Attitude & Attitude change

What is attitude?
• Social psychologists use the term attitude to refer to people’s evaluation of
almost any aspect of the world (e.g., Olson & Kendrick, 2008; Petty, Wheeler, & Tormala, 2003).

• People can have favorable or unfavorable reactions to issues, ideas, objects,

actions, a specific person, or entire social groups.

• “Attitude towards someone and something”

• Some attitudes are quite stable and resistant to change, whereas others may
be unstable and show considerable variability depending on the situation
(Schwarz & Bohner, 2001).
• We may hold some attitudes with great certainty, while our attitudes toward other objects or
issues may be relatively unclear or uncertain (Tormala & Rucker, 2007).

• Our own actions can influence our attitudes (Maio & Thomas, 2007).

• The word ‘attitude’ is derived from the Latin aptus, which means ‘fit and ready for action’.

• In the 1935 Handbook of Social Psychology, which was highly influential at the time, Gordon Allport wrote : The
concept of attitudes is probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept in
contemporary American social psychology. No other term appears more frequently in the
experimental and theoretical literature. Allport (1935, p. 798)

• Research findings indicate that attitudes toward novel issues are shaped by long-term values—
religious beliefs predict the formation of these new attitudes— rather than the extent to which
the public possesses scientific knowledge on the topic (Ho, Brossard, & Scheufele, 2008).
• Do our beliefs (cognitions) shape our attitudes (feelings)? Or, is it the other way
around—do our feelings shape our beliefs?

• Do attitudes change when we are confronted with information that disconfirms

our beliefs or are those beliefs likely to be maintained to the extent that we can
find others who share those beliefs?

• whether our attitudes simply a product of rational thought?

• How attitude is related to our behaviour?

To understand the meaning of attitudes, it can be helpful to look at a few
different examples:

• Your opinion on the death penalty

• Your opinion about which political party does a better job of running the country

• Whether prayer be allowed in schools

• Whether violence on television be regulated

• Attitudes are very functional

• Attitude helps us express or distinguish ourselves

• Attitude influences how we process information

• Aids in efficiency but can foster closed-mindedness.
• Can also distort our perceptions

• Attitude can indicate a behavioural intention.

• Ex- racist attitude Stereotyping
Discrimination
 Attitude structure
Whether they are a unitary construct or whether they have a number of different components.
•
One component
• Early one-component attitude models define an attitude as ‘the affect for or against a
psychological object’ (Thurstone, 1931) and ‘the degree of positive or negative affect associated
with some psychological object’ (Edwards, 1957).

Two components
• Allport (1935) favoured a two-component attitude model. To Thurstone’s ‘affect’ Allport added a
second component – a state of mental readiness.
• Mental readiness is a predisposition that influences how we decide what is good or bad,
desirable or undesirable, and so on.
• An attitude is therefore private and externally unobservable. It can only be inferred by examining
our own mental processes introspectively, or by making inferences from what we say and do.
• You cannot see, touch or physically examine an attitude; it is a hypothetical construct.
Three components

• A third view is the three-component attitude model, which has its roots in
ancient philosophy: The trichotomy of human experience into thought, feeling,
and action.

• The three-component model of attitude was particularly popular in the 1960s

and 1970s (e.g. Breckler, 1984; Krech, Crutchfield, & Ballachey, 1962; Ostrom, 1968; Rosenberg &
Hovland, 1960).

• Himmelfarb and Eagly (1974) described an attitude as

• a relatively enduring organisation of beliefs about, and feelings and behavioural tendencies
towards, socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols. This definition not only
included the three components but also emphasised that attitudes are:
• Relatively permanent: they persist across time and situations; a momentary
feeling is not an attitude;

• Limited to socially significant events or objects;

• Generalisable and capable of abstraction.

If you drop a book on your toe and find that it hurts, this is not enough to
form an attitude, because it is a single event in one place and at one time. But if
the experience makes you dislike books or libraries, or clumsiness in general, then
that dislike is an attitude.

• Attitudes, then, are made up of

(a) thoughts and ideas,
(b) a cluster of feelings, likes and dislikes
(c) behavioural intentions.
 3 Components of Attitude
• Affective Component: How the object, person,
issue, or event makes you feel

• Behavioral Component: How attitude

influences your behavior

• Cognitive Component: Your thoughts and

beliefs about the subject
• Himmelfarb and Eagly (1974) described an attitude as a relatively enduring
organisation of beliefs about, and feelings and behavioural tendencies towards,
socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols.

• relatively permanent: they persist across time and situations; a momentary feeling is not
an attitude;
• limited to socially significant events or objects;
• generalisable and capable of abstraction.

• Attitudes, then, are made up of (a) thoughts and ideas, (b) a cluster of feelings, likes and
dislikes and (c) behavioural intentions.
• Explicit attitudes - are those that we are consciously aware of and
that clearly influence our behaviors and beliefs.
• conscious and reportable.

• Implicit attitudes - are unconscious but still have an effect on our

beliefs and behaviors.
• uncontrollable and perhaps not consciously accessible to us.
 Attitude functions
• Presumably attitudes exist because they are useful – they serve a purpose, they have a function.

• Daniel Katz outlines 4 functions of attitudes (1960)

• knowledge;
• instrumentality (means to an end or goal);
• ego-defence (protecting one’s self-esteem);
• value-expressiveness (allowing people to display values that uniquely identify and define
them).

• An attitude saves cognitive energy, as we do not have to figure out ‘from scratch’ how we should
relate to a particular object or situation (Smith, Bruner, & White, 1956).
This function is parallel to the utility of
• Schema
• Stereotype
Schema
• Cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of
stimulus, including its attributes and the relations among those attributes.
Stereotype
• Widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social group and its
members.

• The main function of any kind of attitude is a utilitarian one: that of object
appraisal (Fazio, 1989).

• This should hold regardless of whether the attitude has a positive or negative valence (i.e. whether our
feelings about the object are good or bad). Merely possessing an attitude is useful because it provides an
orientation towards the attitude object.

• Social identity function - Attitudes help perform a social role, helping in an

individual’s self-expression and social interaction.
Functions of attitudes (Daniel Katz, 1960)

• Knowledge Function:

• enables individuals to understand their environment and to be consistent in their ideas

and thinking.

• Utilitarian Function:

• Attitude helps individuals in maximizing benefits and minimizing disadvantages while

interacting with individuals, groups, and situations in their environment. Utilitarian
attitudes lead to behaviour that optimizes one’s interests.
• Helps to reach desired goals
• Value-Expressive Function:

• value-expressive attitudes enable the expression of the person’s centrally held values.

• Central values tend to establish our identity and gain us social approval thereby showing us
who we are, and what we stand for.

• Our value-expressive attitudes are closely related to our self-concept.

• Ego-Defensive Function:

• The ego-defensive function refers to holding attitudes that protect our self-esteem or that
justify actions that make us feel guilty.

• This function involves psychoanalytic principles where people use defense mechanisms to
protect themselves from psychological harm.
• Adjustment Function :

• Attitudes often help people to adjust to their work environment.

• When employees are well treated, they are likely to develop a positive attitude toward
management and the organization.

• When employees are criticized and given a minimal salary, they are likely to develop a
negative attitude toward management and the organization.

• These attitudes help employees adjust to their environment and are a basis for future
behavior. The adjustment function directs people toward pleasurable or rewarding objects
and away from unpleasant, undesirable ones.

• It serves the utilitarian concept of maximizing reward and minimizing punishment.

• Because attitudes can also affect important behavioral choices that have
long-term consequences, it is important to understand how thought
processes influence attitude-based decision making.
Cognition
• The knowledge, beliefs, thoughts and ideas that people have about themselves and their
environment. May also refer to mental processes through which knowledge is acquired,
including perception, memory and thinking.

Cognitive consistency theories

• A group of attitude theories stressing that people try to maintain internal consistency, order,
and agreement among their various cognitions.

• Beliefs are the building blocks of attitude structure, consistency theories focused on
inconsistencies among people’s beliefs.

• Two thoughts are inconsistent if one seems to contradict the other, and such a state of mind is
bothersome. This disharmony is known as dissonance.

• people are motivated to change one or more contradictory beliefs so that the belief system as
a whole is in harmony. The outcome is the restoration of consistency.
Balance Theory
• The consistency theory with the clearest implications for attitude structure is Fritz Heider’s
balance theory.

• the human mind is a person’s ‘cognitive field’, and it comprises interacting forces that are
associated with people’s perceptions of people, objects and events.

• Balance theory focuses on the P–O–X unit of the individual’s cognitive field.

• There are eight possible combinations of relationships between two people and an attitude
object, four of which are balanced and four unbalanced.

• A triad is balanced if there is an odd number of positive relationships and can occur in a
variety of ways.
• In unbalanced triads, people may feel tense and be motivated to restore balance. Balance is
generally restored in whatever way requires the least effort.
 Cognition and Evaluation
• Sociocognitive model, where an attitude is defined as ‘a person’s evaluation of an object of
thought’.

• An attitude object is represented in memory by:

• an object label and the rules for applying that label;
• an evaluative summary of that object; and
• a knowledge structure supporting that evaluation.

• Recent research on affect and emotion has helped sort some of this out by focusing on the
role of cognitive appraisals of stimuli in people’s experience of affect and emotion (e.g.
Blascovich, 2008, Lazarus, 1991

• When we apply this idea to the study of an attitude, we can distinguish between affect (an
emotional reaction to an attitude object) and evaluation (particular kinds of thought, belief
and judgement about the object).
Decision-making and attitudes

Information processing
• The evaluation of information; in relation to attitudes, the means by which
people acquire knowledge and form and change attitudes.

• According to information integration theory (Anderson, 1971, 1981), we use

cognitive algebra to construct our attitudes from the information we receive
about attitude objects.

• People’s attitudes are underpinned by implicit and automatic judgments of

which they are unaware.
• As a challenge to classical attitude theory, Patricia Devine (1989)
suggested that people’s attitudes are underpinned by implicit and
automatic judgments of which they are unaware.

• Because these judgments are automatic and unconscious, they are less
influenced by social desirability bias (i.e. how others might react). They
should therefore be a more reliable measure of a person’s ‘true’
attitudes and may even be more closely related to what people actually
do (Schwarz, 2000).
The relationship between Attitude and Behaviour
Reflecting on the attitude–behaviour link

• As attitudes are being formed, they correlate more strongly with a future behaviour
when:
● the attitudes are accessible (easy to recall);

● the attitudes are stable over time;

● people have had direct experience with the attitude object;

● people frequently report their attitudes.

Attitude and behaviour
Attitude Formation
• The process of forming our attitudes, mainly from our own experiences, the influences of
others, and our emotional reactions.

• Attitudes are learnt as part of the socialization process (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; McGuire, 1969;
Oskamp, 1977).

• Several factors can influence how and why attitudes form, including:
• Experience
• They may emerge due to direct personal experience, or they may result from observation.
• Social Factors
• Social roles and social norms can have a strong influence on attitudes.
• Learning
• Attitudes can be learned in a variety of ways. Conditioning & Observation.
• One important means by which our attitudes develop is through the process of
social learning.

• Social learning- the process through which we acquire new information, forms
of behavior, or attitudes from other people.

• Classical Conditioning: Learning Based on Association

• First, you need to know what your potential audience already responds
positively toward (what to use as the unconditioned stimulus).

• Such classical conditioning can affect attitudes via two pathways: the direct
and indirect route (Sweldens, van Osselaer, & Janiszewski, 2010).
• Experiment- (Krosnick, Betz, Jussim, & Lynn, 1992),

students saw photos of a stranger engaged in routine daily activities such as

shopping in a grocery store or walking into her apartment. While these photos
were shown, other photos known to induce either positive or negative feelings
were exposed for very brief periods of time—so brief that participants were not
aware of their presence.

Even though participants were not aware that they had been exposed to the
second group of photos because they were presented very briefly, the photos did
significantly influence the attitudes that were formed toward the stranger. Those
exposed to the positive photos reported more favorable attitudes toward this
person than those exposed to the negative photos.
• Subliminal conditioning —classical conditioning that occurs in the absence of
conscious awareness of the stimuli involved.
• Classical conditioning of attitudes by exposure to stimuli that are below
individuals’ threshold of conscious awareness.

• Mere exposure —having seen an object before, but too rapidly to remember
having seen it—can result in attitude formation (Bornstein & D’Agostino, 1992).
• By having seen before, but not necessarily remembering having done so,
attitudes toward an object can be formed.

• Illusion of truth effect -The mere repetition of information creates a sense of

familiarity and more positive attitudes.
• Instrumental conditioning-
• Another way in which attitudes are acquired is through the process of
instrumental conditioning — differential rewards and punishments. Sometimes
the conditioning process is rather subtle, with the reward being psychological
acceptance—by rewarding children with smiles, approval, or hugs for stating
the “right” views.

• A basic form of learning in which responses that lead to positive outcomes or

which permit avoidance of negative outcomes are strengthened.

• Attitudes that are followed by positive outcomes tend to be strengthened and

are likely to be repeated, whereas attitudes that are followed by negative
outcomes are weakened so their likelihood of being expressed again is reduced.
• Observational Learning: Learning by Exposure to Others

• It occurs when individuals acquire attitudes or behaviors simply by observing

others (Bandura, 1997).

• The mechanism of social comparison —our tendency to compare ourselves

with others in order to determine whether our view of social reality is correct
or not (Festinger, 1954).

• Reference groups- Groups of people with whom we identify and whose

opinions we value.
• You have probably experienced a gap between your own attitudes and
behavior on many occasions—this is because the social context can directly
affect the attitude–behavior connection.

• Indeed, when people are induced to think that their attitudes are stable cross
time, they feel more certain about those attitudes and are more likely to act
on them (Petrocelli, Clarkson, Tormala, & Hendrix, 2010).

• It is well known that older people are often more certain of their attitudes
than are young people. Recent research suggests that this is partly due to
older people placing greater value on “standing firm” or being resolute in the
attitude positions they adopt, and for this reason they tend to show greater
attitude–behavior consistency compared to younger people (Eaton, Visser,
Krosnick, & Anand, 2009).
Strength of an attitude
• The term strength captures the extremity of an attitude (how strong the
emotional reaction is), the degree of certainty with which an attitude is held
(the sense that you know what your attitude is and the feeling that it is the
correct position to hold), as well as the extent to which the attitude is based
on personal experience with the attitude object.
• These three factors can affect attitude accessibility (how easily the attitude
comes to mind in various situations), which ultimately determines the extent
to which attitudes drive our behavior (Fazio, Ledbetter, & Towles-Schwen,
2000).
Attitudes Arrived at Through Reasoned Thought
• In some situations we give careful, deliberate thought to our attitudes and
their implications for our behavior. Insight into the nature of this process is provided by the
theory of reasoned action, which was later refined and termed the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen &
Fishbein, 1980).

• This theoretical view starts with the notion that the decision to engage in a
particular behavior is the result of a rational process.
• Various behavioral options are considered, the consequences or outcomes of
each are evaluated, and a decision is reached to act or not to act.

• That decision is then reflected in behavioral intentions, which are often good
predictors of whether we will act on our attitudes in a given situation (Ajzen,
1987).
• Theory of reasoned action
• A theory suggesting that the decision to engage in a particular behavior is the
result of a rational process in which behavioral options are considered,
consequences or outcomes of each are evaluated, and a decision is reached to
act or not to act. That decision is then reflected in behavioral intentions, which
strongly influence overt behavior.

• Theory of planned behavior

• An extension of the theory of reasoned action, suggesting that in addition to
attitudes toward a given behavior and subjective norms about it, individuals also
consider their ability to perform the behavior.

• Implementation plan
• A plan for how to implement our intentions to carry out some action.
• The theory of reasoned action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen,
1974). The theory encapsulates three processes of beliefs, intention and
action, and it includes the following components:

● Subjective norm – a product of what the person thinks others believe. Significant
others provide direct or indirect information about ‘what is the proper thing to do’.

● Attitude towards the behaviour – a product of the person’s beliefs about the target
behaviour and how these beliefs are evaluated (refer back to the cognitive algebra).
Note that this is an attitude towards behaviour (such as taking a birth control pill in
Davidson and Jacard’s study), not towards the object (such as the pill itself).

● Behavioural intention – an internal declaration to act.

● Behaviour – the action performed.
Attitude-to-behavior process model

• Fazio’s attitude-to-behavior process model (Fazio, 1990; Fazio & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 1994)
the process works as follows.

• Some event activates an attitude; that attitude, once activated, influences

how we perceive the attitude object. At the same time, our knowledge about
what’s appropriate in a given situation (our knowledge of various social
norms) is also activated. Together, the attitude and the previously stored
information about what’s appropriate or expected shape our definition of the
event.
• When we have time to engage in careful, reasoned thought, we can weigh all
the alternatives and decide how we will act.
• Under the hectic conditions of everyday life, however, we often don’t have time
for this kind of deliberate weighing of alternatives, and often people’s responses
appear to be much faster than such deliberate thought processes can account
for.
• In such cases, our attitudes seem to spontaneously shape our perceptions of
various events—often with very little conscious cognitive processing—and
thereby shapes our immediate behavioral reactions (e.g., Bargh & Chartrand,
2000; Dovidio, Brigham, Johnson, & Gaertner, 1996).
• To the extent that a person repeatedly performs a specific behavior—and a
habit is formed—that person’s responses may become relatively automatic
whenever that same situation is encountered (Wood, Quinn, & Kashy, 2002).
Concepts related to attitudes

Values
• A higher-order concept thought to provide a structure for organising attitudes.

(Allport & Vernon, 1931):

1 theoretical – an interest in problem solving, the basis of how things work;
2 economic – an interest in economic matters, finance and money affairs;
3 aesthetic – an interest in the arts, theatre, music and so on;
4 social – a concern for one’s fellows, a social welfare orientation;
5 political – an interest in political structures and power arrangements;
6 religious – a concern with theology, the afterlife and morals.
Ideology
• A systematically interrelated set of beliefs whose primary function is
explanation. It circumscribes thinking, making it difficult for the holder to
escape from its mould.
• Ideology overlaps to some extent with the term ‘value’. Ideologies are
integrated and widely shared systems of beliefs, usually with a social or
political reference, that serve an explanatory function.

• Terror management theory (e.g. Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997)

• The notion that the most fundamental human motivation is to reduce the
terror of the inevitability of death. Self-esteem may be centrally implicated in
effective terror management.
Social representations
• Collectively elaborated explanations of unfamiliar and complex phenomena
that transform them into a familiar and simple form.

• First described by Serge Moscovici (1961) and based on earlier work by the
French sociologist Emile Durkheim on ‘collective representations’.
• Social representations refer to the way that people elaborate simplified and
shared understandings of their world through social interaction (Deaux & Philogene,
2001; Farr & Moscovici, 1984)
Attitude change

• Any significant modification of an individual’s attitude.

• In the persuasion process (Persuation) this involves the communicator, the communication,
the medium used and the characteristics of the audience. Attitude change can also occur by
inducing someone to perform an act that runs counter to an existing attitude.

Persuasive communication
• Message intended to change an attitude and related behaviours of an
audience.
• three general variables involved in persuasion:
1 the communicator, or the source (who);
2 the communication, or message (what);
3 the audience (to whom).
• Perhaps not surprisingly, most people believe they are less likely to be
influenced than others by advertisements; a phenomenon called the third-
person effect (‘You and I are not influenced, but they are’).

The communicator
• Source credibility- The credibility of the communicator affects the acceptability of
persuasive messages. But attractiveness, likeability and similarity also play a very significant
role.

The message
• Properties of the message itself also affect persuasion.
• Effects of repetition- In the advertising industry, it is a maxim that a message needs to be repeated over and
over in order to be understood and recalled.
• Does fear work? Fear-arousing messages may enhance persuasion
• Facts versus feelings- factual content in a message, it is important for people to be able to assimilate and
understand the general conclusion of the message
• The medium and the message

• Framing a message
• The sleeper effect- The impact of a persuasive message can increase over time when a
discounting cue, such as an invalid source, can no longer be recalled.
• Attitude & Attitude Change: Structure, functions, formation of
attitudes, attitude behavior relationship, Attitude Change: Process of
persuasion, related factors, Theories of attitude change. Strategies of
promoting attitude and behavior change in India-illustrative case
studies in Indian context.
Beliefs, intentions and behaviour

• Martin Fishbein (1967a, 1967b, 1971) agrees with Thurstone (1931) that the basic
ingredient of an attitude is affect. However, if you measure an attitude purely on a
unidimensional bipolar evaluative scale (such as good/bad), you cannot reliably
predict how a person will later behave. Better prediction depends on an account
of the interaction between attitudes, beliefs and behavioural intentions, and the
connections of all of these with subsequent actions.
• Specific attitudes
• General attitudes
• Reasoned action-
• Subjective norm – a product of what the person thinks others believe. Significant others
• provide direct or indirect information about ‘what is the proper thing to do’.
• ● Attitude towards the behaviour – a product of the person’s beliefs about the target behaviour and how these beliefs are
evaluated. Note that this is an attitude towards behaviour (such as taking a birth control pill in Davidson and Jacard’s study), not
towards the object (such as the pill itself).
• ● Behavioural intention – an internal declaration to act.
• ● Behaviour – the action performed.
• Why Attitudes Change
• While attitudes can have a powerful effect on behavior, they are not set in stone. The same influences that lead to
attitude formation can also create attitude change.4
• Learning Theory
• Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning can be used to bring about attitude change.
Classical conditioning can be used to create positive emotional reactions to an object, person, or event by associating
positive feelings with the target object.
• Operant conditioning can be used to strengthen desirable attitudes and weaken undesirable ones. People can also
change their attitudes after observing the behavior of others.
• Elaboration Likelihood Theory
• This theory of persuasion suggests that people can alter their attitudes in two ways. First, they can be motivated to
listen and think about the message, thus leading to an attitude shift.
• Or, they might be influenced by the characteristics of the speaker, leading to a temporary or surface shift in attitude.
Messages that are thought-provoking and that appeal to logic are more likely to lead to permanent changes in
attitudes.
• Dissonance Theory
• As mentioned earlier, people can also change their attitudes when they have conflicting beliefs about a topic. In order
to reduce the tension created by these incompatible beliefs, people often shift their attitudes.
• Recap
• Attitudes are not set in stone and may change when people learn new information, when they are persuaded by
influential people, or when they experience discomfort due to holding conflicting beliefs.