Attitude
Attitude
Attitude
• Our attitudes do predict our behavior when these other influences on what
we say and do are minimal, when the attitude is specific to the behavior,
and when the attitude is potent.
WHEN SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON WHAT
WE SAY` ARE MINIMAL
• Today’s social psychologists have some clever means at their disposal for
minimizing social influences on people’s attitude reports (unlike the earlier eg:9/11
– vote regarding president bush’s actions). .
• They use some of these complement traditional self-report measures of explicit
(conscious) attitudes with measures of implicit (unconscious) attitudes. One such
test measures facial muscle responses to various statements - a microsmile or a
micro frown to indicate the participant’s attitude about a given statement.
• A newer and widely used attitude measure, the implicit association test (IAT), uses
reaction times to measure how quickly people associate concepts (Greenwald &
others, 2002, 2003).
• One can, for example, measure implicit racial attitudes by assessing whether White
people take longer to associate positive words with Black than with White faces.
• Across 126 studies, implicit associations measured by the IAT have
correlated, on average, a modest 124 with explicit self-reported
attitudes
• A meta – analysis revealed that explicit and implicit attitudes may
together predict behavior better than either alone.
• For attitudes formed early in life, such as racial and gender
attitudes, implicit and explicit attitudes frequently diverge, with
implicit attitudes often being the better predictor of behavior.
• For other attitudes, such as those related to consumer behavior and
support for political candidates, explicit self-reports are the better
predictor.
When other influences (situational) on
behavior are minimal
—WILLIAM JAMES,
“WHAT IS
AN EMOTION?” 1884
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