Process Of Attitude Change Research Articles

THE RELATION BETWEEN THE PROCESS OF ATTITUDE CHANGE AND THE DEGREE OF ANXIETY

The purpose of this experiment is to testify the relation between the degree of anxiety and the process of attitude change on the bases of the 5 steps on attitude change proposed by Haraoka (1970).In order to change the attitudes of the subjects, the persuasive communications were presented and then measuring by the GSR the extent to which the subjects aroused anxiety while being exposed to the communications.The subjects were 69 college students. First, they were asked how many times they would like to be assigned reading and translation in the English class during one semester, and then their attiudes toward the importance of English in their life were measured. The subjects were then divided into three experimental groups, all of which were exposed to the same direction of persuasive commumication that “every student should be assigned at least once in every English class. ”The peruasive communications were orientated in the same direction but differed among the three different groups in quantity and intensity. In order to measure the degree of their anxiety, we recorded the subjects' GSRs while they were receiving the persuasive communication. Finally they were asked to fill in the same questionaires as they had been given at first, by which we recorded how many times they would like to be assigned in the English class and measured their final attitudes toward the importance of English in their life.The results of this study can be summarized as follows:(1) Those who were exposed to the egoinvolved communication about the attiude object showed more attiude change and anxiety than those who were exposed to the noninvolved communication.(2) Those whose GSRs were low at first, high in the middle, and low again in the end, making a ∩ curve while being exposed to the persuasive communication, showed significantly greater attitude change, than those whose GSRs were high at first and then gradually down with the time.(3) The results of this experiment confirmed the hypothesis of 5 steps on attitude change process proposed by Haraoka.

The Measurement of Advertising Involvement

In an earlier paper in this journal,* the author suggested that the processes of attitude change underlying mass communication impact are of two kinds: with low involvement to persuasive stimuli one might look for gradual shifts in perceptual structure, aided by repetition, activated by behavioral choice situations, and followed at some time by attitude change, while with high involvement one could look instead for the classic and familiar conflict of ideas at the level of conscious opinion and attitude that precedes changes in behavior. The present paper describes the development and application of a workable tool to measure this involvement, a necessary step if the study of communication impact along these lines is to proceed further. Dr. Krugman is Vice President of MARPLAN, a division of Communications Affiliates, Inc., New York City, and a member of the Editorial Board of the Quarterly.

Attitude Change as a Function of Open or Closed-Mindedness

The data partially support the hypothesis of greater attitude change for close-minded persons in situations involving cognitive inconsistency. But research on other factors in the attitude change process is indicated as necessary.

Statistical Methods for Analyzing Processes of Change

Methods for making predictions and for testing various hypotheses concerning processes of change are presented here. Applying these methods to the reanalysis of panel data on pre-election vote intention, we find that the tests given here permit more detailed analysis than did tests applied earlier analysis suggested that the process of attitude change in the July-August period (during which time the Democratic convention was held) differed from that in the August-September period, reanalysis indicates that the corresponding differences between the two periods were not statistically significant except for the data relating to those who "Didn't Know" in July and in August respectively; that is, apparent over-all differences in the process of change can be attributed to differences for those who "Didn't Know."

Compliance, identification, and internalization three processes of attitude change

1 An earlier draft of this paper was written while the author was with the Laboratory of Psychology, National Institute of Mental Health, and was read at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Chicago on August 30, 1956. The experiment reported here was conducted while the author was at Johns Hopkins University as a Public Health Service Research Fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health. Additional financial support was received from the Yale Communication Research Program, which is under the direction of Carl I. Hovland and which is operating under a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The author is particularly grateful to James Owings for his help in running the experiment; to Ramon J. Rhine and Janet Baldwin Barclay for their help in analysis of the data; and to Roger K. Williams, Chairman of the Psychology Department at Morgan State College, for the many ways in which he facilitated collection of the data. nication produce public conformity without private acceptance, or did it produce public conformity coupled with private acceptance? (Cf. 1, 4.) Only if we know something about the nature and depth of changes can we make meaningful predictions about the way in which attitude changes will be reflected in subsequent actions and reactions to events.