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The
Nature of Attitudes and Persuasion
What is Persuasion
Why Study Persuasion?
Persuasion
is an Alternative to Apathy or Coercion
The
Nature of Attitudes
The Process of Persuasion
Glossary
Additional
Readings
Self-Test
The
Nature of Attitudes
An
attitude is a cognition (form of thought) that is formed through
experience and influences our behavior. Both parts of this
definition are important for our purposes. The fact that
attitudes are formed through experience means that we
can, potentially, change them. When a persuader gives a message
to an auditor (an audience member), that message becomes part of
the listener’s experience, and it can affect his or her
attitudes. The fact that attitudes influence our behavior
means that we can use persuasion as a means to achieve our goals
-- when the behavior, or actions, or others can help attain
those goals.
Attitudes have two basic components: beliefs and values. Beliefs
are, roughly, statements of facts. Beliefs are potentially
verifiable. We say a belief is true or correct when it seems to
reflect the world and false or incorrect when it seems
contradicted by the world. Values are judgments of worth, like
good or bad, useful or useless, expensive or cheap, efficient or
inefficient. Together, these cognitions (thoughts), beliefs and
values, form attitudes.
For example, I may believe that Al Gore has executive branch
experience, because he has served as the Vice President. I may
value executive branch experience, thinking that, in general,
presidents are likely to do a more effective job as president if
they have executive branch experience. Together, this
belief/value pair creates a positive attitude toward Al Gore as
a presidential candidate.
Belief 1: Al Gore has executive branch experience.
Value 1: Executive branch experience is desirable for a
president.
Attitude: I have a favorable attitude toward Al Gore as a
potential president.
Many attitudes are made up of several belief/value pairs. I may
also hold these belief value pairs:
Belief 2: Al Gore is a Democrat.
Value 2: I think on many issues Democrats are better than
Republicans.
Belief 3: Al Gore is rather stiff and passionless.
Value 3: It is important for presidents to have and reveal
emotions.
Notice that B1/V1 and B2/V2 incline me toward Gore as a
president, while B3/V3 inclines me away from him. Often, what we
know and believe about a given attitude object, like Al Gore, is
mixed rather than uniformly positive or negative. A person’s
attitude is a conglomeration of all the relevant belief/value
pairs that are salient (not forgotten). However, some
belief/value pairs are more important than others, and the
important ones contribute more to the attitude than the trivial
ones.
Notice that these beliefs and values come in related pairs. This
is very important: Beliefs and values both contribute to
attitudes, and they do so in relevant pairs. For instance, this
pair would not influence a person’s attitude because they are
irrelevant:
Belief 4: Al Gore may have solicited campaign contributions from
China in 1996.
Value 5: For me, a president should understand the South.
For Belief 4 to influence one’s attitude, it must be connected
with a value like this: Foreign countries should not contribute
to presidential campaigns. If one doesn’t think soliciting
campaign contributions from China is bad, Belief 4 cannot
influence one’s attitude (of course, some people might think
China should give money to presidential candidates; for those
people, Belief 4 inclines them toward a positive attitude
toward Gore). Similarly, Value 5 cannot influence a person’s
attitude unless it is combined with a belief, that Gore does (or
does not) understand the South. A belief without a relevant
value cannot influence one’s attitude, and a value without a
relevant belief cannot affect a person’s attitude.
Understanding the nature of attitudes can be helpful in
understanding how to persuade someone. For example, suppose one
of your friends likes (has a favorable attitude toward) Gore and
you want to change that attitude. Knowing your friend’s
beliefs and attitudes can help change his or her attitude. For
example, they might hold this belief/value pair.
Belief 1: Al Gore has executive branch experience.
Value 1: Executive branch experience is desirable for a
president.
If so, you could try to change Belief 1, arguing that Vice
Presidents, like Gore, don’t have very meaningful jobs, and
thus, he does not really have executive branch
experience. If you change this belief, you can make the attitude
toward
Gore less positive:
Belief 1a: Al Gore, as Vice President, does not really have
executive branch experience.
Value 1: Executive branch experience is desirable for a
president.
Or you could try to change your friend’s value, pointing out
that some presidents (Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George
Bush) who had experience in the White House were poor
presidents. This revised value means that your friend’s
attitude toward Gore should be less favorable:
Belief 1: Al Gore has executive branch experience.
Value 1a: Executive branch experience can hurt a president.
However, you must be careful not to change both parts of a
belief/value pair:
Belief 1a: Al Gore, as Vice President, does not really have
executive branch experience.
Value 1a: Executive branch experience can hurt a president.
When both elements of the pair are changed, the attitude remains
the same (although it is now held for different reasons).
Notice also that knowing an auditor’s belief/value pairs can
prevent wasted messages. For example, assume again that your
friend has a favorable attitude toward Gore for these reasons:
Belief 1: Al Gore has executive branch experience.
Value 1: Executive branch experience is desirable for a
president.
Telling your friend that campaign contributions from other
countries are wrong, a value, probably won’t change his or her
attitude unless he or she already knows (has the belief) that
Gore tried to obtain contributions from foreign countries in
1996. Of course, you can give your friend a new, complete,
belief/value pair, telling him or her that campaign
contributions from other countries are wrong and telling
your friend that Gore solicited contributions from China in 1996.
Thus, attitudes are learned from experience and influence our
behavior. They are made up of pairs of (relevant) beliefs and
values. A person’s attitude is a composite of all the relevant
belief/value pairs, with the more important ones influencing the
attitude more. You can change a person’s attitude by changing
either the belief or the value (but not both), or by creating
new belief/value pairs (or by changing the relative importance
of belief/value pairs).
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