Lecture 1 Attitudes and persuasions: A brief history
Advertising = any form of paid communication by an identified sponsor aimed to inform and/or
persuade target audiences about an organization, product, service or idea.
The start of advertising began during the industrial revolution → products became mass
produced and companies needed to convince consumers that their product was the
best (branding).
- Core of advertising = ways of communicating with customers.
In the 1800’s to early 1900’s print ads mostly made argument-based appeals → a
way of influencing people's opinions about products.
Propaganda = information, ideas, opinions or images that are broadcasted, published or in
some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions.
Companies can persuade but governments should only inform, not influence.
The mirror argument = research finds that gender bias in advertising follows general
societal values → advertising is a mirror of society and shapes our opinions. The
effects of social media advertising can be very profound.
Attitude = inclination to behave towards things (person/object) that you encounter in a certain
way. This is typically expressed along dimensions (good/bad, positive/negative etc.).
→ Self-reports are mainly used to measure attitudes.
Assessing advertising
- Naïve approach = advertising must work because it is there and takes up a lot of the
budget.
- Economic approach = advertising is effective if advertising expenses correlate with
higher changes in sales volume.
- Media approach = advertising is effective if it reaches the number of people in the
target population it is intended to reach.
- Creative approach = advertising is effective if it is creative and captures people’s
attention.
- Psychological approach = seeks to articulate the intrapersonal, interpersonal or group-
level psychological processes that are responsible for the relationship between ad
stimuli and consumer responses.
● Relates specific advertising stimuli to specific and individual consumer
responses.
● An ad has an effect because we notice it, we have feelings and
thoughts about it and that changes our attitude and thereby our
behavior → our response to the ad is what changes the behavior.
→ Attitudes influence behavior and behavior influences attitudes.
, Lecture 2 Attitude formation: How consumers form attitudes toward products
An attitude:
- is a hypothetical construct that we can not pinpoint in our brain.
- Is an inclination to behave towards things (person/objects) that you encounter in a
certain way.
1. They are evaluative responses.
2. They are directed toward some attitude object.
3. They are based on 3 classes of information.
● Cognitive → information about the objects characteristics (derived from
appraisal)
○ Beliefs and knowledge.
○ Based on indirect experiences (good review of a movie).
● Affective → emotional reactions evoked by the attitudes object.
○ Feelings, moods and emotions.
○ Based on direct experiences (you liked the prequel of the movie).
● Behavioral → infer attitudes from past behavior.
○ Intentions to act or not (more ambiguous than cognitive or affective)
○ Based on direct experiences (you already went to see the movie 3 times).
○ Self-perception theory = people rarely have direct information about
their attitudes and therefore often have to infer them from their own
behavior.
→ People’s evaluations of a product should be closely related to their memories of
the evidence on which those judgements are presumably based.
→ The categorization of a stimulus object along an evaluative dimension.
Expectancy value models = how different sources of information
are integrated into a single value expectation model.
➢ Attitudes towards an object is the sum of: all beliefs x
evaluations of those beliefs.
➢ What do you believe (booster vaccine leads to more
freedom) and how do you think about that (positive
evaluation).
Attitudinal ambivalence = state in which an individual gives an attitude object equivalent to
strong positive or negative evaluation.
- Like and dislike an attitude or object simultaneously.
➢ Solution: two-dimensional perspective of attitudes = for
many attitudes, positive and negative evaluations are
stored in memory on 2 separate dimensions.
○ One ranging from neutral to positive.
○ Another ranging from neutral to negative.
- Structural ambivalence = the coexistence of positive and
negative evaluations.
, ➢ Ambivalent attitudes are less stable, less predictive of behavior, less resistant to social
influence but show more processing motivation.
Implicit attitudes = evaluations of which the individual is usually not aware and that influences
- uncontrollable reactions.
- Automatic;
- Non-conscious;
- Associative (op associatie berustend);
- Indirect measures.
■ Affective priming method = see a prime and then an adjective and you have to
decide as fast as possible whether the adjective was positive or negative →
response time is measured.
■ Implicit association test = assess the strength of an association between 2 concepts
with positive and negative evaluations (e.g. minority/majority/positive/negative).
➢ Results from automatic activation of learnt processes in associative memory.
Explicit attitudes = evaluations of which the individual is consciously aware (expressed on self-
report).
- Deliberate (opzettelijk);
- Conscious;
- Introspective (uitingen die zich richten op het doelbewust observeren van wat zich in
eigen innerlijk afspeelt);
- Self-report.
■ Semantic differential scales (good-bad/positive-negative).
➢ Based on beliefs and the activation of information about facts and values.
There seems to be a small correlation between implicit and explicit measures →
suggestion that they arise from different processes or systems.
➢ Theory of dual attitudes = persuasive advertising or new experiences often
result in the creation of a new, second attitude without replacing the old one
→ different evaluations of the same attitude object.
1. Automatic implicit evaluation.
2. Controlled explicit evaluation.
➢ Attitudes people have depend on the cognitive capacity to retrieve the explicit attitude
while suppressing the old implicit attitude.
○ Not many consumers want to admit that they are often heavily influenced by
advertising.
○ Advertising could be a powerful force creating secondary attitudes.
File-drawer model = attitudes are like mental files that can be consulted for the evaluation of a
given attitude object.
➢ Attitudes are stable (Eagly and Chaiken).
- This idea got challenged as it seemed that attitudes might be less enduring and stable.
, Attitudes-as-constructions perspective = attitudes fluctuate over time and depend on what
people are thinking about at any given moment.
➢ Attitudes are context dependent.
There is empirical evidence for both stability and malleability (maakbaarheid) of attitudes.
- Solution: attitudes can be placed on a continuum of attitude strength.
○ On one end, issues that are so new or irrelevant to an individual that they have
not yet formed an attitude about it.
○ On the other end, issues that are familiar and important to individuals and
towards which they have strong well-developed attitudes.
- Attitude strength (moderator) influences the stability of people's attitudes as well as
whether attitudinal judgements are formed online or based on memory.
Attitude strength = the amount of impact an attitude has on thinking and behavior. Strong
attitudes are:
- Highly stable over time;
- Have a greater impact on behavior;
- Have a greater influence on information processing;
- Show greater resistance to persuasion.
➢ Highly accessible, important attitudes of which you are more certain and have more
knowledge, show greater attitude strength.
➢ In case of ambivalence you could say that you have mixed feelings about a
person → affects the strength of your attitude toward them → change your
behavior toward them.
➢ Structural and functional qualities of attitudes determine their strength and as a result
their association with behavior.
Cognitive accessibility = how easily an attitude can be retrieved from memory.
- Brand awareness = ease with which consumers can recognize a brand and retrieve
belief about it.
➢ Highly accessible attitudes are more predictive of actual/spontaneous behavior and
more resistance to social influence.
Attitude importance is determined by:
- Relevance of the attitude to cherished values of the individual.
- Relevance to self-interest.
- Perceived relevance of an issue for the interests of important reference groups.
➢ Important attitudes are more stable, predictive of behavior and resistant of behavior to
social influence.
Attitude certainty = confidence individuals have in the correctness of their own attitude (often
attitudes that derive from personal experience and come to mind easily).
Advertising = any form of paid communication by an identified sponsor aimed to inform and/or
persuade target audiences about an organization, product, service or idea.
The start of advertising began during the industrial revolution → products became mass
produced and companies needed to convince consumers that their product was the
best (branding).
- Core of advertising = ways of communicating with customers.
In the 1800’s to early 1900’s print ads mostly made argument-based appeals → a
way of influencing people's opinions about products.
Propaganda = information, ideas, opinions or images that are broadcasted, published or in
some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions.
Companies can persuade but governments should only inform, not influence.
The mirror argument = research finds that gender bias in advertising follows general
societal values → advertising is a mirror of society and shapes our opinions. The
effects of social media advertising can be very profound.
Attitude = inclination to behave towards things (person/object) that you encounter in a certain
way. This is typically expressed along dimensions (good/bad, positive/negative etc.).
→ Self-reports are mainly used to measure attitudes.
Assessing advertising
- Naïve approach = advertising must work because it is there and takes up a lot of the
budget.
- Economic approach = advertising is effective if advertising expenses correlate with
higher changes in sales volume.
- Media approach = advertising is effective if it reaches the number of people in the
target population it is intended to reach.
- Creative approach = advertising is effective if it is creative and captures people’s
attention.
- Psychological approach = seeks to articulate the intrapersonal, interpersonal or group-
level psychological processes that are responsible for the relationship between ad
stimuli and consumer responses.
● Relates specific advertising stimuli to specific and individual consumer
responses.
● An ad has an effect because we notice it, we have feelings and
thoughts about it and that changes our attitude and thereby our
behavior → our response to the ad is what changes the behavior.
→ Attitudes influence behavior and behavior influences attitudes.
, Lecture 2 Attitude formation: How consumers form attitudes toward products
An attitude:
- is a hypothetical construct that we can not pinpoint in our brain.
- Is an inclination to behave towards things (person/objects) that you encounter in a
certain way.
1. They are evaluative responses.
2. They are directed toward some attitude object.
3. They are based on 3 classes of information.
● Cognitive → information about the objects characteristics (derived from
appraisal)
○ Beliefs and knowledge.
○ Based on indirect experiences (good review of a movie).
● Affective → emotional reactions evoked by the attitudes object.
○ Feelings, moods and emotions.
○ Based on direct experiences (you liked the prequel of the movie).
● Behavioral → infer attitudes from past behavior.
○ Intentions to act or not (more ambiguous than cognitive or affective)
○ Based on direct experiences (you already went to see the movie 3 times).
○ Self-perception theory = people rarely have direct information about
their attitudes and therefore often have to infer them from their own
behavior.
→ People’s evaluations of a product should be closely related to their memories of
the evidence on which those judgements are presumably based.
→ The categorization of a stimulus object along an evaluative dimension.
Expectancy value models = how different sources of information
are integrated into a single value expectation model.
➢ Attitudes towards an object is the sum of: all beliefs x
evaluations of those beliefs.
➢ What do you believe (booster vaccine leads to more
freedom) and how do you think about that (positive
evaluation).
Attitudinal ambivalence = state in which an individual gives an attitude object equivalent to
strong positive or negative evaluation.
- Like and dislike an attitude or object simultaneously.
➢ Solution: two-dimensional perspective of attitudes = for
many attitudes, positive and negative evaluations are
stored in memory on 2 separate dimensions.
○ One ranging from neutral to positive.
○ Another ranging from neutral to negative.
- Structural ambivalence = the coexistence of positive and
negative evaluations.
, ➢ Ambivalent attitudes are less stable, less predictive of behavior, less resistant to social
influence but show more processing motivation.
Implicit attitudes = evaluations of which the individual is usually not aware and that influences
- uncontrollable reactions.
- Automatic;
- Non-conscious;
- Associative (op associatie berustend);
- Indirect measures.
■ Affective priming method = see a prime and then an adjective and you have to
decide as fast as possible whether the adjective was positive or negative →
response time is measured.
■ Implicit association test = assess the strength of an association between 2 concepts
with positive and negative evaluations (e.g. minority/majority/positive/negative).
➢ Results from automatic activation of learnt processes in associative memory.
Explicit attitudes = evaluations of which the individual is consciously aware (expressed on self-
report).
- Deliberate (opzettelijk);
- Conscious;
- Introspective (uitingen die zich richten op het doelbewust observeren van wat zich in
eigen innerlijk afspeelt);
- Self-report.
■ Semantic differential scales (good-bad/positive-negative).
➢ Based on beliefs and the activation of information about facts and values.
There seems to be a small correlation between implicit and explicit measures →
suggestion that they arise from different processes or systems.
➢ Theory of dual attitudes = persuasive advertising or new experiences often
result in the creation of a new, second attitude without replacing the old one
→ different evaluations of the same attitude object.
1. Automatic implicit evaluation.
2. Controlled explicit evaluation.
➢ Attitudes people have depend on the cognitive capacity to retrieve the explicit attitude
while suppressing the old implicit attitude.
○ Not many consumers want to admit that they are often heavily influenced by
advertising.
○ Advertising could be a powerful force creating secondary attitudes.
File-drawer model = attitudes are like mental files that can be consulted for the evaluation of a
given attitude object.
➢ Attitudes are stable (Eagly and Chaiken).
- This idea got challenged as it seemed that attitudes might be less enduring and stable.
, Attitudes-as-constructions perspective = attitudes fluctuate over time and depend on what
people are thinking about at any given moment.
➢ Attitudes are context dependent.
There is empirical evidence for both stability and malleability (maakbaarheid) of attitudes.
- Solution: attitudes can be placed on a continuum of attitude strength.
○ On one end, issues that are so new or irrelevant to an individual that they have
not yet formed an attitude about it.
○ On the other end, issues that are familiar and important to individuals and
towards which they have strong well-developed attitudes.
- Attitude strength (moderator) influences the stability of people's attitudes as well as
whether attitudinal judgements are formed online or based on memory.
Attitude strength = the amount of impact an attitude has on thinking and behavior. Strong
attitudes are:
- Highly stable over time;
- Have a greater impact on behavior;
- Have a greater influence on information processing;
- Show greater resistance to persuasion.
➢ Highly accessible, important attitudes of which you are more certain and have more
knowledge, show greater attitude strength.
➢ In case of ambivalence you could say that you have mixed feelings about a
person → affects the strength of your attitude toward them → change your
behavior toward them.
➢ Structural and functional qualities of attitudes determine their strength and as a result
their association with behavior.
Cognitive accessibility = how easily an attitude can be retrieved from memory.
- Brand awareness = ease with which consumers can recognize a brand and retrieve
belief about it.
➢ Highly accessible attitudes are more predictive of actual/spontaneous behavior and
more resistance to social influence.
Attitude importance is determined by:
- Relevance of the attitude to cherished values of the individual.
- Relevance to self-interest.
- Perceived relevance of an issue for the interests of important reference groups.
➢ Important attitudes are more stable, predictive of behavior and resistant of behavior to
social influence.
Attitude certainty = confidence individuals have in the correctness of their own attitude (often
attitudes that derive from personal experience and come to mind easily).
