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Ch7AttitudesBeliefsandConsistencypart11.pptxChapter 7
Attitudes, Beliefs, & Consistency
Part 1
Attitudes
“The concept of the attitude is probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary American social Psychology”
Gordon Allport, 1935
They remain extremely important today
Attitudes
Today we’ll discuss everything to do with attitudes!
What they are
How they’re formed
How they can change
And consistent vs. inconsistent attitudes
Attitudes
Attitudes and beliefs are different
A belief is a fact or opinion about something
E.g. it’s probably cloudy outside, or tall people make good basketball players
Beliefs are for explaining
Attitudes are a global evaluation of something
I like ___ or I dislike ___
I am in support of ____ or don’t support ____
Attitudes are for choosing
Attitudes
We have attitudes about absolutely everything!!
Attitudes
Look at that table…
I bet you already have an attitude about it, either you slightly like or slightly dislike it, or even strongly like/dislike it
Initial attitudes are immediate, forming non-consciously within the first microsecond
Attitudes
Initial attitudes that are formed immediately can be overridden, but they may not be
Consider the implications for first impressions!
People even develop attitudes for nonsense words
Juvalamu is considered pleasing by most
Chakaka is not pleasing to most
Attitudes are often very adaptive and helpful
Imagine being at a dinner and having no preference or opinion about anything on the menu
Dual Attitudes
Do any of you have a friend that always talks about health/fitness…
But you never see him/her eat healthily or play sports or go to the gym?
Or a friend that says he/she likes horror movies but you’ve watched movies with them 100 times and they’ve never suggested watching a horror movie?
Dual Attitudes
There’s a difference between explicit, conscious, stated attitudes
E.g. Fred likes ice cream
And implicit, non-conscious, unstated attitudes
E.g. Fred never eats ice cream
This is because we have a duplex mind, that both operates consciously and non-consciously
We will return to this idea next chapter when we cover the topic of prejudice
How are attitudes formed?
Mere Exposure Effect
Research by Zajonc exposed participants to various Turkish words and Chinese-like characters
Some words/characters were shown more frequently than others
Participants rated the ones shown more often more favorably
Animals develop a similar preference for things they’re exposed to
*Mere exposure doesn’t work if you originally have a negative attitude toward something
How are attitudes formed?
Mere Exposure Effect continued
When I used to listen to the radio more, this was definitely the perfect example of Mere Exposure
You’d start off neutral about a song, then they’d play it a million times, and a month later you’re singing along…
I’d say which group’s success I think this explains but then it’d just be obvious how I old I am cause no one has heard of those singers in forever lol
It’s interesting too that people are used to seeing themselves in reverse due to mirrors
We prefer the reversed image of ourselves but our friends prefer the unreversed image
If you have a webcam, you should be able to try both
I swear one of my eyes looks droopy or something when I see myself unreversed…most unsettling!
How are attitudes formed?
How else are attitudes formed?
Classical Conditioning:
You probably recall the famous Pavlov dogs study from your Intro to Psy class or from Behaviorism
The dogs were trained to salivate at the chime of a bell because they associated it with food
How are attitudes formed?
Classical Conditioning:
People use classical conditioning in marketing all the time…
Just pair your product with someone hot or famous…
How are attitudes formed?
Classical Conditioning:
A study by Staats & Staats showed how easy it was to create a preference for words/concepts
They paired the word Dutch with good words, and Swedish with bad words, then had participants rate them at the end
They rated the word Dutch more favorably
Or, if they reversed this and paired Swedish with good words, they rated that more favorably
*Consider the implications of this for the real world, if we hear about Muslim or Arab paired with the word terrorist enough, how long before that pairing becomes solidified?
How are attitudes formed?
Operant Conditioning
The Skinner Box studies where rats learned to press a lever for food
Other researchers demonstrated how kids that wrote an essay on a topic liked the topic better if they received an A. rather than a D.
Their grades were determined by a coinflip
So if someone doesn’t like doing something and you reward them for it, it should increase that behavior
Be careful not to reward someone for something they do naturally, that’s the overjustification effect
How are attitudes formed?
Social Learning (aka vicarious learning)
In another classic study, Bandura showed that when small children observed an adult punching a Bobo doll, they mimicked the adult
This can also explain how we develop attitudes
If you are neutral about something, say a tv show, but then your friend is always watching something when you go to their house (Game of Thrones maybe?)
Your attitude toward it may go from neutral to positive
Attitude Polarization
Can attitudes be easily changed?
If someone has an attitude about baseball (or anything), and you ask them to think more about it…
their attitude will naturally polarize, they will be more extreme one way or the other
“You know, I do really like baseball,” or “actually, I don’t like baseball at all”
Attitude Polarization Continued
*The following is one of the most important studies in Social Psychology:
Lord, Ross, and Lepper (1979) conducted research on Attitude Polarization
Some participants in their study were pro-death penalty, others were anti-death penalty
All participants read various studies about the death penalty
Pro-DP participants favored the studies that supported their view and found flaws with the studies that didn’t support their view
Attitude Polarization Continued
Lord, Ross, & Lepper continued:
Anti-DP participants showed the same trend, favored articles that were anti-DP and disliked pro articles
The end result is that both groups became FURTHER polarized in their already polarized views on the topic
Meaning Pro-DP participants became even more Pro-DP, and Anti-DP became even more Anti-DP
Attitude Polarization Continued
Consider the implications of Attitude Polarization for the current political situation in the U.S…
How could you ever possibly get someone to change their view if when
you present them with evidence
to the contrary, it only further
entrenches them in their
original view???????
Attitude Polarization Continued
I’m under the impression even if you presented some people with a panel of scientific experts on a given topic, it wouldn’t be enough to change their view.
One small ray of hope is that when contrary information is presented by members of one’s ingroup, people are more likely to accept it than if out-group members presented it
Attitude Consistency
Overall, as humans we strongly want our own attitudes to be consistent and also like it best when our attitudes match up with those of our friends/associates
Let’s examine how some researchers have studied attitude consistency
Attitude Consistency
Heider explained this using P-O-X triads:
You (Person) like Jenny (Other person), you also like Gina (X, could be a person, place thing, or idea), and Jenny likes Gina. So everything is in balance
If you liked Jenny, but she didn’t like Gina, there would be an inconsistency
Attitude Consistency
When we have inconsistencies in our lives, we are motivated to resolve them
It’s unpleasant when our own attitudes/behaviors are inconsistent
It’s also unpleasant when other people’s attitudes aren’t consistent with our views
Ever noticed how on Facebook most people seem to have friends who mostly share their political views?
Additionally, when we have an attitude-behavior inconsistency, people usually take the easy route and just change their attitude
Attitude Consistency
Now let’s discuss Festinger’s famous study on Cognitive Dissonance
It would be good to thoroughly understand this study/concept, as it will come up many times in both life and future classes/work
The need to research dissonance arose from a problem in the research on operant conditioning
According to operant conditioning, if you pay someone a lot of money to say they like bussel sprouts, they are rewarded, and they should end up liking them more, but that doesn’t happen
In fact the people who were paid a very small amount ended up liking them more. That’s inconsistent with operant conditioning
Attitude Consistency
Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959) *Know those names/date
Participants had signed up for a study called ‘Measures of Performance,’ about how they perform on routine tasks
For the first 30 minutes of the study, participants took 12 small wooden spools on a tray one at time, then took them off again one at a time, then back on, etc.
For the next 30 minutes of the study, participants were asked to turn 48 square pegs a quarter turn each, again and again
Attitude Consistency
Dissonance Continued:
*Note, both of those tasks were EXTREMELY boring...I mean torturously boring!
After that, the researcher tells participants the real point of the study is about motivating people to do mundane/repetitious tasks
The researcher says they usually have someone who tells participants the task is fun to motivate them, but that he’s not here today
The participants are then asked to fill in for that person and tell the next participant the task was fun
Attitude Consistency
Dissonance Continued
Then, the researcher said something else based on which condition a participant was in:
Condition 1: participants in this condition were offered 1$ to tell the lie that the study was fun
Condition 2: here participants were offered 20$ to tell the lie that the study was fun
Condition 3: this was the control condition, participants were offered no money but still asked to lie
and did so
All participants agreed to help the researcher by lying
Attitude Consistency
Dissonance Continued:
The person the participants lied to was actually a confederate (a plant), the confederate expressed skepticism that the task was fun
But the participants always insisted it was enjoyable
The final, and crucial, step of the study is that the participants were given an exit questionnaire in which they were asked to rate how fun the study was to them
Participants rated the study on a -5 (not at all fun) to +5 (very fun) scale
Attitude Consistency
Dissonance Continued:
Control group and the 20$ participants rated the study in the negative, it wasn’t fun
The 1$ participants rated it as slightly enjoyable, in the positive.
Why?
The 20$ can explain the fact that they lied because they were paid
But being paid 1$ isn’t reason enough to lie. Thus there’s inconsistency: the 1$ participants lied, but they don’t want to see themselves as liar
It’s too late to change their behavior (the lie)
So to resolve the inconsistency, they change their attitude, the study was fun after all
