PSYC2600 Lecture One Attitudes

Transcription

1 PSYC2600 Lecture One Attitudes 16/07/14 7:01 AM Motivation (Lei, 2010) Intrinsic motivation have an internal motivation, you are interested. Extrinsic motivation have no specific interest, but are motivated to get a good grade. Lack of motivation not motivated or interested. Attitudes Components One-Component Model Thurstone s (1931) affect-based model. I like/don t like Three-Component Model Rosenburg and Hovland (1960) 1. Affective (feeling) 2. Behavioural (intention to act) 3. Cognitive (belief) Measurement Self-Report Measures o Thurstone s (1928) Method of Equal Appearing Intervals! 20 statements > ratings > present 5 (equally variance) options.! equal variance in positivity of answerable options (i.e. - 20, -10, 0, 10, 20).! time consuming and tedious. o Likert s (1932) Method of Summated Ratings! How much one agrees or disagrees with statement.! Is good at separating those who are just yes sayers (acquiescent person).! Half the questions will be reverse worded and reverse scored. o Osgood, Suci and Tannenbaum s (1957) Semantic Differential! Quick, but can be quite simplistic. o Disadvantages! Susceptible to misrepresentation - People often lie, and give socially desirable responses.

2 ! Reactivity People may not have a strong attitude towards something, however when asked they create a spontaneous answer. Physiological Measures o Galvanic skin response (GSR) strong attitude = emotional reaction = increase in sweat = increase in electrical conductivity of your skin. o Heart rate o Pupil dilation o Electromyogram measures electricity in the muscles, and the direction of the electricity (attitude and emotional response i.e. smile or frown). Difficult to fake responses. o Disadvantages! insensitive to the quality of the attitudinal response you don t know if its positive or negative reaction(except electromyogram).! time and cost.! Impractical outside the lab. Behavioural Measures o Seating arrangements in class o Lost-letter technique placed lost letters with 2 different addresses (the communist party, the children s hospital), with the quickest and most received back reflects more positive attitudes towards a certain addressee. Structure Balance Theory (Heider, 1958) o 3 cognitive elements: P person, O another person, X an attitude object. o A triad is the relationship between the 3 different elements. o People are motivated to change their relationship in order to make their triads balances. Function Attitude Function (Katz, 1960) 1. Instrumental attitudes are useful, and help people achieve their goals. 2. Knowledge attitudes help to organise information.

3 3. Expressive attitudes help to establish a person s identity. 4. Ego-defensive attitudes protect people from inner conflicts. Attitudes Predict Behaviour According to LaPiere (1934), results showed that attitude did not predict behaviour. He studied an Asian couple visit hotels, and then 6 months later asked the hotel s if they would allowed Chinese people into their establishment. 92% said no, opposing their behaviour. Wicker (1969), found a correlation between attitude and behaviour of r=0.15. Fishbein & Ajzen (1975) suggested that the low correlation was due to a difference between what attitude they were testing and the questions they were asking, i.e. specific attitude vs. general attitude. o Theory of Reasoned Actions (1980)! Subjective norm and attitude toward behaviour influence the behavioural intention and thus influence the behaviour.! However, sometimes intentions do not predict behaviour due to lack or resources, lack of opportunities, or lack of control. o Theory of Planned Behaviour! Similar to before, but behavioural intention is impacted by your perceived behavioural control (resources, opportunities and control). Attitude Change a move in either direction in your attitude. The Yale Communication Research Program in the 1950s and 60s. It was set up by the USA War Department after WWII, to find out how communication becomes effective. 1. characteristics of the communicator. i. Perceived expertise ii. perceived trustworthiness iii. perceive status iv. attractiveness 2. contents of the message i. order of arguments (first and last remembered better primacy and recency effect)

4 ii. two-sided arguments work best on hostile audiences (present their side, refute it, then present your side) iii. type of medium: simple = video; complex = written iv. fear: to a certain point. 3. The type of audience i. Gender women more than men; other research showed it depended on the subject matter. ii. Self-esteem average self-esteem is persuaded more than high or low. iii. Intelligence intelligent audiences are more persuaded by 2-sided arguments. Elaboration-Likelihood Model Petty & Cacioppo (1986) People are generally motivated to hold correct attitudes; however, people are lazy or don t have time and don t try to search into the argument for their truth.. and as a result base their opinions on others. There is a continuum, where some people will rely on others while some will have time to search into truth. 2 routes to attitude change: - o central route persuasion mediated by argument-based thinking (elaboration, the intelligent/resourced person). o peripheral route persuasion mediated by factors other than argument-based thinking (peripheral cues). Variables that affect ability: - o Distraction o Repetition Variables that affect motivation: - o Personal relevance o Personal responsibility o Need for cognition personality variable Consequences of Central vs. Peripheral Processing o Attitude change via the central route shows greater temporal persistence shows greater prediction of behaviour, and shows greater resistance to counter-persuasion. Criticisms

5 o It is descriptive rather than explanatory; doesn t really explain the why?. Heuristic Systematic Model Systematic Processing o Identical to the ELM s central route, involves the cognitive elaboration or arguments, and needs ability and motivation. Heuristic Processing: o Use of simple rules-of-thumb to assess message validity. Relatively effortless. Depends on the availability and accessibility of heuristics. Motivational Factors 1. Accuracy motivation correct attitudes 2. Defence motivation self-serving attitudes 3. Impression motivation socially acceptable attitudes Similarities between ELM and HDM Both support a need to hold correct attitudes. Both are dual-process models. Central route processing = systematic processing; both require ability and motivation, and this type of attitudinal change is more stable, resistant and predictive of behaviour. Differences between ELM and HDM ELM: states either central or peripheral cues, one motive. HSM: systematic and heuristic can occur at the same time, three motives. Cognitive Dissonance Theory Festinger, 1957 Cognitive dissonance occurs when two attitudes held are inconsistent with one another. Effort Justification Paradigm Female participants were divided into 3 conditions, the first were made to read out obscene sexual wrods, the second read aloud inoffensive sexual words, the control condition didn t read any list of words. All groups then listened to a boring group discussion over headphones, and were required to rate how interesting they found the discussion.