attitude - our evaluation of nearly every aspect of the social world

-after understanding, we develop opinions
-often reflected in our behavior, can be stable or changing
-attitude ambivalence is common; does not strongly affect behavior

---> no ambivalence makes attitudes more predictive and difficult to change

Implicit vs. Explicit
implicit - reactionary, less controlled/explainable (ex. one's favorite color)

-are more difficult to change

---> ex. racism is often implicit, formed "below conscious level"
---> Implicit Attitude Test can be used to find attitudes about objects (willingness to pair objects/groups with positive or negative descriptions)

- test is controversial as reaction time differences are in fractions of seconds
- used for employee selection process

explicit - reportable, can be explained, formed with active thought (ex. politics)

- can predict behavior when stable and strong

--->prevention focused is concerned with avoiding losses (ex. aiming for a C in a class)
--->promotion focused is concerned with gains (ex. aiming to get A in a class)

Not all attitudes manifest as behaviors! (ex. Texas residents rating tv stations vs. actual channel subscriptions)

Attitude Formation
see chart in slides
-most in the chart are implicit
-social learning - we acquire information through observing/interacting

--->classical conditioning - un/conditioned stimulus, subliminal conditioning, or mere exposure effect (humans like familiarity)
--->instrumental conditioning - feedback for attitudes (positive or negative) influences outlook (ex. voting same way as parents)
--->observational learning - developing attitudes by seeing reaction that happens to others (ex. crack is bad)
--->social comparison - we want to fit in with group and will sometimes form attitudes; group is then called reference group. Having same attitude as group gives affirmation

Attitudes and Behavior
social context - directly affects link between attitude and behavior
- influenced by social factors
- may not be expressed when different from everyone around us
- sometimes we make a wrong assessment of attitudes around us (pluralistic ignorance) (ex. Yale study on college student drinking)
attitude strength - stronger attitudes are more indicative of behavior
- extremity - how affected by issue person is
- certainty - how sure person is about attitude
- accessibility - relevant in situation; how much people hear about it
- personal experience - experience strengthens attitudes (ex. being affected by drunk driving)

You may be more willing to ignore your attitude if it's a weak one

Attitude by Reasoned Thought
- applies mostly to explicit, conscious behaviors
- Theory of Reasoned Action - "Am I going to do this?"; whether behavior is consistent with attitude; how will others react?
- Theory of Planned Action - "Can I do this?"; comes after decision of Reasoned Action
- Implementation Plan - "When I am in situation y, I will perform action z"

Spontaneous Reactions
- not all behavior is planned
- we don't always have the time or cognitive resources to plan
- even spontaneous behavior reflects our attitudes but they are automatically activated (ex. driving, habits)

Persuasion
-efforts to change others' attitudes
- effectiveness - argument that refutes other side is more persuasive; distraction uses more cognitive resources so people cannot evaluate as well and are more easily persuaded; credible/attractive sources are more convincing
- message that is obviously intended to persuade is less affected (unless person is expert)
- appeal to fear can be either effective or ineffective (inverted U theory of fear - moderate amount of fear is most effective)

Cognition of Persuasion
- processed in 1 of 2 ways
- systematic - involves careful thought through central route of brain and requires great strength of message to change
- heuristic - (shortcuts) through peripheral route of brain and can change from superficial cues from message (ex. picking pretty shampoo bottle)
- high factors result is systematic processing, low is heuristic
- Resistance to Persuasion - see chart

Cognitive Dissonance
- as humans, we don't like inconsistency; incongruity makes us uncomfortable
- we change attitudes or behavior to self-affirm or we trivialize attitude or behavior
- when dissonance changes attitudes amount of reward or punishment affects amount of cognitive dissonance (less leads to more effect)

Hypocrisy
- saying one thing and doing another
- we deal with this particular dissonance by changing our behavior
- once we express an opinion, we are more motivated to behave in line with it