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The Science of Attitudes The Science of Attitudes is the first book to integrate classic and modern research in the field of attitudes at a scholarly level. Designed primarily for advanced under- graduates and graduate students, the presentation of research will also be useful for current scholars in all disciplines who are interested in how attitudes are formed and changed. The treatment of attitudes is both thorough and unique, taking a his- torical approach while simultaneously highlighting contemporary views and con- troversies. The book traces attitude research from the inception of scientific study following World War II to the issues and methods of research that are prominent features of today’s research. Researchers in the field of attitudes will be particularly interested in classic and modern research on the organization, structure, strength, and function of attitudes. Researchers in the field of persuasion will be particularly interested in work on atti- tude change focusing on propositional and associative learning, metacognition and dynamic theories of dissonance, balance and reactance. The book is designed to present the integration of the properties of the attitude with the dynamic consider- ations of attitude change. The Science of Attitudes is also the first book on attitudes to devote entire chapters to work on implicit measurements, resistance to persuasion, and social neuroscience. Joel Cooper has been on the Psychology faculty at Princeton University since obtaining his Ph.D. from Duke University. He is past editor of the Journal of Exper- imental Social Psychology, is the author of several books, and co-editor of a major handbook in social psychology. Shane F. Blackman received his bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Princeton University in psychology and public pol- icy. His scholarship has focused on attitudes, naïve realism, and social policy. Kyle T. Keller received his Ph.D. in psychology from Princeton University and his bachelor’s degree at the University of Arizona. He contributed to research in cogni- tive dissonance, choice, and choice behaviors. Kyle was selected as a Fellow of the Princeton Energy and Climate Scholars. This page intentionally left blank The Science of Attitudes Joel Cooper Shane F. Blackman Kyle T. Keller First published 2016 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Taylor & Francis The right of Joel Cooper, Shane F. Blackman, and Kyle T. Keller to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cooper, Joel. The science of attitudes / Joel Cooper, Shane Blackman, Kyle Keller. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Attitude (Psychology) 2. Attitude change. I. Blackman, Shane J. II. Keller, Kyle. III. Title. BF327.C665 2016 152.4—dc23 2015007593 ISBN: 978-1-138-82078-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-82079-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-71731-9 (ebk) Typeset in Stone Serif by Apex CoVantage CONTENTS Preface vi CHAPTER 1 The Meaning and Measurement of Attitudes 1 CHAPTER 2 Attitude Strength and Structure 23 CHAPTER 3 The Functions of Attitudes 58 CHAPTER 4 Persuasion: Classic Approaches 83 CHAPTER 5 Dual-Process Theories of Attitude Change 114 CHAPTER 6 Predicting Behavior from Attitudes 145 CHAPTER 7 Predicting Attitudes from Behaviors 169 CHAPTER 8 Resistance to Persuasion 199 CHAPTER 9 Implicit Measurement of Attitudes 226 CHAPTER 10 New Frontiers in Attitude Research: Accessing and Modeling the Brain 258 References 283 Author Index 329 Subject Index 341 v PREFACE This book is about attitudes. Everyone has them. We have attitudes about important world issues, about the mundane objects in our everyday life, and about the people who comprise our social world. The attitude concept has been the most studied con- cept in the history of social psychology. It is a topic covered in psychology courses, from the basic introductory class to the graduate level. Yet, with all the attention paid to attitudes, the current book was born of a teaching need. We found it difficult to teach a responsible course on the social psychology of attitudes without compil- ing a unique curriculum of ideas, references and concepts. This volume is designed to provide students, teachers and scholars with the overarching framework that uni- fies the exciting field of attitudes and persuasion and also brings to life the scientific approach to the discipline. When psychologists first began to study the attitude, they could only imagine that some day researchers would be combining people’s verbal judgments with information gathered from implicit measures and from brain activity. Now, modern attitude research uses a panoply of traditional and innovative methods to form a more complete picture of how people form and change attitudes. From its incep- tion, the study of attitudes in psychology meant applying the scientific research method. This book begins with an analysis of how attitudes first came to be studied and shows the changing perspectives that occurred over the course of time. We use a historical approach to trace the changing methods, theories and assumptions that guided research in attitudes and attitude change. The book gives the reader a foundation in the classic approaches that prepares the way for an appreciation of current issues and cutting edge methodologies. We show the reader how contem- porary issues complement classic approaches and how newer implicit measures and fMRI technology complement more traditional measures in the field of attitudes. No book can be written without the help of numerous people. We wish to acknowledge and thank the many people who by reading, criticizing, commenting, typing, taking photos and otherwise offering their assistance to allow us to com- plete this book. We specifically acknowledge Paul Bree, Matthew Kugler, Christine McCoy, Allison Fleming and Barbara Cooper for their valuable assistance. We also could not have completed the book without the helpful criticisms and suggestions offered by Russell Fazio, Michael Olson and other anonymous reviewers. vi CHAPTER 1 The Meaning and Measurement of Attitudes Ay oung girl walked off her school bus, fearful that her school would close. She was twelve years old, and nothing had been more important in her young life than her education. Her hopes and dreams were threatened by an edict from the Tal- iban militia: All schools serving girls must be shut and boarded by January of 2009. As a child growing up in the Swat Valley of Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai’s schooling had been frequently interrupted by the militias, hostile to the belief that girls might receive a formal education. “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to edu- cation?” she had said to a public meeting of reporters when she was 11 years old. Malala’s attitude toward education would cause her both trauma and triumph. Trauma occurred on October 9, 2012, when Taliban gunmen boarded her school bus and shot her with a single bullet to the head. They made clear that she had been targeted for her outspoken commitment to girls’ education. But Malala survived and, following a difficult recovery, emerged to a triumphant standing ovation at the General Assembly of the United Nations. She concluded her remarks by saying, Dear brothers and sisters, we want schools and education for every child’s bright future . . . we must not forget that millions of people are suffering from poverty, injustice and ignorance. We must not forget that millions of children are out of schools. We must not forget that our sisters and brothers are waiting for a bright peaceful future. So let us wage a global struggle against illiteracy, poverty and ter- rorism and let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education First. (NY Times, July 12, 2013) Malala Yousafzai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Attitudes matter. Throughout the history of the world, people have taken extraordinary steps to support a set of attitudes and beliefs to bring about a better world. Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. led societies to new views 1 2 The Meaning and MeasureMenT of aTTiTudes of human freedom and dignity by their written words and their behavior. Every day, people take action to advocate for social justice. They persuade and organize in the service of bringing about a world that is closer to the paragon in which they believe. Attitudes matter in our daily lives as well. The way we think of our world is largely determined by our attitudes. From the major political issues of the day to the mundane evaluations of the food on our breakfast tables, it is difficult to envision a world without them. They are reflections of our likes and dislikes, our preferences and our evaluations. It seems virtually impossible to describe our social lives with- out considering our attitudes. This book is devoted to organizing in a coherent fash- ion the main tenets of what the science of psychology has learned about attitudes. We will examine how our attitudes are structured, how they are measured and the functions they serve. We will consider the effectiveness of ways to change attitudes in the form of persuasion, and also the ways that allow people to resist persuasion. We will consider the relationship of our attitudes to our behaviors, both as causes and consequences of behavior, and finally discuss the emerging knowledge relating attitudes to electrochemical changes in our brains. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF ATTITUDES The scientific study of the attitude has a long and storied history. Although the science of social psychology is only a little more than a century old, Thomas and Znaniecki wrote in 1918 that social psychology was essentially the study of the attitude. It was not always so. The first usage of the word attitude in the English language was recorded in the 17th century, when it was adapted from the French. Its meaning was not at all what psychologists describe today. If you referred to a person’s attitude, you would be referring to their posture rather than a psycho- logical concept. The first known link to psychology entered the language in 1725, when attitude referred to a posture of the body that reflected a mental state. It was not until 1837 that etymologists found a use of the word to refer to an opinion or a feeling about an object. Advance the clock only 80 years and Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) could declare the study of the attitude to be the essence of the fledgling sci- ence of social psychology. Although the term attitude to describe people’s mental states toward an object or issue is relatively newly minted, the art of persuading people to change those mental states is as old as civilization. It was the profession of the Sophists in ancient Greece to teach citizens how to argue and persuade. Aristotle considered persuasion in great detail in Rhetoric. The Roman forums relied on debate and persuasion in the running of the empire. It is not that scholars were unaware that people held opin- ions but, as art gave way to science, they needed a more precise way to conceptual- ize people’s opinions and so the relatively new term, attitude, rose to prominence. The Meaning and MeasureMenT of aTTiTudes 3 The scientific study of attitudes was facilitated by the development of meth- ods to assess them. L. L. Thurstone, Rensis Likert, Louis Guttman and Charles Osgood provided increased sophistication to the scales used to study attitudes. With the publication of attitude measurement techniques, the volume of empirical research in attitudes exploded. By 1935, Gordon Allport declared the attitude to be “the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary American social psychology” (Allport, 1935, p. 198). From the perspective of the 21st century, it is clear that Allport’s assessment remains true, with the caveat that the qualifying term “American” is no longer required. A literature search using “attitude” as the search term yields more than 65,000 articles, chapters, books and dissertations. Attitudes express our evaluations, influence our perceptions and guide our behavior. A matter of practical and theoretical concern is how to alter them. Polit- ical candidates know that people’s attitudes toward them, and possibly the issues they represent, predict their voting behavior. Commercial marketers know that peo- ple’s attitudes toward a product predict their purchasing behavior. Leaders of mass movements know that people will sacrifice a great deal in support of attitudes they find powerful and important. Finding the principles that govern the creation and change of attitudes has been the focus of a healthy proportion of those 65,000 entries in the psychological literature. A Tale of Two Traditions: Attitudes and Attitude Change Persuasion is both an art and a science. As an art form, it relies on intuition. Many political candidates, political consultants and advertising agencies are adept at con- vincing their audiences without being able to articulate the principles that underlie the persuasion. Just as artists paint a picture that can be striking for its beauty, some persuasive communicators effectively convince their audience with the subtlety of their words or the beauty of their images. When a young man named Volney Palmer opened the very first advertising agency in Philadelphia in 1843, instinct and intui- tion were the tools of his trade (Pratkanis & Aronson, 2001). The science of persua- sion had not yet begun. The science of persuasion, in contrast to the intuition of persuasion, relies on the systematic investigation of underlying principles that lead to attitude change. The first programmatic effort to examine attitude change systematically was conducted by a group of investigators at Yale University in the 1940s. The group was con- vened by the United States government, responding to what it perceived to be a dilemma of public opinion. Toward the end of WWII, after the surrender of the European Axis powers, the government was concerned about persuading its citizens that the war in the Pacific theater of operations would be both lengthy and difficult. Worried that people would believe that a successful end to the war was inevitable, the government was determined to persuade them that sacrifice remained essential.
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