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Attitudes & Persuasion - Coggle Diagram
Attitudes & Persuasion
Attitudes
Definitions
- Relatively enduring ABC towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols
- General feeling / evaluation about person / object / issue (+ve or -ve)
- Relatively permanent (across time & situations)
- Socially significant events/objects
- Generalisable / abstract (not one off)
3 component attitude model
- Cognitive (thinking)
- Affective (feeling)
- Behavioural (acting)
Function
- To save energy
- Object appraisal (+ve, -ve)
Cognitive consistency theories
- People strive to maintain consistency among cognitions
- Motivated to change 1+ contradictory beliefs
Balance theory (Heider)
- P = person
- O = other person
- X = attitude/object/topic
- Balanced if odd no. +ve
- Restore balance with least effort
- Prefer to agree, assume others like the same
- May isolate instead of resolving
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Measuring Attitudes
Explicit - aware
Likert scale
- 5-point scale, strongly disagree -> agree
- Score summed to get index
- 1/2 items reversed (acquiescence response bias)
Self-report
- Ask directly - usually honest answers
- Pros: simple, quick, large samples
- Cons: oversimplifies complex issues, extensive testing to determine validity/reliability of scale
Physiological
- Skin resistance, heart rate, pupil dilation, blood/saliva cortisol, facial movements, brain activity (social neuroscience)
- Pros: cannot alter response intentionally, don't know being assessed
- Cons: sensitive to other variables, info about intensity not direction of feeling
Bogus pipeline
- People convinced connected to lie detector
- Pros: reveal real attitudes
- Cons: not everyone convinced, may not divulge, feel tricked
Observational / unobtrusive
- e.g. count wine bottles, check records, non-verbal behaviour
- Pros: people behave naturally, reveal attitudes unwilling to admit
- Cons: less reliable, may not measure what you think
Implicit - unaware
IAT
- Tests reaction time when matching concepts
- If attitude exists -> association stronger -> act quicker
- Pros: better for socially sensitive domains, unaware attitudes
- Cons: unknown predictive validity (IAT -> behaviour)
Language use
- Review discourse & non-verbal comms
- e.g. concrete vs abstract language
Priming
- Activate category to influence processing of new info
- Make judgement more quickly when attitude congruent with correct response
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Persuasion Models
Elaboration-Likelihood
- Elaboration = thought (amount & nature)
- High / important -> central route -> attend carefully -> argument quality / content important
- Low / unimportant -> peripheral route -> don't attend -> persuasion cues & source important
- More encompassing theory
Heuristic-Systematic
- Attend carefully -> systematic (logical reasoning)
- Don't attend -> heuristics (shortcuts)
Dual processing routes
- Switch when sufficiency threshold reached
(not confident in attitude)
- Affected by mood
Reducing Persuasion
Inoculation
- Weak counterargument (with refutation) -> strengthen position -> resist future persuasion
Reactance
- Reinforce attitude when someone tries to change it (rebound)
- Because trying to protect freedom
- Situational + trait
Forewarning
- Advance knowledge of attempt -> resist persuasion
Other
- Divert attention / avoid
- Actively argue against
- Can self-regulate