ATTITUDE CHANGE:Factors affecting dissonance, Likeability

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Lesson 23

ATTITUDE CHANGE

Aims

Introduce the concept of attitude change

Objectives

· Describe the motivational and external sources for changing attitudes

· Describe source variables that influence the effectiveness of persuasive messages

Behaviour changing attitudes

From self-perception theory (Bem, 1965) we know that we can infer our attitudes from observing our

own behaviours (i.e., behaviours can cause attitudes)

Ours behaviours can also change attitudes, if they are unexpected...

Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957)

A feeling of discomfort caused by performing an action that is inconsistent with one's attitudes

Principle of Cognitive consistency were first introduced by Fritz Heider (1946)

A motivational instead of a cognitive approach; has Gestalt roots that human beings not only expect and

prefer their perceptions to be coherent but they are motivated to do so.

Festinger maintained that instead of engaging in rational behaviour, we often engage in irrational and

maladaptive behavior, and much of the time we engage in rationalizing our behaviour.

Festinger & Carlsmith's study (1959)

Participants perform a boring task (emptying and filling trays; turning 48 wooden pegs)

Told to lie to next participant (it's a great task!)

$1 vs. $20 payment for lying

An interviewer then asks how fun and interesting you in fact found the tasks to be

Which condition will lead to greater favourability or attitude shift?

Findings are counter to what operant conditioning would suggest (attitudes rewarded more will be more

favourable)

BUT...$1 participants experienced a greater inconsistency (dissonance) between their attitude and

behaviour than $20 participants (and unpleasant state), i.e., `It was a boring task', `I told someone it was

fun'. Festinger maintained that like hunger dissonance is analogous to hunger in aversiveness.

The $1 participants have insufficient justification so the

only way to resolve the unpleasant inconsistency is to

Effects of payment on attitudes

change their attitude to be in line their behaviour (`The

to dull task

task was fun!')

Two inconsistent cognitions led to either adding a third

1.5

cognition or by changing attitude. We need to be able to

explain why we do things. The $20 participants can

explain their attitude behaviour inconsistency through

reward (the $20 was a sufficient justification for the

behaviour) by adding a 3rd cognition to explain their

0.5

counter attitudinal behaviour. However, $1 participants

changed their attitude to maintain consistency.

Factors affecting dissonance

-0.5

Justification; e.g., Doomsday cult group (as referred in

No payment-no $1 payment to $20 payment to

previous lectures) transformed the bad experience into a

lie (control)

lie

good one to reduce dissonance

Freedom

of choice: e.g., if we are forced to do something this explains why we did it in contravention of

our attitudes, so it does not create dissonance.

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Investment:

e.g., supporting a political party even when evidence of incompetence, immorality, etc.

escalates (refuse to accept evidence of impropriety because of all the time invested in believing the party's

ideals)

Cognitive dissonance and Persuasion

Cognitive dissonance is attitude change via an internal discrepancy

Persuasion is attitude change via an external message

Persuasion is the process of consciously attempting to change attitudes through the transmission of some

message.

Factors that influence the persuasiveness of a message

Source: Who is communicating?

Message variables: What is the content?

Audience: To whom the message is delivered?

Source Factors: Who is communicating?

Source credibility

·Expertise

·Trustworthiness

Source attractiveness

·Physical appearance

·Likeability

·Similarity

Source Factors: Credibility

"Propaganda, to be effective, must be delivered. To be delivered, it must be credible"

Expertise:

Bochner & Insko's study (1966): Written powerful statements claiming that about fewer than 8

hours' sleep is required for effective functioning and same statements were attributed to either to eminent

psychologists or YMCA director. Obviously, those people who were told that the statements were written

by the eminent psychologist believed more in the statements.

"We are not won by arguments that we can analyze but by tone and temper, by the manner which is the

man himself"

Trustworthiness:

Walster et al.'s study (1966) about the arguments of either a convicted criminal or a

judge about the importance of police's ability for maintaining law and order than the rights of criminals.

The criminal's arguments appeared more impressive to people because people who argue for actions that

benefit them are not trusted, hence they suffer from low credibility. In contrast, those who argue for actions

that are contrary to their vested interests have high credibility.

The `sleeper effect' low credibility as a discounting cue

The delayed effectiveness of a persuasive message from a noncredible source

Hovland & Weiss's study (1951)

Read article stating that nuclear submarines were safe

Author = Oppenheimer (nuclear physicist supervising the construction of atom bomb) vs. Pravda (Soviet

newspaper); (High vs. Low credibility for US students in 50's)

Persuasion is not very straightforward and uncomplicated; 4 weeks later credibility lost its effectiveness.

Other studies have also shown the delayed effects of credibility.

Social Psychology (PSY403)

Immediate

effect - High credibility source --> greater persuasion; Tested 4 weeks later? not much

difference.

Explanation of the sleeper effect

The sleeper effect

Source memory:

· Forgetfulness over time: i.e., over time,

High credibility

people forget where the source

source

originated from and only remember the

Low-credibility

content (so credibility of source would

source

have no effect) the credible source

became dissociated from the message

Explains increase in low credibility

source persuasion as well as decrease in

high credibility persuasion

Kelman & Hovlan (1953) replicated the

Immediate

Four weeks

original experiment but reminded

Time interval

participants of the source before their

attitudes were reassessed. The sleeper

effect was removed.

Three factors that promote the sleeper effect (A meta-analysis of over 70 studies by Kumkale &

Albarrachin, 2004):

The message must be convincing enough in itself to lead to persuasion

Credibility information given after the message (or no processing of content will occur)

The low credibility source information decays faster than the message content

Source Factors: Attractiveness enhances persuasiveness

During 1920s when feminists were demonstrating against female inequality

Nephew of Freud, Edward Bernays, used attractive "liberated" women in an ad campaign for the cigarette

industry to serve as a "torch of freedom" symbol.

Women had a campaign with anti-smoking slogans in 1929 Easter parade in Manhattan.

Many women adopted the "torch of freedom habit

The cigarette company's profits soared with this newfound "liberated-female" market

Factors indicating attractiveness:

Physical appearance

Attractive university UG were more likely (41%) to persuade fellow students to sign a petition as

compared to less attractive (32%)

Commercials use central or peripheral route processing for persuasion. Usually attractive females are

used, who are consciously placed in commercials to attract male viewers and to induce positive feelings,

using the principle of classical conditioning, without even making the viewer conscious of this purpose.

That is why this is called peripheral route.

Likeability:

Merely saying nice things is enough to get people to like you (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993)

Similarity:

Communicators can be similar to their audience in a number of ways:

Sharing attitudes and values is the most important condition (Simons et al., 1970)

Similar backgrounds

Appearance

Social Psychology (PSY403)

Reading

· Franzoi, S. (2003). Social Psychology. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 7.

Other Readings

· Lord, C.G. (1997). Social Psychology. Orlando: Harcourt Brace and Company.

· David G. Myers, D. G. (2002). Social Psychology (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

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