E G I H G T T AP A PROA O C A HES E T O T O AT A T T I T T I U T DE D

Transcription

1 Midterm followed by lecture. The lectures on attitudes are intended to provide you with guidance in conducting the team project. The next few lectures will not start or end as may be indicated by these slides. Attitudes What is an attitude? Attitudes What is an attitude? Many definitions including: a general and enduring positive or negative feeling about some person, object, or issue (Bem, 1970, Oskamp, 1977, Petty and Cacioppo, 1981) Attitudes vs. Beliefs Why study attitudes? 1

2 EIGHT APPROACHES TO ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE (Petty and Cacioppo) 1. ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL (ELM) (8) 2. SELF-PERSUASION APPROACH (7) 3. CONDITIONING AND MODELLING APPROACHES (1) 4. THE MESSAGE LEARNING APPROACHES (2) 5. JUDGEMENTAL APPROACHES (3) 6. COMBINATORY APPROACHES (6) AN APPLICATION TO WORKPLACE CHANGE 7. MOTIVATIONAL APPROACHES (4) 8. ATTRIBUTIONAL APPROACHES (5) (#) Represents Petty and Cacioppo s view of what are earliest and simplest to most recent approaches ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD MODEL (ELM) Two routes to attitude change: central and peripheral 2

3 SELF-PERSUASION APPROACHES the arguments you generate yourself change your attitudes the more you think or argue a point of view the more polarized your beliefs become CONDITIONING AND MODELLING classical conditioning (e.g. workplace friends, coffee, etc.) operant conditioning (e.g. behaviour modification) modelling (e.g. parents, co-workers conformity to group) THE MESSAGE LEARNING APPROACH (a.k.a. skills learning approach or Yale approach ) 3

4 THE MESSAGE LEARNING APPROACH Who? Says what? How? To whom? Communicator factors (e.g. trust) Ipsos-Reid poll

5 Consider how one would best handle these different situations. What might one do differently in each situation? Audience with well articulated attitude or schema Speaker s position contrary to the audience Speaker s position Not contrary to the audience or schema?? Audience with a poorly articulated attitude or schema?? JUDGEMENTAL APPROACHES judgements are relative to anchors such as past experience, own view of self, own attitude as well as perceived norms e.g. Sherif s latitude of acceptance (near own attitude), zones of rejection, ego involvement 5

6 Sherif s Latitudes: The Perspectives Approach If near own point of view (within latitude of acceptance) leads to assimilation If far from own point of view (either latitude of rejection) leads to contrast Latitude of non-commitment (not always presented as part of this model) suggests there is some space between acceptance and rejection in which we cannot predict what will happen. If there is ego involvement (e.g. one has already put time and energy into the issue, publicly supported the issue) then there is narrower latitude of acceptance. One also sees issue in terms of self perceptions (e.g. Do you see yourself as a liberal or conservative) Metaphors of Change and Change Agents IMAGES OF CHANGE FIX AND MAINTIAN BUILD AND DEVELOP MOVE AND RELOCATE LIBERATE AND RECREATE (Marshak 1993) IMAGE OF CHANGE AGENT Repair Person, Maintenance Worker Mechanic Trainer Coach Developer Planner Guide Explorer Liberator Visionary Creator 6

7 Marshak s Guidelines: Listen to the word/images you and others use. Tell (metaphorically) yourself and others what you mean literally. Use all four (or more) change metaphors to gain new insights and avoid blind spots. Align the symbolic language system to get unison of action. Shape thinking with creative and constructive metaphors, images, and symbols. When stuck, change the prevailing metaphors and images to encourage new ways of thinking COMBINATORY APPROACHES How we combine beliefs to form attitude. Beliefs: Primitive/ core vs. authority vs. peripheral relationship between more central vs. more peripheral beliefs 7

8 MOTIVATIONAL APPROACHES based on feeling or view that world is an orderly place so that virtue will be rewarded and evil will be punished. e.g. cognitive dissonance COGNITIVE DISSONANCE (FESTINGER) RELATIVE TO EACH OTHER, BELIEFS MAY BE: IRRELEVANT CONSONANT DISSONANT WE ABHOR DISSONANCE!! BOLSTERING IN A FREE CHOICE SITUATION: IF CHOSEN >>>>> X IS OVERVALUED IF REJECTED >>>>> X IS DEVALUED 8

9 INSUFFICIENT JUSTIFICATION and BOLSTERING Get people to do behaviours with minimum external reward Foot-in-the-door-technique Role playing foreperson vs. union steward importance of vocational role Etc. Post decisional Justification Escalation of Commitment Causes: Self-justification Gambler s fallacy Perceptual blinders Closing costs Evaluating Decision Outcomes More Effectively ATTRIBUTIONAL APPROACHES Like cognitive dissonance but discard feelings of dissonance. based on need to find order seek out causes of what we experience actor-observer observer bias, fundamental attribution error, etc. 9

10 Attitude Measurement (W.A. Scott) Based upon approach-avoidance avoidance conflict theory. Properties of an Attitude include: Direction Cognitive Complexity Magnitude Intensity Ambivalence Salience Overtness Embeddedness Flexibility Consciousness Affective Salience Attitude Measurement (W.A. Scott) Based upon approach-avoidance avoidance conflict theory. Properties of an Attitude include: Direction Cognitive Complexity Magnitude Intensity Ambivalence Salience Overtness Embeddedness Flexibility Consciousness Affective Salience Administering: Measuring Instruments Attitudes are a hypothetical construct. Cannot be directly measured Can use naturally occurring behaviour but not dependable because environmental variations Use standardized stimulus calculated to elicit response which manifests a particular attitude without altering or creating it. 10

11 Open-question procedures Advantages: No suggested answers to acquiesce to Lets us know if any attitudes Learn about new attitudes not thought of a priori Emphasis on rapport Disadvantages: Time consuming for interviewer, recorder, and subject. Time consuming for coder Permits time wasting rambling May give uncodable answers not along dimension asked Permits only a few questions before reliability is poor The Seven Deadly Sins of Employee Attitude Surveys (Sheibar, 1989) 1. False Commitment 5. Secrecy 2. Unwarranted Optimism 6. Sloth 3. Perceptual Confusion 7. Careless repetition 4. Self-SatisfactionSatisfaction 11