Attitudinal and normative processes in health behavior

Abstract

Given the importance of the distinction between attitudes and subjective norms for a variety of theories and interventions in social cognition and in the psychology of health, the present article presents a review of the relevant literature. Criticisms raised against the distinction include conceptual arguments, large correlations between attitudes and subjective norms, crossover effects, and methodological issues. Points in favor of the distinction include discriminant validity data, individual differences in the weights placed on attitudes and subjective norms, experimental manipulations of attitudes and subjective norms, and cognitive clustering of the beliefs presumed to underlie attitudes and subjective norms. Finally, implications of the distinction for recent research on interventions, social identity theory, and the self are considered.     

Predicting stage transitions for smoking cessation applying the attitude-social influence-efficacy model

Abstract

Cross-sectional studies integrating motivational stages with expectancy value models have suggested that contemplating smokers perceive more advantages of quitting and social support than precontemplators. Moreover, smokers preparing to quit were found to differ from precontemplators and contemplators by having higher self-efficacy expectations.

Using the ASE model, the present study confirmed the findings of these cross-sectional studies. The longitudinal design of this study, however, facilitated prediction of transitions that smokers made during a 10-month follow-up. Smokers who progressed from precontemplation perceived more advantages of quitting than those who remained in precontemplation. Smokers regressed from contemplation perceived fewer advantages of quitting than those who did not regress. Finally, smokers who progressed from preparation had higher self-efficacy expectations than those who did not progress.

In sum, the present study provided longitudinal support for the ø-pattern, which suggests tailoring of health educational messages to subjects in the various stages of change.     

Political skill as moderator of personality - Job performance relationships in socioanalytic theory: Test of the getting ahead motive in automobile sales

Based on the socioanalytic perspective of performance prediction ( [Hogan, 1991] and [Hogan and Shelton, 1998]), this study tests whether the motive to get ahead produces greater performance when interactively combined with social effectiveness. Specifically, we investigated whether interactions of the five-factor model constructs of extraversion and openness to experience (i.e., operationalizations of the getting ahead motive in the socioanalytic framework) with political skill predict sales performance. The hypotheses were tested in a sample of 112 car salespersons, and the results supported the extraversion × political skill interaction, but not the openness to experience × political skill interaction. For individuals high on political skill, higher levels of extraversion were associated with higher levels of sales. For individuals low on political skill, higher levels of extraversion were associated with lower levels of sales. Implications of the results and directions for future research are provided.     

The effects of mortality salience on political preferences: The roles of charisma and political orientation

Research has shown that mortality salience (MS) heightens liking for certain political candidates. Yet the particular qualities that make candidates more appealing after MS has been subject to debate. This study tested three possibilities: MS increases liking for charismatic candidates independent of participants’ or candidates’ political orientation; MS increases liking for conservative candidates independent of participants’ or candidates’ political orientation; and MS increases liking only for charismatic candidates who support the individual’s pre-existing political orientation, whether liberal or conservative. Following a MS manipulation, liberal and conservative participants evaluated two hypothetical gubernatorial candidates who differed both in their political orientation and level of charisma. MS heightened liking of charismatic candidates who shared the perceiver’s political orientation, whether liberal or conservative. In contrast, MS reduced liking for uncharismatic and opposing-orientation candidates. Results thus indicated that MS heightens regard for same-political orientation charismatic candidates, rather than just any charismatic candidate or conservative candidates. Implications for the influence of death-related concerns on political preference are briefly discussed.     

Tell me more: The effects of expressed interest on receptiveness during dialog

Two studies investigated the effect of expressed interest on individuals’ openness to opposing viewpoints and perceptions of debate counterparts. Participants in Study 1 engaged in an online conversation with a purported debate counterpart who did or did not express interest in the participants’ viewpoint by asking an elaboration question—that is, a question geared at soliciting additional information. Compared to control participants, participants who received a question rated their debate counterpart more favorably, were more willing to engage in future interaction with their counterpart, and acted in a more receptive manner. Study 2 tested the effects of instructions to prepare elaboration questions on listeners’ responses to a speaker offering counter-attitudinal arguments. Preparing questions caused participants to be more open to the idea of having a conversation with the speaker, to make more positive attributions about typical proponents of the speaker’s viewpoint, and to judge the conclusions of the speech as more valid. Theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.     

Social attitudes modulate automatic imitation

In naturalistic interpersonal settings, mimicry or “automatic imitation” generates liking, affiliation, cooperation and other positive social attitudes. The purpose of this study was to find out whether the relationship between social attitudes and mimicry is bidirectional: Do social attitudes have a direct and specific effect on mimicry? Participants were primed with pro-social, neutral or anti-social words in a scrambled sentence task. They were then tested for mimicry using a stimulus-response compatibility procedure. In this procedure, participants were required to perform a pre-specified movement (e.g. opening their hand) on presentation of a compatible (open) or incompatible (close) hand movement. Reaction time data were collected using electromyography (EMG) and the magnitude of the mimicry/automatic imitation effect was calculated by subtracting reaction times on compatible trials from those on incompatible trials. Pro-social priming produced a larger automatic imitation effect than anti-social priming, indicating that the relationship between mimicry and social attitudes is bidirectional, and that social attitudes have a direct and specific effect on the tendency to imitate behavior without intention or conscious awareness.     

Possible Implicit Mechanisms of Minority Representation

Minority representation is an important topic for political science—how do members of a racial majority group identify with the political goals of a minority, even when research documents widespread anti‐Black bias? Does pro‐Black policy support require an individual to be unbiased, or can such support emerge despite internalized anti‐Black bias? This paper draws a distinction between two types of implicit racial attitude measures based on functionalist theories of attitudes ( Katz, 1960 ; Smith, Bruner, & White, 1956 ) and research regarding automatic empathic processes ( Decety & Jackson, 2004 ; Preston & de Waal, 2002 ). According to this distinction, some attitudes evaluate racial groups as attitude objects (evaluative associations), while others involve automatic identification with them as people (relational associations). I use subliminal racial priming for evaluative associations and a measure of implicit closeness to Blacks ( Craemer, 2008 ) for relational associations. The evaluative measure captures association strength between a racial stimulus and race‐unrelated positive or negative target words. The relational measure assesses association strength between the respondent's self‐concept and the mental representation of a racial group based on implicit “self‐other overlap” ( Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991 ). Implicit measures are obtained in a well powered online reaction time study (n = 1,341). Online results are evaluated against a representative telephone survey (n = 1,200). Consistent with the extant literature, a significant anti‐Black bias emerges in evaluative associations. In contrast, a significant pro‐Black effect emerges in relational associations and the two implicit measures are statistically unrelated. Both measures predict pro‐Black policy support independently of one another and net of other factors. Implicit closeness to Blacks predicts pro‐Black policy support even among White respondents suggesting that minority representation based on relational associations may be possible despite widespread anti‐Black evaluative bias.     

Political Conservatism,Need for Cognitive Closure,and Intergroup Hostility

Two studies examined the interaction of political conservatism and the need for cognitive closure in predicting aggressiveness in intergroup conflict and hostility toward outgroups. In the first study, Polish participants indicated their preference for coercive conflict strategies in the context of a real‐life intergroup conflict. Only among participants who identify themselves as conservative, need for cognitive closure was positively and significantly related to preference for aggressive actions against the outgroup. In the second study, the predicted interaction was investigated in the context of the terrorist threat in Poland. The findings indicated that high in need for closure conservatives showed greater hostility against Arabs and Muslims only when they believed that Poland was under threat of terrorist attacks inspired by Islamist fundamentalism.     

The opposite of republican: polarization and political categorization

Two experiments examined the typicality structure of contrasting political categories. In Experiment 1, two separate groups of participants rated the typicality of 15 individuals, including political figures and media personalities, with respect to the categories Democrat or Republican. The relation between the two sets of ratings was negative, linear, and extremely strong, r = ?.9957. Essentially, one category was treated as a mirror image of the other. Experiment 2 replicated this result, showing some boundary conditions, and extending the result to liberal and conservative categories. The same method was applied to two other pairs of contrasting categories, healthy and junk foods, and male and female jobs. For those categories, the relation between contrasting pairs was weaker and there was less of a direct trade‐off between typicality in one category versus typicality in its opposite. The results are discussed in terms of implications for political decision making and reasoning, and conceptual representation.     

Children with positive attitudes towards mind-wandering provide invalid subjective reports of mind-wandering during an experimental task

This study investigated mind-wandering (MW) in children during a laboratory task, and explored the influence of children’s attitudes towards MW on the accuracy of their subjective reports. Children’s MW experiences were probed during the adapted Sustained-Attention-to-Response-Task (SART), and their attitudes was measured by a questionnaire, according to which children were divided into positive or negative group. Results showed that (1) MW in children was basically identical to MW in adults which was associated with poor performance, increased behavioural variability, and a prospective bias; (2) reliable correlations between behavioural correlates and MW frequency were observed in negative group, but not in positive group; and (3) positive group reported more MW than negative group, while no behavioural correlate was significantly different between the two groups. We concluded that (1) overall, children could accurately introspect their MW experiences during SART; and (2) children with positive attitudes provided invalid subjective reports of MW.