Attitude Measurement

Carlos Torelli

Lu Wang

Attitudes

• Measuring the unobservable in order to predict behavior and to assess people’s responses to persuasion.

• Attitude properties: – Evaluative– Strength (accessibility, ambivalence, certainty, etc.)– Cognitions vs. affect– Functions

• Attitudes as systems interconnected with other systems.• Not all attitudes are created equal: Attitudes can be self-

defining potential measurement issues.

Measuring Attitude

• Ways to know another person’s attitude– Direct (Ask):

• Structured vs. unstructured• One-item vs. multiple items (scales)

– Indirect:• Observe reaction • Observe behavior• Judgmental biases• IAT (automatic evaluation/associations)

– Physiological response• Personal Attitudes vs. Shared (General)

Attitudes

Structured vs. Unstructured• Unstructured

– Advantages:

• Does not constrain people’s responses• Provide rich data• Especially useful during the early stages of investigating a particular

issue

• Structured– Advantages:

• Easier for respondents to answer• Easier for researcher to score• Focus precisely on specific properties of the attitude

Single-Item Direct Measures: Example 1

– Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: “I think Elizabeth Almond’s mandatory recycling program is the best way in which to deal with Clarkton’s trash crisis”?

Single-Item Direct Measures: Example 1

• Potential problems:– Acquiescence bias– What is it? – Why does it occur?– How to deal with it?

Single-Item Direct Measures: Example 2

• Do you favor tax increase to pay for Clarkton’s garbage to be trucked to another county, or do you think that Elizabeth Almond’s mandatory recycling proposal is a good idea?

Single-Item Direct Measures: Example 2

• Potential problems:– Persuasive argument in favor of one point of

view– What about people who do not agree with

either point of view?– How to deal with these problems?

Single-Item Direct Measures: Example 4

• What is your opinion about the mandatory recycling proposal: Do you favor it, oppose it, or neither?

Single-Item Direct Measures: Example 4

• Potential problems: – Limited response alternatives– How to deal with it?– Scale with a large or small number of options– What is a moderate length?

Single-Item Direct Measures: Example 6

• How do you feel about proposed city Bylaw C6-L573?

Single-Item Direct Measures: Example 6

• Potential problems:– Knowledge problem– Social desirability effect– How to deal with it?

What about Multiple-Item Direct Measures?

• Examples of Multiple-item measures

• Conversation metaphor– Will respondents perceive multiple-item

questions as trying to get at new information?– How should we deal with this problem?

– Thurstone equal-appearing intervals– Likert– Semantic Differentials

What Will You Do?

• Which method will you use if you are to measure attitude in your research area?

• What are some of the criteria that help you make the choice? (e.g. how much time/resource do you have in constructing the measure?)

What About Indirect Measures?

• What is an implicit attitude?

– We have it but we don’t say it (i.e., editing)

– We are not conscious we have it (i.e., automatic evaluation)

• What does the IAT measure?

– Is it non-context dependent?

– Culturally nurtured associative structures or “true” individual’s evaluations (i.e., cultural knowledge about a target-concept association vs. my personal evaluation about the target)

• Is the IAT a measure of strength of association?• Check this website https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/research/

Attitude Strength

• Can strength-related dimensions be studied in isolation?– Measures of other strength-related properties

(i.e., repeated expression and elaboration)– Manipulations that can eliminate differences

in one or more dimensions (i.e., distraction task).

– Measures and manipulations might not be interchangeable

Self-Defining Attitudes

• What about measuring self-defining attitudes?– Self-presentation– Contingencies of self-worth and editing of

responses

• Shall we anticipate whether certain attitudes we want to measure are self-defining?– What should we do about it?

Attitudes Toward Advertising

• Personal vs. Shared attitudes– Which one is more important?– Would both lead to same behaviors?

Interconnectedness of Attitudes

• If we want to measure attitude toward an object, can the questionnaire itself change individual’s prior attitudes? I f so, How can that happen?– Changing cognitions through previously presented

information (i.e., other questions – context effects?)– Affecting emotions toward the object (i.e., prejudice).– Making accessible in memory certain behaviors (i.e.,

associating the objects to recently recalled behaviors)– Measuring attitude toward related objects

(assimilation or contrast?)