David Myers

11e
Behavior and Attitudes

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 Chapter Four
Attitude is a leaning toward or against some
attitudinal object

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Attitude

Favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward

something or someone
 How well do attitudes predict behavior?
 When does our behavior affect our attitude?
 Why does our behavior affect our attitudes?
 Changing ourselves through action.
ABCs of attitudes: (know them!)
 Affect (feelings)
 Behavior…tendency
 Cognition (belief - thinking)

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How Well Do Our Attitudes Predict Our Behavior?
People’s expressed attitudes hardly predicted their
varying behaviors
Student attitudes toward cheating bore little relation to
the likelihood of their cheating
Attitudes toward the church were only modestly linked
with worship attendance on any given Sunday
Self-described racial attitudes provided little clue to
behaviors in actual situations
Ps told to assign a task (pos or neg) to themselves or
partner…engaged in “moral hypocrisy”.
 “appearing moral while avoiding the costs of being so”
How so? (Batson et al., ‘97)
Other examples?
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How Well Do Our Attitudes Predict Our Behavior?
When Attitudes Predict Behavior
When social influences on what we say are minimal
 Implicit
 Implicit association test (IAT) (Greenwald, ’02)

 Caution! - reliability and validity may be questionable

(Arkes & Tetlock, ‘04)
 Implicitbiases are pervasive
 People differ in implicit bias

 People are often unaware of their implicit biases

 Explicit

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How Well Do Our Attitudes Predict Our Behavior?
When Attitudes Predict Behavior
When other influences on behavior are minimal
 - many situational influences!
 Think of some that influence your class attendance
 So look at averaging and aggregating them all.
 How well do religious attitudes predict religious behaviors?
When attitudes specific to the behavior are examined
 E.g. costs and benefits for jogging
 Theory of planned behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein)

- Behavioral intentions
When attitudes are potent
 Self-awareness
 usea mirror for each student during the exam?
 Would this reduce cheating? (Diener & Wallbom, ‘76)

 Forge strong attitudes through experience

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When Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes?
Behavior -> attitudes
We search for and find reasons for explaining
behaviors when the reason is not readily apparent
Role Playing
Role
 Set of norms that defines how people in a given social
position ought to behave
Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford’s prison study
 Abu Ghraib controversy

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When Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes?
When Saying Becomes Believing
When there is no compelling external explanation for
one’s words, saying becomes believing
 Remember self-perception theory?

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When Does Our Behavior Affect
Our Attitudes?
Foot-in-the-Door Phenomenon
Tendency for people who have first agreed to a small
request to comply later with a larger request
 Perceived ‘free will’ also necessary.
 Low-ball technique
 Tactic for getting people to agree to something. People who

agree to an initial request will often still comply when the

requester ups the ante
 Used by some car dealers

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When Does Our Behavior Affect
Our Attitudes? Beh-> attitudes
Evil and Moral Acts
Wartime
 Actions and attitudes feed on each other
 When evil behavior occurs we tend to justify it as right

 Boca Haram in Nigeria? Wilayat Gharb Afriqiya

Peacetime
 Moral action, especially when chosen rather than coerced,
affects moral thinking

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When Does Our Behavior Affect
Our Attitudes?
Interracial Behavior and Racial Attitudes
Racial behaviors help shape our social consciousness
 By doing, not saying racial attitudes were changed
 Legislating morality (supreme court and Coleman report)

 Why was forced bussing such a failure? (S. Cook)

 No “perceived choice or equal status”

Social Movements
Political and social movements may legislate behavior
designed to lead to attitude change on a mass scale
-should we pledge allegiance to the flag? Sing the national
anthem?
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Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our
Attitudes?
Self-Presentation: Impression Management
 Strategic objective -
Assumes that people, especially those who self-monitor
their behavior hoping to create good impressions, will
adapt their attitude reports to appear consistent with their
actions
Cognitive Dissonance ( reduce discomfort)
 beliefs don’t fit…a need for consistency and logic
Self-perception theory
 (when uncertain, we look to our behavior and make self-
attributions)
 Billy Graham revival

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Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes?
Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance (L Festinger)
Tension that arises when one is simultaneously aware of
two inconsistent cognitions
 To reduce this tension, we adjust our thinking
 Is smoking dangerous?

 A revision of attitudes after no weapons were found (2003)?

 Engage in “selective exposure” what is that?

 Is it more or less likely to happen in the world of the internet?

Insufficient justification
 Reduction of dissonance by internally justifying one’s behavior
when external justification is “insufficient”
 - which was more interesting? The $1 or $20 dollar payment?

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Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes?
Self-Justification: Cognitive Dissonance
Dissonance after decisions
 Deciding-becomes-believing effect (J. Brehm)
 -”choice influences preference”

 Value of what we chose is enhanced after we buy it.

 Do children and monkeys do it too?

 Can breed overconfidence

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Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our Attitudes?
- a simpler theory --
Self-Perception Theory (D. Bem, ‘72)
When we are unsure of our attitudes, we infer them
much as would someone observing us, by looking at our
behavior and the circumstances under which it occurs
 Expressions and attitude
 Over- justification (Festinger & Carlsmith) and

 Intrinsic motivations (Deci & Ryan)

 Can being paid for work undermine intrinsic motivation?

 Do we undermine intrinsic interest in education by giving

grades? And testing?

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Why Does Our Behavior Affect Our
Attitudes?
Comparing the Theories
Self-Perception Theory (explains attitude formation)
Dissonance Theory (explains attitude change)
Dissonance as Arousal
“self-affirming” reduces threats to our integrity
Self-Perceiving when Not Self-Contradicting
Changing Ourselves Through Action

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