Chapter-13: Attitudes

Chapter-13: Attitudes

Definition:

Social psychologists, unfortunately, do not agree on the precise definition of an attitude. In fact, there are more that 100 different definitions of the concept. An attitude is how positive or negative, favorable or unfavorable, or pro or con a person feels toward an object. On the other hand attitudes may be defined as an enduring organization of motivational, emotional, perceptional, and cognitive process with respect to some aspects of the individual’s world. Another view is that attitudes view as learned predispositions to respond to an object or class of objects in a consistently favorable or unfavorable way.

This view of attitudes as being made up of three components: (i) the cognitive, or knowledge, component, (ii) the affective, or emotional, component, and (iii) the conative, or behavioral-tendency, component.

A consumer may believe strongly that Listerine mouthwash kills germs, helps prevent colds, gives people clean, refreshing breath, and prevents sore throats. If this consumer evaluates all five of these attributes as favorable qualities then according to the definition of attitude, he could have strongly favorable overall attitudes toward the brand.

Characteristics of Attitudes:

Attitudes have several important characteristics or properties:

(i) Attitudes have an object: By definition attitude must have an object. That is they must have a focal point – whether it be an abstract concept, such as ethical behavior, or tangible item, such as motorcycle. The object can be a physical thing, such as product or it can be an action, such as buying a personal computer. In addition, the object can be either one item such as a person, or a collection of items such as a social group.

(ii) Attitudes have direction, degree, and intensity: An attitudes express how a person feels toward an object, It expresses (i) direction – the person is either favorable, or unfavorable toward or for or against the object, (ii) degree – how much the person either likes or dislikes the object, and (iii) intensity – the level of sureness or confidence of expression about the object, or how strongly a person feels about his or her conviction. The direction, degree, and intensity of a person’s attitude toward a product have been said to provide marketers with an estimate of his or her readiness to act toward.

(iii) Attitudes have structure: Attitudes display organization, which means that they have internal consistency and possess inter-attitudinal centrality. Attitudes do not stand in isolation; they tend to associate each other to form a complex whole. Because attitudes cluster into a structure, they tend to show stability over time. A person’s attitude toward a specific object tends to generalize toward a class of objects.

(iv) Attitudes are learned: Just as a golf swing, a tennis stroke, and tastes are learned, so are attitudes. They develop from our personal experience with reality, as well as from information from friends, salespeople, and news media. Therefore, attitudes changes.

Functions of Attitudes:

Attitudes serve four major functions for the individual. These functions serve people’s need to protect and enhance the image they hold of themselves. In more general terms, these functions are the motivational bases which shapes and reinforce positive attitudes toward goal object perceived as need-satisfying and /or negative attitude other objects perceived as punishing or threatening.

(i) Adjustment Function: The adjustment function directs people toward pleasurable or rewarding objects and away from unpleasant, undesirable ones. It serves the utilitarian concept of maximizing reward and minimizing punishment. Thus, the attitudes of consumers depend to a large degree on their perceptions of what is need satisfying and what is punishing.

(ii) Ego-defensive Function: Attitudes formed to protect the ego or self-image from threats help fulfill the ego-defensive function. Actually, many outward expressions of such attitudes reflect the opposite of what the person perceives himself to be. A consumer who has made a poor purchase decision or a poor investment may staunchly defend the decision as being correct at the time or as being the result of poor advice from another person. Such ego-defense attitudes help us to protect our self-image, and often we are unaware of them.

(iii) Value Expressive Function: value expressive attitudes enable the expression of the person’s centrally hold values. Therefore, consumers adopt certain attitudes in an effort to translate their values into something more tangible and easily expressed. Thus a conservative person might develop an unfavorable attitude toward bright clothing and instead be attracted toward dark, pink-striped shirt. Marketer should develop an understanding of what values consumers wish to express about themselves, and they should design products and promotional campaigns to allow these self-expressions.

(iv) Knowledge Function: Humans have a need for a structured and orderly world, and therefore, they seek consistency, stability, definition, and understanding. Out of our need to know come attitudes about what we believe we need or do not need to understand. Attitudes enable consumers to simplify the complexity of the real world. Attitudes allow us to categorize or group objects as a way of knowing about them. Thus when a new object is experienced we attempt to categorize it into a group, which we know something about.

Sources of Attitude Development:

Attitudes develop from human needs and values people place upon objects that satisfy needs.

(i) Personal Experience: People come into contract with object in their everyday environment. Some are familiar, while others are new. We evaluate the new and reevaluate the old, and this evaluation process assists in developing attitudes toward object.

Several factors such as needs: because needs differ and also vary over time, people can develop different attitudes toward the same object at different points in their life; selective perception: we have seen that people operate on their personal interpretation of reality. Therefore, the way people interpret information about products, stores and so on, affects their attitudes toward them: and personality influence: how aggressive-passive, interpretation how we will evaluate.

(ii) Group Associations: All people are influenced to one degree or another by other members in the groups to which they belong. Our attitudes toward products, ethics, warfare, and a multitude of other subjects are influenced strongly by groups that we value and with which we do or wish to associate. Several groups, including family, work and peer groups, and cultural and sub-cultural groups, are important in affecting a person’s attitude development.

(iii) Influential others: A consumer’s attitude can be formed and changed through personal contact with influential persons such as respected friends, relatives, and experts. Opinion leaders are examples of people who are respected by their followers and who may strongly influence the attitudes and purchase behavior of followers.

To capitalize on this type of influence, advertisers often use actors and actresses who look similar to or act similar to their intended audiences. People tend to like others who are similar to themselves, because they believe that they share the same problem, from the same judgments, and use the same criteria for evaluating products.

Sources of information and influence	Personality / Self-concept	Other beliefs and attitudes	General attitude toward product or brand
1. Direct experience	Perception of information about product of brand	Beliefs about product or brand
2. Groups (social work, family, culture, etc)		Importance of beliefs about product attributes
3. Mass media
4. Contact with   influential others	Need structure	Value system

Figure #: A simple diagram of the interrelationships of an attitude toward a product or brand and other psychological processes.

The above figure shows a concise picture of psychological and external elements often claimed to be involved in the process of forming attitudes toward products. The process is dynamic and it continues to change over time.

Attitude Theories and Models:

Attitude theories primarily are concerned with how attitudes develop and change, Three of the more popular view points are founded on the general principle that the human mind strives to maintain harmony or consistency among currently perceived attitudes. If the mind perceives an inconsistency with its attitudes structures, mental tension develops to return the structures to a consistent state.

Congruity Theory: Assume that a consumer initially holds positive attitudes toward the rock group U2 (positive scale value +2) and negative attitudes toward a particular brand of electronic guitar (negative scale value –2). Then the consumer sees and advertisement where the U2 group makes positive statements about this brand of electronic guitar. Given this situation, the consumer will have inconsistent attitudes. (U2 whom I like, said nice things about a brand of guitar that I don’t like).

The consumer is now in a state of incongruity, which produces uncomfortable tension that must ultimately lead to resolution of the incongruity. The congruity model predicts that a person in this situation would reduce his favorable attitude toward group U2 and also become more favorable in his attitudes toward the brand of electric guitar. The model would predict a movement of two units of each attitude toward each other (the center) because the consumer perceives both objects as being of equal strength but in opposite directions of the zero neutral points.

The congruity principle is used frequently in marketing. Advertisers often use hired celebrities to endorse brands, services, organizations, and causes. Athletes speak against drug use among young people. The intent is to have consumers who hold positive attitudes toward a source to develop a positive value association between the source and the object.

Balance Theory: According to balance theory, a person perceives her or his environment in terms of triads. That is a person views herself or himself as being involved in a triangular relationship in which all three elements (person, ideas, and things) have either positive (liking, favorable) or negative (disliking, unfavorable) relationships with each other. This relationship is termed sentiment.

If the multiple relationship is negative it is called unbalanced and if positive, called balance. For example, (i) I like large luxurious cars. (ii) I don’t like energy-washing products. (iii) I believe large, luxurious car waste energy. The structure is not balance because there is positive relation on two sides and a negative relationship on the third.

This relationship creates tension, and it may possible to live with it and do noting. However, if sufficient tension exists, it is likely that attitude change will occur. For example, (i) disliking large, luxurious cars; (ii) believing that large, luxurious cars are not really energy-washing products; and (iii) liking energy-washing products. This rationalization can help change our perceptions of relationships and thus our attitudes.

Cognitive Dissonance: Cognitive dissonance results when a person perceives that two cognitions (thoughts), both of which he believes to be true, do not fit together; that is they seem inconsistent. The resulting dissonance produces tension, which serves to motivate the individual to bring harmony to inconsistent elements, thereby reduce psychological tension.

A person experiencing cognitive dissonance has three major ways to reduce it. (i) Rationalization, (ii) Seeking additional information that is supportive of or consistent with his behavior, and (iii) Either eliminating or altering some of the dissonance elements or by changing his attitude so that it is no longer dissonant. Each of the strategies may be used in alone or in combination.