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Chapter 4
Attitudes: Evaluating the Social
World
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Chapter Outline
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Attitude Formation
Attitude Functions
Link Between Attitudes and Behavior
Persuasion
Cognitive Dissonance
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Attitudes
• Attitudes—evaluations of various aspects
of the social world
– The study of attitudes is a major topic within
the field of social psychology.
• They represent a very basic component of social
cognition.
• They often influence behavior, especially when
they are strong, accessible, and long-standing.
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Attitude Formation
• How Attitudes Develop
– Social Learning—the process through which
people acquire new information, forms of
behavior, or attitudes from other persons
– Three learning processes are important to the
development of attitudes.
• Classical Conditioning—learning in which one
stimulus becomes a signal for the presentation of
another stimulus (learning by association)
– Subliminal Conditioning—classical conditioning of
attitudes by exposure to stimuli that are below individuals’
threshold of conscious awareness
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Attitude Formation
• How Attitudes Develop
• Instrumental Conditioning—learning in which
responses (e.g., attitudes) that lead to positive outcomes
or which avoid negative outcomes are strengthened
• Observational Learning—learning in which individuals
acquire new forms of behavior (e.g., attitudes) as a
result of observing others
– Media exposure can influence attitude formation.
» Third-Person Effect—the impact of media exposure on
others’ attitudes and behaviors is overestimated and the
impact on the self is underestimated
– Social Comparison to people that are liked also plays a role in
learning attitudes from others and people learn attitudes from
those they like and respect.
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Attitude Functions
• Attitude formation is a basic cognitive process
that can be viewed as almost automatic.
– Mere Exposure
• People form attitudes toward things that they have seen
before, but do not necessarily remember seeing.
– Attitudes serve many functions.
• The Knowledge Function—attitudes aid in the
interpretation of new stimuli and enable rapid
responding to attitude-relevant information (in ways
that maintain them).
– Attitudes help to make sense of the social world quickly.
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Attitude Functions
– Attitudes serve many functions.
• The Identity or Self-Expression Function—attitudes
can permit the expression of central values and beliefs
and thereby communicate personal identity.
– This can include group membership and identity.
» People are more likely to adopt the attitude position of
someone with whom they share an important identity.
• The Self-Esteem Function—holding particular
attitudes can help maintain or enhance feelings of
self-worth.
– Attitudes based on moral convictions are good predictors of
behavior.
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Attitude Functions
– Attitudes serve many functions.
• The Ego-Defensive Function—claiming particular
attitudes can protect people from unwanted or
unflattering views of themselves.
– For example, when prejudiced people state that they are
against prejudice and discrimination they protect themselves
from seeing that they are actually bigoted.
• The Impression Motivation Function—people can use
attitudes to lead others to have a positive view of
themselves. When motivated to do so, the attitudes
people express can shift in order to create the desired
impression on others.
– Attitudes that serve an impression motivation function can
lead people to formulate arguments that support their views.
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Attitude Formation and Functions
• What are your thoughts?
– How is an attitude formed through the process of
classical conditioning or subliminal conditioning?
– What are examples of attitudes that people learn
from the media?
• Are there problems with learning attitudes from the
media?
– If so, what are they?
– What functions do your attitudes serve?
• Are people always aware of why they hold the attitudes
that they do?
– What are consequences of not being aware of these functions?
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Link Between Attitudes and Behavior
• Role of the Social Context
– Social attitudes do not always predict behavior.
• LaPiere (1934) found that the actions of business
owners did not match their attitudes.
– Businesses gave the Chinese couple traveling with him very
good service.
– But, they expressed negative attitudes in written responses to
LaPiere, saying that they would not offer service to Chinese
customers.
• Attitudes differentially predict behavior depending on
how public the action is and whether there are
potential social consequences.
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Link Between Attitudes and Behavior
• When and Why Do Attitudes Influence
Behavior?
– Situational constraints that affect attitude
expression
• People’s assumptions about the attitudes of others and
what they think others will think of them can be better
predictors of behavior than their actual attitudes.
– And, due to pluralistic ignorance, people can be wrong about
what attitudes they think others hold.
– Strength of attitudes
• Strong attitudes are better predictors of behavior than are
weak attitudes.
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Link Between Attitudes and Behavior
– Attitude extremity
• An important factor in determining attitude intensity is
vested interest.
– When people are affected by an object or issue (they have a
strong vested interest), their attitudes will have a larger impact
on their behavior.
» And, personal relevance increases the development of
arguments to support the attitude.
– Role of personal experience
• Direct experience with an attitude object/issue results in
a stronger link between the attitude and behavior.
– Attitudes formed by direct experience are more accessible.
» Accessible attitudes are more likely to determine behavior.
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Link Between Attitudes and Behavior
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Link Between Attitudes and Behavior
• How Do Attitudes Guide Behavior?
– Attitudes arrived at through reasoned thought
• Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Azjen, 1980)—
the decision to engage in a particular behavior is the
result of a rational process in which behavioral options
are considered, consequences or outcomes of each are
evaluated, and a decision is reached to act or not to act.
– That decision is reflected in behavioral intentions, which
strongly influence overt behavior.
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Link Between Attitudes and Behavior
• How Do Attitudes Guide Behavior?
• Theory of Planned Behavior—in addition to attitudes
toward a given behavior and subjective norms about it,
individuals also consider their ability to perform the
behavior (perceived behavioral control).
– This theory is an extension of the theory of reasoned action.
– Behavioral intentions are determined by attitudes toward a
behavior, subjective norms, and also perceived behavioral
control.
• Both theories are useful in predicting the link between
attitudes and behavior.
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Link Between Attitudes and Behavior
• How Do Attitudes Guide Behavior?
– Attitudes and spontaneous behavioral reactions
• Attitude-to-Behavior Process Model (Fazio, 1989)—
emphasizes the influence of attitudes and stored
knowledge of what is appropriate in a given situation on
an individual’s definition of the present situation, which
then influences overt behavior.
– Attitudes affect behavior in two ways.
• Attitudes can result in conscious deliberation in which
alternatives are weighed and people decide how to act.
• Or, attitudes spontaneously shape perceptions of the
situation and behavioral reactions.
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Link Between Attitudes and Behavior
• What are your thoughts?
– What accounts for pluralistic ignorance, people’s false
belief that others have different attitudes than they do?
• Which sources in society may be promoting this belief?
– Are attitudes formed by deliberate thoughts that guide
actions or do attitudes spontaneously shape
perceptions of the situation and behavioral reactions?
• Do situational factors determine how attitudes will guide
behavior?
– When are people more deliberate and when are they more
spontaneous?
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Persuasion
• Persuasion—efforts to change others’
attitudes through the use of various
kinds of messages
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Persuasion
– Communicators and Audiences (findings from early
research by Hovland, Janis, and Kelley, 1953)
• Communicators who are perceived as credible experts, are
attractive, speak rapidly, and appear confident are more
persuasive.
• Messages that do not appear to try to change attitudes are more
persuasive.
• Distraction can make people more likely to be persuaded.
• A two-sided approach is more persuasive when the audience’s
attitude is different from the communicator’s.
• Younger people (e.g., between the ages of 18 and 25) are more
likely to be persuaded than are older people.
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Persuasion
• The Cognitive Processes Underlying Persuasion
– Systematic versus heuristic processing
• Systematic Processing—involves careful consideration
of message content and ideas (argument strength matters)
– Central Route (to persuasion)—attitude change resulting from
systematic processing of information presented in persuasive
messages
• Heuristic Processing—involves the use of simple rules
or mental shortcuts (argument strength does not matter)
– Peripheral Route (to persuasion)—attitude change in response
to peripheral persuasion cues, e.g., expertise or status
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Persuasion
– According to the elaboration likelihood model (Petty
& Cacioppo, 1986) and the heuristic-systematic
model (Chaiken, et al., 1989), persuasion can occur
in two ways, differing in the amount of cognitive
effort or elaboration they require.
• People can take the central route (use systematic
processing).
• People can take the peripheral route (use heuristic
processing).
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Persuasion
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Persuasion
• Resisting Persuasion
– Reactance—negative reactions to threats to one’s
personal freedom
• Often increases resistance to persuasion and can even
produce negative attitude change or that opposite to what
was intended
• Is one reason why hard-sell persuasion attempts often fail
– Forewarning—advance knowledge that one is
about to become the target of an attempt at
persuasion and increases resistance to the
persuasion that follows
• Provides opportunity to develop counterarguments
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Persuasion
• Resisting Persuasion
– Selective Avoidance—tendency to direct attention
away from information that challenges existing
attitudes, which increases resistance to persuasion
• In addition, people seek information consistent with their
attitudes (selective exposure).
– Actively defend attitudes
• Generate counterarguments to refute opposing position
– Inoculation (McGuire, 1961)
• Exposure to arguments opposed to one’s attitudes, along
with arguments that refute these counterattitudinal
positions, can strengthen people’s original attitudes.
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Persuasion
• What are your thoughts?
– Why are younger people more persuadable than
older people?
– Do most voters take the central route or the
peripheral route when listening to the persuasive
messages of political candidates?
• What determines which route people take?
• What are the consequences for the political process of
taking the central route or the peripheral route?
– Are fear-based persuasive appeals effective at
changing attitudes and related behavior?
• What factors are important to consider when using fear?
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Cognitive Dissonance
• Cognitive Dissonance—an (unpleasant)
internal state which results when individuals
notice inconsistency between two or more
attitudes or between their attitudes and their
behavior
– Can result in attitude change
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Cognitive Dissonance
– People are motivated to reduce cognitive dissonance
and use the following strategies to do so (Aronson,
1968; Festinger, 1957).
• Change attitudes or behavior to be consistent with each
other
• Acquire information that supports attitude or behavior
• Engage in trivialization of the inconsistency, concluding
that the attitudes or behaviors are unimportant
• Also, people use indirect ways to restore positive selfevaluations, which is more likely when the dissonance
involves important attitudes or self-beliefs (Steele, 1988)
(e.g., they may use self-affirmation).
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Cognitive Dissonance
– Is dissonance really unpleasant?
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Cognitive Dissonance
– Is dissonance a universal human experience?
• Dissonance is universal, but the factors that produce it and
its magnitude are influenced by cultural factors.
– The spreading of alternatives (when making a decision people
tend to downplay the item they did not choose and promote the
item that they did choose) effect was found to be stronger for
Canadian students than for Japanese students (Heine & Lehman,
1997).
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Cognitive Dissonance
– Dissonance and attitude change: The effects of
Induced or Forced Compliance
• Dissonance and the less-leads-to-more effect
– Less reasons or rewards for performing an attitude-discrepant
behavior often results in more dissonance and thus greater
attitude change, since it gives people less justification.
– Effect only occurs when people believe that they have a choice
about performing the behavior and when they feel personally
responsible for their choice and its negative effects.
– Effect only occurs when people view the reward as a welldeserved payment, and not as a bribe.
• Dissonance is stronger and attitudes change more when
there is no real justification for engaging in attitudediscrepant behavior.
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Cognitive Dissonance
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Cognitive Dissonance
– When dissonance is a tool for beneficial changes in
behavior
• Dissonance can promote positive behavioral changes,
especially when it generates hypocrisy—publicly
advocating some attitudes or behavior and then acting in
a way that is inconsistent with these attitudes or behavior.
– For maximum effectiveness of this tool:
» People must publicly advocate the desired behaviors.
» People must be induced to think about their own failures to
engage in these behaviors in the past.
» People must be given access to direct routes to dissonance
reduction.
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Cognitive Dissonance
– What are your thoughts?
• What are the factors that increase the likelihood
that someone will experience cognitive
dissonance?
• Why are people motivated to reduce cognitive
dissonance?
• Why may dissonance be felt more strongly in
individualist cultures than in collectivist cultures?
• How could dissonance be used as a tool to
promote behaviors that conserve energy and
environmental resources?
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