How can attitudes be changed

After all, plenty of people support a particular candidate or political party and yet fail to go out and vote.

People also are more likely to behave according to their attitudes under certain conditions. In some cases, people may actually alter their attitudes in order to better align them with their behavior.

Cognitive dissonance is a phenomenon in which a person experiences psychological distress due to conflicting thoughts or beliefs. Imagine the following situation: You've always placed a high value on financial security, but you start dating someone who is very financially unstable.

In order to reduce the tension caused by the conflicting beliefs and behavior, you have two options. You can end the relationship and seek out a partner who is more financially secure, or you can de-emphasize fiscal stability importance. In order to minimize the dissonance between your conflicting attitude and behavior, you either have to change the attitude or change your actions. While attitudes can have a powerful effect on behavior, they are not set in stone.

The same influences that lead to attitude formation can also create attitude change. Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning can be used to bring about attitude change. Classical conditioning can be used to create positive emotional reactions to an object, person, or event by associating positive feelings with the target object.

Operant conditioning can be used to strengthen desirable attitudes and weaken undesirable ones. People can also change their attitudes after observing the behavior of others. This theory of persuasion suggests that people can alter their attitudes in two ways. First, they can be motivated to listen and think about the message, thus leading to an attitude shift. Or, they might be influenced by the characteristics of the speaker, leading to a temporary or surface shift in attitude.

Messages that are thought-provoking and that appeal to logic are more likely to lead to permanent changes in attitudes. In order to reduce the tension created by these incompatible beliefs, people often shift their attitudes. Ever wonder what your personality type means? Sign up to find out more in our Healthy Mind newsletter. Chaiklin, H.

Attitudes, Behavior, and Social Practice. Perlovsky L. A challenge to human evolution—cognitive dissonance. Frontiers in Psychology. American Psychological Association. Arguments that occur first, such as in a debate, are more influential if messages are given back-to-back.

In order to be persuaded, audience members must be paying attention. Finally, younger adults aged 18—25 are more persuadable than older adults. The elaboration likelihood model considers the variables of the attitude change approach—that is, features of the source of the persuasive message, contents of the message, and characteristics of the audience are used to determine when attitude change will occur.

According to the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, there are two main routes that play a role in delivering a persuasive message: central and peripheral [link].

Persuasion can take one of two paths, and the durability of the end result depends on the path. This is a direct route to persuasion that focuses on the quality of the information. In order for the central route of persuasion to be effective in changing attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors, the argument must be strong and, if successful, will result in lasting attitude change. The central route to persuasion works best when the target of persuasion, or the audience, is analytical and willing to engage in processing of the information.

What audience would most likely be influenced to buy the product? One example is buying a computer. For example, having a popular athlete advertise athletic shoes is a common method used to encourage young adults to purchase the shoes. This route to attitude change does not require much effort or information processing. This method of persuasion may promote positivity toward the message or product, but it typically results in less permanent attitude or behavior change.

The audience does not need to be analytical or motivated to process the message. In fact, a peripheral route to persuasion may not even be noticed by the audience, for example in the strategy of product placement. For example, one season of the reality series American Idol prominently showed the panel of judges drinking out of cups that displayed the Coca-Cola logo. What other products would be best sold using the peripheral route to persuasion?

Another example is clothing: A retailer may focus on celebrities that are wearing the same style of clothing. Using the foot-in-the-door technique , the persuader gets a person to agree to bestow a small favor or to buy a small item, only to later request a larger favor or purchase of a bigger item.

The foot-in-the-door technique was demonstrated in a study by Freedman and Fraser in which participants who agreed to post small sign in their yard or sign a petition were more likely to agree to put a large sign in their yard than people who declined the first request [link].

Research on this technique also illustrates the principle of consistency Cialdini, : Our past behavior often directs our future behavior, and we have a desire to maintain consistency once we have a committed to a behavior. With the foot-in-the-door technique, a small request such as a wearing a campaign button can turn into a large request, such as b putting campaigns signs in your yard.

A common application of foot-in-the-door is when teens ask their parents for a small permission for example, extending curfew by a half hour and then asking them for something larger. Having granted the smaller request increases the likelihood that parents will acquiesce with the later, larger request. How would a store owner use the foot-in-the-door technique to sell you an expensive product?

For example, say that you are buying the latest model smartphone, and the salesperson suggests you purchase the best data plan. You agree to this. The salesperson then suggests a bigger purchase—the three-year extended warranty. After agreeing to the smaller request, you are more likely to also agree to the larger request. You may have encountered this if you have bought a car. New Comb explained this change of attitude of the majority and rigidity in attitude in case of some students in terms of reference group concept.

It is a fact that every group has his own norm, reference group, his own status and role structures in developing an attitude. The prevailing norms of the group help in the growth of particular attitude of a person. In case of those majority students who changed their attitude from conservatism to liberalism, their reference group became the liberal attitude of the college. Conversely, those who resisted change of attitude their family continued to be their reference group and liberalism and social norm of the college had no substantial influence on their attitude.

So, their attitude did not change from conservatism to liberalism. The question further arises why the college could be able to bring change in the attitude of some and not in a few others? Those who changed, they obtained a sense of belongingness, a sense of status and achievement in the college community and had close affinity with it.

The other group having very few members which did not change were very indifferent to the functions and activities of the college community.

They did not feel identify or belong to it. Because of conflicts between the ideals of the home and ideals of the college in case of some students, their attitude did not change.

This is another example of the technique of group interaction. This study wanted to trace whether group norm is the priority of the group as a whole. By changing the group norm, the behaviour and attitude of the individual can only be changed.

Further group norm can be changed only through group participation and not through change in individual experience of a person. All these studies tend to justify the point that a group norm is the priority of the group as a whole. One final process through which low-effort attitude change can occur is through the use of heuristics, or simple decision rules based on prior experiences or observations. For instance, in deciding what new music is good, someone might simply walk over to the bestseller section at the local music store and survey the current top selections.

There are also attitude change processes that require a greater use of mental resources. When a person is motivated and able to invest high effort in making a judgment about an issue or object, attitude change can occur due to characteristics of his or her thoughts e. Cognitive Responses. Although there are a number of different aspects to consider, three components of thought have proven especially important in producing change.

The first, and most obvious, is whether thoughts about the attitude object or message are largely favorable or unfavorable. By examining the ratio of positive to negative thoughts, the likely amount of attitude change produced can be approximated.

If there is a greater proportion of favorable than unfavorable thoughts, your attitude will change in a positive direction. The opposite is true if there is a greater proportion of negative thoughts.

A second important dimension concerns how much thinking is done. For example, the more positive thoughts one has about an attitude object, the more favorable the attitudes will be. The third, and final, aspect of thought is related to confidence.

When thinking about an attitude object or persuasive message, people will have varying confidence in each of their discrete thoughts. To the extent that they are highly confident in a thought, it will have a great impact on their final attitude. Those thoughts that are associated with low confidence, however, will play a relatively minor role in any attitude change. Although these three factors are easy to imagine operating in traditional persuasion settings e.

One way in which this occurs is when people role play, or imagine what someone else would think about an issue. Imagine, for instance, that you enjoy smoking cigarettes. Now, generate as many reasons as you can to stop smoking.

As you can probably guess, the more thought and effort you put into the role play, the more likely it is that attitude change will occur.