In persuasion research, an attitude is an intervening variable; that is, it is an internal mediator that intrudes between presentation of a particular overt stimulus and observation of a particular overt response (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Triandis, 1971). Oskamp (1977) captured the crux of the matter, stating, “In social science, the term [attitude] has come to mean ‘a posture of the mind’ rather than of the body” (p. 7).
Given its conceptual status, all statements about the construct of attitude (or attitude formation or attitude change) are, of necessity, inferential; no means exist for directly observing or measuring an attitude. If someone asserts, “Roloff has a positive attitude about research,” it means that the speaker has probably observed one or more of the following behaviors: Roloff proclaiming the importance of research, Roloff gathering data, Roloff writing research reports, Roloff forgoing a recreational outing to analyze data at the computer center, Roloff investing substantial sums of money in journals containing research reports, and so on. What the person has not observed is Roloff’s attitude toward research; instead, his “positive attitude” is an inference (in the terminology of one currently popular theoretical position, an attribution) based on observation of Roloff’s research-related behaviors.
Although this point is patently obvious, its implications have often escaped persuasion researchers. Nowhere has the mischief perpetrated by this oversight been more evident than in the countless pages written about the misleadingly labeled attitude-behavior problem (Liska, 1975). The crux of this problem lies in the minimal relationship often observed between verbal indicators of an attitude (i.e., paper-and-pencil “attitude” scales) and other attitudinally related behaviors. While the issue centers on lack of correlation between two behavioral measures, persuasion researchers have fallen into the trap of reifying the paper-and-pencil verbal reports traditionally used as inferential measures of the attitude construct.
Despite any rational justification for doing so, persuasion researchers have continued to equate responses to these scales with the intervening variable of attitude and to speak of other responses as behavior—hence, the roots of the so-called attitude-behavior problem. (Miller, 1980, p. 322)
Pointing out this basic conceptual confusion in no way suggests that the minimal relationships observed between verbal attitude reports and other attitudinally related behaviors are unimportant to persuasion researchers. Because they are convenient to administer and lend themselves to a variety of statistical operations, paper-and-pencil verbal reports have been, and are likely to continue to be, widely used to measure persuasive effects. Any useful, reasonably fully developed theory of persuasion must seek to identify the conditions that determine when verbal reports will be correlated with other types of attitudinal behavior. Still, the continuing emphasis on attitude as the primary dependent variable, along with the prevailing tendency to view verbal reports as attitudes, may have done more to hinder this search than to help it.
Most writers also posit that attitudes are motivational or drive producing (Allport, 1935; Doob, 1947; Oskamp, 1977). Whether current methods of attitude measurement tap this drive-producing dimension is open to serious question. The motivational force of an attitude stems from the strength or intensity with which it is held. Most widely used attitude scales measure only the magnitude of the attitude’s deviation from zero, in other words, the degree of positiveness or negativeness respondents assign to their positions. If pressed, many persuasion researchers would probably argue that extremely deviating responses—for example, plus three or minus three responses on a seven-interval, semantic differential-type scale—reflect more strongly held attitudes than do responses falling closer to the scale’s midpoint. There is no necessary relationship between the position of one’s attitude about an issue and the strength with which the attitude is held; position and intensity may be viewed usefully as two relatively independent dimensions. Undoubtedly, people frequently have middling plus three or minus three attitudes; they may, for example, say that killing harp seals is very good or very bad yet not feel strongly about the issue. Conversely, less sharply polarized viewpoints sometimes may be held with great intensity; after weighing the matter thoroughly, an individual may conclude that killing harp seals is slightly good or slightly bad and at the same time feel quite strongly about the issue. It should be noted that the drive-producing potential of the attitude is one potentially important determinant of the extent to which verbal responses will correlate with other attitudinally consistent behaviors; if a respondent consistently says that killing harp seals is very bad but the issue is relatively uninvolving, that person will be unlikely to engage in more demanding, higher threshold responses (Campbell, 1963) such as giving money to naturalist organizations that oppose harp seal harvests, circulating anti-harp seal harvest petitions, and journeying to the scene of the harvest to demonstrate against it. On the other hand, if the issue is very involving and the drive-producing potential of the attitude is therefore high, these related behaviors are more likely to occur.
In some preliminary work, several of us (Miller, 1967; Peretz, 1974) have sought to index the drive-producing potential of attitudinal stimuli by measuring the vigor of the respondent’s behavior (Brown, 1961). Rather than marking responses to attitudinal stimuli on paper, respondents press the appropriate button and the vigor of the button press is recorded. Because respondents experiencing high drive states are expected to behave more vigorously, the magnitude of the button press is assumed to be directly related to the attitude’s intensity. Although findings have been mixed as well as confounded with numerous technical problems encountered in developing the instrumentation, some encouraging results have been obtained. In one study, Michigan State University football players responded quite vigorously to highly involving items dealing with the abolition of football scholarships and the presumed academic inferiority of athletes while at the same time responding less vigorously (yet positively or negatively) to items judged on an a priori basis to be less involving.
If using attitude as a primary behavioral indicant of “being persuaded” poses perplexing problems, what can be done to remedy the situation? One approach lies in retaining the construct while at the same time seeking to refine it and add to its utility by building more comprehensive models of attitude change (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). A second possibility involves replacing attitude with some other intervening construct such as value (Rokeach, 1968, 1973). Finally, persuasion researchers can abandon their reliance on mediating processes and focus exclusively on behavioristic analyses of persuasive effects. Although this latter possibility has received limited attention, a recent controversial paper (Larson & Sanders, 1975) has questioned the utility of predispositional mediating constructs and suggested that the function of persuasion might be viewed more fruitfully as the appropriate alignment of behavior in various social situations.
Regardless of the direction in which a researcher’s preferences may point, it remains clear that “being persuaded” is a process grounded in behavioral data. No matter whether the goal is shaping, reinforcing, or changing responses, both practical and scientific successes hinge on careful observation and measurement of persuasive impact. Perhaps inferences to intervening variables, such as attitudes and values, will eventually prove indispensable to theoretical success, but these constructs are not essential ingredients of the conceptual analysis of “being persuaded” that has been offered in this chapter.
References
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Brown, J.S. (1961). The motivation of behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Burgoon, M., & Chase, L. J. (1973). The effects of differential linguistic patterns in messages attempting to induce resistance to persuasion. Speech Monographs, 40, 1–7.
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EDITORS’ NOTE: Readers of this chapter may be puzzled by Miller’s reference to Chairman Brezhnev’s “recent” appeal for Senate ratification of the SALT II treaty and to the “current” energy crisis, and they may be misled by his allusions to “the chapters in this volume.” In fact, this contribution is a reprint of the opening chapter in M. Roloff and G. R. Miller’s (1980) edited volume titled Persuasion: New Directions in Theory and Research (also published by Sage). While the examples may be slightly tarnished, Miller’s ideas are as bright and instructive today as they were three decades ago.
From G. R. Miller’s On Being Persuaded: Some Basic Distinctions in M. Roloff and G. R. Miller (Eds.) Persuasion: New Directions in Theory and Research. Copyright © 1980 by Sage Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission.
PART II
Theories, Perspectives, and Traditions
CHAPTER 6
Discrepancy Models of Belief Change
Edward L. Fink and Deborah A. Cai
In the context of attitude and belief change, discrepancy refers to the difference between a position advocated in a message (PA) and the immediately prior premessage position of an individual (P0); thus, message discrepancy (hereinafter discrepancy) = (PA–P0). Suppose for example that you were asked to contribute (perhaps with some justification) $100.00 (PA) to your alma mater, and your immediately prior view regarding how much you would be willing to give your alma mater was $10.00 (P0). In this case, the discrepancy of the message is $90.00.
The logic behind discrepancy studies is a simple one: It is assumed that discrepancy is a predictor of change in attitude or belief (and sometimes behavior). To be precise, an attitude is a response of the form or a conveyance of the idea that “I like [or dislike] X.” An evaluative belief is a response of the form or conveyance of the idea “X is good [or bad].” A nonevaluative belief is a response of the form or a conveyance of the idea “X is Y,” where Y is nonevaluative. These definitions are not meant to be restrictive but rather to differentiate possible foci of research (cf. Woelfel & Fink, 1980). However, the use of a standard terminology is complicated in part because different authors studying this phenomenon ha
ve used different terms. For simplicity in what follows, the discussion of discrepancy models as applied to attitudes also applies to beliefs, and belief is used as the generic term throughout.
A discrepancy model is a model that relates the differences between values of a dependent variable to differences in the values of one or more independent variables. This chapter first describes the logic and role of discrepancy models in the sciences. Next, we examine the simplest belief change model regarding discrepancy, the linear discrepancy model. We indicate its assumptions and its implications for message repetition and message order, and explicate the meaning of its single parameter. Finally, we examine the theories and literature regarding discrepancy models of belief change and the evidence regarding the validity of the linear discrepancy model and its major tenets. This discussion includes an excursus in the form of a methodological wish list, recommending how research in this area may be improved.
Discrepancy Models in Scientific Theory
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Discrepancy models play a central role in scientific theory: It is common for differences in one or more variables to predict differences in a dependent variable. Here are a few examples from physics.
Models
Bernoulli’s Principle
Bernoulli’s principle states that the difference in pressures of a fluid system at any two points in a flow is a function of the difference in the flow velocities squared and the difference in the vertical locations of the two points (Bar-Meir, 2011).
The SAGE Handbook of Persuasion Page 17
