Attitudes and social cognition
ATTITUDES
• no single concept within the whole realm of social psychology occupies more clear central position than
that of attitudes
• the field of social psy = scientific study of attitudes (Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918)
• people are not neutral observers of the world
Attitudes:
- Evaluations of people, objects or ideas
- Help us deal with complex world
- making choices
- Guide behaviour
Structure of attitudes:
- Cognitive
- Affective
- Behavioural
STUDY- STRUCTURE OF ATTITUDES
• Cognitive, affective, behavioural responses to snakes rated
• only moderate correlations between components: (rs = .10 -.50)
• Affective might be the most important
• Affective attitudes towards presidential candidates better predict voting that cognitive attitudes
E.g.
Affective = “because of how he makes you feel”
Cognitive= “decent, compassionate, intelligent, moral, inspiring, knowledgeable, cares about
people like you, leadership, sets a good example, dishonest, weak, power hungry” (cognitive)
Affective information is more readily accessible in memory
People responded faster when asked to Mae attitude judgements based on their emotions
compared to cognitions
E.g.
Affective = “cheerless -cheerful”
Cognitive = “uninteresting -interesting”
ATTITUDES ARE BASIC
Preferences need no inferences
evaluations not prompted - happen automatically
Good and bad features of a stimulus “pop out” (emerge )
Even non-sense syllables evoke some evaluation (e.g. FEQ, DAT)
Attitudes are activated automatically
• Phase 1:
- participants rate 92 objects as good bad
- Pick the four strongest (responded to the fastest) and weakest (responded to the slowest) good
objects, four strongest and weakest bad objects (for next phase)
• Phase 2:
- presented with attitude objects selected from phase 1 (for 200ms)
- presented with positive and negative adjectives (appealing, awful) and have to pronounce the
words out loud
- Participants are not told evaluate the initial attitude object
, measure ow long it takes for people to pronounce the words as a function of the preceding
attitude object prime
ATTITUDES ARE ACTIVATED AUTOMATICALLY
• congruent abject-primes facilitated subsequent pronunciation with no explicit instruction to
evaluate the object
• no differences between object-primes that were initially evaluated fast or slow
• Object-primes are automatically evaluated, and perhaps irrespective of strength
Attitudes -> Behaviour
• Sometimes attitudes predict behaviour (rs > .50)
- voting and political behaviour
- consumer preferences
- phobias and anxieties
• Sometimes attitudes don’t (or weakly) predict beavers (rs < .25)
- cheating
- Conformity and racial behaviours
- close relationships
WHY IS THERE VARIABILITY IN THE ATTITUDE BEHAVIOUR LINK?
1. Measuring attitudes the wrong • Self-report measures
way? Direct and straightforward
• Attitude scales
Multi-item questionnaires designed to measure people’s attitudes
towards an object (e.g. Likert scale)
• Problems with Self-Report Scale
introspective access: we cant rely on what we aren't aware of
• Demands/ Expectations
we often export what we think the experimenter ‘wants’ or was is
socially desirable
Experimenters are susceptible to it too
• Self-esteem
Everyone thinks they are smarter than the average - keeps them happy
• Wording/ order
Wording the questions differently or presenting questions in a different
order can have drastic effects on results
, 2. We don't have stable atti- • Stable versus Flexible attitudes
tudes?
Stable = same across situations
E.g. I think it’s wrong to needlessly hurt animals
Flexible = diver across time or situation (situated cognition)
E.g. I like calling my parents
• Attitude flexibility influencers
Repeated exposure
Priming
Irrelevant contextual factors
• Attitude stability
Resist change (correlations between measurements at different times
range from .40 -.80)
Political orientation
Self-esteem
Ideology (social dominance orientation; Just-World Beliefs)
well informed attitudes are more resilient to change
3. Attitudes are too general to • General vs specific attitudes
predict specific behaviours? Perhaps only specific attitudes predict behaviour
“I like apples” (general) will not predict behaviour?
“I would like an apple tight now”(specific) will predict behaviour?
General racial attitudes in the 50s and 60s did not predict what you
would expect e.g. did not predict:
- having pictures taken with a Black person
- Signing a petition to extend the library hours after watching Black or
White confederate sign or refuse to sign the petition
by using self-reports behaviour as a proxy for attitudes, we can predict
outcomes well
asked people to indicate their general attitude towards church, and also
whether they did or didn't not perform each of the100 behaviour related
to church
- general attitudes did not predict behaviour
- aggregate measure of the 100 behaviour did (r= .65 circa)
4. The relationship between atti- • Theory of Planed Behaviour
tudes and behaviour is depen- links one's beliefs and behavior
dent on other cognitions? attitude toward behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral
control, together shape an individual's behavioral intentions and behav-
iors.
ATTITUDES
• no single concept within the whole realm of social psychology occupies more clear central position than
that of attitudes
• the field of social psy = scientific study of attitudes (Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918)
• people are not neutral observers of the world
Attitudes:
- Evaluations of people, objects or ideas
- Help us deal with complex world
- making choices
- Guide behaviour
Structure of attitudes:
- Cognitive
- Affective
- Behavioural
STUDY- STRUCTURE OF ATTITUDES
• Cognitive, affective, behavioural responses to snakes rated
• only moderate correlations between components: (rs = .10 -.50)
• Affective might be the most important
• Affective attitudes towards presidential candidates better predict voting that cognitive attitudes
E.g.
Affective = “because of how he makes you feel”
Cognitive= “decent, compassionate, intelligent, moral, inspiring, knowledgeable, cares about
people like you, leadership, sets a good example, dishonest, weak, power hungry” (cognitive)
Affective information is more readily accessible in memory
People responded faster when asked to Mae attitude judgements based on their emotions
compared to cognitions
E.g.
Affective = “cheerless -cheerful”
Cognitive = “uninteresting -interesting”
ATTITUDES ARE BASIC
Preferences need no inferences
evaluations not prompted - happen automatically
Good and bad features of a stimulus “pop out” (emerge )
Even non-sense syllables evoke some evaluation (e.g. FEQ, DAT)
Attitudes are activated automatically
• Phase 1:
- participants rate 92 objects as good bad
- Pick the four strongest (responded to the fastest) and weakest (responded to the slowest) good
objects, four strongest and weakest bad objects (for next phase)
• Phase 2:
- presented with attitude objects selected from phase 1 (for 200ms)
- presented with positive and negative adjectives (appealing, awful) and have to pronounce the
words out loud
- Participants are not told evaluate the initial attitude object
, measure ow long it takes for people to pronounce the words as a function of the preceding
attitude object prime
ATTITUDES ARE ACTIVATED AUTOMATICALLY
• congruent abject-primes facilitated subsequent pronunciation with no explicit instruction to
evaluate the object
• no differences between object-primes that were initially evaluated fast or slow
• Object-primes are automatically evaluated, and perhaps irrespective of strength
Attitudes -> Behaviour
• Sometimes attitudes predict behaviour (rs > .50)
- voting and political behaviour
- consumer preferences
- phobias and anxieties
• Sometimes attitudes don’t (or weakly) predict beavers (rs < .25)
- cheating
- Conformity and racial behaviours
- close relationships
WHY IS THERE VARIABILITY IN THE ATTITUDE BEHAVIOUR LINK?
1. Measuring attitudes the wrong • Self-report measures
way? Direct and straightforward
• Attitude scales
Multi-item questionnaires designed to measure people’s attitudes
towards an object (e.g. Likert scale)
• Problems with Self-Report Scale
introspective access: we cant rely on what we aren't aware of
• Demands/ Expectations
we often export what we think the experimenter ‘wants’ or was is
socially desirable
Experimenters are susceptible to it too
• Self-esteem
Everyone thinks they are smarter than the average - keeps them happy
• Wording/ order
Wording the questions differently or presenting questions in a different
order can have drastic effects on results
, 2. We don't have stable atti- • Stable versus Flexible attitudes
tudes?
Stable = same across situations
E.g. I think it’s wrong to needlessly hurt animals
Flexible = diver across time or situation (situated cognition)
E.g. I like calling my parents
• Attitude flexibility influencers
Repeated exposure
Priming
Irrelevant contextual factors
• Attitude stability
Resist change (correlations between measurements at different times
range from .40 -.80)
Political orientation
Self-esteem
Ideology (social dominance orientation; Just-World Beliefs)
well informed attitudes are more resilient to change
3. Attitudes are too general to • General vs specific attitudes
predict specific behaviours? Perhaps only specific attitudes predict behaviour
“I like apples” (general) will not predict behaviour?
“I would like an apple tight now”(specific) will predict behaviour?
General racial attitudes in the 50s and 60s did not predict what you
would expect e.g. did not predict:
- having pictures taken with a Black person
- Signing a petition to extend the library hours after watching Black or
White confederate sign or refuse to sign the petition
by using self-reports behaviour as a proxy for attitudes, we can predict
outcomes well
asked people to indicate their general attitude towards church, and also
whether they did or didn't not perform each of the100 behaviour related
to church
- general attitudes did not predict behaviour
- aggregate measure of the 100 behaviour did (r= .65 circa)
4. The relationship between atti- • Theory of Planed Behaviour
tudes and behaviour is depen- links one's beliefs and behavior
dent on other cognitions? attitude toward behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral
control, together shape an individual's behavioral intentions and behav-
iors.
