06. Attitudes, Behavior, and RationalizationWork in pairsTest your knowledgeOutline1. What is an attitude?1. Components of attitudes1. Components of Attitudes1. Components may not always be consistent1. Components may not always be consistent1. Components of attitudes1. Measuring attitudes explicitly1. Measuring attitudes explicitly1. Measuring attitudes implicitly1. Measuring attitudes: IAT1. Measuring attitudes implicitly1. Measuring attitudes1. Attitudes2. Do attitudes affect behavior?2. Do attitudes affect behavior?2. Predicting behavior from attitudes#1: Other powerful determinants#2: Attitudes can be inconsistent#2: Attitudes can be inconsistent#3: Specific vs. general#3: Specific vs. general (Davidson & Jaccard, 1979)#3: Specific vs. general#4: Automatic Behavior#4: Automatic BehaviorSlide 29#5: Introspection about reasons for attitudes can be misleading#5: Introspection about reasons for attitudes can be misleadingTest your knowledge3. Does behavior affect attitudes?3. Does behavior affect attitudes?3. Cognitive Dissonance Theory3. Cognitive Dissonance Theory3. Cognitive Dissonance Theory#1: Post-Decision Dissonance#1: Post-Decision Dissonance#1: Post-Decision Dissonance#2: Effort Justification#2: Effort Justification (Aronson & Mills, 1959)Slide 43Question#3: Induced compliance#3: Induced compliance#3: Induced complianceSlide 483. When does attitude-behavior inconsistency cause dissonance?3. Self-affirmation and dissonance3. Dissonance and interventions3. Is dissonance universal?Test your knowledgeHi Grandma!4. Self-perception theory (Bem, 1967, 1972)4. Self-perception theory4. Who is right?4. Dissonance vs. Self-Perception (Zanna & Cooper, 1974)4. Dissonance vs. Self-Perception4. Dissonance vs. Self-Perception4. But really...both theories are at workTest your knowledgeTest your knowledge4. Self-perception in action4. Self-perception in action4. Self-perception in action4. Self-perception in action5. Rationalizing broader systems: System Justification TheoryWork in pairsSlide 77SummaryInterventions07. Persuasion06. Attitudes, Behavior, and Rationalization1Work in pairs•According to Darwin, what should be true if emotions were shaped by evolutionary processes?•How does Moral Foundations Theory explain differences in moral judgments between liberals and conservatives?2Test your knowledgeYour friend tells you how worried he is that his relationship may be breaking apart. He says he doesn’t know how he could ever be happy again after a breakup. A few weeks later, the relationship really does end. Two months later, you are getting lunch together and you carefully ask how he’s been doing. Based on a study by Gilbert and colleagues (1998), what would you expect ?A. He’s doing even worse than he thought he wouldB. His prediction of how a breakup would affect his happiness was pretty accurateC. He’s doing better than he originally predicted he wouldD. He wants to fight Gilbert and colleagues because they heartlessly referred to him as a “leftover”3Outline1. What is an attitude?2. Do attitudes affect behavior?3. Does behavior affect attitudes?4. Self-perception theory5. Rationalization more generally41. What is an attitude?Evaluation of an object or behavior (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) in a positive or negative way•Basically, how much you like or dislike somethingAttitude object (= what the attitude is about) can be anything•People, issues, objects51. Components of attitudesAffect•Emotional reactions to attitude objectBehavior•Knowledge about interactions with attitude objectCognition•Thoughts and beliefs about attitude object6ACBATTITUDE1. Components of AttitudesAffectCognitionBehaviorI love itI drink it everydayIt wakes me up1. Components may not always be consistentAffectCognitionBehaviorI love it(+)I drink it everyday(+)It gives me insomnia(-)1. Components may not always be consistentAffectCognitionBehaviorI feel scared(-)I avoid it(-)It is harmless(+)1. Components of attitudesAffectCognitionBehavior?? ? ?•Explicit methods involve self-reports•Likert ScalesDogs are lovable.1 2 3 4 5 Strongly Neutral StronglyDisagree Agree•Semantic Differential ScalesCoffee is ….Bad -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 GoodUnpleasant -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 PleasantNegative -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 Positive1. Measuring attitudes explicitly11Pros•Easy to write the questions and tailor to a specific attitude object•Easy to administerCons•Prone to social desirability bias•May not capture everything we want•E.g., How accessible an attitude is1. Measuring attitudes explicitly12•Implicit methods involve things other than self-reports•Response latency – “how good of a president would Ronald Reagan be?”•Strong predictor of voting behavior (Fazio & Williams 1986)•Implicit attitude measure - •Capture nonconscious attitudes – people’s immediate evaluative reaction they may or may not be aware of1. Measuring attitudes implicitly13This site hosts IATs for a wide range of topics (e.g., race, gender, sexual orientation)Example: Measure of Implicit Racismhttps://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/1. Measuring attitudes: IAT14Pros•Response time can indicate attitude accessibility•Less prone (but not completely immune) to social desirability biasCons•More difficult to administer•Time intensive•Requires a computer•They still do not tell the full story behind one’s attitudes•We don’t know what the results mean 1. Measuring attitudes implicitly15•Explicit methods involve self-reports•Measuring the attitude itself:•Likert-type scales•Semantic differentials•…•Implicit methods involve things other than self-report•Measuring accessibility:•Response latency•Measuring nonconscious attitudes:•Affective priming procedures•Implicit association test (IAT)•…1. Measuring attitudes161. Attitudes•What kind of attitude would be important to assess for a topic that you care about? •What is the behavior you’re trying to predict and which attitude should you measure for that?•e.g., promoting environmentally sustainable action:attitude towards recyclingorattitude towards climate changeor…172. Do attitudes affect behavior?•First posited to be very important in predicting behavior•Then: disillusionment•LaPiere (1934)•Traveled across the U.S. with a Chinese couple in the 1930s, when anti-Chinese prejudice was very high•Visited