Attitudes and Attitude Change Research Paper

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People routinely form evaluations of the things they encounter in their social worlds. Some people favor legalized abortion; others oppose it. Some people support smokers’ rights; others think that smoking should be banned in all public places. Some of us like vanilla ice cream; others prefer chocolate. These evaluations are called attitudes. Attitudes can be directed toward any entity—people, objects, and ideas. Attitudes can be positive, negative, mixed (i.e., ambivalent), or neutral, and they can vary in their intensity. Attitudes have important consequences for social thought and behavior, so it is not surprising that social psychologists have made the study of attitudes central to their field.

This chapter will briefly review the study of attitudes— what they are, where they come from, how they relate to behavior, and how they change. The literature on attitudes and attitude change has been accumulating for nearly 100 years and, as a result, is quite extensive. It is impossible to summarize and evaluate all that is known about this topic in a brief chapter. (For an in-depth analysis of attitudes and attitude change, see Albarracin, Johnson, & Zanna, 2005; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993.)

Theory

The Nature and Origin of Attitudes

Attitudes are evaluations of people, objects, and ideas. The tripartite theory holds that attitudes are made up of three distinct components: affective, cognitive, and behavioral, which combine to form your overall evaluation of the “attitude object” (e.g., chocolate). The affective component consists of your emotions or feelings toward the attitude object (e.g., Eating chocolate makes me happy.). The cognitive component consists of your thoughts or beliefs about the attitude object (e.g., Eating chocolate has health benefits.). The behavioral component consists of your actions or behavior toward the attitude object (e.g., I eat chocolate every day.). Every attitude has these three components, but social psychologists have discovered that some attitudes are based more on one type of information than others are. Some attitudes are based primarily on affect, whereas others are based more on people’s thoughts about the attitude object.

Where do attitudes come from—how are they formed? Attitudes are formed through affective, cognitive, and behavioral processes. These processes can also be involved in attitude change. In other words, attitudes can change in the same way that they are formed.

To some extent, people’s attitudes are based on their emotions or feelings. There are many ways that affect can become associated with the attitude object. One process is classical conditioning, which occurs when a neutral stimulus comes to elicit a reflexive response when it is paired repeatedly with a stimulus that already produces that response. For example, suppose that a girl experiences positive feelings when she is in the arms of her boyfriend. Suppose also that the girl’s boyfriend always wears a particular brand of cologne. After a while, the smell of the cologne by itself will elicit positive feelings in the girl. Attitude formation and change can also happen when people learn a more general association between two stimuli. Advertisers frequently pair their products with things people already like (e.g., celebrities, attractive models, and puppies), hoping that consumers will form positive attitudes toward their products through the principle of association.

Does it pay off? You bet! In one study, men saw one of two advertisements for a new car, one with a sexy female model and the other without. Men who saw the advertisement with the model rated the car as more appealing than did those who saw the ad without the model. When asked about it, the men claimed that the sexy model had nothing to do with their judgments (Smith & Engle, 1968).

Another affective process is operant conditioning. In this type of conditioning, behavior becomes more likely to occur or less so, depending on its consequences. Reinforcement strengthens behavior, whereas punishment weakens it. Imagine that a young boy repeats a racial slur that he heard on television and receives an approving nod from his father. The father’s approval serves as reinforcement for the boy’s behavior, and will likely engender racist attitudes in the boy.

Another way that affect is involved in the formation of attitudes is mere exposure. The mere exposure effect occurs when repeated exposure to an object leads to increased liking of that object. Simply put, the more often people are exposed to something, the more they tend to like it. For example, Robert Zajonc (1968) exposed participants to nonsense words such as “biwejni” and “saricik” at varying frequencies. He found that the more often participants were exposed to these words, the more they came to like them. Zajonc also found the mere exposure effect with college yearbook photographs. Hundreds of other studies have confirmed that the mere exposure effect is a robust phenomenon (e.g., Bornstein, 1989). In fact, people do not even need to be aware of exposure in order for this effect to occur. In studies of subliminal exposure (e.g., Bornstein & D’Agostino, 1992), stimuli are flashed on a screen so quickly that participants are not aware of them. The frequency of exposure varies by stimulus. Participants are later shown pictures of the stimuli and are asked how much they like them and whether they recognize them. Even though participants do not recognize the stimuli, they prefer the ones they were exposed to the most.

Research also shows that attitudes can be formed through cognitive processes. People often form an attitude toward some attitude object (e.g., a new restaurant) after gaining information about it. This information can come from direct experience with the attitude object (e.g., eating at a new restaurant) or from indirect experience (e.g., reading a review of the restaurant). If the experience leads to favorable thoughts, people will form a positive attitude. If the experience leads to unfavorable thoughts, people will develop a negative attitude. Not surprisingly, attitudes based on direct experience tend to be stronger than attitudes derived from indirect experience (e.g., Fazio & Zanna, 1978).

A third source of attitudes is behavioral information. Although it may seem odd, past behavior can shape our attitudes. According to Daryl Bem’s (1972) self-perception theory, people come to know their attitudes by inferring them from observations of their own behavior. Suppose that someone asks you if you like lettuce. At first, you are not sure how to answer. You have never really considered it before. As you think about it, you realize that you must like lettuce because you often eat salads. This self-perception process only works when people are uncertain about their attitudes. People who hate lettuce (or whatever the attitude object is) do not have to observe their behavior to figure out how they feel about it. The idea that behavior can shape attitudes is covered more thoroughly later in this research-paper.

Affective, cognitive, and behavioral processes are not the only ones involved in attitude formation. Biological processes can also be involved. For example, the attitudes of identical twins are more similar than those of fraternal twins. In addition, twins raised apart (in separate environments) are as similar to each other as those raised together, which suggests that attitudes may be influenced by genetic factors (e.g., Arvey, Bouchard, Segal, & Abraham, 1989; Waller, Kojetin, Bouchard, Lykken, & Tellegen, 1990). However, these findings do not mean that attitudes are linked to specific genes. For example, there is no gene that causes a positive attitude toward the legalization of marijuana. So how do genetic factors influence attitudes? Researchers are not yet sure, but one possibility is that highly heritable personality traits or abilities predispose people to form particular attitudes (Olson, Vernon, Harris, & Jang, 2001). For example, a natural athlete who has succeeded in sports is likely to have a more positive attitude toward sports than someone who is less athletically inclined.

Researchers have also recently discovered that attitudes can be explicit or implicit (e.g., Wilson, Lindsey, & Schooler, 2000). Explicit attitudes are attitudes of which we are consciously aware and can easily report. Implicit attitudes are attitudes that exist outside of conscious awareness or conscious control. People can have explicit and implicit attitudes toward the same attitude object. For example, a white individual might have a positive explicit attitude toward African Americans. He or she might consciously attempt to treat people of all races equally. However, he or she might experience negative emotions in the presence of African Americans, which would indicate that the person has a negative implicit attitude toward African Americans. Research on implicit attitudes has only just begun, so we have a lot to learn about how these attitudes develop and change. The research and theory reviewed in the remainder of this chapter are focused primarily on explicit attitudes.

The Relationship Between Attitudes and Behavior

You do not need to be a social psychologist to know that people do not always behave in ways that are consistent with their attitudes. People who have a negative attitude toward eating “fast food” may occasionally find themselves at McDonald’s. Those who have a positive attitude toward church may not show up for regular weekly worship services. This lack of consistency does not mean that people are hypocrites. Rather, it reveals that the relationship between attitudes and behavior is complex.

Sociologist Richard LaPiere was the first person to study this relationship. In 1934 LaPiere and a young Chinese American couple drove across the United States, visiting numerous restaurants, hotels, and campgrounds. LaPiere expected that the couple would be routinely discriminated against, given the widespread prejudice against Asians at that time. However, only one of the establishments they visited turned them away. When LaPiere later wrote to the proprietors of these establishments and asked if they would serve Chinese patrons, 90 percent of those who responded claimed that they would not. Clearly, the proprietors’ attitudes did not correspond with their behavior. Although LaPiere’s methods were flawed, his findings sparked a debate among researchers about the strength of the attitude-behavior relation. Over the next few decades, researchers continued to study the link between attitudes and behavior but were discouraged by results that seemed to confirm LaPiere’s findings. Fortunately, researchers realized that attitudes do predict behavior, but only under certain conditions. As a result, the research question they explored changed from “Do attitudes predict behavior?” to “When do attitudes predict behavior?”

One important factor that affects the attitude-behavior relationship is the specificity of the attitude. To predict a certain behavior, researchers should measure people’s specific attitudes toward that behavior. Thus, measures of attitudes and behaviors must be similar in terms of their specificity. Weigel, Vernon, and Tognacci (1974) asked participants about their attitudes toward a variety of different environmental issues (e.g., conservation and pollution) and organizations such as the Sierra Club. Five months later, members of the local chapter of the Sierra Club approached participants and asked them to help with the organization’s activities. The researchers found that general environmental attitudes did not predict behavior, but specific attitudes toward the Sierra Club were correlated with subsequent involvement in the organization. Other research supports the finding that specific attitudes predict behavior better than general ones. Such findings help explain why LaPiere did not find a correlation between proprietors’ attitudes and behavior. He used a general attitude toward “members of the Chinese race” to predict a very specific behavior—serving a Chinese American couple accompanied by a European American man.

Another factor that influences the relationship between attitudes and behavior is attitude strength. Strong attitudes (i.e., those that are important to individuals or held with conviction) are better predictors of behavior than weak ones. One factor that contributes to attitude strength is the amount of information that people have about the attitude object. In general, people who are well informed about issues will have strong attitudes that guide their behavior. Attitude strength is also determined by the origin of the attitude. As noted earlier, attitudes that are formed through direct personal experience are generally stronger than those based on indirect experience. Dennis Regan and Russell Fazio (1977) found that college freshmen who were concerned about the scarcity of on-campus housing were more likely to take action (hand out petitions, write protest letters, etc.) when they had been directly affected by the housing crisis. Other research confirms that attitudes formed through direct experience are held with more conviction and are more likely to influence subsequent behavior (e.g., Fazio & Zanna, 1978, 1981).

Attitude accessibility is another important factor in the attitude-behavior puzzle. This construct is related to attitude strength—it refers to how easily the attitude is brought to mind. How would you describe your attitude toward capital punishment? If you answer that question immediately, your attitude is highly accessible. If you are slow to respond, your attitude is less accessible. Research has shown that highly accessible attitudes are better predictors of behavior than those that are less accessible (e.g., Fazio & Williams, 1986).

Even when attitudes are specific, strong, and highly accessible, they do not always predict behavior because the link between attitudes and behavior is not a direct one. Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen (1975) developed the theory of reasoned action to help explain the attitude-behavior relationship. Ajzen (1991) later updated this theory and renamed it the theory of planned behavior. According to the theory of planned behavior, the best predictor of behavior is a person’s intention to engage in that behavior. Behavioral intention is determined by three things: attitude toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. Attitudes do not directly influence behavior. Instead, attitudes influence behavioral intention. Behavioral intention is also affected by subjective norms—a person’s beliefs about whether others will approve or disapprove of the behavior. A final determinant of behavioral intention is perceived behavioral control—a person’s perception of how easy or difficult it is to perform the behavior.

Orbell, Blair, Sherlock, and Conner (2001) recently used the theory of planned behavior to predict people’s use of Ecstasy, an illegal drug used by a growing number of young people. The researchers approached young people and asked them to complete a questionnaire that measured (a) their attitude toward Ecstasy, (b) subjective norms (i.e., whether their friends would approve of their using the drug), (c) perceived behavior control (i.e., whether they could obtain the drug and whether they could resist taking it if it were available), and (d) their intention of using Ecstasy in the next two months. After two months, the researchers contacted these same people and asked whether they had taken Ecstasy. The results closely matched predictions derived from the theory of planned behavior. Attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control all predicted behavioral intention. People’s intentions predicted their actual behavior. The theory of planned behavior has been used to predict behavior in many other settings as well (see Armitage & Conner, 2001).

Attitude Change

Social psychologists have spent years studying persuasion—the process by which attitudes are changed. Much of the research has focused on message-based persuasion, which occurs when people change their attitudes after being exposed to a message (such as an essay, speech, or magazine advertisement) advocating a particular position. Early work on this topic was guided by the classic question, “Who says what to whom?” As a result, researchers have identified numerous source, message, and recipient variables that affect persuasion. The source of the message (the “who”) can have a significant impact on people’s attitudes. People are generally more persuaded by expert sources than by nonexpert sources, even if they make the same arguments (e.g., Petty, Cacioppo, & Goldman, 1981). People are also more influenced by physically attractive sources (e.g., Eagly & Chaiken, 1975) as well as sources that are similar to them in some way (e.g., Brock, 1965). Characteristics of the message (the “what”) can also affect persuasion. For example, people are more persuaded by messages that do not seem to be designed to influence them (e.g., Walster & Festinger, 1962). The recipient of the message (the “whom”) is another important factor. Recipients who are distracted are more easily influenced than people who are not (e.g., Petty, Wells, & Brock, 1976). However, people who are forewarned about a persuasion attempt are sometimes less likely to change their attitudes (e.g., Quinn & Wood, 2004).

Early theories assumed that attitude change was a thoughtful process. They maintained that people carefully considered the arguments presented in a persuasive message. When the arguments were strong, people’s attitudes became more favorable to the advocated position. When the arguments were not strong, people’s attitudes remained the same (or perhaps became less favorable). Contemporary theories, on the other hand, assume that people do not have to consider carefully the arguments in order for their attitudes to change. For example, people may adopt the position advocated in a persuasive message because the source is a trusted expert or simply because they are in a good mood. Two of the most popular contemporary theories of persuasion are the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) and the heuristic-systematic model (HSM). These two theories suggest that some processes of attitude change require a great deal of cognitive effort, whereas other processes require relatively little mental effort. These theories also specify when attitudes are likely to be changed by high-effort or low-effort processes and the consequences of such processes. The ELM and HSM are similar in many respects and can be used to explain the same research findings. To avoid confusion, this chapter will focus solely on the ELM (see Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989, for more information on the HSM).

The ELM was developed by Richard Petty and John Cacioppo (1986). This theory is based on the assumption that people are “cognitive misers” who do not have the motivation or ability to think critically about all of the persuasive messages they encounter. The ELM further assumes that people will think carefully about a persuasive message only when they are sufficiently motivated and able to do so. Consider all of the commercials to which television viewers are exposed. Do they think hard about all of the information in these commercials? Probably not. According to the ELM, people will pay close attention to a commercial when they have the motivation (e.g., because the product being advertised is something that they need) and the ability (e.g., they are not distracted by something else).

Thus, Petty and Cacioppo theorized that there are two alternate “routes” to persuasion. The central route involves carefully thinking about the arguments presented in a persuasive message. The peripheral route is less effortful. It occurs when people rely on simple cues to judge the merits of the message. Imagine that you need to buy a car. You see a television commercial in which a famous actor shares several reasons why he loves his new Ford Mustang. If you decide to buy the same model because you carefully consider the actor’s reasons (e.g., the Mustang has a powerful V8 engine, a 5-year/60,000 mile warranty, and reclining front buckets seats) and are convinced that they are good ones, you are following the central route. If you decide to buy the car simply because you like the actor, you are following the peripheral route. In short, attitude change can result from careful consideration of the information provided in a persuasive message (central route), or it can result from little or no thought about the information provided (peripheral route).

What determines whether a person will follow the central or peripheral route to persuasion? According the ELM, elaboration likelihood determines the route. The elaboration likelihood is said to be high when people have the motivation and ability to process the persuasive message. When people are motivated and able to think about a persuasive message, they will follow the central route. In this case, the quality of the arguments in the message determines the extent of attitude change. Strong arguments lead to greater attitude change than do weak arguments. When people are not motivated or able to think carefully (when they are distracted, for example), they will follow the peripheral route. In this case, the quality of the arguments does not matter. People’s attitudes are shaped by peripheral cues or heuristics such as “Experts can be trusted” and “If it makes me feel good, I’m in favor of it.”

Researchers have identified many variables that affect people’s motivation or ability for processing persuasive messages. One variable that helps to determine people’s level of motivation is personal relevance. When the topic of a persuasive message is personally relevant to us, we are likely to process that message. Petty et al. (1981) conducted a classic study in which they presented college students with a message advocating the implementation of senior comprehensive exams (i.e., exams that seniors must pass in order to graduate). Participants were exposed to either strong or weak arguments in support of this position. Personal relevance was also varied by leading the participants to believe that their university was considering implementing these exams either the following year (high personal relevance) or the following decade (low personal relevance). The expertise was also manipulated by presenting a message associated with either the Carnegie Commission of Higher Education (high expertise) or a local high school class (low expertise). After reading the message, participants indicated how much they liked the idea of these exams. When personal relevance was low, participants’ attitudes were shaped by the expertise of the source. The quality of the arguments did not matter. They had more positive attitudes about the exams when an expert suggested them, even when the arguments were weak. Participants who thought that the issue was personally relevant were not affected by the source. They were more persuaded by strong arguments than by weak ones, regardless of the source. When the message was personally relevant, participants followed the central route to persuasion. When it was not, participants took the less-effortful peripheral route.

Another factor that influences motivation for message processing is need for cognition, which refers to an individual’s tendency to engage in and enjoy thinking. Individuals high in need for cognition are more motivated to elaborate on arguments contained in a persuasive message. Consequently, they are influenced more by argument quality and less by peripheral cues than those who are low in need for cognition (e.g., Cacioppo, Petty, Kao, & Rodriguez, 1986). Other variables determine one’s ability for message processing. People are less able to process a message when they are distracted (Petty et al., 1976), under time pressure (e.g., Ratneshwar & Chaiken, 1991), or have little prior knowledge of the attitude object (e.g., Alba & Marmorstein, 1987).

To review, attitude change can result from high-effort processes (the central route) or low-effort processes (the peripheral route). Does it matter which route is taken? Research has confirmed that attitudes changed via the central route are stronger and longer lasting than attitudes changed through the peripheral route. These attitudes are also more predictive of behavior. To create long-lasting attitude change, it is important to encourage people to use the central route.

Self-Persuasion

Social psychologists have also studied the effects of people’s own behaviors on attitude change. Common sense suggests that attitudes predict behavior, not the reverse. However, research has shown that people can be persuaded by their own actions. Leon Festinger’s (1957) cognitive dissonance theory explains how this process occurs. According to Festinger, we feel tension—cognitive dissonance—when we notice an inconsistency between two of our cognitions. Cognitions include the knowledge we have about our attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. The classical example of cognitive dissonance involves the smoker who continues to smoke even though he knows it is unhealthy. Festinger’s theory assumes that people are highly motivated to reduce this state of dissonance.

There are three primary ways to reduce dissonance: changing behavior, changing one of the dissonant cognitions, and adding consonant cognitions. Sometimes, the easiest way to reduce dissonance is by changing behavior. If the smoker quits smoking, he will reduce the dissonance that he feels. Of course, any smoker will tell you that kicking the habit is anything but easy. When changing our behavior is not an option, we can change one of our dissonant cognitions. For example, the smoker can convince himself that the evidence linking smoking to cancer is inconclusive. We can also add new cognitions that are consistent with one of the cognitions. The smoker might focus on the benefits of smoking and how much he enjoys it. Successfully doing any of these three things—changing behavior, changing one of the cognitions, or adding consonant cognitions—will reduce the unpleasant state of cognitive dissonance.

In a classic study of cognitive dissonance conducted by Leon Festinger and James Carlsmith (1959), students spent an hour performing a series of extremely dull and repetitive tasks. One of the tasks involved putting spools onto a tray, emptying the tray, refilling it with spools, and so on. After the hour, the experimenter told the participants that they were in the control group. He explained that the participants in the experimental group were being told that the tasks were very interesting (so that they have a positive expectation). He then asked participants if they would be willing to tell the next participant that the tasks were fun and interesting and offered to pay them $1 or $20. Essentially, the experimenter asked the students to lie about the task in exchange for a small sum of money or a relatively large one.

After telling the lie, students were asked to rate how much they had liked the tasks they performed. Students who were paid $1 rated the tasks as much more enjoyable than those who were paid $20. Though counterintuitive, these results are consistent with cognitive dissonance theory. Students were faced with two inconsistent cognitions—”I just told someone that the tasks were interesting” and “I actually thought that they were incredibly dull.” Students who were paid $20 had a justification for telling the lie, so they did not experience dissonance. Students who were paid only $1 faced insufficient justification and experienced dissonance as a result. They reduced the dissonance by changing how they felt about the tasks. This study demonstrated that when people behave in ways that contradict their attitudes, they may end up changing their attitudes.

Cognitive dissonance can also result from justification of effort. Have you ever worked really hard for something, only to realize that it was not worth the effort? Suppose that you camped out overnight to get tickets to a concert that was disappointing. This situation would probably cause you to experience cognitive dissonance. How might you reduce it? It is too late to change your behavior. The easiest way to reduce dissonance might be to change your perception of the concert. You might convince yourself that it was a good show after all.

A classic study of the justification of effort principle was performed by Elliott Aronson and Judson Mills (1959). In this study, female college students volunteered to join a discussion group. Students were told that they must first pass a screening test—a type of initiation—to make sure that they were comfortable with the topic (i.e., sex). Students in the mild initiation group read aloud a list of ordinary words pertaining to sex. Students in the severe initiation group had to read obscene and embarrassing words. After this initiation, students were allowed to listen privately to a “live” discussion before they joined the group. Actually, it was a prerecorded discussion about animal sexual behavior and it was very boring. Students then rated how much they liked the discussion and the group members. As Aronson and Mills expected, the students in the severe initiation condition rated the discussion group more favorably than did those in the mild initiation condition. Going through a severe initiation to join a boring group caused the students to experience dissonance. They reduced this dissonance by changing their attitudes toward the group. This justification of effort principle helps explain why fraternity and sorority members who go through a harsh initiation are later very committed to their group.

Whenever we make a difficult decision, we experience dissonance that might produce a change in our attitudes. For example, imagine that you are offered two different jobs. One job is at a reputable company and comes with a great salary, but will require you to move to a city that you dislike. The other job is a low-paying position at a startup company. However, this job will allow you to live in a vibrant city that you have always wanted to call home. You carefully consider your options and decide to take the job at the start-up company. For a short while, you wonder if you made the right decision. When you think about the good things you passed up, cognitive dissonance sets in. To reduce it, you begin to exaggerate the importance of the positive features of the chosen alternative (I love this city!) and downplay the positive features of the unchosen alternative (Who needs a big salary to be happy?). After any important decision (whether deciding which job to take or whom to marry), we often change the way we feel about the chosen and unchosen alternatives to avoid the unpleasant state of dissonance.

Hundreds of studies have examined cognitive dissonance since Festinger first proposed his theory. It is now clear that dissonance effects are greatest when people feel personally responsible for their actions and their actions have serious consequences. Researchers have also proposed alternative explanations for how behavior shapes attitudes. Elliott Aronson (1999) argued that dissonance is not the result of cognitive inconsistency. Rather, it occurs when people act in ways that threaten their self-concept. For example, a student who cheats on an exam is likely to experience dissonance because that behavior threatens her belief that she is an honest person. She will be motivated to reduce the dissonance, perhaps by changing her attitude toward cheating. Bem (1974) argued that self-persuasion is not the result of dissonance at all. According to Bem’s self-perception theory (discussed earlier), people infer their attitudes by observing their own behavior. Bem believed that the results of Festinger and Carlsmith’s classic study could be explained by this self-perception process. Students who were paid $20 to tell another person that the experiment was interesting inferred that their behavior was controlled by a large incentive. However, students who were paid a mere dollar inferred that their behavior must have reflected their true attitude (i.e., they actually enjoyed the task).

Is self-perception theory correct? Research suggests that both cognitive dissonance theory and self-perception theory are correct in different situations. Dissonance theory best explains what happens when people behave in ways that contradict their well-defined attitudes. Self-perception theory best explains what happens when people are unsure of their attitudes. Regardless of the underlying process (cognitive dissonance or self-perception), it is clear that people’s own behavior can change their attitudes.

Methods

Self-Report Measures

To study attitudes and the mechanisms of attitude change, social psychologists must first decide how to measure attitudes. They frequently use self-report measures to do so. As the name implies, self-report measures require people to report on some aspect of themselves. One of the most commonly used self-report measures is the Likert scale, named after its developer, Rensis Likert. The Likert scale asks respondents to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with a series of statements on a numerical scale (often a five-point scale, where 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = somewhat disagree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree, 4 = somewhat agree, and 5 = strongly agree). To avoid a potential bias, half of the statements are worded positively (such that people with a positive attitude would agree with them) and the other half are worded negatively (such that those with a positive attitude would disagree). A five-point Likert scale could be used to measure students’ attitudes toward statistics by having them indicate their agreement or disagreement with statements such as “I like statistics,” “I enjoy taking statistics courses,” and “I am scared by statistics.” To score the scale, you must reverse the scoring for negatively worded items so that strong disagreement receives a high score. A student who strongly disagreed with the statement “I am scared by statistics” assigned a “1” to this item. To reverse the scoring, simply change the “1” to a “5.” After reversing the scores for negatively worded items, add up all of the numbers to obtain the respondent’s total score on the attitude measure. Higher scores should indicate a more favorable attitude.

Another common self-report measure is the semantic differential, in which people rate an attitude object on sets of bipolar adjective pairs (e.g., good-bad). Each pair of adjectives anchors a horizontal line divided into seven sections, for example:

Good _:_:_:_:_:_:_ Bad

Foolish _:_:_:_:_:_:_ Wise

Pleasant _:_:_:_:_:_:_ Unpleasant

Participants mark the spot on the horizontal line that best indicates their evaluation of the attitude object. Each item is scored on a seven-point scale, and reverse scoring is used for any negative items. The respondent’s total score is the sum of the separate item scores.

Self-report measures are popular among attitude researchers because they are so easy to use. They are not without problems, however. The major problem is the social desirability bias, a tendency to respond in a way that makes the respondent look good to others. Respondents may be unwilling to indicate their true attitude because it is socially unacceptable. For example, people may be reluctant to report prejudice against a racial group because they do not want to be labeled as being racist. One way that researchers have avoided this bias is through use of the “bogus pipeline technique” (see Roese & Jamieson, 1993). In one variation of this procedure, respondents are hooked up to a physiological recording device (such as a lie-detector test) that supposedly records their true feelings. They are then asked to self-report their attitudes. Worried that they may get caught in a lie, respondents are likely to give truthful answers.

Indirect Measures

Another way to avoid the social desirability bias is to use an indirect (or covert) measure of attitudes. Indirect measures do not ask the person to self-report his or her attitudes. Instead, the attitude is inferred from the person’s judgments or behavior. For example, seating distance can be used to measure a person’s attitude toward a member of a stigmatized group (Westie, 1953). Participants can be asked to take a seat in a waiting room where a member of this group is already waiting. The researcher can then measure how close to the target the participant chooses to sit. (Presumably, participants with a negative attitude toward the target will sit farther away.) Nonverbal behaviors such as eye contact, body posture, and fidgeting have also been used as indirect measures of attitudes.

Researchers have also used participants’ physiological responses (e.g., perspiration or heart rate) as measures of their attitudes. Unfortunately, most of these measures do not distinguish between positive and negative attitudes. If a person’s heart rate increases in the presence of a snake, researchers cannot conclude that that person has a negative attitude toward snakes. Perhaps he or she finds it exciting to be close to a snake! The facial electromyography (EMG) has also been used as a measure of attitudes. The EMG is an electronic instrument that records facial muscle activity. EMG detects activity in the muscles that control smiling and frowning, so this measure can distinguish positive and negative attitudes. The EMG can also detect subtle expressions not noticed by observers. Researchers have recently begun to measure attitudes by recording brain activity with electroencephalograms (EEGs) and brain-imaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI). Although more research is needed, these techniques show considerable promise.

Indirect measures are necessary to measure implicit attitudes—attitudes that are not consciously held. Thus, researchers must find a way to measure such attitudes indirectly. Priming techniques are commonly used for this purpose. In priming, a target attitude object (e.g., skinheads) is presented briefly to participants as a prime just before they classify adjectives as good or bad. The logic of this technique is that presentation of the attitude object will activate the evaluation associated with that object. For example, if people have a positive attitude toward skinheads, then positive evaluations should be activated in their memory. As a result, they should be faster at classifying positive adjectives than negative ones. In contrast, people with a negative attitude toward skinheads should have negative evaluations activated. They will be faster at classifying negative adjectives than positive ones. Research suggests that priming is a valid measure of people’s implicit attitudes.

Another indirect measure of implicit attitudes is the Implicit Association Test (IAT) developed by Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz (1998). The IAT was designed to measure implicit prejudice toward different groups (e.g., African Americans). Participants are asked to sort words and pictures into categories as quickly as possible. When a person is quicker to group pictures of African American faces with bad words (e.g., evil, hatred, and filth) and European American faces with good words (e.g., love, peace, and gift), researchers assume that the person has an implicit bias against African Americans. For more information about the measurement of explicit and implicit attitudes, see Krosnick, Judd, and Wittenbrink (2005).

Applications

Attitudes affect many different aspects of social behavior. As a result, there are numerous applications of the attitude construct. Prejudice is certainly an important one. Prejudice can be thought of as a negative attitude toward a group of people. Thus, prejudice can develop and change in the same way that other attitudes do. Researchers have learned a lot about the nature of prejudice in recent years.

Attitudes are important in other interpersonal domains. Attitudes shape how we see ourselves (self-esteem is an attitude we hold about ourselves). They also affect the impressions that we form of others and the satisfaction we experience in our romantic relationships (relationship satisfaction, after all, is an attitude). Attitudes can also determine our prosocial behavior. Positive attitudes toward a person in need will increase the likelihood that we help him or her. Conformity is another domain in which attitudes are important. We are more likely to conform to group norms when we like and share similar attitudes with those in the group.

Attitude theory has also been applied to health behaviors (e.g., exercising, eating right, and having safe sex) and environmental behaviors (e.g., recycling, conserving water, and reducing the consumption of energy). One of the most direct applications of this area is to advertising. Advertisers employ many of the principles mentioned in this research-paper to form and change people’s attitudes, often with great success.

Summary

Attitudes are evaluations of people, objects, and ideas. Attitudes are made up of affective, cognitive, and behavioral components and are formed through affective, cognitive, and behavioral processes. The relationship between attitudes and behavior is a complex one, but research has shown that attitudes are powerful determinants of behavior under the right conditions. According to the theory of planned behavior, attitudes toward a specific behavior combine with subjective norms and perceived behavioral control to influence a person’s intentions to engage in a behavior. These intentions then guide behavior.

Contemporary theories of persuasion such as the elaboration likelihood model suggest that some processes of attitude change require a great deal of cognitive effort, whereas other processes require relatively little mental effort. When people have the motivation and ability to think carefully about the issues, they will follow the central route to persuasion. As a result, they will be more persuaded by strong arguments than by weak ones. Without motivation or ability, people will follow the peripheral route. They will base their evaluations on irrelevant, peripheral cues. Other theories suggest that we have the ability to persuade ourselves. According to cognitive dissonance theory, we may change our attitudes to reduce the tension we feel between two inconsistent cognitions, which can happen when we have insufficient justification for engaging in an attitude-discrepant behavior, or when we need to justify our effort or difficult decisions.

Using a variety of methods, social psychologists have learned a great deal about the attitude construct. As the 21st century moves forward, it is likely that social psychologists will make even greater strides in their understanding of the nature of attitudes and attitude change. Given the important consequences of people’s attitudes on social behavior, this understanding should lead to positive real-world change.

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