Exam 7: Attitudes and Attitude Change: Influencing Thoughts and Feelings

Public service ads often try to raise fear in an audience to induce people to change unhealthy behaviors. If fear appeals are used, it is crucial to provide the audience with __________ to increase the likelihood of behavior change.

How can cognitive dissonance create attitude change? Why isn't it used on a mass scale in advertising?

Peer pressure is effective because it plays on adolescents' __________.

The function of affectively based attitudes is to __________.

Next week, you're going to give a lecture to the psychology club about the Yale Attitude Change approach to persuasion. What will be your three main topics?

Why are affectively based attitudes so resistant to logical persuasive attempts to change them?

According to the Yale Attitude Change approach, a __________ salesperson would lead to higher sales.

Recall that in the 1930s, when anti-Asian prejudice was commonplace in the United States, LaPiere (1934) had no trouble finding pleasant accommodations for himself and his Chinese traveling companions. Surprised, LaPiere later sent letters to the establishments they visited, asking whether Chinese visitors would be welcome. More than 90 percent of those who responded replied that they definitely would not accommodate Chinese. Although LaPiere's study suggests that there is a weak link between attitudes and behavior, his results should be interpreted with caution. Why?

If you stand in the checkout line of any discount store, you'll see a very odd assortment of items on display: disposable razors, batteries, ballpoint pens, playing cards, trail mix, USB drives, and so on. Retailers call these items "impulse buys," meaning that although people may not come to the store looking for cards, pens, or trail mix, when they see them near the checkout, they'll buy them. An attitude researcher might say that people buy these items because __________.

The best evidence that advertisements do work to change attitudes and behaviors comes from __________.

You want to have a talk with your younger sister about the dangers of drugs. You begin the discussion by saying, "Now, your friends are probably going to tell you that only people with problems to begin with get into trouble with drugs, and that you're a chicken if you don't get high with them, but…" You have just used __________ to persuade her to avoid experimenting with drugs.

Recent ads on television portray the embarrassment and social anxiety associated with the dreaded toenail fungus. In all probability, the manufacturers are attempting to make a profit by __________.

As a persuasive communicator, your goal is to influence the opinions of your audience. You are most likely to benefit from an audience that is slightly distracted when __________.

Most automobile ads on television convey very little objective information about the models shown; indeed, one automaker launched a series of television ads that contained no words at all. The design of these automobile advertisements is based on the advertisers' premise that cars are __________.

Advertisers will be most successful in influencing our attitudes and behaviors if they __________.

Social psychologists have found that attitudes do predict behavior, but only under certain specifiable conditions. One key factor is knowing whether the behavior in question is __________.

Reggie is busy trying to prepare a complicated recipe for dinner when his sons come in asking him who can use the computer first. One son, Jason, gives a long explanation about why he needs it, and goes on for some time. The other son, Cameron, just gives a short explanation. If Reggie is processing these arguments via the heuristic route, who is he most likely to give computer privileges to first?

Briefly compare the classic Yale Attitude Change approach of Hovland and his colleagues with more contemporary approaches such as Petty and Cacioppo's (1986) elaboration likelihood model.

Emerson's boss wants to use cognitive dissonance to sell a new type of emergency cell phone. Emerson is not convinced that the campaign is going to be successful. What should Emerson tell his boss?

Researchers (Davidson & Jaccard, 1979) studied the relationship between women's attitudes and their use of the birth control pill. They found that the best predictor of whether women were using the birth control pill two years after reporting their attitudes was the women's __________.