Attitude Measurement

Carlos Torelli
Lu Wang
 Attitudes
• Measuring the unobservable in order to predict behavior
and to assess people’s responses to persuasion.
• Attitude properties:
– Evaluative
– Strength (accessibility, ambivalence, certainty, etc.)
– Cognitions vs. affect
– Functions
• Attitudes as systems interconnected with other systems.
• Not all attitudes are created equal: Attitudes can be self-
defining  potential measurement issues.
 Measuring Attitude
• Ways to know another person’s attitude
– Direct (Ask):
• Structured vs. unstructured
• One-item vs. multiple items (scales)
– Indirect:
• Observe reaction
• Observe behavior
• Judgmental biases
• IAT (automatic evaluation/associations)
– Physiological response
• Personal Attitudes vs. Shared (General)
Attitudes
 Structured vs. Unstructured
• Unstructured
– Advantages:
• Does not constrain people’s responses
• Provide rich data
• Especially useful during the early stages of investigating a particular
issue
• Structured
– Advantages:
• Easier for respondents to answer
• Easier for researcher to score
• Focus precisely on specific properties of the attitude
 Single-Item Direct Measures:
Example 1
– Do you agree or disagree with the following
statement: “I think Elizabeth Almond’s
mandatory recycling program is the best way
in which to deal with Clarkton’s trash crisis”?
 Single-Item Direct Measures:
Example 1
• Potential problems:
– Acquiescence bias
– What is it?
– Why does it occur?
– How to deal with it?
 Single-Item Direct Measures:
Example 2
• Do you favor tax increase to pay for
Clarkton’s garbage to be trucked to
another county, or do you think that
Elizabeth Almond’s mandatory recycling
proposal is a good idea?
 Single-Item Direct Measures:
Example 2
• Potential problems:
– Persuasive argument in favor of one point of
view
– What about people who do not agree with
either point of view?
– How to deal with these problems?
 Single-Item Direct Measures:
Example 4
• What is your opinion about the mandatory
recycling proposal: Do you favor it, oppose
it, or neither?
 Single-Item Direct Measures:
Example 4
• Potential problems:
– Limited response alternatives
– How to deal with it?
– Scale with a large or small number of options
– What is a moderate length?
 Single-Item Direct Measures:
Example 6
• How do you feel about proposed city
Bylaw C6-L573?
 Single-Item Direct Measures:
Example 6
• Potential problems:
– Knowledge problem
– Social desirability effect
– How to deal with it?
 What about
Multiple-Item Direct Measures?
• Examples of Multiple-item measures
– Thurstone equal-appearing intervals
– Likert
– Semantic Differentials
• Conversation metaphor
– Will respondents perceive multiple-item
questions as trying to get at new information?
– How should we deal with this problem?
 What Will You Do?
• Which method will you use if you are to
measure attitude in your research area?
• What are some of the criteria that help you
make the choice? (e.g. how much
time/resource do you have in constructing
the measure?)
 What About Indirect Measures?
• What is an implicit attitude?
– We have it but we don’t say it (i.e., editing)
– We are not conscious we have it (i.e., automatic evaluation)

• What does the IAT measure?

– Is it non-context dependent?
– Culturally nurtured associative structures or “true” individual’s
evaluations (i.e., cultural knowledge about a target-concept
association vs. my personal evaluation about the target)
• Is the IAT a measure of strength of association?
• Check this website https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/
 Attitude Strength
• Can strength-related dimensions be
studied in isolation?
– Measures of other strength-related properties
(i.e., repeated expression and elaboration)
– Manipulations that can eliminate differences
in one or more dimensions (i.e., distraction
task).
– Measures and manipulations might not be
interchangeable
 Self-Defining Attitudes
• What about measuring self-defining
attitudes?
– Self-presentation
– Contingencies of self-worth and editing of
responses
• Shall we anticipate whether certain
attitudes we want to measure are self-
defining?
– What should we do about it?
 Attitudes Toward Advertising
• Personal vs. Shared attitudes
– Which one is more important?
– Would both lead to same behaviors?
Interconnectedness of Attitudes
• If we want to measure attitude toward an object,
can the questionnaire itself change individual’s
prior attitudes? I f so, How can that happen?
– Changing cognitions through previously presented
information (i.e., other questions – context effects?)
– Affecting emotions toward the object (i.e., prejudice).
– Making accessible in memory certain behaviors (i.e.,
associating the objects to recently recalled behaviors)
– Measuring attitude toward related objects
(assimilation or contrast?)