What are attitudes and how do psychologists measure them PDF

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Essay on attitudes Attitudes are a theoretical concept which heavily impacts social psychology. Attitudes cannot be observed directly and are usually recorded through responses that can be observed such as activities that have happened. This essay will focus on the initial psychologists who focused on the concept of attitudes, their definition and the various aspects of attitudes and behaviour. How psychologists measure attitudes through a variety of implicit and external methods, and what measurements are still used today. Attitudes are used to define how we think about the world, anAllport, an American psychologist, states attitude can be defined as ‘a mental and neural state of readiness, organised through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related’ (Allport 1935, p.810). An attitude helps us to understand our affections towards various stimuli and objects. Evaluative responses are observations which relate to the attitude, due to various stimuli or objects. Attitudes were believed by early psychologists to be central to social psychology. In the beginning, the definitions of attitudes were rather broad and involved many aspects such as ‘...cognitive, affective, motivational, and behavioral components’ (BOHNER & SCHWARZ, 1993) In the later decades, psychologists disagreed with the earlier definitions of attitudes. It became more vague, reduced to simpler terms such as “likes and dislikes” (Daryl Bem, 1970, p. 14). Attitudes hold functions which serve an individual purpose. Katz (1960) proposed the idea of a functionalist theory. Each attitude provides a different function, saving cognitive energy so we are able to understand a certain stimuli or object better,for example through schemas. Katz believed that attitudes supported individuals in accessing their needs. Functionalist theory states four kinds of attitude provides various functions;. knowledge, instrumental, ego-defensive, and value expressiveness. Unlike Katz, who concentrated on an attitude which serves a single use function, Smith et al, focused on attitudes that could provide a variety of functions. Smith et al proposed the idea that ‘attitudes as equilibrium points within the motivational force field that constitutes personality’. Displaying how Smith believed attitudes were determined by how strong the needs of the individual were at the time, as well as ‘the potential of the attitude’ in order to meet the needs and requirements of the individual. (Hogg & Vaughan, 2018) (Smith, Brunner, and White, 1956) conceptualised the idea of object appraisal as a function of attitudes. Meaning individuals are able to relate to various objects in positive or negative ways. Social adjustment was also conceptule to communicate with those they have a positive attitude towards and dissociate from those they don’t. The contemporary tactics towards attitude functions extend from the ideas of Katz and Smith et al, beginning to integrate a functional approach into information processing models of attitude. More contemporary research such as (Herek 1986) who conceptualised a neurofunctional approach which involves studying attitude functions that would include more of an observable study into it. (Hogg & Vaughan, 2018) During the late 1950s and 60s, theories about cognitive consistency began to become rather central in social psychology and attitudes. Cognitive dissonance theory creates the idea that individuals want their attitudes and beliefs to be in harmony with each other. If an individual's thoughts become inconsistent, disharmony is created. (Harmon-Jones & Harmon-Jones, 2007) Heider (1958) a psychologist, proposed balance theory. Heider states that ‘by a balanced state is meant a situation in which the relations among the entities fit together harmoniously; there is no stress towards change’. Individuals prefer people with similar attitudes over people whose attitudes are inconsistent to theirs. Recent studies agree with Heider’s balance theory, the study of (Gawronski, and Strack, 2012) demonstrates how the emergence of cognitive balance after the change of an attitude can be disrupted

through the associative transfer of valence (Gawronski, 2012). The structure of attitudes shows how attitudes have three different components. The ABC model of attitude displays how there are three aspects to an attitude; Affect, Behaviour, and Cognition. The affect shows the feelings of an individual towards an object. Behaviour reflects the type of behaviour the individual shows towards the object, and the cognition shows the thought processes and belief towards the object (Eagly & Chaiken 1998). Attitudes have been closely linked to predicting behaviour in social psychology. Grano and Prislin (2006) have stated ‘attitudes predict behaviour, they are considered the crown jewel of social psychology’. Although many psychologists have questioned the correlation between attitudes and behaviour. A study by Gregson and Stacey (1981) shows small correlation between the amount of alcohol someone consumed and their attitude. This study showed a lack of evidence between the advantages of being able to change one's attitude instead of just creating incentives to lower the alcohol use, such as alcohol tax. (Gregson, R. and Stacey, B, 1980). An early study done by La Piere involving attitudes towards a Chinese couple during the time prejudice against the Chinese was strong in America. La Piere travelled around various establishments in America to see if the couple would be accepted. They were refused only once. After the trip, a questionnaire was sent to the establishments asking the attitudes towards the Chinese and if they would accept them into their establishment. Ninety two percent of establishments replied they would not. The attitudes did not match the behaviour, resulting in little correlation between the two. Doll and Azjen (1992) discovered that the planned behaviour was more likely to predict behaviour with individuals who had previous experience of being under examination with the same behaviour. Attitude consistency can vary due to various aspects, such as the accessibility of the attitude, or how the attitude is expressed for example, in public. (Doll, Jörg & Ajzen, Icek, 1992) According to Antonak and Livneh (1995) ‘Attitude measurement is an attempt to convert observations of a person's behavior toward a referent into an index representing the presence, strength, and direction of the attitude presumed to underlie the behavior’. A measurement will be chosen to test the attitude ensuring it is appropriate and mirrors the internal state of the individual. There are two ways of measuring attitude, indirect and direct. All attitudes are in an individual's memory, the retrieval of these memories can be automatic or controlled. Explicit attitudes include retrieval that can be controlled and individuals are aware of their attitudes are being measured or are aware of the measurement due to the technique. There are methods to measure explicit attitudes, for example the Thurstone Scale. A scale where each item has a value, from favourable to unfavourable. Individuals check items they agree with. The attitude score will be the mean value of the items that were checked. A disadvantage is that it is time consuming. However, it does have an obvious neutral point on the scale, unlike the Likert Scale. Likert (1932) created a scale which creates a reliable attitude measure. This scale shows how strongly individuals agree or disagree with something. Many items are initially tested however, only items that correlate with one another are kept to ensure the attitude can be measured accurately. Likert Scales are an easy method of collecting data. However, a problem may be caused with acquiescent response set. Meaning individuals may just agree with the items in the questionnaire. Furthermore, the Guttman Scale (Guttman 1944) used a different technique to measure attitudes. Both Likert and Thurstone scales don’t result in a distinct meaning as multiple people can have different results in terms of meaning but end up with the same score. The Guttman Scale involves positive or negative statements in a hierarchical order. Agreeing with stronger statements means agreement with weaker statements. Disagreeing with a weak statement shows disagreement with stronger ones. This scale involves unidimensionality, every item having the same value and a scale which includes opposing adjectives. For example, good/bad. Questions don’t need to be created for this scale ,however, this scale is rather simplistic. Although, direct measures do have complications, individuals may not be willing to expose their true attitudes e.g. social pressure (Carroll, Osgood, Suci & Tannenbaum, 1959)

To prevent the problems with direct measurements, indirect measures are used. The Galvanic Skin Response is a method of measuring the skin and its electrical resistance. This tests an individual’s response for example, a disagreeable association e.g. murder, will increase the GSR. This also happens with positive associations e.g. love, however, not with neutral associations. However, this measurement can only tell if there is an emotional response, not if the response is positive or negative. (Roberts, Laughlin & Wedell, 1999) Cacioppo, Petty, Losch and Kim (1986) created the measurement of measuring attitude intensity through muscle movements. This was done through electromyography (EMG), this technique measures muscle's electrical activity (Sutton, R., & Douglas, K, 2013) Cacioppo and Petty (1979) exposed subjects to something they agreed or disagreed with with a one minute warning prior. Subjects showed to disagreeable communications displayed less EMG activity in the muscle area above the cheek (zygomatic) and increasing activity above the brow muscle region (corrugator). The Implicit Association Test is a measurement of the strength of an individual's subconscious relationship between ‘mental representations of objects (concepts) in memory’. (Social Psychology by Robbie Sutton and Karren Douglas). This measurement became widely used, for example, measuring the internal attitudes of gender attitudes (Greenwald, Nosek and Banaji, 2003). A criticism is that the more practice someone has at this, the better they are able to fake their attitude (Steffens, 2004). Although factors may impact how well attitudes can be measured. How accessible an attitude is from an individual's memory can strongly impact behaviour (Fazio, 1986) Attitudes that can be accessed quickly display high accessibility. Various studies on attitude accessibility focus on Fazio’s model of attitudes (1995) This model ‘views behavior in any given situation as a function of the individual's immediate perceptions of the attitude object in the context of the situation in which the object is encountered.’ the stronger the association between the evaluation and the object, the easier it is to access. (Fazio, R., Powell, M., & Williams, C, 1989) A study by Fazio et al (2000) tested attitude accessibility through testing whether subjects with higher accessible attitudes find it harder to tell if an image has changed. Participants were exposed repeatedly to facial images. Participants had to either express their attitude towards the images or do a controlled task. Subjects were then exposed to original images and their morphs which were computer generated, which showed different percentages of change in the original. Participants who expressed attitudes had a slower response time in identifying the morph image as different from the original, making more mistakes than low accessibility participants. This showed that participants with higher attitude accessibility saw less change. This study displayed how high attitude accessibility can be costly. (Fazio, Russell & Ledbetter, Janet & Towles-Schwen, Tamara, 2000) The Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishben and Azjen, 1975) conveys that people behave in line with their attitudes. A predictor of behaviour is determined by what attitudes are deemed to be socially favourable. A person will be more likely to do the set behaviour if their attitude complies to social norms. The Theory of Planned Behaviour was proposed as an advancement by Azjen (1989) to the TRA. The TPB involves behaviour being influenced by three types aspects. Beliefs about the outcomes of the behaviour, beliefs about social norms and the desire to fit in with these expectations, and beliefs about perceived control of behaviour. Intention is important in performing a behaviour and helps the individual to reflect on it. (Hausenblas, Carron & Mack, 1997)

Conclusion - final asnwer, main points, essay q In conclusion, attitudes are a major interest of social psychology. Attitude structure shows how balance theory and cognitive dissonance display how people like to remain consistent with their beliefs. Attitude

and behaviour are linked but in varying ways,

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