Attitudes & Behavioral Change Summary Book + Lectures + Articles
Exam 1 + 2
Book: Maio, G. R. & Haddock, G. & Verplanken, B. (2018). The psychology of attitudes and
attitude change (3rd edition). London: Sage.
WEEK 1 2
Chapter 1: What are attitudes and how are they measured 2
Chapter 2: The three witches of attitudes 5
Lecture 1- Introduction to Attitudes 8
Chapter 3- The influence of attitudes on information processing and behavior 14
Lecture 2- attitude effects on cognition & behavior 18
Chapter 4- How do attitudes influence behavior 23
WEEK 2 27
ARTICLE Amodio- Social cognition 2.0: an interactive memory systems account 27
Chapter 7- behavioral influences on attitudes 30
Lecture 3- Attitudes & Behaviour 35
WEEK 3 42
Lecture 4- implicit attitudes 42
ARTICLE Gawronski et al.- Twenty-five years of research using implicit measures 53
ARTICLE Amodio & Devine- Changing prejudice; the effects of persuasion on implicit
and explicit forms of race bias 56
Lecture 5- social attitudes 62
WEEK 5 71
Chapter 5 cognitive influences on attitudes 71
ARTICLE Marewski et al.- Good judgments do not require complex cognition 76
WEEK 6 86
ARTICLE Dolinski- Techniques of social influence: the psychology of gaining compliance
86
Lecture 7- social influence techniques 91
Chapter 6 affective influences on attitudes 102
WEEK 7 111
ARTICLE Goldstein & Cialdini Using social norms as a lever of social influence 111
Lecture 9- norms and resistance 114
,WEEK 1
Chapter 1: What are attitudes and how are they measured
What is an attitude?
Attitude: the expression of an evaluative judgment about an object, based on cognitive,
affective and behavioral information.
- Difference in valence (direction): positive, negative and neutral
- Difference in strength
- Anything that can be evaluated along a dimension of favorability can be
conceptualized as an attitude object
o Abstract vs concrete
o Own self, other individuals, social policy issues, social groups
History of attitudes research
1920s: study of measuring subjective mental properties like attitudes Liker & Thurstone: the
equal appearing interval and Likert Scale quantifiable measuring of attitudes
1934: LaPiere empirical research that a person’s attitudes not necessarily predicts behavior
(Asians in US)
1950s: Lewin and more studies conformity, power and group dynamics because of the
atrocities of WWII
- Studying the concept of authoritarianism
- Studying how to mobilize and change public opinion psychologists in US
war propaganda for a more sustaining public morale.
1960s: further work on persuasion (McGuire)
- Festinger cognitive dissonance theory
- Taxonomies of attitude functions
o Attitudes as energy-saving devices
Mid 1960s: Zeitgeist changed to social cognition: how individuals elaborate upon and
process information
- Theory of Reasoned Action: predict reasoned behavior from attitudes
- Rethinking of persuasion studies
1970s: Finding that attitudes are a poor predictor for behavior discussion
1980s: Research about the content of behavior, two models of persuasion
1990s-2010s: Attitude strength, fMRI, ERP
Research on attitudes also on consumer behavior, political science and health.
How are attitudes measured?
Explicit processes: require conscious attention, directly indicate attitudes
Implicit processes: do not require conscious attention, indirectly assessing attitudes
,Explicit measures of attitudes
- Self-report questionnaires
o Equal appearing intervals (EAI) approach, different steps:
1. Construct a set of belief statements that are relevant to the attitude
being measured
2. Judges are asked to order these statements along a scale
containing many intervals
3. Each team gets allocated a score on the interval scale. The belief
statements are given to individuals whose attitudes are to be
expressed.
4. The respondent’s score is the mean of the scale value of the items
to which they agreed
o Likert scale: rating belief statements as either favorable or unfavorable
- Reverse scoring: negatively phrased items
- Cannot compare attitudes across different attitude objects
o Semantic differential approach
- Bipolar adjective scales respondents evaluate objects by
indicating which one suits best (bad/good, positive/negative,
like/dislike)
- Limitations
o People might be unaware of their attitude
o Item presentations influence responses
o Absolute vs relative (comparing or not) also elicit different types of
responses
o Impression management: misinterpreting one’s responses so that the
respondent can present themselves in a favorable way
Implicit measures of attitudes
- Evaluative priming
o The strength of the association between a given object and the evaluation
reflects the accessibility of an attitude from memory, and the likelihood
that the evaluation is spontaneously activated when we encounter the
attitude object
o Measure the speed with which the person corresponds the object with
good/bad
o Making a judgment about the meaning of an adjective after being primed
to the stimulus
o Study by Fazio showed that the presentation of a Black face produced
faster responding to negative adjectives and slower responding to positive
adjectives for White people.
- Implicit Association Test (IAT)
o Based on the assumption that attitude objects can spontaneously activate
evaluation, which affect subsequent responses and the speed in which
these responses are made
o Have to classify adjectives and attitude objects behind a computer,
responding as fast as possible
, o Consists of various blocks of trials, example:
1. Male/ female
2. Positive/negative
3. Male and positive/ female and negative
4. The keys they have to push are reversed positive/negative
5. Keys reversed male and negative/female and positive
3 and 5 measure the strength of the association between an attitude objects
and evaluations
o IAT scores are malleable
o Performance on the IAT can be affected by extrapersonal associations;
knowledge about what others think or feel about the attitude object
- Can be removed by making the IAT test more personal using
personal dimensions (I like/ I dislike) i.e. general dimensions
(favorable/unfavorable)
o Single target IAT to use different response tasks and blocks to focus on
one category, without comparison to another category
o Child-friendly IAuT
o Paper and pencil IATs
- Galvanic skin response (GSR)
o Activity in sweat glands would increase skin conductance higher level of
stress
o Not sensitive to attitude valence
- Pupillary dilation
o The pupil of an eye should expand to take more light in when people see
things they like
o Less sensitive to valence
- Facial electromyography (EMG)
o Contractions of core facial muscles can distinguish between positive and
negative
- Event-related potentials (ERP)
o Measure electrical activity in the brain
o Understanding the time course in which individuals make attitudinal
judgments
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
o Uncover brain locations associated with attitudinal responding by
assessing changes in blood flow and oxygenation within the brain
Issues in attitude measurements
Reliability:
1. Internal consistency: are the individual items assessing the same psychological
construct
2. Test-retest reliability: consistency in scores across time
- High reliability for explicit measures
o High internal consistency semantic differential scales
- Implicit measures high internal consistency and test-retest correlations
Exam 1 + 2
Book: Maio, G. R. & Haddock, G. & Verplanken, B. (2018). The psychology of attitudes and
attitude change (3rd edition). London: Sage.
WEEK 1 2
Chapter 1: What are attitudes and how are they measured 2
Chapter 2: The three witches of attitudes 5
Lecture 1- Introduction to Attitudes 8
Chapter 3- The influence of attitudes on information processing and behavior 14
Lecture 2- attitude effects on cognition & behavior 18
Chapter 4- How do attitudes influence behavior 23
WEEK 2 27
ARTICLE Amodio- Social cognition 2.0: an interactive memory systems account 27
Chapter 7- behavioral influences on attitudes 30
Lecture 3- Attitudes & Behaviour 35
WEEK 3 42
Lecture 4- implicit attitudes 42
ARTICLE Gawronski et al.- Twenty-five years of research using implicit measures 53
ARTICLE Amodio & Devine- Changing prejudice; the effects of persuasion on implicit
and explicit forms of race bias 56
Lecture 5- social attitudes 62
WEEK 5 71
Chapter 5 cognitive influences on attitudes 71
ARTICLE Marewski et al.- Good judgments do not require complex cognition 76
WEEK 6 86
ARTICLE Dolinski- Techniques of social influence: the psychology of gaining compliance
86
Lecture 7- social influence techniques 91
Chapter 6 affective influences on attitudes 102
WEEK 7 111
ARTICLE Goldstein & Cialdini Using social norms as a lever of social influence 111
Lecture 9- norms and resistance 114
,WEEK 1
Chapter 1: What are attitudes and how are they measured
What is an attitude?
Attitude: the expression of an evaluative judgment about an object, based on cognitive,
affective and behavioral information.
- Difference in valence (direction): positive, negative and neutral
- Difference in strength
- Anything that can be evaluated along a dimension of favorability can be
conceptualized as an attitude object
o Abstract vs concrete
o Own self, other individuals, social policy issues, social groups
History of attitudes research
1920s: study of measuring subjective mental properties like attitudes Liker & Thurstone: the
equal appearing interval and Likert Scale quantifiable measuring of attitudes
1934: LaPiere empirical research that a person’s attitudes not necessarily predicts behavior
(Asians in US)
1950s: Lewin and more studies conformity, power and group dynamics because of the
atrocities of WWII
- Studying the concept of authoritarianism
- Studying how to mobilize and change public opinion psychologists in US
war propaganda for a more sustaining public morale.
1960s: further work on persuasion (McGuire)
- Festinger cognitive dissonance theory
- Taxonomies of attitude functions
o Attitudes as energy-saving devices
Mid 1960s: Zeitgeist changed to social cognition: how individuals elaborate upon and
process information
- Theory of Reasoned Action: predict reasoned behavior from attitudes
- Rethinking of persuasion studies
1970s: Finding that attitudes are a poor predictor for behavior discussion
1980s: Research about the content of behavior, two models of persuasion
1990s-2010s: Attitude strength, fMRI, ERP
Research on attitudes also on consumer behavior, political science and health.
How are attitudes measured?
Explicit processes: require conscious attention, directly indicate attitudes
Implicit processes: do not require conscious attention, indirectly assessing attitudes
,Explicit measures of attitudes
- Self-report questionnaires
o Equal appearing intervals (EAI) approach, different steps:
1. Construct a set of belief statements that are relevant to the attitude
being measured
2. Judges are asked to order these statements along a scale
containing many intervals
3. Each team gets allocated a score on the interval scale. The belief
statements are given to individuals whose attitudes are to be
expressed.
4. The respondent’s score is the mean of the scale value of the items
to which they agreed
o Likert scale: rating belief statements as either favorable or unfavorable
- Reverse scoring: negatively phrased items
- Cannot compare attitudes across different attitude objects
o Semantic differential approach
- Bipolar adjective scales respondents evaluate objects by
indicating which one suits best (bad/good, positive/negative,
like/dislike)
- Limitations
o People might be unaware of their attitude
o Item presentations influence responses
o Absolute vs relative (comparing or not) also elicit different types of
responses
o Impression management: misinterpreting one’s responses so that the
respondent can present themselves in a favorable way
Implicit measures of attitudes
- Evaluative priming
o The strength of the association between a given object and the evaluation
reflects the accessibility of an attitude from memory, and the likelihood
that the evaluation is spontaneously activated when we encounter the
attitude object
o Measure the speed with which the person corresponds the object with
good/bad
o Making a judgment about the meaning of an adjective after being primed
to the stimulus
o Study by Fazio showed that the presentation of a Black face produced
faster responding to negative adjectives and slower responding to positive
adjectives for White people.
- Implicit Association Test (IAT)
o Based on the assumption that attitude objects can spontaneously activate
evaluation, which affect subsequent responses and the speed in which
these responses are made
o Have to classify adjectives and attitude objects behind a computer,
responding as fast as possible
, o Consists of various blocks of trials, example:
1. Male/ female
2. Positive/negative
3. Male and positive/ female and negative
4. The keys they have to push are reversed positive/negative
5. Keys reversed male and negative/female and positive
3 and 5 measure the strength of the association between an attitude objects
and evaluations
o IAT scores are malleable
o Performance on the IAT can be affected by extrapersonal associations;
knowledge about what others think or feel about the attitude object
- Can be removed by making the IAT test more personal using
personal dimensions (I like/ I dislike) i.e. general dimensions
(favorable/unfavorable)
o Single target IAT to use different response tasks and blocks to focus on
one category, without comparison to another category
o Child-friendly IAuT
o Paper and pencil IATs
- Galvanic skin response (GSR)
o Activity in sweat glands would increase skin conductance higher level of
stress
o Not sensitive to attitude valence
- Pupillary dilation
o The pupil of an eye should expand to take more light in when people see
things they like
o Less sensitive to valence
- Facial electromyography (EMG)
o Contractions of core facial muscles can distinguish between positive and
negative
- Event-related potentials (ERP)
o Measure electrical activity in the brain
o Understanding the time course in which individuals make attitudinal
judgments
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
o Uncover brain locations associated with attitudinal responding by
assessing changes in blood flow and oxygenation within the brain
Issues in attitude measurements
Reliability:
1. Internal consistency: are the individual items assessing the same psychological
construct
2. Test-retest reliability: consistency in scores across time
- High reliability for explicit measures
o High internal consistency semantic differential scales
- Implicit measures high internal consistency and test-retest correlations
