Attitudes and Attitude Change

Monday, September 26, 2016

6:00 PM
 
Attitude: A favorable or unfavorable leaning toward an object/product/brand/people etc
 
Affect: Emotion(liking/disliking responses)
 
Behavior: Attitudes are highly predictive of future behavior
 
Cognition: Beliefs
 
Multi-attribute model of attitudes (Fischbein model)
 
Overall Attitude is a function of their evaluation or beliefs about specific attributes of that object.
 
A(jk) = sum of B(ijk) * I(jk)
 
A= overall attitude of something
B= Belief
I= Importance weight
i= specific attribute
j= specific brand
k= specific consumer
 
Ajk =overall atribute of something by a specific consumer about a specific brand
Bijk= belief of a consumer about a specific attribute about a specific brand
 
 
4.0 scale Good Value Comfort Reliability Safety Overall

Honda 3 3 4 3 3.3

Toyota 3 3.5 4 3 3.45

Dodge 4 2.5 3 3.5 3.15

Importance(sum to 1) .2 .3 .3 .2  
 
How should Dodge drive up their overall scores?
 
Play up the category you are strong in, to increase the Importance score in people's mind
 
Improve an important aspect where you are behind, check if it is an engineering issue or an
advertising/perception issue
 
Negative Ads don't work as well in commercial space because people not buying a product at all
don't benefit anyone including you.
 
1.Improve your own rating on your weak attributes
2.Lower your competitor's rating on some attributes(direct comparison advertising)
3.Increase the perceived importance of an attributes you are strong on.
4.Decrease the perceived importance of an attribute where you don't have an advantage.
5.Add an attribute(especially one where you have a sustainable advantage) to the consumer
mindshare.
6.Target consumer segment to which your strong attribute is already important
 
Apple(perceived as easy to use), targeted Kids and non-techies(Graphic Designers, Musicians etc.)
 
Sometime a negative affect overwhelms all others due to imbalanced perceived weight(fear of
flying etc)
 
"Halo Effect"
 
Coined by Thorndike
 
Score Objective(Test score) Subjective (Officer Rating)

Intelligence Low correlation High correlation

Physical Ability Low correlation High correlation

Moral character Low correlation High correlation

 
Officer start with a global attribute on whether the solider is good or bad, and once that is set they
will receive higher credit if they are viewed as a good solider overall.
 
If consumer have a global positive attitude about the overall brand, they will give them higher
subjective score on attribute such as safety.
 
Balance Theory
 
If Consumer have a positive attribute toward iPhone and negative attribute toward Child Labor
 
3 ways(can all happen) the Consumer can balance himself after reaching these conflicts
1. Think worse about the iPhone
2. Re-evaluate your attitude on Child labor
3. Deny the connection between iPhone and Child labor
 
The attitude or belief that is most strongly held will win out and not change
 
Consumer satisfaction scores are mostly dependent on whether product exceeded expectations
 
Persuasive communication
 
Rhetoric: Persuasive speeches, ability to sway the public to your view point
 
Logos: appeal by logic
Pathos: appeal to emotion
Ethos: appeal through own character
 
 
Persuasive communication
 
Source->Medium-> Message->Audience/Receiver
 
1. What's the impact of the Medium
2. What part of the source made it persuasive
3. What part of the message made it persuasive
 
Source: Source Creditability/Believability
Drivers of Creditability
1. Perceived Trustworthiness
2. Perceived Expertise
 
You question people's Trustworthiness when you think they have a conflict of interest
 
Liking/Perceived similarity to oneself

Gallop #1 most trusted profession: Nurses

Least: Politicians/Lobbies/Car Salesman/Advertising Agents
 
To persuade through Ethos
 
Ad agency would use spokesperson/cite independent sources/product placement to increase
their ad's credibility
 
Sales person try to find connection with you, try to compliment you, etc. to improve their
perceived trustworthiness
 
Message
1. Vs 2- side arguments
1-side argument would be all positive
2-side argument would be mostly positive and acknowledge some negative compared the
other product, admit a small flaw of mine or small benefit of theirs to make yourself seem
 more credible. Say a negative that is mitigated by the buyer's perception( couch the price
gap as buying a premium product with premium quality etc.)
 
Acknowledging a weakness
 
Why When

Increase credibility Hostile Audience

Reduce(counter argument options) Audience will learn about the negatives later anyway

Inoculation (build up resistance) Well educated audience

 
Fear Appeals
 
Fear appeal can be very effective in certain circumstances
 
Recommending dental care
 
Mildest fear appeal was most effective for dental care, the Most serious fear appeal were tuned
out by the patients because they are too scary and don't seem credible.
 
Fear appeal must be based on credible threat, must give them an easy way to avoid this threat.
 
Smoker engage in denial about the threat of smoking because it is very difficult to quit(avoid the
threat)
 
People tend to be more afraid of an imminent threat than a threat down the road.
 
Drivers: 80% of drivers think they are above average drivers, 15% think they are average, 5% think
they are below average, People have exaggerated evaluation about themselves.
 
 
Use of Humor
 
Could decrease credibility/might not be useable for certain product categories
 
Overshadowing the actual message
 
Must integrate with the message, unrelated humor hurts consumer's recall
 
Media context effects
 
You could have the same message but the effect can be different in the context of one program vs
another program
 
Priming: give context to your ad(Home invasion show priming Home Security product)
 
Rub off: the credibility of the media network transfer to the ad/message.
 
Receiver/Audience effect
 
Are there certain category of audience that are generally more persuadable
 
Age: Younger are more persuadable
 
Depth of Processing:
 
Some circumstance where people engage in really in-depth processing of a persuasive message
 
If people have a higher ability to process the message and also have a high motivation
 
Then Persuasion effectiveness are driven by the strength of the argument.
 
But Often
 
People have a very low depth of processing for the message(especially ads)
 
When People have low ability to process
 
When People have limited time to process
 
When People have low motivation to process
 
Then people are influenced by Superficial ques(does the person look credible, does the appeal
touch myself personally, etc )