Social attitudes, definition of attitude, what influences changes in attitudes, theories about formation of attitudes

1. SOCIAL
ATTITUDES
- P R E S E N T E R – D R . U T K A R S H M O D I

2. OVERVIEW
• Introduction
• Components of attitude
• Functions of attitude
• Measurement of attitudes
• Process of attitude change
• Theories of attitude organization and change

3. INTRODUCTION
• Allport 1935 – Social attitude has 5 aspects:
1) It is a mental and neural state,
2) of readiness to respond,
3) Organized
4) Through experience
5) Exerting a directive and/or influence on behavior
• Attitude is a learned, relatively enduring organization of beliefs about an
object or situation which leads to a disposition to respond or rather a
readiness to respond in a given way.
• Drive, motive and attitude

4. • Distinguishing features of attitudes (Sherif 1956)
1. Attitudes are not innate
2. More or less lasting
3. Imply a subject-object relationship
4. Involve individuals as well as groups
5. Motivational-affective properties
6. Shared by the members of a group

5. COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES (KATZ
1960) “ABC”
Components Relationships Rewards Sources Change process
Cognitive Consistency Social reality Internalization Balance, congruity
and dissonance
reduction
Affective Feelings Social identity Identification(Attr
acting)
Interpersonal
balances
Action/Behavior Situations Social support Compliance
(control)
Social
expectancies
• Each of these vary in direction, valence and multiplicity.

6. • Affectively based attitudes
– An attitude based more on people’s feelings and values than on beliefs about the nature of
an object.
• Cognitively based attitudes
– An attitude based primarily on people’s beliefs about the properties of an attitude object.
• Behaviorally Based Attitude
– An attitude based on observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object.

7. FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDES
• Adjustment function
• Ego defensive function
• Attitudes of prejudice
• Value expressive function
• Knowledge function

8. FORMATION OF ATTITUDES
• Formed in context of person’s
– wants,
– information,
– group affiliation, and
– responsibility development.

9. MEASUREMENT OF ATTITUDES
1. Methods of social distance (Bogardus 1924)
2. Thurstone’s method of equal appearing intervals
3. Likert’s method of summated rating
4. Guttman’s cumulative scaling
5. Osgood’s Semantic differential technique

10. MEASURES OF SOCIAL DISTANCE
• Bogardus 1924
• Various degrees of social intimacy
• He asked the respondents to indicate in which group they would admit members of
various groups in the US
1. To close kinship by marriage
2. To my club as personal chums
3. To my street as neighbors
4. To employment in my occupation
5. To citizenship in my country
6. As visitors only to my country
7. Would exclude from my country

11. • Americans generally asserted that Englishmen and Canadians were the most
acceptable people. Hindus, negroes and Turks were on the other extreme.
• Social distance remained unaffected by space, time and race in the US.
• B Kuppuswamy also applied this method in Madras, and found the social distances of
various ethnic groups in India

12. THURSTONE’S METHOD OF EQUAL
APPEARING INTERVALS
• If a person indicates the statements he accepts or rejects, he can be located at a definite
position on the attitudes continuum.
• He collected a list of statements from several sources like newspapers, legislature
proceedings, pamphlets, opinions of colleagues, etc.
• These statements should represent every standpoint from complete acceptance to
complete rejection.
• Arrange statements from extremely favorable to unfavorable continuum, using judges.
Thurstone used 300 judges
• Find median value of statements.
• Selection of a small number of statements representing each value position along the
attitude continuum.
• Finally test is administered and respondent asked to tick statements he is in agreement with

13. LIKERT’S METHOD OF SUMMATED
RATING
• Simpler than Thurstone’s
• A number of statements regarding issue have to be collected.
• The subjects is asked to indicate the strength of his attitude towards the statement on
a 5 point scale
• Doesn’t have an absolute system of units
• Interpreted on a relative basis
• Benefits – Doesn’t use judges and indicates the intensity and direction of opinion.
• Thurstone’s method has more reliability and absolute system of units.

14. GUTTMAN’S CUMULATIVE SCALING
• Counterpart to Bogardus’ technique
• Cumulative scaling method which helps to determine whether a set of statements are
unidimensional.
• Although its concept is highly rational, it has not been found useful in selecting items.

15. OSGOOD’S SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL
TECHNIQUE
• Osgood, Suci and Tannenbaum developed a system to measure connotation of the
words representing concepts.
• Factors of meaning
– Evaluative: Good/bad, beautiful/ugly, sweet/sour, kind/cruel
– Potency: strong/weak, deep/shallow, loud /soft, thick/thin
– Activity: fast/slow, active/passive, sharp/dull

17. PROCESS OF ATTITUDE CHANGE
• Cultures are stable when the attitudes are stable and consonant.
• However when attitudes are stable and social situation changes, social life becomes
constricted.
• Two major kinds of changes
– Incongruent change (negative to positive/ positive to negative)
– Congruent change (direction is congruent with existing attitude)
• Attitude change induced by persuasive communication is inversely proportional to
strength of original attitudes.
• Attitudes anchored to values are difficult to change.
• Also depends on the attributes of personality
• Problem of group affiliation and attitude change.

18. • Primary condition for attitude change
– Newcomb: “change depends very generally on receipt of new
information, that is in some way relevant to the attitude object”
– When changes take place in the properties of the objects,
changes in the attitude towards the object are facilitated.

19. • Persuasion and attitude change
– Properties of attitude which is sought to be changed
– Properties of message
– Properties of the source
– Agent who communicates the message (expertness and
trustworthiness)
– Hovland advanced the hypothesis that when a person is
perceived as having a definite intention to persuade, he is not
trusted.

20. Examples of Fear Messages
Drunk driving
Drug Use
Seat Belt Use
Skin Cancer
Condom Use
• Odds of negative outcome (low)
• Time frame may be long between behavior and negative outcome
• Ability of control behavior (e.g., habit, addiction)
Why May They Not Work?

21. • Message factors
– Ethos, pathos and logos for attitude change
– Fear arousing appeals
• Commitment and attitude change
• Group affiliation and attitude change

22. Advertising --- Product Placement
Quite frequent (e.g., greater than 40 products displayed in the movie Iron
Man)
Why can this approach work?
• Defenses are down (do not recognize our attitudes are being manipulated)
• Failure to generate counterarguments
Other examples:

23. DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS
• Studies have shown that mass media is not as effective as informal face to face
communication.
• Barnett showed that innovation is the basis for cultural change
• Social norms are very significant for diffusion of innovation.
• For community development project, VLW were appointed which would influence
people to adopt innovations.
• Radhukar found that neighbor to neighbor communication was a greater means of
diffusion of farm innovation.
• Krishnamurthy, sterilized person could more easily persuade other to adopt it.
• Lazarsfield noticed that mass media had little influence on voting behavior. Concept of
opinion leaders and ‘step-flow hypothesis’

24. RESISTANCE TO ATTITUDE CHANGE
• Two aspects
– Problem of inertia
– Problem of barrage of communication reaching an individual
• Processed involved in resistance
– Selective exposure
– Balance principle
– Ego-defensiveness
– Group affiliation

25. IMMUNIZATION AGAINST
PERSUASION
1. Motivational and personality aspects: Self esteem, hostility, anxiety,
2. Rational aspects: person’s critical ability, reasoning
3. Commitment: pledge in public, active participation
4. Socratic effect: Inconsistencies, cognitive inertia and wishful thinking
5. Inoculation approach: McGuire 1964, analogy of biological processes, supportive and
inoculation, weakened counter-attitudinal propaganda.

26. THEORIES OF ATTITUDE
ORGANIZATION AND CHANGE
1. Reinforcement theory: Hovland and his associates
2. Consistency as organizing principle
3. Osgood and Tannenbaum’s congruity theory
4. Type theories

27. CONSISTENCY AS ORGANIZING
PRINCIPLE
1. Heider’s theory of balance:
– Asserted that we tend to have a consistent and coherent view of the other person leading to
biasing effect. As a result experiences which are inconsistent with previous judgement may
not be absorbed quickly.
2. Rosenberg’s theory of Affective-cognitive consistency:
– Change occurs when the affective and cognitive components are mutually inconsistent.
Person may either strive for consistency by altering components or place the components
beyond the range of awareness.
3. Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance:
– Dissonance arises when there is inconsistencies between cognitive elements.
– Individual is prompted to change one of the elements to restore consonance.

28. OSGOOD AND TANNENBAUM’S
CONGRUITY THEORY
• When there is a favorable attitude towards an object it affects the attitude towards a
second object in the same direction.
• Principle of congruity can operate when two attitudes are linked through assertion.
• A neutral object will be seen in a favorable or unfavorable attitude depending on the
object it is associated with.
• Eg. Person of great prestige praises another of low prestige.

29. TYPE THEORIES
1. Katz’s theory
– Individual strives to maximize the rewards and minimize the costs and penalties.
– Attitudes help to defend a person’s ego.
2. Keilman’s three process theory of attitude change
– Compliance
– Identification
– internalization

30. THANK YOU