Theories and Research in Political Psychology

Introduction
At the announcement of the current Australian Federal Election on October 14, John Howard stated that Australia "does not need new leadership, it does not need old leadership. It needs the right leadership". But what makes the right leadership? What influences voting behaviour? An exploration of the psychology—the personalities, thought processes, emotions, and motivations—of people involved in political activity provides a unique basis for understanding politics. “Political psychology explores the border between the intellectual nations of political science and psychology... that addresses the ways in which political institutions both affect and are affected by human behaviour.” (Jost & Sidanius, 2004, p. 1) Essentially, political psychology is the affect, behaviour and cognition of political science. Initially, this discipline aimed to research personalities of political leaders and political attitudes; however, the field of political psychology has grown dramatically and there is an explosion of information and interest (Herman, 2004). Political psychology theories supported by research seek to describe not only personality and attitudes, but the role of cognition and emotion in political attitudes and behaviour, political ideology and intergroup dynamics. This essay will strive to provide an overview of the main theories and research in political psychology and discuss these theories and research with respect to current Australian federal Politics and the forthcoming election.

Personality and Politics
The field of political psychology began with the study of personality in politics mid last century. As approaches to the general study of personality developed, they were soon adapted to the analysis of political figures and behaviour (Jost & Sidanius, 2004). The studies of political personality and political leadership developed conjointly in the early stages of political psychology by looking at personal characteristics, such as motivation and traits in the analyses of political leaders (Cottam, Dietz-Uhler, Mastors, & Preston, 2004). Psychoanalytic approach, trait approach and motive theories were predominantly analysed in an effort to describe political personality. Psychoanalytic studies used psychobiographies in the analysis of political figures. These explored the psychoanalytic perspective on ego-defence (Link & Glad, 1994; Renshon, 1996) and the analysis of specific personality trait disorders such as narcissism and paranoia in political figures (Birt, 1993; Volkan, 1980). In contrast, the trait approach specifically assessed individual characteristics, motivations and cognitive style and how these shape decision making, interpersonal interaction, information processing, and management in politics.

Authoritarian Personality
In an attempt to understand fascism of World War II, political psychologists developed the concept of the authoritarian personality (Adorno et al., 1950) based on psychoanalytic principles. The authoritarian personality was suggested to denote a number of qualities such as conventionalism, submission to authority figures and authoritarian aggression that predict the individual’s potential for fascism and antidemocratic behaviour. The basis of the system was suggested to rise out of early childhood experiences, and their internalisation (Adorno et al., 1950). The authoritarian personality theory was the first substantial political psychological theory. It enjoyed success and was greatly influential in the immediate years following its publication. However, the theory has later been criticized on both theoretical and methodological grounds due to nonrepresentative samples, experimenter bias and the use of causal conclusions (Eysenck, 1954; Rokeach, 1960).

Attitudes and Voting Behaviour
The second wave in the development of political psychology in the 1960s and 1970s showed increased interest in attitudes and voting behaviour created by research by the Michigan School (Cottam et al., 2004). The University of Michigan were the first to conduct extensive research on public opinion and voting preference (Campbell, Converse, Miller, & Stokes, 1960). Their findings on the nature of political attitudes in America produced debate and sparked the emergence of further models on attitudes and behaviour in political psychology including the role of media in affecting political attitudes, racial politics and political socialisation (Ottai, Wyer, Deiger & Houston, 2002).

Political Socialisation
As a result of the Michigan studies, an extensive amount of research has sought to address the degree to which political cognition, attitudes and behaviours are the result of socialisation by parents, teachers and peers. Political socialization is a concept concerning the process through which an individual acquires particular political orientations that is mostly formed during childhood (Ottai et al., 2002). The agents a child is exposed to during childhood are argued to be crucial to the child's development of future voting behaviours with parents recognised as the primary influence in the development of a child’s political orientation (Glass et al., 1986) Despite this, there is disagreement as the strength of the relationship as some psychologists warn of the diversity of attitudes being studied and family characteristics may be limiting factors (Jennings & Niemi, 1974). However, recent research in Australia by the Australian Electoral Commission supports the theory of parents as a primary influence in political information (Print & Saha, 2006).

Social Cognition
Political psychology continued to advance and the 1980s and 1990s which signified the third era of political ideology and social cognition (Jost & Sidanius, 2004). The information processing model dominates this phase of political psychology. Traditional models of candidate evaluation and voter decision emphasised sociological, attitudinal and rational determinants of voting choice. Yet, these did not provide a realistic or precise description of the psychological process that was involved. These early models of voting behaviour virtually disregarded cognitive processing in evaluating candidates. The Columbia School Model assumed rather that voting choices were a reflection of socioeconomic status, religious affiliation and place of residence and the individuals’ knowledge of the candidate was of little importance (Lazarsfield, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1949); and the Michigan School Model suggested that voting preference was determined by attitudes towards the candidates and party. However, more recent models of political judgement have emphasised cognitive processes that enter into political judgements and voting decisions. These models identify the acquisition, comprehension, interpretation, and integration of information about the political candidate to decide on their voting preference.

Information Processing
In modern times, there is an abundance of information that is potentially relevant to forming voting preferences. However, individuals are often unable or unmotivated to attend to all of this information (Riggle & Johnson, 1996). Some information receives more attention and may therefore have a greater impact on political judgements. Generally, individuals seek out and attend to information that is analogous with prior knowledge and expectations (Wyer, Stack, & Fuhrman, 1984). Consistent with the cognitive dissonance theory, individuals approach and attend to information that upholds their attitudes and avoid attitude discrepant information (Festinger, 1964). People also actively seek information that supports their beliefs, such as the honesty of a candidate or even information that supports a certain ideology. In Australia, the individual may only seek information that supports the Liberal party such as the strength of their economic policies and selectively disregards issues like the John Howard’s refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

Heuristics of Selective Retrieval
Cognitive heuristics can potentially distort both elites' decision-making and the mass public's preferences (Tost & Sidanius, 2004). Individuals who use heuristic processing have minimal levels of motivation and cognitive ability to systematic processors. In voting, the individual relies on cognitive shortcuts to evaluate a candidate (Chaiken et al., 1998) such as evaluating a candidate purely based on the candidate’s party, gender or race. The use of these stereotyping heuristics avoids the arduous process of carefully considering all aspects of the candidate. It is suggested that when voters possess little candidate information and are unable or unmotivated to possess that information, they are most likely to rely on heuristic processing. Unfortunately, Australian research shows that young Australians show high levels of political alienation and disengagement. A paper published from the University of Queensland said, “Most students had strong views on the war in Iraq, yet most did not express their opposition or support in a political arena” (Louis & Terry, 2003, 193). This suggests that the lack of motivation in students to become politically active may result in futile decision-making.

Political Affect
Research in the area of political affect is relatively recent. Many view affect as integral to the candidate evaluation process. Recent studies suggest that voters regularly experience affective reactions and use these feelings as a basis for evaluating political candidates. This research has included candidate characteristics, contextual cues and affective states guiding cognition (Marcus, 2000). This emotion can also play a positive role in decision making as trying to be unemotional has been proven to impede important elements in decision making (Richard & Gross, 1999). Further, Isen (1993) in a review of studies of positive affect, notes that positive affect and emotions promotes promote improvements in problem solving, negotiating, and decision making.

Intergroup Theories
Political psychology involves not only the individual, but the individual’s interaction with the political environment (Cottam, 2004). Contemporary political psychological approaches to intergroup relations contribute to the understanding of creating public policies, making political decisions and of political intergroup conflict. Two main theories have emerged in intergroup relations- the social dominance theory and the social identity theory. The social dominance theory (Jost & Sidanius, 2004)attributes prejudice to an individual's acceptance of an ideology that legitimises ingroup-serving hierarchy and domination, and rejects egalitarian ideologies. Secondly, the social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) argues that intergroup conflict arises from psychological processes of perceptual categorisation, social comparison and identity enhancement. Thus this theory is successful in explaining such phenomena as ingroup favouritism and discrimination against outgroups which politically can provide the basis of race and ethnic conflict, and political extremism. A pertinent example of this phenomenon was the 2005 ‘Cronulla riots’ that were fuelled by racial categorisation, favouritism and comparison.

Summary
In conclusion, political psychology is a relatively young area of psychology. Early theories of leaders and the authoritarian personality provided the basis for the development of the discipline of political psychology and led the way for the generation of theories of political attitudes and voting behaviour, and modern theories such as intergroup dynamics, and the affect and cognitions of political behaviour. The use of both classic and contemporary theories and research highlights the ever-changing nature and evolution of the interplay between politics and psychology; and with the forthcoming Australian federal election, political psychology can assist in the diverse analysis of such an event as both an individual and a member of a group.

References

Adorno, T., Frenkel-Brunswick, E., Levinson, D., & Sanford, P. (1950) The authoritarian personality. New York: Harper

Altemeyer, B. (1996) The Authoritarian Spectre. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

Barber, J.D. (1972) The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House. New Jersey: Prentice Hall

Birt, R. (1993) Personality and foreign policy: the case of Stalin. Political Psychology, 15, 607- 627

Browning, R.P., & Jacob, H. (1964). Power motivation and political personality. Public Opinion Quarterly 24, 75-90.

Campbell, A Converse, P.E., Miller, W.E., & Stokes, D.E. (1960). The American Voter. NewYork: John Wiley & Sons

Chaiken, S., Liberman, A., & Eagly, A. (1998). Heuristic and systematic information processing within and beyond the persuasion context. In J.S. Uleman & J.A. Bargh (Eds.), Unintended thought(pp. 212-252). New York: Guilford Press.

Cottam, M., Dietz-Uhler, B., Mastors, E.M., & Preston, T. (2004). Introduction to political psychology. New Jersey: Thomas Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Festinger, L. (1964). Conflict, Decision and Dissonance. California: Stanford University Press.

Herman, M.G. (2004) Advances in Political Psychology (Vol. 1). Oxford: Elsevier.

Isen, A. (1993). Positive affect and decision making. In M. Lewis & J.M. Haviland. (Eds.), The Handbook of Emotion. New York: The Guilford Press

Jost, J.T., & Sidanius, J. (2004). Political Psychology. New York: Taylor & Francis Books.

Lazarsfield, P., Berelson, B., & Gaudet, H. (1949). The People’s Choice (2nd ed). New York: Columbia University Press.

Link, M., & Glad, B. (1994). Exploring the psychopolitical dynamics of advisory relations. Political Psychology, 15, 461-480.

Louis, W.R., & Terry, D.J. (2003). Avoidance and engagement in Australian political decision-making: The couch potato as a seething mass of impotent frustration. Australian Journal of Psychology, 55, 193-99.

Marcus, G.E. (2000). Emotions in politics. Annual Review of Political Science, 3, 221-250.

Ottai, V.C., Wyer, R.S., Deiger, M., & Houston, D. (2002). The psychological determinants of candidate evaluation and voting preference. In V.C. Ottai, R.S. Tindale, J.Edwards, F.B. Bryant, L. Heath, D.C. O’Connell, Y. Suarez-Balcazar, & E.J. Posavac (Eds.), The Social Psychology of Politics, Social Psychological Application to Social Issues Vol. 5. New York: Plenum Publishers.

Print, M., & Saha, L. (2006) Youth Electoral Study (YES) - Report 3: Youth, The Family, and Learning About Politics and Voting. Australian Electoral Commission. Retrieved 20 October 2007 from http://www.aec.gov.au/About_AEC/Publications/youth_study_3/page01.htm online

Renshon, S.A. (1996). High hopes: the Clinton Presidency and the Politics of Ambition. New York: New York University Press.

Richards, J.M., & Gross, J.J. (1999). Composure at any cost? The cognitive consequences of emotion suppression. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25 (8), 1033-1044

Riggle, E.D.B. & Johnson, M.M.S. (1996). Age differences in political decision making: Strategies for evaluating political candidates. Political Behaviour, 18, 99-118.

Volkan, V. (1980). Narcissistic personality organization and reparative leadership. International Journal of Group Psychotherapy, 30, 131-152.

Wyer, R.S., Jr., Strack, F., & Fuhrman, R. (1984). The acquisition of information about persons: Effects of task objectives and personal expectancies. Unpublished manuscript, University of Illinois, Champaign.



Appendix A
Concept Map

Appendix B

Theory
I believe that I have made effective use of the key theoretical literature of political psychology. I have covered a small amount of theories showing an in depth understanding of some of the theories in using Australian political examples. As this was such a vast topic I aimed to create broader categories to explain the theories and tried not to cover every single theory as that would be impossible so that the main theories could be addressed.

Research
This theory was integrated effectively with the research which was critical analysed, often providing evaluation of inconsistent research. All of the research is from peer reviewed journals and edited book chapters and is relevant to my topic.

Written expression
My essay is well laid out with an introduction, a conclusion and subheadings to improve flow and readability. My APA style is consistent and accurate. My Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level was 11.7 which is under the recommendation. The Flesch Reading Ease (FR) was lower than last time 23, however I endeavoured to make it higher and it ended up at 30.9 which is markedly better! I suppose I just use long sentences.

Online engagement
This blog I was extremely connected and engaged with the online environment. I chose my topic on the day they were released and blogged early on my intentions on my topic. I have made useful/polite contributions to other people’s blogs including collaborations (10+) such as with the leadership topic and meaningful contributions of blogging to my own with links, pictures, articles etc (5+). I customised my blog by using a profile picture, posting a poll, embedding a video and creating a list of links to other blogs in which I have commented.

Appendix C
Useful links

Youth Electoral Study
Youth participation in the electoral process- a study by the Australian Electoral Commission.

Love me or Loathe me
Prime Minister John Howard says the Australian people know where he stands on key issues … 10/2007 Footage: Sky News.

Australian Federal Election
A Guide to the 2007 Australian Federal Election courtesy of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia
Political Psychology

Official Announcement

Hey everyone, here's a nice laugh while we are doing our blogs!!
Maybe humour is a good form of political advertising for the younger population??

Brief Concept Map

So here's a really brief idea of what I've been looking at so far with regards to political psychology. I will add to this as I continue my research. This topic is a lot more complex than I orignially thought! I also hope to include more of how this applies to the current political situation in Australia so to answer my question!

Let me know what you think! Cheers : )

Social Disengagement and Political Alienation

I’ve found some relevant factors from yesterday’s tute on social disengagement to my blog 2 topic as Australians, especially young people are becoming politically disengaged and alienated.

Australian studies by the University of Queensland in 2003 have researched Avoidance and engagement in Australian political decision-making: The couch potato as a seething mass of impotent frustration (Louis, W.R., & Terry, D.J.) They found that students show high levels of political alienation and disengagement.
Here’s are some findings from the study:

• Most students had strong views on the war in Iraq, yet most did not express their opposition or support in a political arena.
• Australian students' activism was discriminated from inaction and from active avoidance of politics and news regarding the war.
• The discrepancies were then predicted from
  (a) Unfavourable cost-benefit analyses for the individual;
  (b) Perceived effectiveness of the peace movement;
  (c) Predicted outcomes of the war for Australia and two national outgroups (Iraq and the United States);
  (d) Distress evoked by politicians and the war, on the one hand, and protesters, on the other; and
  (e) Political and national self-identification. Implications for models of attitude-behaviour inconsistency and political decision-making are discussed.

Leadership: "Zeus, mate, not Narcissis"

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF OUR CURRENT LEADERS' PERSONALITIES?

Baumeister and Bushman (2008) tell us that successful leaders are humble and extremely persistent and are perceived as having integrity, competence and vision.

Freud however saw the link between narcissism and unequalled potential leadership. Graham Little (1996) explores this idea in Australian Poltics with reference to Paul Keating and Bob Hawke and their different forms of pride and vanity in an article "Zeus, mate, not Narcissus"

Have a read, and let me know...

Do you think narcissim is essential to a leader?
How narcissistic are our current leaders? Is that good/bad?

Canberra Flashmob 23/09/07 (Official)

Why I Chose Political Psychology

Hey everyone ... so I'd just thought I'd explain why I chose my blog 2 topic, it is on Political Psychology and I have to "provide an overview of the main theories and research in this area. Discuss with respect to current Australian federal politics."

I thought that this topic would be very relevant with the blog being due just before the federal election, as dates are currently being speculated for the election to be around November 10.

Political Psychology is essentially the ABC triad of political science, which according to Baumeister and Bushman, political science studies political issues such as voting, party identification, liberal vs conservative views, political advertising and leadership (2008).

It would be facinating in light of current events to understand as a psychology student the psychology in theory and research behind politics including the thoughts and behaviour of us the voters and the politicians themselves.

I would love to hear any thoughtsthat you might have and any comments of what you think would be interesting to include in my blog.

Cheers : )

Blog 1 Attitude Change and Smoking

Introduction
Kurt Lewin once said that ‘to really understand something, such as the concept attitude, one must study how it changes- not while it remains stable’ (p 207, cited in Oskamp & Schultz, 2005). The topic of attitude change has probably occupied the attention of psychologists more than all the other aspects of attitudes put together (Oskamp & Schultz, 2005). Attitude change is relevant to many aspects of human affairs from religious conversions to political persuasion, changes to personal prejudices and commercial advertising campaigns. Importantly, understanding what factors determine successful attitude change programs is essential to health psychologists in promoting health and preventing illness. Smoking related deaths are the number one preventable deaths in Australia, so attitude change is essential to resolving this issue. This essay will discuss what factors determine the success of attitude change programs. With reference to early and current theory, and supplementary research, the essay will explore the key elements underlying attitude change programs and use supporting evidence of anti-smoking campaigns in Australia to illustrate how these elements can function effectively.

Attitudes
Attitudes are an essential building block of social thought. (Eagly & Chaiken, 1998). They are necessary and adaptive for humans, helping to adjust to new situations. Thus, possessing an attitude increases the ease, speed and quality of decision making. Attitudes effect behaviour when they are strong well defined and accessible. Ambivalent attitudes are easier to change than those that reflect a uniform position on an issue, distinctly positive or negative, as a result behavioural responses tend to be unstable when attitudes are mixed (Armitage & Conner, 2000). Strong attitudes tend to be better predictors of behaviour in domains to which they are relevant than are ambivalent attitudes.

Anti-smoking Campaign
A recent three month anti-smoking campaign in Australia released in March 2007, took a different approach in an attempt to encourage smokers to quit. Instead of focusing on the hard-hitting consequences of smoking, the Health Promotion Board adopted a two phase approach. Their aim was to not only shocking smokers to think about quitting, but to supplement this with positive motivation and support to help smokers quit. The first phase included the theme “Quitting is hard. Not quitting, is harder” through intensive mass media including a graphic television advertisement depicting a female smoker with oral cancer conveying her pain and suffering. The second phase included the theme “Ready to quit? Give it a try!” using testimonies from successful stories of ex-smokers to encourage smokers to quit and also urging people to seek professional help to give up the habit. This programs approach to attitude change includes many factors that are shown through theory and research to be effective in persuasion to change attitudes.

Early Theories
Early research suggests that attitude change in social change programs can be successful by the variables involved in persuasion and the mediating processes of affect, behaviour and cognition on those variables. Hovland and colleagues in the 1950s created the Yale approach theorising that persuasion is composed of four characteristics that determine the success of attitude change- the source or communicator, message and audience and how they are measured by the influence on affect, behaviour and cognition (1953).

Source
Research suggests that a communicator of attitude change that appears trustworthy, attractive, credible and similar to the recipient produces greater attitude change. (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981). The use of actors in the anti-smoking campaign may affect its credibility; however, the use of testimonies in the second phase would be more effective as people could relate to the smoker’s feelings. In terms of source, the channel of communication is also important. Chaiken & Eagly found that the effect depends on the message. A simple message is more effective by video and a complex message is more effective when written (1983).

Message
The characteristics of the message is an integral part of whether an attitude is likely to change. These characteristics can include one and two sided arguments, framing, fear appeals, and reason versus emotion. When an audience is likely to hold an attitude that is different to that which is being communicated, a two sided approach is held to be more effective than a one sided approach. By including and refuting the opposing argument, the audience achieves satisfaction that they have been given both sides of the argument. Two sided approaches are particularly seen to be effective in intelligent audiences.

For years anti-smoking advertising has relied on fear appeals to shock people into changing their attitudes on smoking, by emphasising illness and death. Literature suggests that strong fear appeals produce high levels of perceived severity and susceptibility, and are more persuasive than weak fear appeals. However, Witte & Allen (2000) propose that fear appeals motivate adaptive danger control actions such as message acceptance and maladaptive fear control actions such as defensive avoidance or reactance. Thus, strong fear appeals and high-efficacy messages are seen to produce the greatest behaviour change, whereas strong fear appeals with low-efficacy messages produce the greatest levels of defensive responses (Watson, Pettingale, & Goldstein, 1983).

Similarly, a positively framed message is most effective in inducing change when serious, fearful symptoms could occur because of a person’s own behaviour; and conversely, a negatively framed message is more effective when trivial, not fearful symptoms are easy to imagine because of a person’s own behaviour (Broemer, 2004). High fear is said to be motivating if the fear appeal is supplemented with practical, clear behavioural advice about how to alleviate the fear as is seen the anti-smoking program, by using fear tactics, however, offering the support to change. This is also effective as a combination of reason and emotion. In the first phase of the program fear creates emotion, however, carefully reasoned argument in the second phase “Ready to quit? Give it a try!” gives the audience and opportunity to respond with reasoning as well.

Recipient
In recent times, population-based behavioural studies have identified some relevant attributes of smoking groups (Owen, Kent, Wakefield & Roberts, 1995), and have helped to inform how public campaigns and policy initiatives can be pursued. Thus, the effectiveness of attitude change can been measured by the characteristics of the person who receives and processes the message. Persuasibility has been studied in relation to personality and personal characteristics such as age, gender, anxiety, self-esteem, dogmatism, need for cognition and intelligence. Some studies have found that women are more persuadable than men; however, this has not been universally accepted. In fact, many suggest that persuasibility depends on the subject of message and females are influenced more if unfamiliar with the content (Eagly & Carli, 1981, Petty & Cacioppo, 1981).

Modern Theories
There are many modern theories as to attitude change; however, the cognition of the recipient is the focus of most modern theories of attitude change, particularly the choice of processing to use when given a message and the effects of cognitive conflict on readiness to change attitudes. Dual process models such as the Elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Wegener, 1998) and Heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken Chen, & Schechter, 1996) involve the classification of attitude changes into those that involve high-effort processes and those that do not. High effort processes require mental resources, thought and evaluation and include cognitive responses, information integration and cognitive dissonance. Both of the models argue that people are motivated to hold correct attitudes, but consider that various factors may prevent them from taking persuasive messages on board. Most people have cognitive dissonance in relation to their attitudes to smoking. There is a discrepancy between their cognitions concerning the health risks and their own behaviour. Most reduce this dissonance by changing one or both cognitions by stopping smoking or rejecting evidence on health risks; or by introducing a new cognition that they can not stop being addicted. Attitude change programs support the resolution of the dissonance by means of quitting. Nonetheless, Gibbons et al. (1997) found that those who return to smoking after quitting show changes in their perception of health risks, thus instead choosing to introduce a new cognition.

Summary
In looking at the many process involved in the changing of attitudes; early theories give support for the Yale approach to attitude change, emphasising the source, message and recipient and their influence on the emotions, behaviour and thoughts of the audience. Thus, providing a good basis of understanding of the effectiveness of fear appeals, credibility and gender in advertisements on attitude change in smoking. Moreover, more recent theories highlight cognition, processing of information and resolving dissonance in the changing of attitudes. Accordingly, this recent campaign for quitting smoking is utilising all of these aspects of attitude change research and theory to generate change in people’s attitudes to their own smoking behaviours. The two phase approach appears lucrative as it can address the two different sides of the spectrum in an aim to connect with all smokers to stop the cause of the most preventable deaths in Australia.



References

Armitage, C.J., & Conner, M. (2000). Attitudinal ambivalence: A three key hypotheses. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1421-1432.

Baron, R.A., Byrne, D., & Branscombe, N.R. (2006). Social Psychology (11th ed.). Sydney: Pearson.

Baumeister, R.F., & Bushman, B.J. (2008). Social Psychology: Human Nature. California: Thomson Wadsworth.

Broemer, P. (2004). Ease of imagination moderates reactions to differently framed health messages. European Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 103-119.

Carr, S.C. (2003). Social Psychology: Context, Communication and Culture. Sydney: Wiley.

Chaiken, S., Chen, S., & Schechter, D. (1996). Getting at the truth or getting along: Accuracy versus impression-motivated heuristic systemstic processing, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 71(2), 262-275.

Chaiken, S., & Eagly, A.H. (1983). Communication modality as a determinant of persuasion: The role of communicator salience, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(2), 241-256.

Eagly, A.H., & Carli, L. (1981). Sex of researchers and sex typed communications as determinants of sex differences in influence-ability: A meta-analysis of social influence studies. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 1-20.

Eagly, A.H., & Chaiken, S. (1998). Attitude structure and function. In G. Lindsay, S.T.

Fiske, & D.T. Gilbert (Eds.), Handbook of Social Psychology (4th ed.). New York:
Oxford University Press.

Gibbons, F. X., Eggleston, T. J., & Benthin, A. C. (1997) Cognitive reactions to smoking relapse: The reciprocal relation between dissonance and self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72(1), 184-195.

Health Promotion Board Online. (2007). Quitting is hard. Not quitting, is harder. National Smoking Campaign 07 to jolt smokers to quit smoking. Retrieved August 28, 2007 from http://www.hpb.gov.sg/hpb/default.asp?pg_id=2980 online.

Hovland, C.I., Janis, I.L., & Kelley, H.H. (1953). Communication and Persuasion. Yale: University Press.

McDermott, L J., Dobson A. J., & Owen, N. (2006). From partying to parenthood: young women’s perceptions of cigarette smoking across life transitions. Health Education Research, 21, 428-439.

Oskamp, S., & Schultz, P.W. (2005). Attitudes and Opinions (3rd ed.). London: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Owen, N., Kent, P., Wakefield, M., & Roberts, L. (1995). Low-rate smokers. Preventive Medicine, 24, 80-84.

Petty, R.E., & Cacioppo, J.T. (1981). Attitudes and Persuasion: Classic and Contemporary Approaches. New York: Brown.

Petty, R.E., & Wegener, D.T. (1999). The elaboration likelihood model: Current status and controversies. In: Dual-process Theories in Social Psychology. S. Chaiken, & Y. Trope. New York: Guilford Press.

Watson, M., Pettingale, K.W., & Goldstein, D. (1983) Effects of a fear appeal on arousal, self-reported anxiety, and attitude towards smoking. Psychological Reports, 52(1), 139-146.

Witte, K. & Allen, M. ( 2000). A meta-analysis of fear appeals: Implications for effective public health campaigns. Health Education & Behaviour, 27(5), 591-616.


Appendix A

Concept Map

Appendix B

Self Assessment
1. Theory
As there was a wide range of theory concerning attitudes, I believe that I identified, understood and made effective use of the key theoretical literature pertaining to my topic. I made sure that I answered the question by using theory on attitude change not merely attitudes, or attitude formation. I took the approach of applying early theory of Hovland and colleagues work that was at the forefront of attitude change theories, then using more current theories that have emerged such as the cognitive theories. I have also then related these theories back to my attitude change program of anti-smoking critically. I have not tried to include all of the theories available but selected relevant theories thus to provide sufficient depth regarding each theory.

2. Research
Similarly, I have identified, understood, and made effective use of the main research findings related to this essay topic. I have an extensive reference list that includes many types of research on the topic of attitudes.

3. Written Expression
My readability was 44.1% and 11.8. I’ve never done that before, so I don’t know how good it is. I am usually inclined to use lots of big words though to fully express myself, so I was a bit worried.
My use of APA style is accurate. However, I was slightly hesitant about using headings etc, as I was not used to that format, as well as lack of indenting and double spacing! Hopefully my concept map gives an overview of the essay which helps to present my essay. The links attached to the anti-smoking ad and website also assists in presenting my essay.

4. Online engagement
Considering my inexperience in this online environment and little skills with computers, I am proud of my achievements in online engagement. I have made a concept map on Mindmeister; I have figured out how to do links, including importing a video from youtube and have made thoughtful comments about it using press releases and websites in an attempt to create discussion; I have also made meaningful comments on others blogs (Kara, BK, and Beck’s) and have collaborated with others doing attitude change and anti-smoking. I have improved in so many areas, which also means I have many more ways to improve for the next blog, by improving my blog and contributing more to others

Appendix C

Useful links

Health Promotion Board
This gives detail of the 2007 anti-smoking campaign step by step

Australian Psychological Society
An article by a professor on psychology and lifestyle related disease

ABC News
Article: Graphic anti-smoking campaigns work

Wikipedia
Attitude (Psychology)

Attitudes Lecture
James’ lecture on social thinking

Cancer Council
Statistics on smoking in Australia, with links.

Attitude Change Anti-smoking Draft Concept Map

Here's my first try at the concept map using anti-smoking attitude change programs as an example. As my essay develops, hopefully I'll have more to add and refine to the map.
- Fiona

Graphic Australian Anti-Smoking Ad

Test Blog

Finally... I think it's working.
Hooray!