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LECTURE 5
Attitudes and Behaviour
1)Administration
2)What are attitudes?
3)Origin of attitudes
4)How do we measure attitudes?
Explicit versus implicit measures
IAT – how did you do?
IAT video
5)Break
6)The attitude-behaviour link
Do attitudes determine behaviour?
Does behaviour determine attitudes?
7) Next Class
Questions?
Attitudes
Definition:
“An evaluation of a person, object, or idea”
Attitudes Towards:
(Likert Scale)
• Ice-cream
Very Very
negative positive
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• Asians
Very Very
negative positive
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• Nudity on TV
Very Very
negative positive
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Attitudes towards:
(Likert Scale)
• It is essential that all citizens exercise their right to vote if government is to
effectively reflect the will of the people.
Strongly Strongly
Disagree Agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• Homelessness in Canada is a serious social problem that needs attention.
Strongly Strongly
Disagree Agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
• I believe that a family with a mother and father is the best.
Strongly Strongly
Disagree Agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Where do attitudes come from?
(C) Cognitively Based Attitudes
• Based primarily on a person’s beliefs about the properties of an attitude object.
“I like this vacuum cleaner because this one picks up more dirt”
(A) Affectively Based Attitudes
• Based primarily on people’s feelings and values pertaining to the attitude
object
• Can be a sensory reaction (chocolate), conditioned (love warm comforters on
rainy days), or value-based (anti-abortion)
(B) Behaviourally Based Attitudes
• Based on an observation of how one behaves toward an attitude object
“I recycled, so I must have a positive attitude toward environmental issues”
Sometimes we might be ambivalent toward certain objects because of these
different determinants.
ABCs of attitudes
How do we measure attitudes?
Explicit vs. Implicit – Why Important?
Explicit Measures
• Likert Scales (already shown)
• Evaluation Thermometer
• Semantic Differential Scale
• Modern Prejudice
Evaluation Thermometer
Gay Men
Very favorable
100
50
0
Very unfavorable
Semantic Differential Scale
Gay Men
Bad ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ Good
Worthless ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ Valuable
Unpleasant ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ Pleasant
Boring ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ Interesting
Unfavorable ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ Favorable
Harmful ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ Beneficial
Modern Prejudice Scale
strongly strongly
disagree agree
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Gay men are getting too demanding in their push for
equal rights.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2. Prejudice against gay men is still a problem.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
3. The government should not help make any special effort to
help gay men because they should help themselves.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
How do we measure attitudes?
Implicit Measures
• Bogus Pipelines
• Reaction Time Measures - IAT
• Physiological Measures – EEG and fMRI (brain
activity), ECG (heart rate)
Bogus Pipeline Studies
Page & Sigall (1971)
A bogus pipeline fools people into disclosing their attitudes by
convincing them that a machine can be used to gauge their private
attitudes.
Participants hold a wheel that measures whether they agree with a
statement or not. Electrodes are attached to their arm and the fake
machine supposedly gauges their tendency to turn the wheel to the left
(disagree) or to the right (agree). This attitude machine was
demonstrated by showing participants how it worked on an attitude that
they had expressed earlier.
Once convinced that the machine worked, participants were asked
about their racial attitudes. Compared to control conditions, who were
not on the machine, these participants reported more negative attitudes
toward Blacks.
But is it possible that we are not even
aware of our implicit attitudes?
The Implicit Association Task and studies using physiological
measure suggests that this may in some instances be the case.
Did you test your Hidden Biases/Attitudes with the IAT?
Which IAT did you do?
What were the results?
IAT BIAS
Your results suggest:
Strong automatic preference for *
Moderate automatic preference for *
Slight automatic preference for *
Little or no automatic preference *
Slight automatic preference for *
Moderate automatic preference for *
Strong automatic preference for *
BLACK/WHITE IAT
unpleasant pleasant
or or
BLACKS WHITES
BLACK/WHITE IAT
unpleasant pleasant
or or
BLACKS WHITES
love
BLACK/WHITE IAT
unpleasant pleasant
or or
WHITES BLACKS
BLACK/WHITE IAT
unpleasant pleasant
or or
WHITES BLACKS
war
BLACK/WHITE IAT
Your results suggest:
Strong automatic preference for Whites
Moderate automatic preference for Whites
Slight automatic preference for Whites
Little or no automatic preference
Slight automatic preference for Blacks
Moderate automatic preference for Blacks
Strong automatic preference for Blacks
BLACK/WHITE IAT
Percentage of Total Respondents
Blacks/Whites IAT
Preference for Whites 70%
Little or no preference 17%
Preference for Blacks 12%
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz (1998)
Explicit vs. Implicit Measures of Bias
IAT and Semantic Differential Scale
Blacks (/Whites)
Bad ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ Good
Worthless ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ Valuable
Unpleasant ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ : ____ Pleasant
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5Q5FQfXZag
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz (1998)
Positive Ingroup Evaluations:
Blacks vs. Whites
Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17fEy0q6yqc
But can the IAT predict behaviour?
If so, what type of behaviour?
Explicit Implicit
Behaviour Behaviour
explicit attitudes predict Yes No
implicit attitudes predict No Yes
Questions?/Comments
The Attitude-Behaviour Link
Do attitudes determine behaviour?
What are the conditions under which attitudes
predict behaviour?
Attitudes can predict behaviour when:
1. we minimize social influence on attitudes
– Reduce social desirable responding (bogus pipeline,
implicit measures)
2. we match the level of specificity of attitudes
and behaviours
• General attitudes predict behaviours in general
• Specific attitudes predict specific behaviours
– The theory of planned behaviour
3. attitudes are strong
General attitudes predict behaviours in general
A general attitudes toward an object or a concept
may not predict any specific behavior but if we
average behaviours over many occasions, attitudes
can predict behaviour.
Principle of aggregation:
A person’s religious attitude may not predict
whether they go to church next weekend but it will
predict the total number of a wide array of religious
behaviours over time.
Specific attitudes predict specific behaviours.
A general attitudes will often not predict a specific
behavior.
But when attitude measures are directly pertinent to
the situation they will predict behavior in that
situation.
Theory of Planned Behavior
Ajzen & Fishbein, 1985
Specific
Attitude
(Subjective) Intentions Behaviour
Norms
Behavioral
Control
Theory of Planned Behavior
Problems with this theory:
- It is very rationale and deliberative.
- Intentions are not great predictors of behaviour.
- Attitudes sometimes have a direct relationship to spontaneous,
unintentional behaviour.
- It also can not explain habits which are very unthoughtful
actions.
- This theory also does not take into account our implicit attitudes
and how our behavior can also be influenced by these
evaluations that are often quite different than our explicit
attitudes.
Strong attitudes predict behaviours
(not all attitudes are equal)
People with a strong attitude:
• Often have acquired more information about the attitude
object
• Often are personally involved with the attitude object. It is
important to them.
• Often have had direct experience with an attitude object.
Strong attitudes are important because they are more
accessible. More accessible attitudes direct behaviour.
(e.g., I think we must protect the environment.)
Questions?
The Attitude-Behaviour Link
Do attitudes determine behaviour?
Sometimes.
Does behaviour determine attitudes?
Sometimes.
When and why?
Why and when do behaviours
change attitudes?
e.g., Donating money to foreign aid.
1. Self-Presentation (not actual attitude change)
2. Self-Justification - Cognitive Dissonance
3. Self-Perception
Self-Presentation
• To appear consistent (and avoid appearing foolish), we
express attitudes that match our actions
• Assumes conscious awareness of the discrepancy
between the real attitude and the presented attitude
• Not genuine attitude change
(e.g., If I donate money to a relief charity, I may state that I am more
positive toward this charity if I am with women who saw me give
money than if I was with a different group of women who did not
witness my initial donation.)
Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance
• Real change that occurs within the self.
• Tension arises when we are aware of
inconsistencies in the self
– You realize that your behaviour doesn’t match your
attitude
• To reduce that tension we often change our
attitudes to fit the behaviour
Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance
When?
1) Insufficient Justification
2) Postdecisional Dissonance
Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance
1) Insufficient Justification
We change our attitudes to be more consistent with our
behaviours if we act in a certain way that is not consistent
with our attitudes and we have no strong justification for
acting in this way. If we do have a reasonable
justification, we will not change our attitudes.
Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance
Classic Study: Festinger & Carlsmith (1959)
1.5
1
0.5
0
-0.5
-1
Control (no dissonance) $20 (low dissonance) $1 (high dissonance)
How much I enjoyed the experiment (-5 to +5)
Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance
2) Postdecisional Dissonance
People often reduce dissonance that is aroused
after making a decision by
- increasing their liking for the chosen item and
- decreasing their liking for the rejected item.
Post-decision Dissonance
Schultz, Leveille, & Lepper (1999)
Ask 13 year olds to rate the attractiveness of various posters.
Some children were allowed to choose between 2 posters they rated very
positively. After choosing, they rated the poster they rejected more
negatively than they had previously.
- Rejecting a positive objects produces dissonance. So you need to change
your attitude toward positive object that you reject.
Other children were allowed to choose between 2 posters they rated very
negatively. After choosing, they rated the poster they chose more positively
than they had previously.
- Choosing a negative object produces dissonance. So you need to change
your attitude toward negative object that chose. This effect was largest.
Arousal and Cognitive Dissonance
• Dissonance and the pill (Cooper & Zanna,
1974)
• Subjects were asked to write a counter-
attitudinal essay
– banning all speakers on campus
• Either an illusion of high choice or low choice
• Given a pill – told will be arousing, have no
effect, or be relaxing (really a placebo)
• Examine attitude change
Dissonance and the Pill
14
12
Attitude Change
10
8 High Choice
6 Low Choice
4
2
0
Arousal No effect Relaxation
Purported Pill Effect
Self-Perception Theory
• When unsure of our attitudes, we infer them by
observing our behaviour.
– Examples, eating cherry pie, listening to country
music channel (no one forcing me)
– Social Embodiment
– Overjustification Effect
Social Embodiment
Recent theorizing on embodiment suggest there is a close
relationship between bodily feedback and higher cognitions.
They assuming that actions and body movements can directly
influence our thoughts and attitudes.
For example, if we are evaluating cartoons when we holding
a pen with a mouth that grins rather than a circular mouth, we
will find the cartoons funnier.
Likewise, if we are evaluating Chinese ideographs when we
are pulling up on a table (upward flex) compared to when we
are pushing down on a table (downward extend), we will like
the object more.
The feedback from our body influences our attitudes.
Overjustification effect
“The result of paying people to do what they
already like doing,” may make the task less
intrinsically motivated and less likely to occur.
– This effect occurs when someone offers an
unnecessary reward beforehand in an effort to
control behaviour.
Overjustification effect
Deci (1971)
- Participants are initially allowed to play with puzzles.
- ½ subjects paid to solve puzzles
- ½ not paid
- next removed all rewards for the paid group.
- monitored who continued to work on the puzzle
Overjustification effect
Deci (1971)
Paid Group
Amount of Time played with puzzles
400
Unpaid Group
350
300
250
200
150
100
Baseline - Middle End
Beginning
Overjustification Effect
(Self-Perception Theory)
Getting paid for something you want to do. Getting paid for
doing puzzles when you like solving puzzles. No dissonance
here – I like solving puzzles and I am solving puzzles. My
attitude and my behaviour are consistent.
However, self-perceptions may lead people to believe that by
receiving an unnecessary reward for the behaviour they may
not really like the task so much - - that they are just doing it for
the money. They believe that the reason they are behaving like
they are is because of extrinsic rather than intrinsic motivations.
Underjustification Effect
(Cognitive Dissonance Theory)
Getting paid for something you don’t want to do. Getting paid to
tell someone that a task is fun when your real attitude is that it
is a boring task. Dissonance is that your behaviour and your
attitudes are not consistent.
Why am I telling this person it is a fun task when it is really
boring – it can’t be because of the money ($1), it wasn’t enough
to make me act that way, I must really like the task.
Questions?
Next Class
Class 6: Persuasion
