IntroductionKurt 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.
AttitudesAttitudes 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 CampaignA 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 TheoriesEarly 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).
SourceResearch 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).
MessageThe 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.
RecipientIn 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 TheoriesThere 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
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Appendix AConcept 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 BoardThis gives detail of the 2007 anti-smoking campaign step by step
Australian Psychological SocietyAn article by a professor on psychology and lifestyle related disease
ABC NewsArticle: Graphic anti-smoking campaigns work
WikipediaAttitude (Psychology)
Attitudes LectureJames’ lecture on social thinking
Cancer CouncilStatistics on smoking in Australia, with links.
