Fear and attitude change.

To explore attitude change under high-fear conditions, an experimental group of student nurses was tested 3 times during a 6-wk. TB affiliation. This group showed significantly greater attitude change than a control group. In the experimental group, anticipatory-fear and fear-decrease scores were positively correlated with favorable attitude-change scores. High fear apparently facilitated attitude change in this group. The relationship between fear and attitude change in the high fear experimental group was monotonic with no decrease in attitude change at the highest fear levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional complexity as a moderator of dissonance-produced attitude change.

The complexity of one's attributional schemas was predicted to attenuate dissonance-produced attitude change after one writes a counterattitudinal essay (favoring yearly tuition increases). In both Experiments 1 and 2, participants high on attributional complexity (AC) exhibited less of a dissonance (choice) effect than those low on AC. The proposed explanation that AC allows for better external justification of a dissonant act was supported in Experiment 2, in which participants listed their reasons for writing the counterattitudinal essay. No support was found for the views that high-AC participants reduce dissonance through "trivialization" or that high-AC participants are more tolerant of dissonance than low-AC participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude change as a function of attitude type and argument type.

We hypothesized that affective-based attitudes would be more susceptible to rational arguments and, alternatively, cognitive-based attitudes would be more susceptible to emotional arguments. Three studies were conducted to test this hypothesis. In Study 1, the participants' attitudes about 6 common beverages were classified as affectively or cognitively based, and then either rational or emotional counterattitudinal arguments were presented. In Study 2, naturalistic emotional and rational arguments in the form of advertisements were presented. In Study 3, affective and cognitive attitudes about analytic problems were created, and then either rational or emotional counterattitudinal arguments were presented. The expected patterns of attitude change and cognitive responses were obtained in each of the studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive restructuring and attitude change.

Factors which influence attitude change were investigated by determining attitudes of non-Catholic college Ss to the possibility of their becoming Catholic. These attitudes were then explored under 2 subsequent experimental conditions defined by a willingness to participate further in the project. If willing, they were forced to realize the meaning of their written attitudes. The results indicated an interactive effect with increased change of opinion or resistance to change. This was determined by the degree of option to participate in interaction while being forced to recognize the implications of the meaning of their written statements. Awareness of meaning in interaction with freedom to participate or not produced the greatest attitude change; interaction with no freedom produced the greatest resistance to change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive consistency and attitude change.

The effect of temporal presentation of ideas, consistency of presented attitude, and wishful thinking on the logicalness of thinking was investigated. The results were discussed in relation to previous empirical and theoretical research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Level of initial attitude, active rehearsal, and instructional set as factors in attitude change.

2experiments are reported in which Ss having extremely favorable, favorable, and neutral attitudes toward the church were induced to read an antichurch essay to 6 listeners of their choice outside the laboratory. ? of the Ss in each predisposition group were told that their own attitudes might be influenced as a result of the experience. Both those Ss who were "favorable" toward the church and those who were "neutral" became significantly less prochurch as measured by posttesting with the attitude scale. The extremely prochurch Ss were not significantly influenced by this mode of persuasion. Instructional set did not produce any significant differences in susceptibility of Ss in any of the groups to the compliance experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determinants of conformity and attitude change.

"College males varying in affiliative motivation were subjected to a group-influence situation where their previously measured attitudes toward divorce was either unanimously opposed, or opposed with the exception of one supporter. The subject's public reaction (conformity) was measured, and also his private response (attitude change). The results indicated conformity to be a joint function of affiliative motivation and conditions of social support, with roughly similar but less significant results for attitude change." 19 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and susceptibility to attitude change.

Two hypotheses about the relation between age and susceptibility to attitude change were tested. The impressionable years hypothesis proposes that individuals are highly susceptible to attitude change during late adolescence and early adulthood and that susceptibility drops precipitously immediately thereafter and remains low throughout the rest of the life cycle. The increasing persistence hypothesis proposes that people become gradually more resistant to change throughout their lives. Structural equation models were applied to data from the 1956–1960, 1972–1976, and 1980 National Election Panel Studies in order to estimate the stability of political attitudes and unreliability in measures of them. The results support the impressionable years hypothesis and disconfirm the increasing persistence hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misattribution of dissonance and behaviour-consistent attitude change.

Examined the prediction that people who have misattributed dissonance arousal to an external source may come to question the appropriateness of this attribution and may then be motivated to alter their attitudes. This was tested by having an experimenter discredit the plausibility of an external source after misattribution had presumably occurred. 80 female undergraduates participated in the study, with 16 of these Ss serving as controls. 64 Ss were given a pill described as having either unpleasant side effects or no side effects and then were committed to write counterattitudinal essays under high-choice conditions. Some Ss were then told that a mistake had been made and that they had actually been given the other form of the pill. As predicted, Ss who had initially been led to believe that the pill had aversive side effects but were later told that it did not manifested behavior-consistent attitude change. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social reinforcement in attitude change.

Ss were exposed to an attitude different than one they had expressed previously with the purpose of seeing whether postcommunicative conversation would reflect attempts at reducing such cognitive dissonance. Analyzing the conversation of women who had been exposed to attitudes concerning toilet training which was different than the one they had expressed indicated that they did tend to reduce cognitive dissonance by seeking out information that either agreed with their formally held notion or the newly advocated one. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GD09M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluating societal change in attitude.

Presents a probabilistic response model for assessing attitude data from national surveys. The attendant statistical analysis by generalized least squares adjusts for the heterogeneous variances and covariances characterizing the data in such surveys. The flexibility of this approach in survey analysis is illustrated using attitude data from the Netherlands' Social and Cultural Report 1980. Estimation and testing procedures applied to these data demonstrate sharp shifts during the last decade toward easing social constraints on the feminine role. This illustration is suggestive of the types of lawful relationships that are demonstrable at the societal level of analysis. Other possible applications of the approach are suggested. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Arousal as a necessary condition for attitude change following induced compliance.

In a 2?×?3 design, 63 university students were induced to write counterattitudinal essays under either high- or low-choice conditions. All Ss were led to believe that a pill, which they had just taken in the context of a separate experiment, was a placebo. In reality, Ss were given a pill that contained either 30 mg of phenobarbital (tranquilizer condition), 5 mg of amphetamine (amphetamine condition), or milk powder (placebo condition). In this last condition, the results yielded the usual dissonance effect: High choice produced more attitude change in the direction of the essay than low choice. When Ss were given a tranquilizer, this effect was virtually eliminated; when Ss were given amphetamine, attitude change increased under high choice and was exhibited for the 1st time under low choice. These results are consistent with the notion that attitude change is in the service of reducing arousal and with the idea that arousal from other sources can be misattributed to attitude-discrepant behavior. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The motivational bases of attitude change.

In describing the motivational forces which determine attitude formation and change, the authors focus upon three basic variables: reward and punishment, reality testing, and ego defensiveness. Methodological approaches which seem to lead to appropriate tests of hypotheses generated by the discussion are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal behavior and self-presentation.

Because of special characteristics of nonverbal behaviors (e.g., they can be difficult to suppress, they are more accessible to the people who observe them than to the people who produce them), the intention to produce a particular nonverbal expression for self-presentational purposes cannot always be successfully translated into the actual production of that expression. The literatures on people's skills at using their nonverbal behaviors to feign internal states and to deceive are reviewed as they pertain to the question of whether people can overcome the many constraints on the translation of their intentions into expressions. The issue of whether people's deliberate attempts to regulate their nonverbal behaviors can be detected by others is also considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude similarity and therapist credibility as predictors of attitude change and improvement in psychotherapy.

Assessed the effects of therapist credibility and patient-therapist similarity (measured by the Situational Appraisal Inventory) on interpersonal persuasion and the relationship between patient attitude change and psychotherapy outcome. Data from 97 psychiatric patients and their 6 therapists suggest that initial patient-therapist similarity is inversely related to the therapist's persuasive influence, regardless of his perceived credibility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Embodiment, agency, and attitude change.

Attitude embodiment effects occur when the position or movement of a person’s physical body changes the way the person evaluates an object. The present research investigated whether attitude embodiment effects depend more on biomechanical factors or on inferential cues to causal agency. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that actual movements of the physical body are not necessary to create attitude embodiment effects when inferential cues imply agency for another person’s physical movements. Experiment 3 showed that actual movements of the physical body are not sufficient to create attitude embodiment effects when inferential cues imply nonagency for those movements. In all 3 experiments, inferential cues to agency played a more important role in attitude embodiment effects than did actual agency, suggesting that theories of embodiment and attitude embodiment need to consider inferential cues to agency alongside biomechanical mechanisms. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining self-presentation as a motivational explanation for comparative optimism.

Five studies examined a self-presentation explanation for comparative optimism. Experiments 1 and 2 laid the foundation for such an account by first showing that people associate a favorable identity-image with the conveyance of an optimistic outlook and that people recognize that an individual may be perceived in a negative light if his or her optimistic estimates are disconfirmed, hence raising the issue of potential accountability demands. Following the issue of accountability, the results across Experiments 3, 4, and 5 provided consistent evidence that people employ comparative optimism in their self-presentation efforts but only if the circumstances involve little risk of being held potentially accountable. Specifically, when self-presentational situations involved greater accountability demands, comparative optimism decreased (less optimistic), whereas, when these situations involved reduced accountability demands, comparative optimism increased (more optimistic). In short, the current experiments present compelling evidence demonstrating that comparative optimism may reflect an individual’s goal to self-present a favorable identity-image, with the provision that such efforts are constrained by accountability pressures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive mediators in the reduction of pain: The role of expectancy, strategy use, and self-presentation.

Eighty subjects underwent three trials of cold-pressor pain. The first cold-pressor trial served as a baseline. Next, subjects in a neutral (no expectancy information) condition were taught a distraction strategy (shadowing letters) before one cold-pressor trial and an imagery strategy before the other. Subjects in other conditions received positive expectancy information about one of the strategies and negative expectancy information about the other. Negative information reduced expectancy ratings and decreased the magnitude of reported pain reductions. Both pretested levels of social desirability and degree of absorption in strategy use made contributions to the prediction of pain reduction that were independent of expectancy ratings. Theoretical implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Congruity theory and linear models of attitude change.

Evaluated C. E. Osgood and P. H. Tannenbaum's (see record 1955-08361-001) congruity model of attitude change, a regression model derived from the Osgood and Tannenbaum model, and D. R. Heise's (see record 1969-08323-001) 3 general linear models of attitude change, using data obtained from 208 undergraduates. 104 Ss rated 8 3-word (subject, verb, object) sentences 1st, and then rated the individual words. The other Ss rated the individual words 1st. The mean ratings for the 2 groups were compared to obtain the attitude change for each element, and the models were used to predict the change which resulted from the combination of the words into a sentence. Sex differences were found in mean attitudinal evaluations, and the inclusion of higher-order interaction terms increased the predictability of attitude ratings for females more than for males. Heise's Model III was the best predictor of attitude change, followed by his Model II and the regression model derived from the Osgood and Tannenbaum model. The Osgood and Tannenbaum model gave poor prediction of the mean attitudinal changes obtained. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Repetition of highly similar messages and attitude change.

Predicted that message repetition would increase positive attitudes in a situation where highly similar communications are used. 5 similar advertisements (i.e., those using the same basic arguments but differing in the phrasing and order of points raised) served as stimulus messages and were sequentially presented with attitude being measured by a cognitive response analysis of thoughts recorded by 50 undergraduates. Results support the prediction of a positive relationship between the number of presentations and attitude. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)