Attitude Change Essay

Can people change another individual’s attitude on any issue? What then determines success of attitude change of a person? Here, the formation of attitudes will be examined, along with the concept of cognitive dissonance. It will progress to look at models of persuasion and how attitude change occurs, through consideration of theory and how it is applied to a recent social change program- Driver Road Safety and the use of fear-appeals. By examining recent social change programs we can try to determine the success of these campaigns through the amount of attitude change that occurs within a community.

Before answering questions about attitude change and how it can be achieved, we need to define what are beliefs, and attitudes. A belief involves pieces of information or facts about something- what one knows to be true, where an attitude is an evaluation that individuals give to something (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p226). Attitudes help in decision-making, and also have the function of helping people to adjust to new situations. But what happens when we having duelling attitudes about something? When one has different evaluations of something, in varying situations the individual will express different attitudes. In social situations an individual will express a controlled and conscious evaluative response, their explicit attitude (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p226) in an attempt to, as Festinger proposed in 1954 (as cited in Baron & Byrne, 1997), compare ourselves to others to determine if our view of social reality is correct or not (p117; Asch, 1955, p194). In view of this, individuals change their attitudes to hold an attitude closer to those of others. Festinger called this proposal social comparison. Maio, Esses and Bell, (1994, as cited in Baron& Byrne, 1997) suggested research findings supporting this, indicating that when “hearing other state negative views, (this) might actually influence you to adopt similar attitudes”(p117). This explicit attitude then contradicts the automatic and non-conscious evaluation of implicit attitudes.

Attitudes, counter attitudinal behaviour and duelling attitudes are first formed through exposure and learning as most social psychologists will agree. Bornstein, in 1989 (as cited in Baumeister & Bushman, 2008) proposed the Mere Exposure Effect (p229), where through the examination of over two hundred studies he disproved the cliché: “Familiarity breeds contempt”. Through exposure it was found that, new stimuli was liked more after an individual had been repeatedly exposed to it, so the old cliché was replaced with “Familiarity breeds liking”(Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p229). This theory of Bornstein’s is applied to attitude formation-the more an individual is exposed to a positive reward the more the attitude will be reinforced. Zajonc, supported this: “…mere repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus is sufficient condition for the enhancement of his attitude towards it” (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p229). Reinforcement is one key element to learning theories and in particular to the learning of attitudes. Just like the learning of behaviours occurs through classical conditioning, operant conditioning or through observational learning, so to can attitude formations occur through learning.

Jones and others (1995) believed that “classical conditioning helps to explain the development of prejudice against social groups that are frequently associated with negative information in the media (as cited in Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p230). Operant conditioning uses reinforcement and reward, and when people are rewarded for exhibiting socially acceptable attitudes, the more the attitudes are reinforced, making the individual’s attitude stronger. Finally humans can form attitudes through social or observational learning. Fiske (2004) provided the example of teenagers learning which attitudes are acceptable and which aren’t through the observing of whether their peers are either rewarded or punished for endorsing certain music, clothing styles, hairstyles and convictions (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p230).

Returning to his theory of social comparison, Festinger (1957) also proposed the theory of cognitive dissonance (as cited in Breckler, Olson & Wiggins, 2006, p252). Dissonance is a state of feeling conflicted about one’s own behaviour. If a person is feeling confused about a behaviour which isn’t consistent with their attitudes, they use rationalisation in an attempt to reduce dissonance. This is because people have a preference for consistency (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008, p232). When there are discrepancies between the attitudes a person holds and the actual behaviours they display, Baumeister and Bushman (2008) acknowledged that the most successful way to reduce dissonance is for the person change their attitudes in accordance with the concept of is through operant conditioning- rewards to reinforce the “new” attitude (p233). This need for attitude/behaviour consistency has led to social psychologists hypothesizing to the question: Is the drive for consistency rooted in nature or in culture? Baumeister and Bushman (2008) believe the need for consistency is learnt, but they also recognize the societal pressures of an individual’s culture that influences and strengthens the internal drive for consistency (p237). In these instances, the individual will change their attitude to be sure that it is consistent with the behaviour they exhibit.

Persuasion through the use of threat or fear-appeals (here fear-appeals will be used) is one ways in which other people try to persuade individuals to change an attitude. Persuasive communications attempt to convince the intended recipient to embrace and accept an advocated position (Breckler, Olson & Wiggins, 2006, p268). When one attempts to change attitudes through persuasion, they usually use one of two persuasion theories: either the cognitive response theory or the protection-motivation theory. Fear-appeals falls into the later of the two. To understand the motivation behind fear-appeals and the protection-motivation theory one must first briefly examine the cognitive response theory. Thoughts evoked by a message will determine the message’s effectiveness in causing attitude change (Breckler, Olson & Wiggins, 2006, p268). The cognitive response theory relies on the strength of the arguments to evoke thought and consideration, which then determines the strength of attitude change (Breckler, Olson & Wiggins, 2006, p269).

Lewis and others (2007) in studying fear-appeals used to improve driver safety, acknowledge that mass media advertising plays an important role in reducing illegal high-risk behaviours (p3). To do this researchers found that by firstly increasing the “perceived risk of apprehension” and through education and persuasion of road users to adopt safer road use behaviours, attitude change could occur (Lewis et al., 2007, p3). One technique to persuade road users was through the use of shock tactics- the aim is to evoke strong fear responses in individuals (Tay& Watson, 2002; Tay, 1999, as cited in Lewis et al., 2007, p3). There is little doubt from research evidence collected that “the arousal of fear generally increases the impact of the messages on attitudes and behavioural intentions (Cho & Witte, 2004; Das, de Wit & Stroebe, 2003; Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Perloff, 2003; as cited in Breckler, Olson & Wiggins, 2006, p287). If the “persuader” presents an individual with negative outcomes of which they could experience from engaging in unsafe behaviours, it is believed that the individual will be motivated to change their attitudes, to be more aligned with the recommendations (Lewis et al., 2006, p3). This then describes protection-motivation. This theory relies on four key elements for success: 1) How severe the problem is perceived by the audience; 2) How susceptible the audience believes itself to be to the problem; 3) If the audience believes the recommendations are truly effective; and 4) If the audience believes they are capable of change and performing the recommended behaviours (Breckler, Olson & Wiggins, 2006, p288; Lewis et al., 2007, p7). If the four beliefs of the protection-motivation theory are successful, fear-appeals will be effective, according to Breckler, Olson and Wiggins (2006, p288). Witte and Allen (2000) have shown however, that whilst the protection-motivation model effectively explains how and why fear-appeals are successful, it has been criticised for not showing why and how they fail (as cited in Lewis et al., 2007, p7). Many researchers acknowledge that there are many variables affecting the fear-appeals model of persuasion, and the key is to understand these effects so that the use of fear-appeals in attempting to persuade individuals is done so effectively.

Tay and Watson (2002) found an underpinning assumption that more fear equated to more persuasion (as cited in Lewis et al., 2007, pp9-10). However evidence suggests a “wear-out effect” and intended audiences of driver road safety campaigns are growing ‘tired’ of these campaigns, because that are loosing their appeal (Lewis et al., 2007, p15). Lewis and others continue with: “the most consistent and definitive conclusions” appear to lie with the importance of relevance (i.e. susceptibility), “and the provision of coping strategies and recommendations (i.e. efficacy) that an individual can effectively enact to avoid or prevent a threat from occurring, and not in fear-arousal” (Lewis et al., 2007, p21).When attempting to persuade through fear-appeals, the relevance of the message to the intended audience and the level of usefulness and vulnerability need to be sufficient to elicit attitude change (Lewis et al., 2007, p22).

One’s attitudes consist of all the evaluative responses on things or issues relevant to the individual. However attitudes are susceptible to change from persuasion by another person or group. When attempting to elicit change one needs to consider the method which they will present the information and the environment in which to do so to enable careful consideration of the arguments or not. Through cognitive or emotive response attitude change can occur. Fear-appeals work best when trying to produce an emotive, fear-reducing response, however many variables need to be considered and much research conducted to determine the most successful way in which to change long held attitudes.

References:

Asch, S. E. (1955) Opinions and Social Pressure. Scientific American. 193, pp31-35.

Baron, R. A. & Byrne, D. (1997) Social Psychology (8th ed.) Allyn & Bacon, USA.

Baumeister, R. F. & Bushman, B. J. (2007) Social Psychology and Human Nature. (1st ed.) Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Breckler, S. J., Olson, J. M.& Wiggins, E. C. (2006) Social Psychology Alive. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth.

Lewis, I. M., Watson, Barry & Tay, Richard & White, Katherine. M. (2007) The Role of Fear-appeals in Improving Driver Safety: A review of the effectiveness of fear-arousing (threat) appeals in road safety advertising. International Journal of Behavioural and Consultation Therapy. 3 (2): pp 203-222.


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