Attitudes in social psychology PDF

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Attitudes in social psychology...

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Attitudes Functional theory    

Attitudes are stable, object-related, association stored and then evoked in memory (Fazio, 1990) Attitude formation is a strictly cognitive process stemming from analytical, deliberative, evaluative categorisation (Fishbein & Middlestadt, 1995) ‘a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour’ (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) Attitudes are stored in memory because they serve psychological motivations and needs (Ajzen, 2001) Psychological Function Knowledge Value-expressive

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Definition Information, understanding the environment Self-image: display what we see as important

Help us… Organise and predict the social world Express cherished ideas

Social-adjustive

Self-protective; barrier communicating who we are

Protect ourselves from acknowledging threatening self-truth

Utilitarian

Useful, maximum benefits and minimum costs to the individual

Guide approach and avoidance behaviour

Functional theory adheres to the information processing approach o Deliberative (rule based) processing  Theory of reasoned action (TRA) – Fishbein & Ajzen. 1975  Theory of planned behaviour (TPB) – Ajzen, 1991  TPB is an improvement of TRA  Explains when attitudes do not link with behaviour  Model intended to predict behaviour towards an attitude object o Spontaneous (associative) processing

Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) – Fishbein & Ajzen (1975) 

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Behaviour is a function of two things a. Attitudes: general orientation towards the behaviour. Belief about the behaviour, it’s outcomes and one’s own evaluation of the beliefs e.g. what will happen if I engage in this behaviour? Is this outcome desirable or undesirable?  Leads to attitude towards the behaviour b. Subjective norms: influence of people in one’s social environment. Belief about what others think is appropriate behaviour and the motivation to comply with others’ beliefs e.g. what will my parents think?  Leads to normative beliefs  Both attitudes and subjective norms about the behaviour influences behavioural intention e.g. planning to do the behaviour Limitations of TRA o Some people have (or believe they have) little power over their behaviour o Not all behaviour is volitional  Deeply ingrained habits  Lack of resources  External obstacles

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Behavioural intent does not always lead to action – some people want to act but physically can’t Assumes human beings are rational Assumes people can consciously control their behaviour Doesn’t include prior experience with the behaviour Factors other than intention may mediate control such as internal or external factors

Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) – Ajzen (1991) 

Behaviour is a function of three things 1. Attitude towards the behaviour  Is the person in favour of doing it? 2. Subjective norm  How much does the person feel social pressure to do it? 3. Perceived behavioural control  Does the person feel in control of the action in question?  These all lead to intention and behaviour

Prospective study example (Pelling & White, 2009) 

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Used a questionnaire measuring the following variables to use current information to see how well it predicts what will happen in the future o TPB variables o Demographic o Self-identity o Belonging o Past behaviour o Addictive tendencies Best predictor variables of the intention to engage with social network at high level 1. Past behaviour 2. Subjective norm 3. Attitude 4. Self-identity Predicted actual high levels of social network engagement 1. Past behaviour 2. Intention 3. Self-identity

Spontaneous or associative models  

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Attitudes evoked automatically through association ‘an association stored in memory between a given object and one’s evaluation of this object’, an attitude will be influential on the evaluation of an object depending on its accessibility (importance of the function; frequency of prior activation; strength of the association. (Fazio, 1990) Shavitt (1990) – to invoke a positive attitude to the object/stimulus, you need to emphasise the appropriate attitude function o Use of social identity in adverts results in less favourable responses than utilitarian appeals for products that serve utilitarian function o Use of utilitarian appeals results in less favourable responses compared with social-identity appears for products that serve social-identity functions

Constructive theory

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Attitudes are temporary evolutions of an object constructed as a particular time in a particular context (Feldman & Lynch, 1988) Attitude formation is affective, based on emotions and feelings which guide categorisation at the time of evaluation (Schwarz, 1997) Assume people compute on the spot according to their contextual goals Make up or attitudes based on relevant diagnosis of information available in a given context Endorses situated learning and cognition to suggest goals generate temporary motivations Offers different explanation for why direct experience with an object may result in a stronger attitude that better predicts behaviour (Fazio & Zanna, 1981) o Direct experiences make strong use of the human perceptual system o Tversky & Kahnermann (1991): decision making being either based on perceptual or cost-benefit. Cost-benefit approach, more cognitive resources used o Payne, Bettmen & Johnson (1992): contextual factors have an impact on the construction of an attitude to an object. The motivation goals and aspect of the context at the time include: the complexity of the context, the character or other options in the choice set, the framing of the question that aims to elicit a preference and the representation or display of the choice set

Implication of functional vs. constructive views of attitude  

Functional theory assumes attitude corresponds enduring motivations Constructive theory suggests that goals generate temporary motivations

Assumpti on about Concept

Attitude foundatio ns

Informati on processin g Attitude retrieval

Nature and operation

Functional Theory

Constructive Theory

Classical: a predisposition tendency to respond towards an object in favourable ways Modern: an association (stored) in memory between a given object and one’s evaluation of this object  Functions (motivational-needs)  Knowledge  Utilitarian  Social-identity (value expressive, social adjustment) Deliberative or spontaneous associative

Evaluating judgements constructed via a contextual process at the time of a question, or a decision problem

Retrieval from memory. Accessibility based on salience or importance of function, frequency of prior activation and the strength of association between object and its attitude. Can be influenced by situation Attitudes are stored in memory as object associations but their manifestation may vary across situation and personalities

The cognitive-affective debate

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 Temporary contextual goals  Minimise effort  Maximising accuracy  Minimising negative experience  Maximising case of justification Elementary information processing: computation strategies or heuristics

Construction on the spot. Accessibility based on perceptual salience, diagnostic internal and external information about object in given context

Attitudes are formed in the process of attaining a goal, hence they are temporary and contextual constructions

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Functional approach is cognitive – ‘cognitive process stemming from analytical, deliberate evaluative categorisation’ o The cognitive claim - primacy of cognition:  Attitudes are seen as responses stemming from deliberative cognitive processes of information about an object e.g. the theory or reasoned action, theory of planned action  Attitudes are sustained by relevant beliefs about the object’s attitudes and the categorisation of these beliefs on an effective continuum e.g. like-dislike Constructive approach is affective – ‘based on emotions and feelings which guide categorisation at the time or evaluation’ o The affective claim - non-primacy of cognition (e.g. Bagozzi et al., 1999):  Zajonc (1980): Attitudes are based on things like liking, feelings and emotions generated by the mere exposure to the object. Repeated exposure improves processing ‘fluency’ which can influence evaluation/judgement of the object in two ways:  Misattributed positive impact of fluency to the object  Fluency creates familiarity  Zajonc (1968): the mere exposure to an object, the more positive feelings towards the object  Phrase 1: participants learning a foreign language  Phrase 2: told symbols were nouns and asked to guess whether it is positive or negative in connation  Phrase 3: the characters are presented to participants one last time to rate favourably of them o Favourability rating increased with the number of time symbol was presented

Claimed importance of attitudes – attitudes actually relate to behaviour 

LaPiere (1934): Travelled across America with a young Chinese couple. Face to face encounters in 251 instances rejected only once o Could stay there (99% said yes) and could eat there (100% said yes) o When contacted establishment by letter, 91.5% replied no

Attitudes predict behaviour best when:  

Theories help explain the weak correlations between attitude measures and behaviour 3 dimension impacts on whether attitude predicts behaviour o Attitude strength o Attitudes accessible o Attitude ambivalence

Traditional view claims attitude determines behaviour e.g. attitude: ‘I’m not interested in politics, it’s not relevant to my life’ so behaviour: ‘I don’t vote’. BUT what if behaviour determines attitudes e.g. behaviour: ‘now that I think about it, I voted’ so behaviour: ‘I guess politics is relevant to my life because I voted’ Self-perception theory (Bem, 1965)   

We observe own behaviour. From this we can attribute our behaviour to either internal or external causes Our behaviour would be perceived as indicative our attitude Valins (1967): men were given fake biofeedback as they looked at nude women pictures. The experiment occasionally varied the bogus biofeedback. The men

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reported being most turned on by the photos that were associated with a change in heartbeat Chaiken & Baldwin (1981): self-perception in relation to environmental attitudes o Stage 1: participant screened on attitude to environmentalism and identified into two groups, either strong or weak attitudes o Stage 2: group A: ask question that bought to mind past pro environmental action (have you ever recycled?), group Ab: ask question about lack of environmental action (do you always recycle?) o Stage 2: participants re-asked about attitude towards environment o Those with strong initial attitudes towards the environment were not affected but those with weak prior attitudes were affected

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