The data partially support the hypothesis of greater attitude change for close-minded persons in situations involving cognitive inconsistency. But research on other factors in the attitude change process is indicated as necessary.
PurposeMany education for sustainable development (ESD) programs are designed to change attitudes and values toward the natural environment. However, psychological research indicates that several factors in addition to attitude influence behavior, including contextual support, social norms, action difficulty, and habitual behavior. Thus, if attitude change is to translate into altered behavior, education must extend beyond attitudes to assist people to act in ways consistent with their values. The purpose of this paper is to review the psychological research showing weak correlation between attitudes and behavior, the factors that mediate this relationship, and to describe the implications of these findings for university institutions and ESD programs.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is organized as a review and editorial article, describing relevant research, and outlining implications and suggested actions.FindingsThe results of the reviewed research indicate that attitude‐behavior correlations are mediated by several factors, including contextual conditions such as inconvenience and personal factors such as habits.Practical implicationsThe implications of these findings are that ESD programs should specifically address factors that mediate the attitude‐behavior relationship, including contextual changes and the development of personal management plans. Examples for each type of change are suggested.Originality/valueThe implications of these findings for ESD programs have not previously been highlighted. Specifically, to achieve sustainable development requires attention to these mediating factors as well as to knowledge generation and attitude change. Thus, the value of this paper is to encourage ESD developers to expand their programs to encourage contextual change and personal behavior management plans.
In this experiment, an experimental interview with the leader of the Socialists in the Dutch Parliament was delivered via three different media: television, radio, or a newspaper presentation. We showed that the experimental interviews led, in themselves, to attitude change, but no difference was found among the three communication modalities. Moreover, no significant interaction effect was established between the political preference of the subjects (Socialist versus non-Socialist) and communication modality. Our main results do not support the assumption that for a well-known politician presently holding office, television is a less effective medium than radio or newspaper.
SignificancePeople change when they think others are changing, but people misperceive others' changes. These misperceptions may bedevil people's efforts to understand and change their social worlds, distort the democratic process, and turn imaginary trends into real ones. For example, participants believed that Americans increasingly want to limit immigration, which they said justifies tighter borders. However, participants also said that limiting immigration would not be right if attitudes had shifted against it--which is what actually occurred. Our findings suggest that the national discourse around contentious social issues, policies resulting from that discourse, and perhaps the opinions that drive discourse in the first place would be very different if people better understood how attitudes have and have not changed.
Abstract. This paper proposes to make an inventory of knowledge on the process of vicarious dissonance, describing the possibility of individuals experiencing cognitive dissonance vicariously when they observe a member of their group acting inconsistently with their own attitudes ( Cooper & Hogg, 2007 ). After identifying different factors necessary for or conducive to the development of vicarious dissonance, and after reviewing the nature of vicarious dissonance, this article will explore the reasons why an individual may be compelled to change their attitude under conditions of vicarious dissonance. We will conclude our argument by presenting new findings on this phenomenon in line with several theories. According to the cognitive dissonance theory, the reduction is linked to a decrease in arousal which leads to a decrease in inconsistency. While the social identity theory ( Tajfel & Turner, 1979 ) and self-categorization ( Turner et al., 1987 ) allows us to think of cognitive dissonance as a vicarious process, the uncertainty theory ( Hogg, 2000 , 2007 ) proposes brand new interpretations for answering the question "what are the functions of vicarious dissonance reduction?", at both individual- and group-level.
Although there are several attitude resistance techniques, attitude inoculation most effectively serves the purpose of withstanding attacks from conflicting arguments.[1] Inoculation treatment methods are comparable to that of medical vaccination, where a patient is exposed to a small, weakened dose of a pathogen. In this case, the pathogen is simply a counter-argument offered against an advertisement claim aimed at attitude change.[2] These techniques are typically tested within a political domain, rarely in a commercial context. In this research the effects of inoculation treatments are investigated. We find that strong counter-arguments initially have a strong impact on an existing attitude, but their effect quickly dissipates. However, weaker counter-arguments, although initially not as effective as strong, are shown to be more influential over a longer period of time. Attention is also given to potential moderators of this main effect.
Election statistics from the US & western Europe show continuity & smoothness in a time series. There is a serial-r, one side of this is the appearance of tides of swings. 2 explanations are discussed (1) a stimulus, & (2) a response, theory. According to (1), aggregate response (the vote) forms a smooth curve because stimulus strength, like business conditions, forms a similar curve. In (2), a degree of inertia is assumed & response follows stimulus changes with some delay. By means of a growth (or decay) function, simple catalytic growth, & a series of 500 simulated election results with a stimulus balance which varies (within certain limits) in a random manner, it is shown that continuity & tides result. A slowly reacting system will respond to ramdom shocks in a seemingly cyclical way. The implications of this are discussed against the back-ground of current thinking on pol'al sociol & attitude theory. The need for an inductive study of speed & time concumption of soc processes is stressed, & for model parameters that remain constant, or are predictable, form one res situation to the next. AA.
Measurement of attitudes before and after an educational intervention generally reflects both the impact of the session and the fact that the best predictor of attitudes after the session are attitudes before the session. Statistics currently available provide contradictory information; both measures of association and measures of difference are statistically significant. Current tests of the significance of change either have restrictive assumptions or do not take into account people who do not change. A new measure is proposed which incorporates information on amount and direction of change. Delta is calculated from a contingency table of the pre-and postmeasurements. It ranges from + 1, signifying that everyone changed in one direction to -1, that is, everyone changed in the opposite direction, and becomes 0 when there is perfect correlation in scores or equal change in both directions. Delta is useful in assessing which attitudes have been most influenced by the educational intervention.
115 US undergraduates received either no exposure, moderate exposure, excessive exposure, or exposure removal to a political message. Dormitory students were randomly assigned to 1 of the 4 groups. Over a 12-day period, the groups were asked to fill out the 10-item questionnaire which included the stimulus statement. The political & social questions were to be ranked 1-9 from 'strongly agree' to 'strongly disagree'. During that period, the primary stimulus object, a poster with the slogan "reduce foreign aid" was displayed in the public areas of the dormitory with a sequentially greater number displayed, until they were all removed. Appended to each poster were postcards which could be returned if a student wished to help the campaign as a volunteer. A significant effect of experimental conditions & attitudinal evaluation was indicated by univariant analysis of variance of the questionnaire data. Positive attitude improvement toward the reduction of foreign aid was verified with Duncan Multiple Range Analysis. The results confirmed the preinvestigation prediction that the resulting attitudes would follow the inverse U curve associated with the exposure reactance effect. In addition to the measure of attitudal response, a measure of behavioral response of significance was calculated from the postcard returns. The behavioral response followed a linear function. Results indicated a positive evaluation to the message under moderate exposure, followed by negative evaluation under excessive exposure. A delayed posttest indicated that the negative attitude to overexposure improved over time. Psychological reactance was suggested as a possible explanation for the differences in findings between the behavioral response & the attitudinal response. 1 Table. S. Lupton.