Attitudes and Attitude Change CHAPTER 7 Attitudes and Attitude ...

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Attitudes and Attitude Change
• LaPiere did a classic field study in the 1930s, where he found that hotel and restaurants served a Chinese
couple despite their written statements that they would not do so.
• Later research reveals that attitudes do predict behavior, but only under certain conditions.
A. Predicting Spontaneous Behaviors
• People’s attitudes will predict/be consistent with their spontaneous behaviors when the attitudes are
highly accessible. Attitude accessibility refers to the strength of the association between an attitude
object and a person’s evaluation of that object, measured by the speed with which people can report
how they feel about the object. If the attitudes are not highly accessible, arbitrary aspects of the
situation will tend to determine behavior.
B. Predicting Deliberative Behaviors
• Ajzen and Fishbein’s theory of planned behavior is a theory of how attitudes predict planned,
deliberative behavior; according to this theory the best predictors of these behaviors are the person’s
specific attitudes, his or her subjective norms, and their perceived behavioral control (Figure 7.7, p.
213).
1. Specific Attitudes
• The attitude that is important is not a general attitude but their attitude towards the specific
behavior in question. For example, Davidson and Jaccard (1979) showed that married women’s
use of birth control pills was much better predicted by their attitude towards using the pills during
the next two years than it was by their attitudes towards the pills or towards birth control (Table
7.1, p. 213).
2. Subjective norms
• People’s beliefs about how those they care about will view the behavior in question. Asking
people about their subjective norms increases the ability to predict planned, deliberative
behaviors.
3. Perceived behavioral control
• The ease with which people believe they can perform the behavior. If people think it is easy to
perform the behavior, they are more likely to form a strong intention to do it.
• Considerable research supports the idea that asking people about these three determinants of
their intentions increases the ability to predict their planned, deliberative behaviors.
V. The Power of Advertising
• Wilson and Brekke (1994) found that most people think advertising works on everybody but
themselves.
• Contrary to such beliefs, the evidence indicates that advertising works, in the sense that sales increase.
• The best evidence that advertising works comes from studies using split cable market tests, where
advertisers work in conjunction with cable companies and stores to show ads to a randomly selected
group of people and see whether these people are more likely to buy the product.
• Ads work particularly well for new products.
A. How Advertising Works
• Advertisers should consider the kind of attitude they are trying to change. If they are trying to
change an affectively based attitude, it is best to take an emotional approach (e.g., associate feelings
of excitement, energy, and sexual attractiveness with the brand). If they are trying to change a
cognitively based attitude, they also need to consider the personal relevance of the attitude.
• If a product is personally relevant, the best way to change it is through strong arguments; if a
product is not personally relevant, advertising may attempt to make it seem so (e.g., Gerald Lambert
created the term “halitosis” to increase sales for Listerine).