The Nature of Attitudes

Psychology of Attitudes (PSY320)

Outline

• Definitions– What are attitudes?

• Attitudes origin and formation– Where do they come from? – How do attitudes developed?

• Function and Roles – What’s the point?

Introduction

• Attitude is a hypothetical construct. • Attitudes are not directly observable.• Attitudes are inferred from observable responses.

The relevant observations here are evaluative responses that are elicited by certain stimuli, or occur in close conjunction with the attitude object.

• If there is an established tendency to respond in a certain way toward an attitude object, the person has formed an attitude toward this object.

+/- Attitude

Evaluative Responses

Stimuli

“Ice cream is good”“I like ice cream”“I eat ice cream”

Attitude Object

Anything we have an attitude about:

• Individual objects (i.e., ice cream), • Categories (e.g., ice cream flavors), • Individuals (e.g., me),• Groups (e.g., students), or • Abstract ideas (e.g., psychology).

+/- Attitude

Evaluative Responses

Attitude Object

“Ice cream is good”“I like ice cream”“I eat ice cream”

• Attitudes develop on the basis of evaluative responding.

• We cannot unequivocally conclude that an individual holds an attitude until he/she responds “evaluatively” to an AO.

Evaluative Responding

Evaluative Responding

BadGood No Yes

No Indifference Negative

Yes Positive Ambivalence

Definitions of Attitudes

The Tripartite Model of Attitudes

• These components are related, but they are not always consistent.

• These categories are often not homogeneous. • Do attitudes have must all 3 components to be

considered a true evaluative tendency (i.e. part of the definition of “pure” attitudes)?

• Conclusion: It is better to consider each component separately and study the processes that link the components with each other.

Gordon Allport (1935)

Attitude is a mental or neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related.

Petty & Cacioppo (1981)

Attitude is a general and enduring positive or negative feeling about some person, object, or issue.

Eagley and Chaiken (1992)

Attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor […] summary evaluations of attitude objects.

Judd, Ryan, & Parke, (1991)

Attitudes can be viewed as evaluations of various objects that are stored in memory.

Example of memory storage: 100 x 100 = 100

14 x 19 = 266

Petty (1995)

Attitudes refer to very general evaluations that people hold of themselves, other people, objects, and issues.

Perloff (1993)

Attitude as "a learned, enduring, and affective evaluation of an object (a person, entity, or idea) that exerts a directive impact on social behavior.“

The three Components of Attitude

1. Cognitive – beliefs about what is or is not true with respect to the AO.

2. Affective – feelings / emotions toward the AO.

3. Behavioral – tendencies to do certain things with respect to the AO.

Tri-component model

Component Characteristics Examples

Affect Emotional reactions "I like/hate ..."

CognitionInternalized mental representations, beliefs, thoughts

“I think the world should..."

BehaviorTendency to respond in a particular way toward the attitude object

"I always do...”

Perloff (2003)

Attitude is a “learned, global evaluation of an object (person, place, or issue) that influences thought and action.”

Attitudes vs. Other Related

Constructs

Differentiating attitudes from:

Habits

Values

Beliefs

Opinions

Attitudes vs. Other Constructs

Attitudes and Habits

Both influence behaviorHabits are routine behaviors that are performed without evaluation of the behaviors’ consequences or the behavior itselfAttitudes are persistent evaluations

Attitudes and Values

Both are evaluationsAlthough, saying that somebody values freedom is similar as saying that somebody has a positive attitude of freedomValues are ideal, desirable goals - more global/general than attitudes Values can encompass several attitudes – i.e., one can have several attitudes towards certain values

Attitudes and Beliefs

Beliefs are propositions about the attributes of objects (e.g., Ice cream is a source of protein)Beliefs are primarily cognitive – they do not have the affective content of attitudes (although they may trigger affective reactions)Difficult to distinguish attitudes from beliefs when a belief ascribes a positive or negative attribute to an object

Attitudes vs. Opinions

Opinions colloquially express an attitude (“We have different opinions on the use of rewards with our child”).“Opinion” is more commonly used in market research and surveys (Public Opinion Polls), whereas “Attitude” is more commonly used by psychologists.Opinion more related to cognitive evaluation.

Where do they come from?

Genetic Influence

Research indicated that twins have similar attitudes – i.e., suggesting a genetic basis for the formation of attitudes (Arvey, et al., 1989). Some attitudes (e.g., death penalty, religion, sex, music) show heritability coefficients of around .50. (Tesser, 1993) Universality of certain attitudes - result of phylogeny (McGuire, 1985).

Genetic Influence

“Heritable attitudes” would be harder to change, and they are more quickly activated.But... attitudes don't "sit" on genes; genetic influences must be mediated through complex interactions between biological tendencies and socio-cultural shaping.

“An attitude is a learned, global evaluation of an object (person, place, or issue) that

influences thought and action.”

(Perloff, 2003, p. 39).

“Social Learning / socialization refers to the "gradual acquisition of language, attitudes, and

other socially approved values through reinforcement, observation, and other learning

processes."

(Forsyth, 1995)

Attitude Formation

1. Imitation or modeling (conscious adoption, unconscious assimilation; Newcomb, 1943).

2. Information (e.g., perception, rumor, reading).3.Mere exposure4.Classical conditioning5.Operant conditioning

Attitudes are learned from others or via direct experience through:

Classical conditioning

• Learning-through association between stimuli

• The attitude object is associated with unconditional stimulus (e.g., image, pain, physiological stress, odors and sounds)– Little Albert (Watson)– Advertisement (e.g., Beer, cars...).

Neutral Stimulus

US Unconditioned Response

Neutral Stimulus US+

Neutral Stimulus

Conditioned Response

Operant Conditioning

• Reinforcement or punishment of attitudes (sometimes it is only the verbal response that is reinforced or punished).

• The event following the response (i.e., consequence) reinforces or punishes the response (i.e., attitude).

• Phone interviews in which experimenter says "good" or "mm-hmm" in response to expressed opinions. These attitudes became stronger, as tested one week later (Hildum & Brown, 1956).

Mere Exposure

• Attitudes can be acquired from the mere exposure to an object. Direct repeated experience often results in preference (i.e., compared to objects less often encountered).

• The more familiar the object/task, the more we generally like it (Bornstein, 1989; Zajonc, 1968).

Direct Experience

• Direct experience of issues and events (+ or - experiences).

• Attitudes acquired by direct experience are:– held with greater confidence– more specific– more easily recalled– more resistant to change– more consistent with behavior

Fazio and Zanna (1978)

Imitation/Modeling

• Imitation – mere copy of another’s behavior without acquisition of the relationship between behavior and consequences – e.g., young children mimic/parrot their parents’ attitudes.

• Modeling (Social Learning Theory) - behaviors / attitudes are acquired through observation and reproduced because of the contingencies – relationship with the consequence (Bandura, 1969).

Why do People Hold Attitudes?

General Functions of Attitudes

Phylogenetic (Adaptive) Explanation • Stresses the adaptive value of avoiding

objects that threaten survival, and seek objects that help to maintain resources and secure reproduction.

General Functions of Attitudes

Efficiency Function• Learned summary of evaluations which

guides our behaviors (i.e., so we don’t have to constantly re-assess attitudes objects).

• Make decisions faster.• Make decisions in situations with insufficient

information.

Environment/ Attitude Objects

Attitudes define how people perceive and think about their environment and - to a certain extend - how

they behave.

Attitudes/ Evaluative Responses

General Functions of Attitudes

But, efficiency has some costs:– Overgeneralization, – Simplification, – Prone to errors, – May lead to bad decisions

Functional Approach

Examines the functions (needs/roles) attitudes serve for different individuals in different contexts (Perloff, 2003)

1. Knowledge2. Utilitarian3. Social Adjustive4. Social Identity5. Value-Expressive6. Ego-Defensive

Function of attitudes

1. The same attitudes can serve different functions for different people

2. Different attitudes can serve a same function for different individuals

3. A single attitude can serve several functions for a same individual.

• Examples???

(+) Capital Punishment

Ego-Defensive

Knowledge

Value Expressive

Case 1 – Different individuals

Case 3 – Same individuals

Social Adjustive

(+) αβκ

(+) λλλ

Case 2

Why are we interested in attitude functions?

Functions of Attitudes

• Knowledge of the functions is necessary to control attitudes (i.e., predict, prevent, produce, reinforce, induce or change).

• Attitude change is more likely when the message or strategy is directed at the underlying function the attitude serves (i.e., match the motivational function).

Agent 320

A teen holds a positive attitude toward smoking because she thinks she will be accepted and liked by her peers if she take this side.

Your Mission: Changing (i.e., removing or substituting) her attitude.

Conclusion

• Attitudes are persistent evaluations.• Attitudes are influenced by cultural factors

(learning) and biological factors (innate preferences or aversions).

• Attitudes are based on cognitive evaluations and affective evaluations to varying degrees.

• Attitudes help us to make decisions and choices more economically based on information from previous experiences.