Hoofdstuk 1 What are attitudes and how are they measured?
Wat is an attitude?
Attitudes: An overall evaluation of an object that is based on cognitive affective and behavioral
information.
Attitudes differ:
1. valence, direction: positive, negative, neutral
2. strength
A short history of attitudes research
A starting point:
1920: Thurnstone and Likert developed Equal appearing interval and Likert scale . This showed
that attitudes can be measured.
1934: Lapiere said that a person's attitude do not impact their behavior (fe. Chinese restaurant p 5)
The real world
1950: Adorno: F-scale (Fasicme). Altemeyer: authoritarianism
→ Convergent approach :characteristics of the message source, recipient and the persuasiveness
of the message would determine the likelihood of the attitude change.
→ Divergent approach: Festinger (cognitive dissonance theory)
→ Attitude functions: why do people hold attitudes?
1. serve as energy saving devices that make judgments easier and faster.
2. express values, protect, identify people we like.
Social cognition
How people elaborate process information. The theory of reasoned action (ToRA), predicts
deliberative and thoughtful behavior from attitudes, has been founded.
A new wave of attitude research
Research on the content of attitudes began to flourish.
1980: Elaboration likelihood model and Heuristic-systematic model. These are both dual process
models in that they specify two different routes to persuasion.
ELM: central (attention needed) and peripheral (less thought) route.
HSM: systematic processing required.
Ongoing developments
Strong attitudes are
1. persistent over time
2. resistant to change
3. can influence information processing
4. likely to predict behavior.
Study development because of:
- computer technology
- application of brain imaging techniques
Beyond social psychology
Health scientist adopted models like (Theory of reasoned action) ToRA to persuade persons to
engage in a healthier lifestyle.
, How are attitudes measured
Direct (explicit) measured of attitudes
Majority of attitudes are direct attitudes.
Thurstone developed the equal appearing intervals methode (EAI). It involves multiple stages.
1. Researcher constructs set of belief statements
2. Judges are asked to order these statements along a scale containing many intervals, in subsets.
3. The statements are given to the person whose attitudes are to be expressed and are asked which
of the items they agree to. The Mean of the items is the score (5,6,6,7 =6)
This method is too time consuming.
Likert Likert's scale was faster. A low score on an item is a negative attitude, a high score is a
positive attitude. Reversed scoring works the other way around. A low score is positive, a high score
is negative.
These numbers cannot be used to directly compare attitudes across different attitudes objects, that's
why a semantic differential approach is needed.
Issues in the direct measurement of attitudes
- Sometimes persons might not be aware of their underlying attitude toward an object.
- Subtle differences in item presentation can influence responses.
- Impression management involves misrepresenting or faking one's responses so that the respondent
can present themselves in a favorable way → most important issue
Indirect (implicit) measures of attitudes
1. Evaluative priming:
A strength of an attitude indicates a strong association in memory between the object and a given
summary evaluation. (!) Fe. In front of a computer , the time between the word and pressing the
button (good/bad) for adjectives is the strength
We should be faster at classifying a positive adjective after seeing a stimulus prime that we like.
We also should be faster at classifying a negative adjective after seeing a prime we dislike. → the
presentation of the prime affects how fast we decide.
2. Implicit Association test (IAT). Like the EP it is based on the assumption that attitude objects
can activate evaluations. Persons are asked to classify adjectives (like the EP) and Attitude objects.
There are five blocks: 1) Guy/girl names, 2) positive/negative adjectives, 3) Names/adjectives, 4)
Same as 2 but reversed, 5) Same as 3 but reversed.
The key blocks are three and five: they measure the strength of association between an attitude
object and evaluations. If response time is shorter for block three than for block five is the IAT
effect.
Performance on th IAM van be affected by extrapersonal associations, knowledge about what others
think about the object. Solution: making the tasks in the AIT more personal.
The AIT is also adopted for use in non-adult populations.
Other types of implicit measures of attitudes
1) Other than computer researchers can also use paper-and-pencil IAT tasks. Respondents are then
asked to sort the names adjectives in the male/positive column and the female/negative column. The
score is the difference between number of correct categorizations.
2) Galvanic skin response (GSR): activity in the sweat glands would increase skin conductance
and higher scores would reflect greater stress. → but could be elecited by positive + negative
responses.
3) Pupilarry dilation: the pupil of the eye expand in more light when people see things they like.
This method is less sensitive to valence and more sensitive tot the attention.
Wat is an attitude?
Attitudes: An overall evaluation of an object that is based on cognitive affective and behavioral
information.
Attitudes differ:
1. valence, direction: positive, negative, neutral
2. strength
A short history of attitudes research
A starting point:
1920: Thurnstone and Likert developed Equal appearing interval and Likert scale . This showed
that attitudes can be measured.
1934: Lapiere said that a person's attitude do not impact their behavior (fe. Chinese restaurant p 5)
The real world
1950: Adorno: F-scale (Fasicme). Altemeyer: authoritarianism
→ Convergent approach :characteristics of the message source, recipient and the persuasiveness
of the message would determine the likelihood of the attitude change.
→ Divergent approach: Festinger (cognitive dissonance theory)
→ Attitude functions: why do people hold attitudes?
1. serve as energy saving devices that make judgments easier and faster.
2. express values, protect, identify people we like.
Social cognition
How people elaborate process information. The theory of reasoned action (ToRA), predicts
deliberative and thoughtful behavior from attitudes, has been founded.
A new wave of attitude research
Research on the content of attitudes began to flourish.
1980: Elaboration likelihood model and Heuristic-systematic model. These are both dual process
models in that they specify two different routes to persuasion.
ELM: central (attention needed) and peripheral (less thought) route.
HSM: systematic processing required.
Ongoing developments
Strong attitudes are
1. persistent over time
2. resistant to change
3. can influence information processing
4. likely to predict behavior.
Study development because of:
- computer technology
- application of brain imaging techniques
Beyond social psychology
Health scientist adopted models like (Theory of reasoned action) ToRA to persuade persons to
engage in a healthier lifestyle.
, How are attitudes measured
Direct (explicit) measured of attitudes
Majority of attitudes are direct attitudes.
Thurstone developed the equal appearing intervals methode (EAI). It involves multiple stages.
1. Researcher constructs set of belief statements
2. Judges are asked to order these statements along a scale containing many intervals, in subsets.
3. The statements are given to the person whose attitudes are to be expressed and are asked which
of the items they agree to. The Mean of the items is the score (5,6,6,7 =6)
This method is too time consuming.
Likert Likert's scale was faster. A low score on an item is a negative attitude, a high score is a
positive attitude. Reversed scoring works the other way around. A low score is positive, a high score
is negative.
These numbers cannot be used to directly compare attitudes across different attitudes objects, that's
why a semantic differential approach is needed.
Issues in the direct measurement of attitudes
- Sometimes persons might not be aware of their underlying attitude toward an object.
- Subtle differences in item presentation can influence responses.
- Impression management involves misrepresenting or faking one's responses so that the respondent
can present themselves in a favorable way → most important issue
Indirect (implicit) measures of attitudes
1. Evaluative priming:
A strength of an attitude indicates a strong association in memory between the object and a given
summary evaluation. (!) Fe. In front of a computer , the time between the word and pressing the
button (good/bad) for adjectives is the strength
We should be faster at classifying a positive adjective after seeing a stimulus prime that we like.
We also should be faster at classifying a negative adjective after seeing a prime we dislike. → the
presentation of the prime affects how fast we decide.
2. Implicit Association test (IAT). Like the EP it is based on the assumption that attitude objects
can activate evaluations. Persons are asked to classify adjectives (like the EP) and Attitude objects.
There are five blocks: 1) Guy/girl names, 2) positive/negative adjectives, 3) Names/adjectives, 4)
Same as 2 but reversed, 5) Same as 3 but reversed.
The key blocks are three and five: they measure the strength of association between an attitude
object and evaluations. If response time is shorter for block three than for block five is the IAT
effect.
Performance on th IAM van be affected by extrapersonal associations, knowledge about what others
think about the object. Solution: making the tasks in the AIT more personal.
The AIT is also adopted for use in non-adult populations.
Other types of implicit measures of attitudes
1) Other than computer researchers can also use paper-and-pencil IAT tasks. Respondents are then
asked to sort the names adjectives in the male/positive column and the female/negative column. The
score is the difference between number of correct categorizations.
2) Galvanic skin response (GSR): activity in the sweat glands would increase skin conductance
and higher scores would reflect greater stress. → but could be elecited by positive + negative
responses.
3) Pupilarry dilation: the pupil of the eye expand in more light when people see things they like.
This method is less sensitive to valence and more sensitive tot the attention.
