Journalism 614: Attitudinal Perspectives on Opinion Expression

Outline for today

 Key concepts: – beliefs; attitudes; values; opinion  Behavioral approach: – classical conditioning  Cognitive processing: – ELM; heuristics  Consistency theories: – balance theory; cognitive dissonance  Motivational approach: – functional theory of attitudes  Attitude-behavior link : – theory of planned behavior  Emotions & attitudes : – cognitive approaches; social approaches

The Psychological Antecedents

 Public opinion =

beliefs

, attitudes & values – Beliefs: The information that individuals have about objects or actions (cognitions) • Often unrecognized, sometimes incorrect • May be grouped together in a belief system • Often conflict between belief systems • Sometimes referred to as “schema” – Categories of knowledge about a topic – Schema may not be internally consistent

The Psychological Antecedents

 Public opinion = beliefs,

attitudes

& values – Attitudes: positive or negative feelings • Evaluative component is central • Built upon our beliefs • Derived from sampling available thoughts, schema – Attitudes are often constructed “on the fly” based on what cognitions are most recently or frequently available.

The Psychological Antecedents

 Public opinion = beliefs, attitudes &

values

– Values: Overarching goals we want to reach • Instrumental and terminal values – Values about modes of conduct • Honest, Courageous, Helpful – Values about end states of existence • Equality, Freedom, Love • Central to expression on many issues and topics • Most stable element of opinion expression • Often evoked by political leaders in speeches • The basis for issue publics around controversies

Opinions as Expressions

 A hierarchy – Belief: People learn through schooling – Attitude: I favor public schooling – Value: Education is a right  All may lead to expression of opinion: – Support a tax increase for schools

Beyond Behavioral Approaches

 Based on models of classical and operant conditioning in animals – People are “ conditioned ” to respond in certain ways to specific stimulus – automatic reaction – Repeated pairing of negative words, e.g. “ bad, dirty, stupid, ” with a particular group, e.g. “Italians, Indians, Irish”, conditions a response – Generates a negative reaction whenever the group is encountered, even absent the cue word • This reaction triggers the behavioral response

Classical Conditioning

 Combine conditioned and unconditioned stimulus to produce conditioned response

Drawbacks of Behavioral Theories  There are times when people think carefully – Elaboration Likelihood Model  Attitudes come in packages, are interconnected – Attitude Consistency Theories  People hold same attitude for different reasons – Functional Theories of Attitudes  People often do not act consistent with attitudes – Theory of Reasoned Action

Cognitive Response Theories

 Brain is a “ noisy, busy ” place, always active – Ongoing mental activity interacts with incoming information to produce an attitude  People connect new information with their existing feelings and beliefs about a topic – Highly interactive process – Motivation and ability are key issues – Cognitive responses mediate effects

Elaboration Likelihood Model

 Central and peripheral route attitude change  Persuasive communication has lasting effect on attitudes when… – Motivated to process the information – Ability to process the information – Cognitive responses are valenced  Otherwise, we rely on peripheral cues – Attitude change is temporary and unstable

Attitude Consistency Theories

 Effort to maintain balance among network of interconnected attitudes – Explain how opinions are networked and how this networking affects opinion expression – Key issues: Are they consistent, inconsistent (dissonant), or irrelevant to one another?

– P = Perceiver, O = Other person, X = Attribute

Cognitive Dissonance

 Inconsistency between two cognitions creates an uncomfortable state – Cognitive dissonance - magnitude depends of importance of cognitive elements – Something must be done to alleviate stress • Change one of the cognitions to create consonance • Add consonant cognitions to create balance • Alter the importance of cognitions

Cognitive Dissonance in Action

Functional Theories

 Attitudes serve various needs and have diverse motivational bases – Ego-defensive functions • Protect self from unflattering truths – Value-expressive functions • Convey cherished ideals to others – Knowledge functions • Understand events and people – Utilitarian functions • Help people gain rewards and avoid punishments  Attitude function dictates form of persuasion

The Attitude-Behavior Relation

 Measurement Issues – Principle of correspondence  Individual Differences – Low self monitors = more consistent  Social and Situational Differences – Attitude accessibility and social context

Theory of Planned Behavior

Yet most of the time, people do not put much cognitive effort into information processing, cognitive consistency, or planning behavior