PSYC 2001 Social Psychology

Lecture 3: Attitude

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 We acknowledge the Custodians of Country we
are meeting on, Whadjuk Noongar people.

We acknowledge all First Nations people of

Australia and Elders past and present for their
continuing culture and contribution.

We acknowledge that this Country holds

knowledge which has been passed down for
thousands of generations.

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 Lecture Learning Outcomes
1. Define attitudes and describe their cognitive, affective, and behavioural
components.

2. Explain how attitudes are formed through social learning, conditioning, and
evolutionary influences.

3. Identify and compare different methods for measuring attitudes, including

explicit and implicit measures.

4. Describe the relationship between attitudes and behaviour and explain the
factors that influence this relationship.

5. Describe the Theory of Planned Behaviour and its role in predicting behaviour.

6. Explain cognitive dissonance and how individuals reduce discomfort caused by

conflicting attitudes and behaviours.

7. Apply attitude theories to real-world examples, including health behaviours,

social issues, and consumer decision-making.

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 Attitudes are important because…
n Attitudes: A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a
particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor.

n Attitudes Shape Behavior. – Attitudes influence how people act in

different situations, such as voting, exercising, or making purchases.

n Social Influence – People’s attitudes are shaped through social

influence.

n Culture and Evolution Shape Attitudes – Cultural norms determine

what attitudes are accepted within a society. Evolutionary influences
also play a role, as some attitudes (e.g., snakes, symmetrical faces)
may have developed for survival.

n Prejudices are negative attitudes toward certain groups, which can

lead to discrimination.
image generated by OpenAI’s DALL·E, 3 Mar, 2025.

n Social changes, such as greater acceptance of gender equality or

climate action, occur when public attitudes shift over time.

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 Tripartite Model
Attitude object: Beer

Cognitive
Affective
“Beer kills my brain cells”
“Harmful-Beneficial”
“Beer helps me to relax”
“Relaxing-Stressful”
“Beer tastes good after a hard
“Tasty-Bitter”
day’s work”

Behavioural
“I will cut down on my beer drinking”
“I intend to drink beer when I’m stressed”
“I plan to drink more beer after work”

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 Tripartite Model
Attitude object: social group

Cognitive Affective

Stereotype Prejudice

Behavioural

Discrimination

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 Tripartite Model
Prejudice
Attitude object: Social Group A (negative) evaluation
toward members of a
social group

Discrimination
Unfair treatment of someone
based on his or her group
membership.

Stereotype
Generalized beliefs that are
believed to be characteristics
of a group.

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 Attitude Formation
n Where do attitudes come from?

n Social Learning
n Interact with and observe others (e.g.,
parents, peers, media)

n Conditioning

n Evolutionary origin

Image and information from Berk (2012)

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 [Link]

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 Image from Burton et al 2016

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 from Aronson et al., 2015
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 Attitude Formation

Some of our attitudes have

evolutionary origin (e.g.,
avoidance of snake, preference of
a symmetric face, etc) to alert us
to reward and danger present in
the situation.

Image from Gilovich et al., 2014

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 Measuring Attitudes: Self-Report
Interviews
Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale
Likert scale: a scale used to
assess people’s attitudes
that includes a set of
responses with anchors on
each extreme.
Self-esteem: attitudes
towards the self
Any issues with self-report
measures of attitudes?

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 Alternative to self-report measures
nonverbal measures of attitudes (e.g., a distance you keep
from the target person).
physiological measures (e.g., heart rate, sweaty palm,
brain activity). Social Neuroscience.
Implicit attitude is not accessible to your conscious
awareness.

Social neuroscience
Image from [Link]

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 “Alcohol use is common among young
people, with one-third of Australians
between the age of 12 and 17 reporting
recent drinking” (source: NDARC Fact
Sheet)

“teenagers' attitudes towards alcohol consumption,”

image generated by OpenAI’s DALL·E, 8 Mar, 2024.

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 Do attitudes predict behaviors?
n Attitudes predict behaviors
when
n attitudes are strong or
based on personal
experience.
n social influence is
minimal.
n specific attitudes (not
general attitude) are
examined. Image from Burton et al 2016

Microsoft images

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 Image from Aronson et al 2020

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 “80% of 398 eligible respondents
stated their willingness to receive
COVID-19 vaccine. A unified
model including HBM and TPB
predictor variables as well as
demographic and health-related
factors, proved to be a powerful
predictor of intention to receive
COVID-19 vaccine, explaining 78%
of the variance”.

From Shmueli (2021).

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 n Your task is to promote blood donation among Curtin
students and staff. Based on the theory of planned behavior,
what would you do?

Image from Aronson et al 2020

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 Join a Lifeblood Team

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 Match the actions with the component of the Theory of Planned Behavior.

Actions to Promote Blood Donation

1. Hosting informative sessions about the benefits and Components of the Theory of
impact of blood donation. Planned Behavior:

2. Organizing a campaign where campus influencers A. Attitudes

share their positive experiences with blood B. Subjective Norms
donation.
C. Perceived Behavioral Control
3. Setting up a mobile blood donation unit on campus
with trained staff to assist donors.
4. Distributing statistics and facts about the need for
and shortage of blood donations.
5. Showcasing testimonials from patients who have
benefited from blood donations.
6. Creating a support group for first-time donors.

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 Automatic Behaviors and Priming

Some behaviors are activated automatically, without

requiring attitudes

Priming: activation of a knowledge structure outside of

awareness. Makes an associated behaviour more likely.

The Science of the Young Ones: Priming

[Link]

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 Participants saw photos of
old people, priming the
concept of ‘elderly.’
In solving anagrams, the
primed participants were
slower in responding and
a little quicker in judging
age-stereotypic words
(e.g., pensioner).

from Vaughan and Hogg, 2014

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 Does it replicate?
• Priming is one area in Social Psychology with a poor
record of replicability.

• A recent meta-analysis indicates a small but robust

effect of priming on behaviors (Weingarten et al., 2016)

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 Subliminal Priming

Subliminal stimulus: stimuli

presented below one’s
conscious perception.

Can a subliminal stimulus

influence people’s thoughts,
emotions, and behaviours?

Based on Murphy & Zajonc (1993)

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 Subliminal priming can work in a tightly controlled
environments, when actions come immediately after
priming, and for things people don’t have strong opinions.

A movie theatre in the US inserted a subliminal

advertisement that said “drink coca-cola and eat popcorn.”
Did the sales of coca-cola and popcorn increase? No!

Subliminal advertising has little evidence base.

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 Cognitive dissonance theory. People like their
thoughts to be consistent with one another and will
do substantial mental work to achieve such cognitive
consistency.

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 Examples of Cognitive Dissonance
Situation Source of Strategy
Dissonance
A student believes Discrepancy 1. Behavioural change: Tries harder to get
he is intelligent and between belief in good grades
that intelligent intelligence and 2. Re-evaluate situation: “I don’t have time
people perform well performance to study”; “My teacher is rubbish and
at school. But he gets unfair”; “Grades aren’t a good indicator of
bad grades all the intelligence, anyway”
time. 3. Change belief/attitude: Believes he is not
that intelligent
 Aronson et al., 2018

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 Cognitive Dissonance | Concepts Unwrapped

n Dissonance occurs when a person’s ethical beliefs clash with their

actions. Example: a soldier who values human life but is in a combat
zone faces. This tension can lead to deep reflection, guilt, or
rationalization to reduce discomfort.

n Almost all people maintain an internal image of themselves as

ethical. However, when actions contradict values (as good and
ethical), people unknowingly adjust their attitudes to reduce mental
discomfort. Rationalization is a common way to reduce psychological
discomfort, such as thinking, “I had no choice.”

n Studies show that people frequently change their attitudes to match

their behaviours, even when unaware of doing so.

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 Justifying decision to reduce dissonance

n You are deciding between two job offers that are similarly
attractive. Each option has good features and bad
features.

n Once you make a decision, you may feel that “I might

have made a wrong decision” and may feel some tension.

n To avoid feeling this way, you start believing that the

option you chose was much better than the one you did
not choose (Simon et al., 2004).

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 Justifying decision to reduce dissonance

Brown (2012)

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 Experiment: Payment for Lying
In an experiment (Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959),
participants performed an extremely tedious and boring
task.
Afterward participants were asked to tell a person waiting
outside how interesting and exciting the experiment is.
Participants were paid, either $1 or $20, to tell a lie
(telling a stranger the task they are about to do is
interesting, when they know that the task is boring)
At the end, participants rated how much they enjoyed the
task.

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