations of those attitude objects.
•We can have attitudes about any object, including ourselves – known as self-esteem.
•How attitudes form and can be modified has been a central concern of Social Psychology.
ATTITUDE COMPONENTS
•(2) Attitudes have three components ABC
•Affective component – liking or feelings about the attitude object.
•Behavioural component – how we behave toward the attitude object.
•Cognitive component – our thoughts and beliefs about the attitude object.
ATTITUDE PROPERTIES
•(3) Valence:
•Evaluation – whether the attitude object is viewed positively or negatively.
•Strength:
•Certainty or probability – how strong the attitude is.
•Complexity:
•The number of elements in the attitude.
WHY DO WE STUDY ATTITUDES?
•(4) Attitudes influence social cognition:
•They can function as schemas for organizing and interpreting information about social
objects.
•Attitudes influence behaviour:
•We can act in a way that is consistent with our attitudes.
•However, this relationship is complex and there are times when behaviour is not consistent
with attitudes.
MEASURING ATTITUDES
•(5) Explicit Measures
•These are ‘self-report’ measures.
•There are several different methods of assessing attitudes using these methods. These include:
•Guttman scales.
•Semantic Differentials.
•Likert scales.
•Implicit Measures
•These are designed to measure attitudes that we might not be aware of or may not be willing
to report. These include:
•Implicit Association Test (IAT). Go/No-Go Association Task (GNAT).
•Attitudes can also be inferred from observing behaviour.
THE GUTTMAN SCALE
•A Guttman scale presents a number of items to which the person is asked to agree or not agree.
•This is typically done in a 'Yes/No' dichotomous format. It is also possible to use a likert scale
(more later), although this is less commonly used.
•Questions on a Guttman scale gradually increase in specificity.
Lecture 7 - Monday 4 September 2017
PSYC20009 - PERSONALITY & SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
•The rationale of using this scale is that the person will agree with all statements up to a point
(more or less extreme) and then will stop agreeing.
•The scale can be used to determine how extreme a view is, with successive statements showing
increasingly extremist positions.
EXAMPLE
•First have to create a unidimensional hierarchy of items from least specific to more specific.
•Are you willing to allow migrants to live in your country? Are you willing to allow migrants
to live in your community?
•Are you willing to allow migrants to live in your neighbourhood?
•Are you willing to allow migrants to live next door to you? Would you allow your child to
marry a migrant?
•An individual’s attitude is determined by the point at which they no longer continue to agree with
the items.
SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL
•Developed by Osgood.
•The individual is asked to choose where his or her position lies, on a scale between two bipolar
adjectives (e.g., "Adequate-Inadequate", "Good-Evil" or "Valuable-Worthless").
•Osgood performed a factor analysis on large collections of semantic differential scales and found
three recurring attitudes that people use to evaluate words and phrases: evaluation, potency, and
activity.
•Evaluation loads highest on the adjective pair 'good-bad'.
•The 'strong-weak' adjective pair defines the potency factor.
•Adjective pair 'active-passive' defines the activity factor.
•These three dimensions of affective meaning were found to be cross- cultural universals in a
study of dozens of cultures.
EXAMPLE
•
LIKERT SCALE
•The most widely used scale in survey research.
•When responding to a Likert item, individuals indicate their level of agreement to a statement.
•Often use five ordered response levels (e.g., strongly disagree [1] to strongly agree [5]) although
many advocate using seven or nine levels.
•5- or 7-point scales can produce slightly higher mean scores, relative to the highest possible
attainable score, compared to those produced from a 10-point scale.
•In terms of the other data characteristics, there is very little difference among the likert scale
formats in terms of variation about the mean and skewness.
Document Summary
What is an attitude: (1) there are many definitions of attitudes. Attitude components: (2) attitudes have three components abc, affective component liking or feelings about the attitude object, behavioural component how we behave toward the attitude object, cognitive component our thoughts and beliefs about the attitude object. Attitude properties: (3) valence, evaluation whether the attitude object is viewed positively or negatively, strength, certainty or probability how strong the attitude is, complexity, the number of elements in the attitude. Measuring attitudes: (5) explicit measures, these are self-report" measures, there are several different methods of assessing attitudes using these methods. These include: guttman scales, semantic differentials, likert scales, implicit measures, these are designed to measure attitudes that we might not be aware of or may not be willing to report. Go/no-go association task (gnat): attitudes can also be inferred from observing behaviour.
