Chapter 7 - Attitudes, Beliefs, and Consistency

• What Are Attitudes and Why Do People Have Them?

• How Attitudes Are Formed?

• Consistency

• Do Attitudes Really Predict Behavior?

• Beliefs and Believing

Attitudes and Beliefs

• Attitudes– Global evaluations toward some object or

issue

• Beliefs – Information about something; facts or

opinions

Attitude

• Attitude = one's evaluative orientation toward a person, thing, idea, etc. – Do you like Shredded Wheat? – Do you prefer lecture course or seminars? – What's your favorite Friday evening

activity? – Is Seinfeld funny?

Three Parts of Attitudes

• Cognitive– Our knowledge of the attitude target

• Affective– Our feelings or beliefs toward the attitude

target

• Behavioral– Our intention to act toward the attitude

target

Dual Attitudes

• Different evaluations of the same target

• Implicit attitude– Automatic evaluative response

• Explicit attitude– Conscious evaluative response

Dual Attitudes

• Some attitudes are not shared with others– Stigma

• We may not be aware of all our own attitudes– We may unconsciously dislike something

we consciously like.

Measuring Attitudes

• Self-Report Measures– Open Ended Scales– Likert Scales

• Issues with Self-Report– Reliability / Validity– Assumes you know your attitudes– Ambivalent Attitudes– Self-Report Biases

Non-Verbal Measures

• Behavioral Measures – Overt behavior to infer attitude

• Physiological Measures – Arousal and muscle action

• Implicit Attitudes – Reaction time

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

• Measures implicit attitudes

– Those we are unwilling or unable to report– Attitudes about stigmatized groups

Why People Have Attitudes

• Attitudes help us deal with complex world

• Attitudes are evaluations (like or dislike)– Initial evaluations are immediate and

unconscious

• Attitudes are helpful in making choices

• Two Functions– Object Appraisal– Value-Expressive

Attitude Formation

• Genetic

• Affective

• Cognitive

• Behavioral

Attitude Formation - Genetic

• Genetic– Tesser (1993) believed that some attitudes

are heritable.– Some possibilities:

• Sensory

• Body Chemistry

• Intelligence

Attitude Formation - Affective

• Mere-exposure effect - Zajonc (1968)

– Repeated exposure increases liking for an object

– Exception - If you dislike something initially, repeated exposure will not change that attitude

Attitude Formation - Affective

• Classical Conditioning– Can form both explicit and implicit attitudes– Develop a positive attitude toward the

conditioned stimulus– Helps explain prejudiced attitudes

• Negative information in the media linked to social groups

– Advertisers link celebrities and products

Attitude Formation - Affective

• Operant Conditioning– Develop a positive attitude toward

something being reinforced

• Social Learning– Learn attitudes acceptable through

observation (Bobo Dolls)

Attitude Formation - Cognitive

• Evaluation of the merits of an object

• Polarization - Attitudes become more extreme as we think about them– Especially true in strong initial attitude– Evaluate evidence in a biased manner

• Accept evidence that confirms attitude

• Accept evidence from ingroup members

Attitude Formation - Behavioral

• Bem’s Self-Perception Theory– At work when we don’t have a well-defined

attitude– “If I said it, it must be true”– “If I ate it, I must like it”– We are making an attribution about our

behavior.

Consistency

• Commonalities in theories about consistency– Specify conditions required for consistency

and inconsistency– Assume inconsistency is unpleasant– Specify conditions required to restore

consistency

Balance Theory

• P-O-X Theory– Person – Other Person – Attitude Object

• Relationships among P-O-X– Unit relationships – Things that belong

together– Sentiment relationships – Liking or

Disliking (Attitudes)

Balance Theory

• Individuals prefer balanced to unbalanced– Jim likes Sally (P + O)– Jim is a vegetarian and dislikes eating meat (P -

X);

– Jim believes Sally to dislike meat (O - X).

• What happens when Jim realizes Sally likes to eat meat?

Balance Theory

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balanced (consistent) psychological statesbalanced (consistent) psychological states

imbalanced (inconsistent) psychological states

Balance Theory

• When we are balance, there is not need to change.– “I don't like John. – John has a dog. – I don't like the dog either.”

• When we are unbalanced, we are motivated to change– "I love my child.– She made this ashtray. – I hate the ashtray."

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• Cognitive dissonance refers to unpleasant state when attitude and behavior are inconsistent

• If there is an inconsistency between thoughts, you will feel an unpleasant state of arousal (i.e., cognitive dissonance) as a result.

– Causes people to rationalize their behavior and bring their attitude into line with actions

• Festinger & Carlson (1959)

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Festinger & Carlson (1959)

Stage 1– First, participants were asked to twist wooden

pegs placed in a board for 30 minutes.– Second, participants were asked to put spools of

thread on to pegs and take them off again for 30 minutes.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)

Stage 2– Participants were told that to test the effects of

motivation in this study tell the next participant that the study was enjoyable and fun.

– Two experimental groups.

• Group A paid $1.00 for doing the “briefing”.

• Group B paid $20.00 for doing the “briefing”.– Then, after they talked to the next participant, the

participants were asked how they felt about the study.

Festinger & Carlsmith (1959) Results

Step 1 Step 2Payment

Step 3

Evaluation of

Task enjoymentAll participants do the boring task, and then were asked to tell next participants about task.

Group A, Lie

Paid $1.00

23.5

Group B,Lie

Paid $20.00

9.8

Group C, No lie

No pay

5.9

Traditional models of decision making: Operant Conditioning

• Operant Conditioning suggest the bigger the reinforcer, the more likely someone is to change their Attitude.

• Cognitive Dissonance theory/research shows that Attitudes are changed more when reinforcer is less.

Choices should be driven by future consequences,

not past expenditures

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• Effort Justification – Aronson & Mills, 1959– People seek to justify and rationalize any

suffering or effort they have made

Effort JustificationInitiation rites: Aronson & Mills (1959)

• Three screening conditions– Control (e.g. chair, table, sad, book)– Mild (e.g. prostitute, virgin)– Extreme (obscene words--sorry, I can’t put these up!)

• All participants then listen to sample tape of discussion group

• Discussion is horribly boring! (pre-tested)

• Dependent variable: expressed liking for the discussion group and desire to join

You and a companion plan to go skiing at a resort. You each have paid 100 dollars for lift tickets and rental. When you arrive, the conditions are horrible—it’s cold, icy, and even the best lifts are not operating because of the wind. In addition, you both feel lousy physically and out of sorts psychologically.

Your companion turns to you and says, “It’s too bad that the money is not refundable, we’d have a much better time back home, relaxing in front of the fire. But I can’t afford to waste 100 dollars.”

You agree. But you also both agree that it’s unlikely that you will have a better time struggling with the bad conditions on the slopes, compared to being inside.

What do you do? Stay and ski, or go home?

Example

Paid 100 dollars for tickets and equipment (decrease in net assets by $100)

Decision?Stay and ski

Lousy day skiing (minus 100 dollars)

Better day at home (minus 100 dollars)

Give up and go home

Staying at home feels aversive, because of the sense that you have “wasted” the 100 dollars. However, the past expenditure is irrelevant to your decision, because it is a constant in both cases.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

• While people have desire to be consistent in their own private mind, they have stronger desire to be viewed consistent by others

• Self-presentation plays a role in cognitive dissonance

Consistency

• Drive for consistency – Rooted in our biology– Strengthened by learning and socialization

• Consistency involves both automatic and conscious parts of the mind

Do Attitudes Really Predict Behavior?

Attacking Attitudes

• Wicker (1969) argued against Allport and suggested we abandon the study of Attitudes.

– Review of attitude-behavior studies (approx 50 studies)

• Average correlation [r] = .30• % of variance in behavior explained = 9% (r2)

• Link between attitudes and behavior is weak.

• A – B Problem– Inconsistency between attitude (A) and behavior (B)

When do Attitudes predict behavior?

• Predictions of behavior based on attitudes is best when– Measures of attitude are very specific– Behaviors are aggregated over time and

situations (not one situation)– Attitudes are consciously prominent and

influence thought regarding the choice (priming)

– Attitudes are easily accessible

What else influences Behavior

Behavior

Personality traitsAbilityMotivation

AttitudeHabitNeedsSocial pressureOther attitudes

Examples

• Personality

– Self-monitoring (Snyder & Swann, 1976)– Private self-consciousness (Scheier et al.,

1978)– Need for cognition (Cacioppo et al., 1986)

Self-monitoring (Snyder, 1974)

• Concern for social appropriateness– Sensitive to self-presentation of others– Used as guidelines for monitoring own self-

presentation

• Two components of self-monitoring– Interest in social information– Ability to control self-presentation

Self-monitoring and attitude-behavior correlations

• High self-monitors have lower attitude-behavior correlations

• Their behavior is less reflective of their actual attitudes; more in line with what they think is socially appropriate