Attitude Change and Persuasion Essay

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Attitudes

Functional attitude theories hold the central notion that people have attitudes for different reasons. By understanding the different reasons that one has for an attitude and targeting these reasons can be the basis for being able to change an attitude. The basic attitude functions are:

The knowledge function of an attitude refers to the need for people to assign structure, meaning, or order to their surroundings. For instance, in studies of cognitive dissonance people need to assign order to a chaotic situation (incompatible behavior and attitude) and therefore bolster a particular attitude to do so. Advertisers have used this as strategic tactic for years when they target people who have chronic pain, depression, or some other particular condition that results in perceived disorder in their lives. Morals, ethics, and the need to find structure in ambiguous situations serve this function in much the same way. Such attitudes provide a sense of consistency and order in the lives of people.

2. Attitudes can also fulfill a utilitarian function that allows one to maximize rewards and minimize punishments obtained from objects in the natural world. These attitudes function to summarize outcomes that are inherently associated with things and to guide one's behavior in the direction of one's interests. For instance, a person's attitude towards pizza could serve a utilitarian function because it tastes good (reward) but for another person it could be avoided because it is fattening (punishment). So attitudes function in terms of maximizing perceived benefits and minimizing perceived costs. Empirically many of the operant conditioning studies served to reinforce this function.

3. Attitudes could also serve social adjustive functions in that having certain attitudes can allow one to develop rapport with certain reference groups that one finds to be valuable.

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Moreover such attitudes can help one to express their values and establish a personal identity. Obviously someone's political affiliation would be an example of such an attitude. These attitudes can be quite powerful as seen in "minimal groups" studies where merely being assigned to a particular group results in one favoring their group and belittling the out -- group. These attitudes will often mediate one's relationships and one's sense of self based on the issues that they symbolize.

4. Attitudes can also function to reduce the threats to one's self. Typically this is explained in terms of threats to one's ego or self-esteem and will often result in one distancing oneself from out -- groups that are perceived as threatening, or in true psychoanalytic fashion distancing oneself from objects that one projects unacceptable impulses to. Empirically this function has been associated with prejudice; however, in terms of self -- protection we can also see such attitudes functioning to protect one from physical threats such as snakes. Many people have an irrational fear of snakes that results from a survival instinct. Thus, these attitudes often function hand-in-hand with the social adjustive functions of attitudes to ostracize undesirables.

Based on these four categories of attitude functions it has been hypothesized that the ability to persuade someone to do something, think about something or change in attitude about something, or to consider something counter to their attitude one must confront the functions of the attitude that one is targeting. This is known as the functional matching hypothesis. For example….....

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