Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Attitude
Attitude
Initial thoughts
Attitudes and expression of identity
– Identity function
– Utilitarian function
Interdiscplinary analysis
– Behaviorism
– Other fields
Classic debate: attitude neutrality (?)
Neutrality vs. Ambivalence vs. “No information”
– Measurement?
Societal value
Possible?
Why Neutrality is Difficult
#1 Automaticity of attitudes
#2: mere exposure effect
Zajonc (1968)
– The “Turkish word” study
e.g., saricik, kadirga, ikitaf
0, 1, 2, 5, 10, or 25 exposures
Test phase:
–“old” vs. and “new” symbols
–Recognition task: chance level
–Liking: old symbols preferred
Additional information about mere exposure effect
The effects of repeated exposure depend on initial
appraisal of the stimulus
Abortion
Pro-life vs. pro-choice; “fetus” vs. “unborn child”, etc…
Cloning
Social
desirability
“true”
attitude
“Word
or non-
prime target decision word?”
Controlled
(conscious) Explicit
system tasks
The critics speak
“just another attitude measure”
predictive validity?
– see Lambert, Payne, Shaffer, & Ramsey (2005)
Automatic Implicit
system
tasks
Controlled Explicit
system
tasks
Subliminal Advertising?
Historical Background
The James Vicary incident (late 1950s)
– Popcorn sales increase by 50%, he says.
Media reaction:
Minds have been “broken and entered” (The New Yorker,
9/21/57)
“The most alarming and outrageous discovery” since the