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Social Lecture 5: Attitude Change

For the remaining lectures, I want to look at how attitudes are formed and changed. Although our

behavior in a situation is primarily determined by what goes on in that situation, it is obviously

determined as well to a great extent by ideas, feelings, and beliefs that we bring into that situation.

We talk about opinions, beliefs, and attitudes as though they were the same thing, but an attitude is

more complex than either an opinion or a belief.For a psychologist, an attitude contains three components:

First, an attitude involves a cognitive componentconsisting of a set of beliefs about some class of

objects, people, or ideas. For example, our attitude toward nuclear weapons may involves the beliefs

that nuclear war would devastate the planet, that nuclear weapons increase rather than decrease the

chances of war, and that they are too dangerous to produce.

Second, an attitude involves an emotional component; a set of feelings about the subject of the

attitude. Again, our attitude toward nuclear weapons might include the fear that they increase the risk of

conflict, feelings of anger that such weapons exist, and feelings of anxiety about the future after a

nuclear exchange.

Finally, an attitude involves a behavioral component: A set of tendencies to behave in certain

ways as a result of our beliefs and feelings. For example, out beliefs and feeling about nuclear weaponsmight lead us to avoid those who disagree with us, to send letters to our MPs about the threat of the arms

buildup, or even to picket armed forces bases.

All these three components must be present in an attitude: a set of beliefs about the attitude object,

a set of emotional responses to it, and a set or predispositions or tendencies to act in certain ways in

connection with the attitude object(s).

We have attitudes about a lot of things: about types of government, about moral or ethical issues,

about races, nations, classes, or occupations, and about products and people. These attitudes are

important because they may have a pervasive influence on our behavior. Attitude change is an

multimillion-dollar business in our society, and we are constantly confronted with attempts to

manipulate our attitudes every time we read a newspaper or watch a television commercial. Indeed TV

commercials are often much more carefully crafted than the TV programs that surround them!We said that an attitude consists of three components: beliefs, emotions, and behavioral

tendencies. An attitude can be changed by manipulating any one of these, bu today we will consider

primarily attempts top change attitudes by manipulating their cognitive or belief components.

The method of attitude change we are going to focus on are those where someone tells you

something in an attempt, usually an obvious one, to change your attitude on some topic. These situations

involve three components: There is the source, the person making the attempt to change your attitude,

there is the message the source delivers to change your attitude, and then, of course, there is the

audience, in this case you, and perhaps hundreds or thousands of others like you if the message is being

delivered via mass media, such as newspapers, TV, radio, etc.

The characteristics of each of these components, the source, the message and the audience,

determine how successful an attempt to change attitudes is. Let's take a look at each of these parts of theattitude-change situation, and see what it is about each of them that makes them more or less effective in

producing attitude change.

The Source

An attempt to change your attitudes usually consists of a message delivered by someone, the

source. The amount of attitude change depends on the credibility of the source. Just how willing are we

to believe and accept what the source says?


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The credibility of the source, in turn, depends primarily on three chracteristics (which are often

related): First, the amount of expertise the source has in the area. In a discussion on nuclear weapons,

for example, we are much more likely to believe the statements of a physicist or nuclear scientist that

those of a rock star or talk show host (in general

The second factor determining the credibility of the source is the prestige of the source. In general,

we are more likely to be influencd by a source with high prestige rather than one with low prestige. A

government figure, or a rock star or entertainer, will be more effective in changing our attitudes than our

neighbor, or someone we dislike.

Finally, the credibility of the source depends the self-interest of the source. If the source stands to

gain from our change in attitudes, we are less likely to change our attitudes. Conversely, if the position

advocated by the source seems to be contrary to his interests, then we are more likely to be persuaded.

For example, a plea to eliminate the death penalty is more effective coming from a policemen than from

an inmate serving time for murder.

It also seems that we are more likely to be convinced if we think that the source does not intend to

change our attitudes. In one study, for example, subjects heard a speaker advocate a certain position.

Some subjects were spoken to directly by the source, while a second group of subjects overheard the

source deliver his message to someone else. The results of the study indicated that the more attitude

change took place in the group that had overheard the source than for the group who heard the source

directly.

The Message

Obviously, the message itself is important in determining how much attitude change actually

occurs. Quite apart from the what is actually said (the actual ideas and arguments), other aspects of the

message also help determine its effectiveness:

1. Discrepancy

One factor determining the effectiveness of the message is discrepancy: The difference between

the position it advocates, and the position currently held by the audience.

In general, the amount of attitude change increases directly with discrepancy - up to a point.

Beyond that point, more discrepancy produces less attitude change. Where that point ais depends on

how the audience feels about the source. The more they like or trust the source (the higher the source's

credibility), the greater is the optimal level of dispcrepancy. If the source is not well liked or respected,

then the optimal discrepancy for attitude change is much lower. Just exactly where the optimal

discrepancy is cannot be specified (especially since it is hard to quantify discrepancy.).

2. Explicit vs Implicit Conclusions

Most persuasive communications or messages contain a series of facts or ideas designed to lead

the listener to a specific conclusion. But is it better if this conclusion is explicit, or if it is implicit,

leaving the audience to draw this inevitable conclusion on its own?

That depends on the nature of the audience. If the audience is intelligent, then it is better to leave

them to draw the conclusion for themselves. If the audience is not intelligent, then it is better to draw the

conclusion explicitly, since otherwise they may not draw the right conclusion. This is especially true if

the issue is complex.


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The Audience

The last aspect of an attitude change situation that can effect its effectiveness is the audience itself.

We have already mentioned in connection with the message, several aspects of the audience that may

influence how effective an attempt to change attitudes is.

There are a number of other characteristics of the audience that may be important, but I want to

mention only two.

The first is the environment of the audience when it receives the message. If the audience is

surrounded by others who agree with the speaker, then the message will be more effective than if the

audience is alone, or worse still, surrounded by others who disagree with the speaker.

A second factor is whether or not you can get the individual to engage in some behavior, no matter

how small, that is consistent with the attitude you want him to adopt. For example, if you can get them

to raise their hands in agreement with some point that the speaker makes, or can get them to take some

literature that expounds the speaker's point: In short, any public acknowledgement that they agree with

some aspect of the message will increase the likelihood that they will change there attitudes in the

direction of the speaker's message.

This last point is an important one: For most of the time we have talked about changing attitudes

primarily through verbal attempts to manipulate the knowledge or beliefs that underlie the attitude, or

through arousing an emotional response inconsistent with the current attitude. Now we seem to have

come across a way in which attitudes can be changed by changing the subject's behavior. Next time we

will talk about such approaches, and about the theoretical analysis of such attempts.

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