Why to have an eye to the future? - Chapter 11

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Summaries per chapter with the 3rd edition of The Psychology of Attitudes & Attitude Change by Maio et al. - Bundle

What are attitudes and how are they measured? - Chapter 1

What are attitudes and how are they measured? - Chapter 1

What is an attitude?

An attitude can be defined as "your likes and dislikes." It contains the expression of an evaluative judgment based on cognitive, behavioral and affective information. An attitude can vary in two different ways. For example, an attitude can vary in direction (valance), which means that there are both positive and negative attitudes. An attitude can also vary in strength, which means that a positive or negative attitude can be either very strong or weak. Attitude objects, an object where the attitude is about, can be anything that is liked or disliked. 

What is the history of attitude research?

An important study in the science of attitudes is the study of LaPiere (1934). He visited more than 250 hotels and restaurants with a Chinese couple. Since there was a considerable anti-Asian bias in America at the time, he expected that the Chinese couple would not be allowed to go into the restaurants and hotels as much, compared to him. However, it turned out that the Chinese couple did not receive any help in only one of restaurants and hotels they all attended. A few months later, LaPiere sent a letter to the same hotels and restaurants asking if they would admit Chinese people. Of the cases that answered the letter, only one hotel would admit Chinese people. This provided evidence that a person's attitude does not immediately determine the behavior that is displayed.

There are two different methods of developing a theory of attitudes.

  1. The first is the convergent method. This starts with a phenomenon, such as attitude change, for which an explanation is needed. Subsequently, a theory is invented behind this phenomenon.
  2. The second method is the divergent method. Theories are developed that can be applied to a large number of phenomena.

Research into the function of attitudes showed that the primary function is the so-called "object appraisal" function. This means that attitudes save energy for making a decision. In 1960 a new way of looking at attitudes was introduced. This so-called social cognition method mainly looked at how individuals process information. In 1970, research was mainly conducted into the question to what extent attitudes predict behavior. Attitudes turned out to be a fairly poor predictor of behavior. In 1980 the research focused mainly on the content of attitudes. Such as the question of how people organize their behavior, feelings and previous experiences about a certain attitude object.

What are ongoing developments?

Over the past two decades, research has mainly focused on attitudes strength. Strong attitudes differ from weak attitudes in a number of ways, such as being more durable and impactful. More specifically, strong attitudes are:

  • More stable and persistent over time.
  • They are more resistant to change.
  • They are more likely to influence information processing.
  • They are more likely to predict behavior.

There are three areas of study that made a great impact.

  1. The first one is advances in computer technology and concerns about the honesty of answers led researchers to develop new ways to measure those attitudes. Implicit attitudes have had the most impact because of these changes. Implicit measures assess attitudes without requiring an individual's direct awareness of how their attitude is being measured. 
  2. The second is about advances in technology that have also benefited attitude research via brain imaging techniques to study attitudes. Think about fMRI, MRI, EEG and MEG. 
  3. A third area of research is about evaluative conditioning processes in relation to how attitudes are being formed. Evaluative conditioning is the process in which repeated presentation of an attitude object paired with an affective sensation comes to elicit an evaluation of the attitude object. 

How are attitudes measured?

Attitudes can be measured both directly (explicitly) and indirectly (implicitly).

What are direct/explicit measures of attitudes?

Explicit measures are mainly questionnaires on which people fill in what they think of a particular topic. Examples of these questionnaires are: Self-report questionnaires; Equal appearing intervals method (EAI); Likert-Scale; Semantic differential approach.

However, there are a number of problems with this form of attitude measurement. For example, people are not aware of some attitudes and it is therefore difficult to find out about them in a direct way. Furthermore, the way an item is presented can influence the response of the subject. Finally, people often only complete the part in questionnaires what they think should be completed. Therefore, it is useful to be able to measure attitudes in an indirect (implicit) way.

What are indirect/implicit measures of attitudes?

When it comes to measuring implicit measures, the subject is able to give the most honest opinion because they will not be able to know which attitude is being measured. 

What is evaluative priming (EP)?

An example of this implicit way of measuring attitudes is evaluative priming, where strong connections between associations can be measured. For example, if someone absolutely dislikes peanut butter, there will be a stronger connection between the word peanut butter and the word bad for them. In evaluative priming, this is measured by presenting a number of words, after which one must press the word bad or the word good. The speed of printing determines the strength of the connection between this association.

What is implicit association task (IAT)?

Another example of an implicit method is the Implicit Association Task (IAT). This works in a similar way to evaluative priming but is a bit more extensive. It is based on the assumption that attitude objects can activate evaluations, which influence responses and the speed with which these responses are made. 

A wave of excitement was about the power of the measure, because it looked like respondents could not bias their scores. But people can, after some training, have some control over the influence of their attitudinal biases on responses in the IAT after training. However, there is a lot of criticism of this method of attitude measurement. For example, it is often mentioned as a point of criticism that an association is not the same as an attitude and that this conclusion is made too quickly.

What are other types of indirect measures of attitudes?

The Affect Misattribution Paradigm (AMP) is a measure implemented on a computer. Participants are shown images of an object with a certain attitude over a number of trials and then they are asked to quickly rate the pleasantness of an ambiguous stimulus, shown quickly after, while ignoring the stimulus before. 

New variations of the IAT have also been invented, thinking about a personalized IAT being a more effective measurement of attitude. This is because IAT can be influenced by extrapersonal associations, knowledge about what others think, or feel about the attitude of the object. Also, there has to be some refinement in the tackle of the spontaneous associations with the ingroup or outgroup that can have influence.

Another adaptation of the IAT assesses attitudes without a computer. But computers are not always available, and that is why paper-and-pencil IAT tasks have been developed. 

Other types of indirect measures of attitudes have been developed with a number of psychophysiological measures. These include the galvanic skin response (GSR), pupillary dilation, and facial electromyographic activity (facial EMG). 

Also, other physiological measures have shown promise. Event-related potentials (ERP) measure the electrical activity in the brain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) attempts to uncover brain areas associated with attitudinal responses assessing blood flow and blood oxygenation changes within the brain. 

Which issues are relevant to the measurement of attitudes?

A psychological measure must be reliable and valid. Reliability refers to the degree to which test scores are free from errors in measurement. In the context of attitude measurement, reliability has two important meanings: 

  1. Internal consistency refers to whether the items are all assessing the same psychological construct
  2. Test-retest reliability refers to consistency in scores across time, so it should give similar scores across repeated testing. 

The validity of the scale refers to the extent that it assesses the construct it is designed to measure.

What are the three "witches" of attitude? - Chapter 2
What is the influence of attitudes on information processing and behavior? - Chapter 3
How do attitudes influence behavior? - Chapter 4
What are cognitive influences on attitudes? - Chapter 5
What are the affective influences on attitudes? - Chapter 6
What are the behavioral influences on attitudes? - Chapter 7
What are basic principles of forming attitudes? - Chapter 8
What is the influence of the physical state and body on attitudes? - Chapter 9
What about the external world? - Chapter 10
Why to have an eye to the future? - Chapter 11

Summaries per chapter with the 3rd edition of The Psychology of Attitudes & Attitude Change by Maio et al. - Bundle

What are attitudes and how are they measured? - Chapter 1

What are attitudes and how are they measured? - Chapter 1

What is an attitude?

An attitude can be defined as "your likes and dislikes." It contains the expression of an evaluative judgment based on cognitive, behavioral and affective information. An attitude can vary in two different ways. For example, an attitude can vary in direction (valance), which means that there are both positive and negative attitudes. An attitude can also vary in strength, which means that a positive or negative attitude can be either very strong or weak. Attitude objects, an object where the attitude is about, can be anything that is liked or disliked. 

What is the history of attitude research?

An important study in the science of attitudes is the study of LaPiere (1934). He visited more than 250 hotels and restaurants with a Chinese couple. Since there was a considerable anti-Asian bias in America at the time, he expected that the Chinese couple would not be allowed to go into the restaurants and hotels as much, compared to him. However, it turned out that the Chinese couple did not receive any help in only one of restaurants and hotels they all attended. A few months later, LaPiere sent a letter to the same hotels and restaurants asking if they would admit Chinese people. Of the cases that answered the letter, only one hotel would admit Chinese people. This provided evidence that a person's attitude does not immediately determine the behavior that is displayed.

There are two different methods of developing a theory of attitudes.

  1. The first is the convergent method. This starts with a phenomenon, such as attitude change, for which an explanation is needed. Subsequently, a theory is invented behind this phenomenon.
  2. The second method is the divergent method. Theories are developed that can be applied to a large number of phenomena.

Research into the function of attitudes showed that the primary function is the so-called "object appraisal" function. This means that attitudes save energy for making a decision. In 1960 a new way of looking at attitudes was introduced. This so-called social cognition method mainly looked at how individuals process information. In 1970, research was mainly conducted into the question to what extent attitudes predict behavior. Attitudes turned out to be a fairly poor predictor of behavior. In 1980 the research focused mainly on the content of attitudes. Such as the question of how people organize their behavior, feelings and previous experiences about a certain attitude object.

What are ongoing developments?

Over the past two decades, research has mainly focused on attitudes strength. Strong attitudes differ from weak attitudes in a number of ways, such as being more durable and impactful. More specifically, strong attitudes are:

  • More stable and persistent over time.
  • They are more resistant to change.
  • They are more likely to influence information processing.
  • They are more likely to predict behavior.

There are three areas of study that made a great impact.

  1. The first one is advances in computer technology and concerns about the honesty of answers led researchers to develop new ways to measure those attitudes. Implicit attitudes have had the most impact because of these changes. Implicit measures assess attitudes without requiring an individual's direct awareness of how their attitude is being measured. 
  2. The second is about advances in technology that have also benefited attitude research via brain imaging techniques to study attitudes. Think about fMRI, MRI, EEG and MEG. 
  3. A third area of research is about evaluative conditioning processes in relation to how attitudes are being formed. Evaluative conditioning is the process in which repeated presentation of an attitude object paired with an affective sensation comes to elicit an evaluation of the attitude object. 

How are attitudes measured?

Attitudes can be measured both directly (explicitly) and indirectly (implicitly).

What are direct/explicit measures of attitudes?

Explicit measures are mainly questionnaires on which people fill in what they think of a particular topic. Examples of these questionnaires are: Self-report questionnaires; Equal appearing intervals method (EAI); Likert-Scale; Semantic differential approach.

However, there are a number of problems with this form of attitude measurement. For example, people are not aware of some attitudes and it is therefore difficult to find out about them in a direct way. Furthermore, the way an item is presented can influence the response of the subject. Finally, people often only complete the part in questionnaires what they think should be completed. Therefore, it is useful to be able to measure attitudes in an indirect (implicit) way.

What are indirect/implicit measures of attitudes?

When it comes to measuring implicit measures, the subject is able to give the most honest opinion because they will not be able to know which attitude is being measured. 

What is evaluative priming (EP)?

An example of this implicit way of measuring attitudes is evaluative priming, where strong connections between associations can be measured. For example, if someone absolutely dislikes peanut butter, there will be a stronger connection between the word peanut butter and the word bad for them. In evaluative priming, this is measured by presenting a number of words, after which one must press the word bad or the word good. The speed of printing determines the strength of the connection between this association.

What is implicit association task (IAT)?

Another example of an implicit method is the Implicit Association Task (IAT). This works in a similar way to evaluative priming but is a bit more extensive. It is based on the assumption that attitude objects can activate evaluations, which influence responses and the speed with which these responses are made. 

A wave of excitement was about the power of the measure, because it looked like respondents could not bias their scores. But people can, after some training, have some control over the influence of their attitudinal biases on responses in the IAT after training. However, there is a lot of criticism of this method of attitude measurement. For example, it is often mentioned as a point of criticism that an association is not the same as an attitude and that this conclusion is made too quickly.

What are other types of indirect measures of attitudes?

The Affect Misattribution Paradigm (AMP) is a measure implemented on a computer. Participants are shown images of an object with a certain attitude over a number of trials and then they are asked to quickly rate the pleasantness of an ambiguous stimulus, shown quickly after, while ignoring the stimulus before. 

New variations of the IAT have also been invented, thinking about a personalized IAT being a more effective measurement of attitude. This is because IAT can be influenced by extrapersonal associations, knowledge about what others think, or feel about the attitude of the object. Also, there has to be some refinement in the tackle of the spontaneous associations with the ingroup or outgroup that can have influence.

Another adaptation of the IAT assesses attitudes without a computer. But computers are not always available, and that is why paper-and-pencil IAT tasks have been developed. 

Other types of indirect measures of attitudes have been developed with a number of psychophysiological measures. These include the galvanic skin response (GSR), pupillary dilation, and facial electromyographic activity (facial EMG). 

Also, other physiological measures have shown promise. Event-related potentials (ERP) measure the electrical activity in the brain. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) attempts to uncover brain areas associated with attitudinal responses assessing blood flow and blood oxygenation changes within the brain. 

Which issues are relevant to the measurement of attitudes?

A psychological measure must be reliable and valid. Reliability refers to the degree to which test scores are free from errors in measurement. In the context of attitude measurement, reliability has two important meanings: 

  1. Internal consistency refers to whether the items are all assessing the same psychological construct
  2. Test-retest reliability refers to consistency in scores across time, so it should give similar scores across repeated testing. 

The validity of the scale refers to the extent that it assesses the construct it is designed to measure.

What are the three "witches" of attitude? - Chapter 2
What is the influence of attitudes on information processing and behavior? - Chapter 3
How do attitudes influence behavior? - Chapter 4
What are cognitive influences on attitudes? - Chapter 5
What are the affective influences on attitudes? - Chapter 6
What are the behavioral influences on attitudes? - Chapter 7
What are basic principles of forming attitudes? - Chapter 8
What is the influence of the physical state and body on attitudes? - Chapter 9
What about the external world? - Chapter 10
Why to have an eye to the future? - Chapter 11

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