Attitudes Attitude Change and Persuasion Joshua Phelps February

Attitudes, Attitude Change, and Persuasion Joshua Phelps February 14 th 2005

Attitude Exercise ©Demonstration of Attitude Research in Social Psychology © 15 minute questionnaire

Lecture Outline ©Attitudes: What are they, Why are they important, How do we measure them? ? ©Attitudes and Predicting Behavior ©Attitude Change and Persuasion ©Compliance

What is an Attitude? ©Summary evaluation of an object of thought (Bohner & Wänke, 2002) ©Consists of Affective, Cognitive, and Behavioral components or evaluative responses

Examples

Why Are Attitudes So Important? ©Relationship to Behavior ©Personal Relationships ©Politics and Public Opinion ©Consumer Issues

Attitudes and Social Psychology ©Individual, Interpersonal, and Societal Levels ©Psykologisk Institutt Examples ©Health Attitudes ©Illegal Immigrants ©Pro Social Attitudes

Function of Attitudes (Bohner & Wänke, 2002) ©Knowledge ©Higher Psychological Needs

Measuring Attitudes ©Direct Measures ©Self-Report ©Indirect Measures ©Disguised Attitude ©Non-Reactive ©Physiological ©Implicit ©https: //implicit. harvard. edu/implicit/

Difficulties Measuring Attitudes ©Operationalization ©Demand Characteristics ©Social Desirability

Attitudes and Behavior ©La. Piere (1934) ©Complex Relationship

Factors Influencing Attitudes and the Prediction of Behavior ©Precision of Measurement ©Aspects of Attitude ©Individual Difference ©Situational Variables

Attitude Change and Persuasion ©When Does Behavior Influence Attitude(s)? ©When and Why do Individuals Change their Attitudes?

Attitude Change ©When a person’s evaluation of an attitude object changes from one value to another (Petty & Wegener, 1998).

General Approaches to Attitude Change ©Behavior-Induced ©Active Participation of the Person ©Persuasion ©An individual’s use of arguments to convince others to change mind or behavior

Behavior Influence on Attitudes ©Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger, 1967) ©Self Perception Theory (Bem, 1972)

Cognitive Dissonance ©Cognitive Dissonance: unpleasant state of arousal that motivates individuals to reduce dissonance ©Three types of Cognitive Dissonance Effects ©Effort-Justification ©Induced Compliance ©Free Choice

Persuasion ©Persuasive Communication: Message intended to change an attitude and related behaviors of an audience (Hogg and Vaughan, 2005)

Factors Influencing Persuasion © Communicator ©Credibility, likeability, attractiveness © Message ©Repetition, Fear, Facts vs. Feelings, Framing ©Republican National Convention © Audience ©Self-Esteem, Gender, Individual Differences (Same as Attitude and Behavior), Age, prior beliefs, cognitive biases

Compliance ©”Superficial, public and transitory change in behavior and expressed attitudes in response to requests, coercion or group pressure. ” (Hogg and Vaughan, 2005)

Tactics for Enhancing Compliance ©Ingratiation ©Reciprocity ©Multiple Requests ©Foot-in-the-Door ©Door-in-the-Face ©Low Ball

Cialdini’s 6 Compliance Principles ©Reciprocation ©Commitment/Consistency ©Liking ©Authority ©Scarcity ©Social Proof

Questions for Next Lecture ©Email: joshph@psykologi. uio. no ©Clarify any topic at the end of Culture Lecture (28/02/05)

Sources ©Hogg & Vaughan (2005). Social Psychology (4 th edition) ©Bohner & Wänke (2002). Attitudes and Attitude Change ©Cialdini (2001). Influence: Science and Practice

Topics I Didn’t Cover ©Structure and Components of Attitudes ©Cognitive Consistency ©Theory of Reasoned Action/Planned Behavior ©Three types of Dissonance Effects (pg 226235) and alternatives to Dissonance. ©Dual Process Models of Persuasion ©Resistance to Persuasion