ATTITUDE

CHANGE

Overview

Attitude-behaviour problem: how do

internal mental activities relate to overt
behaviour? (attitudebehaviour relations)
To what degree our are attitudes internally
organised?
Why do so many people share similar
attitudes on particular issues?

Research strands

Early phase 40s-50s: interest in attitude

change & empirical research on persuasive
communication
60s-70s: focus on attitude organization in
terms of maintenance of cognitive
consistency (e.g., dissonance theory)
80s-90s: back to attitude change, more
general theories (e.g., ELM, HSM)

Moderator variables:
Under what conditions do what kinds of
attitudes of what kinds of individuals predict
what kinds of behaviour?
Situational moderators; attitudinal qualities;
personal moderators, individual differences;
behavioural properties

Three components

Thoughts (information)
Feelings (classical conditioning)
Actions (instrumental conditioning/
modelling)

Can we change attitudes by changing these

components?

Attitudes changed by persuasive

mechanisms (central/peripheral)

Attitudes also changed on foot of changing

behaviour

Counter-attitudinal advocacy
Cognitive dissonance/Self-perception theory

Thoughts
Changed by persuasive communications (i.e.,
new information)

What qualities makes a communication

persuasive?
How does persuasion occur?
When do people resist persuasive
communications?

Qualities of communication
Three important factors:
1. Source
2. Content
3. Audience

How does persuasion occur?

By what psychological mechanisms do attitudes
guide behaviour?
Two Dual Process models of persuasion (drawn
from memory research - Depth of Processing)

Petty & Cacioppo 1981 Elaboration-Likelihood

Model ELM
Chaiken 1980 Heuristic Systematic Model HSM

Deliberative (reasoned action, planned behaviour

models) vs. automatic processing modes

2 routes
Peripheral, relatively spontaneous

resultant attitude change = temporary, unlikely to

predict behaviour, susceptible to further change

Central, relatively deliberate

resultant attitude change = relatively permanent,

likely to predict behaviour, resistant to further
change

When do people resist?

When forewarned, psychological reactance

When innoculated by previous success

counterarguing persuasive communications

When high need for cognitive closure

When use Defensive strategies (e.g.,

Differentiation; Transference)

in

Denial; Bolstering;

Feelings
Classically conditioned by repeated
association of attitude object with positive
or negative events.
Peripheral route

2 ways to change peoples attitude feelings:

Put people in a good mood
Classically condition the attitude
Do feelings ever change without thought?
Conditioning without awareness
Mere exposure
Match attitude change with attitude basis

Actions
Changed through rewards & modelling
Induced compliance

If negatively aroused by inconsistency

Where no strong attitudes, infer
thoughts/feelings from actions

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Festinger 1957
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Festinger/
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/index.htm
We change our attitudes to reduce the aversive arousal
we experience when we have two cognitions or
thoughts that contradict each other or are dissonant.
To change
thoughts, get people to act
counterattitudinally

Circumstances when attitudes change

because of cognitive disssonance

Postdecisional dissonance
Effort justification
Insufficient justification (Festinger & Carlsmith 1959)
Insufficient deterrence (Aronson & Carlsmith 1963)

Attitude change occurs only when:

There are aversive consequences to the action

Person assumes personal

causing those consequences

Person who performs action experiences aversive

arousal that is attributed to action

Person has no attractive way to reduce arousal

other than through attitude change

responsibility

for

Do people infer their attitudes from their

actions?

Self perception theory Bem 1967

People who do not have strong attitudes

sometimes infer their thoughts and feelings
from their own actions.

Attitudes change when people have such

weak attitudes that counterattitudinal
behaviour does not cause negative arousal.

Schachter & Singer 1962 2 factor theory of

emotion

Attitude change occurs when:

The action is one that logically implies a corresponding

attitude

People do not spontaneously remember what their

attitude used to be and draw the same conclusion from
their action as an uninvolved observer

People experience no physiological arousal that they

need to explain

A previously attractive option becomes dictated by

external controls

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Some critics suggest actually testing:

Sociological mores not psychological laws

Not consistency but norms of conduct in
which inconsistency looks bad
Impression management (Goffman 1959)

Reading:
(Ch 6, Hogg & Vaughan) esp. Fazio &
Cooper 1984
Chapter 4. Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. &
Donaghue, N. (2006) (2nd ed.). Social
Cognition. London: Sage.