Social Psychology:

Attitudes

Practicum Block V
Julie Lex
University of Winnipeg
Psychology 40S
 Outline

● What is social psychology?

● What are attitudes?
● How are attitudes formed?
● Predicting Behaviour from
Attitudes
● Factors That Affect
Predicting Behaviour
● Persuasive Messages
● Recap
 Social Psychology

The field of psychology that studies the

nature and causes of behavior and mental
processes in social situations.

Social psychologists study the ways people

can be goaded by social influences into
doing things that are not necessarily
consistent with their personalities.
 The Road So Far…

● Attitudes
○ Intro
○ Prejudice &
Discrimination
○ Attraction & Love
● Social perception
● Social influence
● Group behavior
 What Are Attitudes?
● Attitudes are enduring behavioural and cognitive
tendencies that are expressed by evaluating
particular people, places, or things with favour or
disfavour.
○ If you learn that an iPad is a wonderful “toy”
you may feel the urge to buy one
○ Love and hate dichotomy
○ Helping behaviour vs mass destruction
● Attitudes can change but not easily
● Basically a feeling or a belief
● 3 main domains - cognitive, affective, behavioural
 Examples of Attitudes

● Feelings and beliefs about things like:

○ Sex, cars, clothes, food, music, movies, tv
shows
● Social/political beliefs such as:
○ Sexual orientations, racial/ethnic groups,
immigration, gun control, climate change,
income inequality
 Attitude Formation

● Genetic Link
○ Attitudes develop along with early learning
experiences with mother/father figures, school
peers, religion, neighbourhoods, urban/rural
environments
○ Attitudes may be related to clusters of genes
that are associated with the development of
various personality characteristics
● Link to Big 5 – openness to experience,
conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness,
neuroticism
● Connected moderately with social/political attitudes
 Conditioning &
Observational Learning
● Attitudes toward national groups can be
influenced by associating them with positive words
(gift, happy) or negative words (ugly, failure)
● Parents reward their children for saying and doing
things that agree with their own attitudes
● Attitudes formed through direct experience may be
stronger and easier to recall, however, we also
acquire attitudes by listening to, reading the works
of other people, or observing
● Approval/disapproval of peers leads adolescents
to prefer different hairstyles or dressing styles
 Cognitive Appraisal

● Attitude formation is not fully mechanical

● People are motivated to understand the
environment so that they can make predictions
and exercise some control over it
● People can also form or change attitudes on the
basis of new information
○ If you read a report by consumer reports and
it says a car has an excellent repair record,
you may see it as more reliable
Predicting Behaviour From Attitudes

● Is our behaviour consistent with our attitudes? Do

people really do as they think?
● A-B Problem
○ The link between attitude and behaviours
tends to be weak to moderate
○ People do not always vote their consciences
○ E.g., people may say drinking/smoking is
hazardous to health, but continue to do so
Attitude Activism
 Factors That Affect
Behaviour Prediction
● Specificity
○ We can predict specific behaviour from
specific attitudes than from global attitudes
○ E.g., we can predict church attendance by
knowing people’s attitudes towards church
than by knowing if they are Christian
● Strength of Attitudes
○ Strong attitudes are more likely to determine
behaviour than weak attitudes
○ E.g., a person who things that the nation’s
destiny depends on the conservatives will
likely vote for that party
● Vested Interest
○ People are more likely to act on
their attitudes when they have a
vested interest in the outcome
○ E.g., people are more likely to vote
for/against unionizing workplace
when they believe that their job
security depends on it
● Accessibility
○ People are more likely to behave in
accord with their attitudes when
they are accessible
○ When they are “brought to mind”
○ Attitudes with a strong emotional
impact are more accessible
 Persuasive Messages:
Elaboration Likelihood Model
● Describes the ways in which people respond to
persuasive messages
○ 2 routes to persuading others to change
attitudes
■ Central route
● Inspires thoughtful consideration of
arguments and evidence
■ Peripheral route
● Associates objects with positive or
negative cues
○ E.g., “this bill is supported by
liberals/conservatives” ``
● Cues/rewards – smile/hug
● Punishment
 Ads: Example

● Ads are a form of persuasive communication

○ Central route
■ Focus on quality of product
■ E.g., nutritional info on a cereal
○ Peripheral route
■ Appealing images
■ E.g., beer with football players on it
but no product info
 Facts About Persuasion
● Familiarity breeds liking
○ Repeated exposure to people and things
enhances their appeal
● Fear/emotion appeal
○ Breast cancer scare vs mammogram benefits
○ Sun tanning risks to appearance such as
premature aging vs benefits of sunscreen
● Selective Avoidance & Selective Exposure
○ People don’t like it when they see info that
counters their own views
○ They may switch channels when news
coverage runs counter to their own attitudes
○ Seek communicators whose outlooks
coincides with their own
 Context of the Message

● Aspects of the immediate environment may

influence persuasion
○ Wine, compliment, music
● People in a good mood don’t evaluate the
situation as carefully
● Agreement and praise are effective ways of
encouraging others to embrace your views than
telling someone they are stupid
 The Persuaded Audience

● People with high self esteem and low social

anxiety are more likely to resist social pressure
● People who comply with unreasonable requests
are more likely to have negative thoughts (worries
about what people think of them, if they were
going to hurt the other person’s feelings, etc)
 Changing Attitudes Through
Cognitive Dissonance
● People want consistency in their behaviours and
their attitudes or views of the world
● If two ideas conflict, people will be motivated to
reduce the discrepancy
● Study: people did a boring task and were paid to
tell other contestants that it was fun – they were
paid either $1 or $20 (10-200 current money)
○ The people who were paid less rated their
liking of the task as higher
○ They engaged in attitude-discrepant
behaviour
○ Effort justification: the people who were paid
$1 might not have been lying in the first
place
 Recap
● What is social psychology?
● What are attitudes?
● How are attitudes formed?
○ Genetics, learning, cognitive
appraisal
● Predicting Behaviour from Attitudes
● Factors That Affect Predicting Behaviour
● Persuasive Messages
○ Ads, facts, context, audience
 Questions/Comments?

Associated activity:
Complete the worksheet on attitudes intro
 Thanks
CREDITS: This presentation template was
created by Slidesgo, including icons by
Flaticon, infographics & images by Freepik