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There have been two main streams of thinking with respect to the determination of man's attitudes. The one tradition assumes an irrational model of man: specifically it holds that men have very limited powers of reason and reflection, weak capacity to discriminate, only the most primitive self-insight, and very short memories. Whatever mental capacities people do possess are easily overwhelmed by emotional forces and appeals to self-interest and vanity. The early books on the psychology of advertising, with their emphasis on the doctrine of suggestion, exemplify this approach. One expression of this philosophy is in the propagandist's concern with tricks and traps to manipulate the public. A modern form of it appears in The Hidden Persuaders, or the use of subliminal and marginal suggestion, or the devices supposedly employed by "the Madison Avenue boys." Experiments to support this line of thinking started with laboratory demonstrations of the power of hypnotic suggestion and were soon extended to show that people would change their attitudes in an uncritical manner under the influence of the prestige of authority and numbers. For example, individuals would accept or reject the same idea depending upon whether it came from a positive or a negative prestige source.' The second approach is that of the ideologist who invokes a rational model of man. It assumes that the human being has a cerebral cortex, that he seeks understanding, that he consistently attempts to make sense of the world about him, that he possesses discriminating and reasoning powers which will assert them selves over time, and that he is capable of self-criticism and self-insight. It relies heavily upon getting adequate information to people. Our educational system is based upon this rational model. The present emphasis upon the improvement of communication, upon developing more adequate channels of two-way communication, of conferences and institutes, upon bringing people together to inter change ideas, are all indications of the belief in the importance of intelligence and comprehension in the formation and change of men's opinions. ------------ From Daniel Katz, "The Functional Approach to the Study of Attitudes," Public Opinion Quarterly, 1960, 24, 163-204. Reproduced with permission of the author and publisher. -------------- Now either school of thought can point to evidence which supports its assumptions, and can make fairly damaging criticisms of its opponent. Solomon Asch and his colleagues, in attacking the irrational model, have called attention to the biased character of the old experiments on prestige suggestion which gave the subject little opportunity to demonstrate critical thinking.2 And further exploration of subjects in these stupid situations does indicate that they try to make sense of a nonsensical matter as far as possible. Though the same statement is presented by the experimenter to two groups, the first time as coming from a positive source and the second time as coming from a negative source, it is given a different meaning dependent upon the context in which it appears.3 Thus the experimental subject does his best to give some rational meaning to the problem. On the other hand, a large body of experimental work indicates that there are many limitations in the rational approach in that people see their world in terms of their own needs, remember what they want to remember, and interpret information on the basis of wishful thinking. H. H. Hyman and P. Sheatsley have demonstrated that these experimental results have direct relevance to information campaigns directed at influencing public opinion.4 These authors assembled facts about such campaigns and showed conclusively that increasing the flow of information to people does not necessarily increase the knowledge absorbed or pro duce the attitude changes desired. The major difficulty with these conflicting approaches is their lack of specification of the conditions under which men do act as the theory would predict. For the facts are that people do act at times as if they had been decorticated and at times with intelligence and comprehension. And people themselves do recognize that on occasion they have behaved blindly, impulsively, and thoughtlessly. A second major difficulty is that the rationality-irrationality dimension is not clearly defined. At the extremes it is easy to point to examples, as in the case of the acceptance of stupid suggestions under emotional stress on the one hand, or brilliant problem solving on the other; but this does not provide adequate guidance for the many cases in the middle of the scale where one attempts to discriminate between rationalization and reason. ------------------------ Muzafer Sherif, The Psychology of Social Norms, New York, Harper, 1936. 2 Solomon E. Asch, Social Psychology, New York, Prentice-Hall, 1952. : 3 Ibid., pp. 426-427. The following statement was attributed to its rightful author. John Adams, for some subjects and tu Karl Marx for others: "those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society." When the statement was attributed to Marx, this type of comment appeared: "Marx is stressing the need for a redistribution of wealth." When it was attributed to Adams, this comment appeared: "This social division is innate in mankind." 4 Herbert H. Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley, "Some Reasons Why Information Campaigns Fail," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 11, 1947, pp. 413-423. ------------------ RECONCILIATION OF THE CONFLICT IN A FUNCTIONAL APPROACH The conflict between the rationality and irrationality models was saved from becoming a worthless debate because of the experimentation and research suggested by these models. The findings of this research pointed toward the elements of truth in each approach and gave some indication of the conditions under which each model could make fairly accurate predictions. In general the irrational approach was at its best where the situation imposed heavy restrictions upon search behavior and response alternatives. Where individuals must give quick responses without adequate opportunities to explore the nature of the problem, where there are very few response alternatives available to them, where their own deep emotional needs are aroused, they will in general react much as does the unthinking subject under hypnosis. On the other hand, where the individual can have more adequate commerce with the relevant environmental setting, where he has time to obtain more feedback from his reality testing, and where he has a number of realistic choices, his behavior will reflect the use of his rational faculties.5 The child will often respond to the directive of the parent not by implicit obedience but by testing out whether or not the parent really meant what he said. 5 William A. Scott points out that in the area of international relations the incompleteness and remoteness of the information and the lack of pressures on the individual to defend his views results in inconsistencies. Inconsistent elements with respect to a system of international beliefs may, however, be consistent with the larger system of the personality. --------- "Rationality and Non-rationality of International Attitudes," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 2, 1958, pp. 9-16. --------- Many of the papers in this issue, which describe research and theory concerning consistency and consonance, represent one outcome of the rationality model. The theory of psychological consonance, or cognitive balance, assumes that man attempts to reduce discrepancies in his beliefs, attitudes, and behavior by appropriate changes in these processes. While the emphasis here is upon consistency or logicality, the theory deals with all dissonances, no matter how produced. Thus they could result from irrational factors of distorted perception and wishful thinking as well as from rational factors of realistic appraisal of a problem and an accurate estimate of its consequences. Moreover, the theory would predict only that the individual will move to reduce dissonance, whether such movement is a good adjustment to the world or leads to the delusional systems of the paranoiac. In a sense, then, this theory would avoid the conflict between the old approaches of the rational and the irrational man by not dealing with the specific antecedent causes of behavior or with the particular ways in which the individual solves his problems. In addition to the present preoccupation with the development of formal models concerned with cognitive balance and consonance, there is a growing interest in a more comprehensive framework for dealing with the complex variables and for bringing order within the field. The thoughtful system of Ulf Himmelstrand, presented in the following pages, is one such attempt. Another point of departure is represented by two groups of workers who have organized their theories around the functions which attitudes perform for the personality. Sarnoff, Katz, and McClintock, in taking this functional approach, have given primary attention to the motivational bases of attitudes and the processes of attitude change.6 The basic assumption of this group is that both attitude formation and attitude change must be understood in terms of the needs they serve and that, as these motivational processes differ, so too will the conditions and techniques for attitude change. Smith, Bruner, and White have also analyzed the different functions which attitudes perform for the personality.7 Both groups present essentially the same functions, but Smith, Bruner, and White give more attention to perceptual and cognitive processes and Sarnoff, Katz, and McClintock to the specific conditions of attitude change. ---------------- O Irving Sarnoff and Daniel Katz, "The Motivational Bases of Attitude Change," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 49, 1954, pp. 115-124. 7 M. Brewster Smith, Jerome S. Bruner, and Robert W. White, Opinions and Personality, New York, Wiley, 1956. ------------------ The importance of the functional approach is threefold. (1) Many previous studies of attitude change have dealt with factors which are not genuine psycho logical variables, for example, the effect on group prejudice of contact between two groups, or the exposure of a group of subjects to a communication in the mass media. Now contact serves different psychological functions for the individual and merely knowing that people have seen a movie or watched a television program tells us nothing about the personal values engaged or not engaged by such a presentation. If, however, we can gear our research to the functions attitudes perform, we can develop some generalizations about human behavior. Dealing with nonfunctional variables makes such generalization difficult, if not impossible. (2) By concerning ourselves with the different functions attitudes can per form we can avoid the great error of oversimplification-the error of attributing a single cause to given types of attitude. It was once popular to ascribe radical ism in economic and political matters to the psychopathology of the insecure and to attribute conservatism to the rigidity of the mentally aged. At the present time it is common practice to see in attitudes of group prejudice the repressed hostilities stemming from childhood frustrations, though Hyman and Sheatsley have pointed out that prejudiced attitudes can serve a normative function of gaining acceptance in one's own group as readily as releasing unconscious hatred.8 In short, not only are there a number of motivational forces to take into account in considering attitudes and behavior, but the same attitude can have a different motivational basis in different people. (3) Finally, recognition of the complex motivational sources of behavior can help to remedy the neglect in general theories which lack specification of conditions under which given types of attitude will change. Gestalt theory tells us, for example, that attitudes will change to give better cognitive organization to the psychological field. This theoretical generalization is suggestive, but to carry out significant research we need some middle-level concepts to bridge the gap be tween a high level of abstraction and particularistic or pheno-typical events. We need concepts that will point toward the types of motive and methods of motive satisfaction which are operative in bringing about cognitive reorganization. Before we attempt a detailed analysis of the four major functions which attitudes can serve, it is appropriate to consider the nature of attitudes, their dimensions, and their relations to other psychological structures and processes. ------------ Herbert H. Hyman and Paul B. Sheatsley, "The Authoritarian Personality: A Methodological Critique," Richard Christie and Marie Jahoda, editors, Studies in the Scope and Method of the Authoritarian Personality, Glencoe, Ill., Free Press, 1954, pp. 50-122. ----------------
NATURE OF ATTITUDES: THEIR DIMENSIONS Attitude is the predisposition of the individual to evaluate some symbol or object or aspect of his world in a favorable or unfavorable manner. Opinion is the verbal expression of an attitude, but attitudes can also be expressed in nonverbal behavior. Attitudes include both the affective, or feeling core of liking or disliking, and the cognitive, or belief, elements which describe the object of the attitude, its characteristics, and its relations to other objects. All attitudes thus include beliefs, but not all beliefs are attitudes. When specific attitudes are organized into a hierarchical structure, they comprise value systems. Thus a person may not only hold specific attitudes against deficit spending and unbalanced budgets but may also have a systematic organization of such beliefs and attitudes in the form of a value system of economic conservatism. The dimensions of attitudes can be stated more precisely if the above distinctions between beliefs and feelings and attitudes and value systems are kept in mind. The intensity of an attitude refers to the strength of the affective component. In fact, rating scales and even Thurstone scales deal primarily with the intensity of feeling of the individual for or against some social object. The cognitive, or belief, component suggests two additional dimensions, the specificity or generality of the attitude and the degree of differentiation of the beliefs. Differentiation refers to the number of beliefs or cognitive items contained in the attitude, and the general assumption is that the simpler the attitude in cognitive structure the easier it is to change.9 For simple structures there is no defense in depth, and once a single item of belief has been changed the attitude will change. A rather different dimension of attitude is the number and strength of its link ages to a related value system. If an attitude favoring budget balancing by the Federal government is tied in strongly with a value system of economic conservatism, it will be more difficult to change than if it were a fairly isolated attitude of the person. Finally, the relation of the value system to the personality is a consideration of first importance. If an attitude is tied to a value system which is closely related to, or which consists of, the individual's conception of himself, then the appropriate change procedures become more complex. The centrality of an attitude refers to its role as part of a value system which is closely related to the individual's self-concept. -------------------- 9 David Krech and Richard S. Crutchfield, Theory and Problems of Social Psychology, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1948, pp. 160-163. 10 Donvin Cartwright, "Some Principles of Mass Persuasion," Human Relations, Vol 2, 1949, pp. 253-267. 11 M. Brewster Smith, "The Personal Setting of Public Opinions: A Study of Attitudes toward Russia," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 11, 1947, pp. 507-523. 12 Daniel Katz and Ezra Stotland, "A Preliminary Statement to a Theory of Attitude Structure and Change," Sigmund Koch, editor, Psychology: A Study of a Science, Vol. 3, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1959, pp. 423-475. ------------------- An additional aspect of attitudes is not clearly described in most theories, namely, their relation to action or overt behavior. Though behavior related to the attitude has other determinants than the attitude itself, it is also true that some attitudes in themselves have more of what Cartwright calls an action structure than do others.'° Brewster Smith refers to this dimension as policy orientation " and Katz and Stotland speak of it as the action component.' 2 For example, while many people have attitudes of approval toward one or the other of the two political parties, these attitudes will differ in their structure with respect to relevant action. One man may be prepared to vote on election day and will know where and when he should vote and will go to the polls no matter what the weather or how great the inconvenience. Another man will only vote if a party worker calls for him in a car. Himmelstrand's work is concerned with all aspects of the relationship between attitude and behavior, but he deals with the action structure of the attitude itself by distinguishing between attitudes where the affect is tied to verbal expression and attitudes where the affect is tied to behavior concerned with more objective referents of the attitude.' 3 In the first case an individual derives satisfaction from talking about a problem; in the second case he derives satisfaction from taking some form of concrete action. Attempts to change attitudes can be directed primarily at the belief component or at the feeling, or affective, component. Rosenberg theorizes that an effective change in one component will result in changes in the other component and presents experimental evidence to confirm this hypothesis." For example, a political candidate will often attempt to win people by making them like him and dislike his opponent, and thus communicate affect rather than ideas. If he is successful, people will not only like him but entertain favorable beliefs about him. Another candidate may deal primarily with ideas and hope that, if he can change people's beliefs about an issue, their feelings will also change. FOUR FUNCTIONS WHICH ATTITUDES PERFORM FOR THE INDIVIDUAL The major functions which attitudes perform for the personality can be grouped according to their motivational basis as follows: 1. The instrumental, adjustive, or utilitarian function upon which Jeremy Bentham and the utilitarians constructed their model of man. A modern expression of this approach can be found in behavioristic learning theory. 2. The ego-defensive function in which the person protects himself from acknowledging the basic truths about himself or the harsh realities in his external world. Freudian psychology and neo-Freudian thinking have been preoccupied with this type of motivation and its outcomes. 3. The value-expressive function in which the individual derives satisfactions from expressing attitudes appropriate to his personal values and to his concept of himself. This function is central to doctrines of ego psychology which stress the importance of self-expression, self-development, and self-realization. 4. The knowledge function based upon the individual's need to give adequate structure to his universe. The search for meaning, the need to understand, the trend toward better organization of perceptions and beliefs to provide clarity and consistency for the individual, are other descriptions of this function. The development of principles about perceptual and cognitive structure have been the contribution of Gestalt psychology. ------------------ 13 See pages 224-250, Public Opinion Quarterly, 1960. 14 See pages 319-340, Public Opinion Quarterly, 1960. ---------------- Stated simply, the functional approach is the attempt to understand the reasons people hold the attitudes they do. The reasons, however, are at the level of psychological motivations and not of the accidents of external events and circum stances. Unless we know the psychological need which is met by the holding of an attitude we are in a poor position to predict when and how it will change. Moreover, the same attitude expressed toward a political candidate may not per form the same function for all people who express it. And while many attitudes are predominantly in the service of a single type of motivational process, as de scribed above, other attitudes may serve more than one purpose for the individual. A fuller discussion of how attitudes serve the above four functions is in order. 1. THE ADJUSTMENT FUNCTION. Essentially this function is a recognition of the fact that people strive to maximize the rewards in their external environment and to minimize the penalties. The child develops favorable attitudes to ward the objects in his world which are associated with the satisfactions of his needs and unfavorable attitudes toward objects which thwart him or punish him. Attitudes acquired in the service of the adjustment function are either the means for reaching the desired goal or avoiding the undesirable one, or are affective associations based upon experiences in attaining motive satisfactions. 15 The attitudes of the worker favoring a political party which will advance his economic lot are an example of the first type of utilitarian attitude. The pleasant image one has of one's favorite food is an example of the second type of utilitarian attitude. In general, then, the dynamics of attitude formation with respect to the adjustment function are dependent upon present or past perceptions of the utility of the attitudinal object for the individual. The clarity, consistency, and nearness of rewards and punishments, as they relate to the individual's activities and goals, are important factors in the acquisition of such attitudes. Both attitudes and habits are formed toward specific objects, people, and symbols as they satisfy specific needs. The closer these objects are to actual need satisfaction and the more they are clearly perceived as relevant to need satisfaction, the greater are the probabilities of positive attitude formation. These principles of attitude formation are often observed in the breach rather than the compliance. In industry, management frequently expects to create favorable attitudes toward job performance through programs for making the company more attractive to the worker, such as providing recreational facilities and fringe benefits. Such programs, how ever, are much more likely to produce favorable attitudes toward the company as a desirable place to work than toward performance on the job. The company benefits and advantages are applied across the board to all employees and are not specifically relevant to increased effort in task performance by the individual worker. ----------------- 15 Katz and Stotland, op. cit., pp. 4.34 443. -------------------- Consistency of reward and punishment also contributes to the clarity of the instrumental object for goal attainment. If a political party bestows recognition and favors on party workers in an unpredictable and inconsistent fashion, it will destroy the favorable evaluation of the importance of working hard for the party among those whose motivation is of the utilitarian sort. But, curiously, while consistency of reward needs to be observed, 100 percent consistency is not as effective as a pattern which is usually consistent but in which there are some lapses. When animal or human subjects are invariably rewarded for a correct performance, they do not retain their learned responses as well as when the re ward is sometimes skipped." 2. THE ECO-DEFENSIVE FUNCTION. People not only seek to make the most of their external world and what it offers, but they also expend a great deal of their energy on living with themselves. The mechanisms by which the individual protects his ego from his own unacceptable impulses and from the knowledge of threatening forces from without, and the methods by which he reduces his anxieties created by such problems, are known as mechanisms of ego defense. A more complete account of their origin and nature will be found in Sarnoff's article. . . . 17 They include the devices by which the individual avoids facing either the inner reality of the kind of person he is, or the outer reality of the dangers the world holds for him. They stem basically from internal conflict with its resulting insecurities. In one sense the mechanisms of defense are adaptive in temporarily removing the sharp edges of conflict and in saving the individual from complete disaster. In another sense they are not adaptive in that they handicap the individual in his social adjustments and in obtaining the maximum satisfactions available to him from the world in which he lives. The worker who persistently quarrels with his boss and with his fellow workers, because he is acting out some of his own internal conflicts, may in this manner relieve himself of some of the emotional tensions which beset him. He is not, however, solving his problem of adjusting to his work situation and thus may deprive himself of advancement or even of steady employment. Defense mechanisms, Miller and Swanson point out, may be classified into two families on the basis of the more or less primitive nature of the devices employed." The first family, more primitive in nature, are more socially handicapping and consist of denial and complete avoidance. The individual in such cases obliterates through withdrawal and denial the realities which confront him.
----------------- 16 William O. Jenkins and Julian C. Stanley, "Partial Reinforcement: A Review and Critique," Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 47, 1950, pp. 193-234. 17 See pp. 251-279, Public Opinion Quarterly, 1960. 18 Daniel R. Miller and Guy E. Swanson, Inner Conflict and Defense, New York, Holt, 1960, pp. 194-288. ------------------ The exaggerated case of such primitive mechanisms is the fantasy world of the paranoiac. The second type of defense is less handicapping and makes for distortion rather than denial. It includes rationalization, projection, and displacement. Many of our attitudes have the function of defending our self-image. When we cannot admit to ourselves that we have deep feelings of inferiority we may project those feelings onto some convenient minority group and bolster our egos by attitudes of superiority toward this underprivileged group. 'The formation of such defensive attitudes differs in essential ways from the formation of attitudes which serve the adjustment function. They proceed from within the person, and the objects and situation to which they are attached are merely convenient outlets for their expression. Not all targets are equally satisfactory for a given defense mechanism, but the point is that the attitude is not created by the target but by the individual's emotional conflicts. And when no convenient target exists the individual will create one. Utilitarian attitudes, on the other hand, are formed with specific reference to the nature of the attitudinal object. They are thus appropriate to the nature of the social world to which they are geared. The high school student who values high grades because he wants to be admitted to a good college has a utilitarian attitude appropriate to the situation to which it is related. All people employ defense mechanisms, but they differ with respect to the extent that they use them and some of their attitudes may be more defensive in function than others. It follows that the techniques and conditions for attitude change will not be the same for ego-defensive as for utilitarian attitudes. Moreover, though people are ordinarily unaware of their defense mechanisms, especially at the time of employing them, they differ with respect to the amount of insight they may show at some later time about their use of defenses. In some cases they recognize that they have been protecting their egos without knowing the reason why. In other cases they may not even be aware of the de vices they have been using to delude themselves. 3. THE VALUE-EXPRESSIVE FUNCTION. While many attitudes have the function of preventing the individual from revealing to himself and others his true nature, other attitudes have the function of giving positive expression to his central values and to the type of person he conceives himself to be. A man may consider himself to be an enlightened conservative or an internationalist or a liberal, and will hold attitudes which are the appropriate indication of his central values. Thus we need to take account of the fact that not all behavior has the negative function of reducing the tensions of biological drives or of internal conflicts. Satisfactions also accrue to the person from the expression of attitudes which reflect his cherished beliefs and his self-image. The reward to the person in these in stances is not so much a matter of gaining social recognition or monetary re wards as of establishing his self-identity and confirming his notion of the sort of person he sees himself to be. The gratifications obtained from value expression may go beyond the confirmation of self-identity. Just as we find satisfaction in the exercise of our talents and abilities, so we find reward in the expression of any attributes associated with our egos. Value-expressive attitudes not only give clarity to the self-image but also mold that self-image closer to the heart's desire. The teenager who by dress and speech establishes his identity as similar to his own peer group may appear to the outsider a weakling and a craven conformer. To himself he is asserting his independence of the adult world to which he has rendered childlike subservience and conformity all his life. Very early in the development of the personality the need for clarity of self-image is important-the need to know "who I am." Later it may be even more important to know that in some measure I am the type of person I want to be. Even as adults, however, the clarity and stability of the self image is of primary significance. Just as the kind, considerate person will cover over his acts of selfishness, so too will the ruthless individualist become confused and embarrassed by his acts of sympathetic compassion. One reason it is difficult to change the character of the adult is that he is not comfortable with the new "me." Group support for such personality change is almost a necessity, as in Alcoholics Anonymous, so that the individual is aware of approval of his new self by people who are like him. The socialization process during the formative years sets the basic outlines for the individual's self-concept. Parents constantly hold up before the child the model of the good character they want him to be. A good boy eats his spinach, does not hit girls, etc. The candy and the stick are less in evidence in training the child than the constant appeal to his notion of his own character. It is small won der, then, that children reflect the acceptance of this model by inquiring about the characters of the actors in every drama, whether it be a television play, a political contest, or a war, wanting to know who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys." Even as adults we persist in labeling others in the terms of such character images. Joe McCarthy and his cause collapsed in fantastic fashion when the telecast of the Army hearings showed him in the role of the villain at tacking the gentle, good man represented by Joseph Welch. A related but somewhat different process from childhood socialization takes place when individuals enter a new group or organization. The individual will often take over and internalize the values of the group. What accounts, however, for the fact that sometimes this occurs and sometimes it does not? Four factors are probably operative, and some combination of them may be necessary for internalization. (1) The values of the new group may be highly consistent with existing values central to the personality. The girl who enters the nursing profession finds it congenial to consider herself a good nurse because of previous values of the importance of contributing to the welfare of others. (2) The new group may in its ideology have a clear model of what the good group member should be like and may persistently indoctrinate group members in these terms. One of the reasons for the code of conduct for members of the armed forces, devised after the revelations about the conduct of American prisoners in the Korean War, was to attempt to establish a model for what a good soldier does and does not do. (3) The activities of the group in moving toward its goal permit the individual genuine opportunity for participation. To become ego-involved so that he can internalize group values, the new member must find one of two conditions. The group activity open to him must tap his talents and abilities so that his chance to show what he is worth can be tied into the group effort. Or else the activities of the group must give him an active voice in group decisions. His particular talents and abilities may not be tapped but he does have the opportunity to enter into group decisions, and thus his need for self-determination is satisfied. He then identifies with the group in which such opportunities for ego-involvement are available. It is not necessary that opportunities for self-expression and self-determination be of great magnitude in an objective sense, so long as they are important for the psychological economy of the individuals themselves. (4) Finally, the individual may come to see himself as a group member if he can share in the rewards of group activity which includes his own efforts. The worker may not play much of a part in building a ship or make any decisions in the pro cess of building it. Nevertheless, if he and his fellow workers are given a share in every boat they build and a return on the proceeds from the earnings of the ship, they may soon come to identify with the ship-building company and see them selves as builders of ships. 4. THE KNOWLEDGE FUNCTION. Individuals not only acquire beliefs in the interest of satisfying various specific needs, they also seek knowledge to give meaning to what would otherwise be an unorganized chaotic universe. People need standards or frames of reference for understanding their world, and attitudes help to supply such standards. The problem of understanding, as John Dewey made clear years ago, is one "of introducing (1) definiteness and distinction and (2) consistency and stability of meaning into what is otherwise vague and wavering." 19 The definiteness and stability are provided in good measure by the norms of our culture, which give the otherwise perplexed individual ready made attitudes for comprehending his universe. Walter Lippmann's classical contribution to the study of opinions and attitudes was his description of stereo types and the way they provided order and clarity for a bewildering set of complexities.2" The most interesting finding in Herzog's familiar study of the gratifications obtained by housewives in listening to daytime serials was the unsuspected role of information and advice." The stories were liked "because they explained things to the inarticulate listener." -------------- 19 John Dewey, How We Think, New York, Macmillan, 1910. 20 Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion, New York, Macmillan, 1922. 21 Herta Herzog, "What Do We Really Know about Daytime Serial Listeners?" in Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton, editors, Radio Research 1942-1943, New York, Duel', Sloan & Pearce, 1944, pp. 3-33. ------------------- The need to know does not of course imply that people are driven by a thirst for universal knowledge. The American public's appalling lack of political information has been documented many times. In 1956, for example, only 13 percent of the people in Detroit could correctly name the two United States Senators from the state of Michigan and only 18 percent knew the name of their own Congressman.22 People are not avid seekers after knowledge as judged by what the educator or social reformer would desire. But they do want to understand the events which impinge directly on their own life. Moreover, many of the attitudes they have already acquired give them sufficient basis for interpreting much of what they perceive to be important for them. Our already existing stereotypes, in Lippmann's language, "are an ordered, more or less consistent picture of the world, to which our habits, our tastes, our capacities, our comforts and our hopes have adjusted themselves. They may not be a complete picture of the world, but they are a picture of a possible world to which we are adapted." 2" It follows that new information will not modify old attitudes unless there is some inadequacy or incompleteness or inconsistency in the existing attitudinal structure as it relates to the perceptions of new situations. . . . DETERMINANTS OF ATTITUDE AROUSAL AND ATTITUDE CHANGE The problems of attitude arousal and of attitude change are separate problems. The first has to do with the fact that the individual has many predispositions to act and many influences playing upon him. Hence we need a more precise description of the appropriate conditions which will evoke a given attitude. The second problem is that of specifying the factors which will help to predict the modification of different types of attitude. The most general statement that can be made concerning attitude arousal is that it is dependent upon the excitation of some need in the individual, or some relevant cue in the environment. When a man grows hungry, he talks of food. Even when not hungry he may express favorable attitudes toward a preferred food if an external stimulus cues him. The ego-defensive person who hates foreigners will express such attitudes under conditions of increased anxiety or threat or when a foreigner is perceived to be getting out of place. The most general statement that can be made about the conditions conducive to attitude change is that the expression of the old attitude or its anticipated expression no longer gives satisfaction to its related need state. In other words, it no longer serves its function and the individual feels blocked or frustrated. Modifying an old attitude or replacing it with a new one is a process of learning, and learning always starts with a problem, or being thwarted in coping with a situation. Being blocked is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for attitude change. Other factors must be operative and will vary in effectiveness depending upon the function involved. --------------- 22 From a study of the impact of party organization on political behavior in the Detroit area, by Daniel Katz and Samuel Eldersveld, in manuscript. 23 Lippmann, op. Cit., p. 95. ------------------- AROUSING AND CHANGING UTILITARIAN ATTITUDES Political parties have both the problem of converting people with antagonistic attitudes (attitude change) and the problem of mobilizing the support of their own followers (attitude arousal). To accomplish the latter they attempt to revive the needs basic to old attitudes. For example, the Democrats still utilize the appeals of the New Deal and the Republicans still talk of the balanced budget. The assumption is that many people still hold attitudes acquired in earlier circum stances and that appropriate communication can reinstate the old needs. For most people, however, utilitarian needs are reinforced by experience and not by verbal appeals. Hence invoking the symbols of the New Deal will be relatively ineffective with respect to adjustive attitudes unless there are corresponding experiences with unemployment, decreased income, etc. Though the need state may not be under the control of the propagandist, he can exaggerate or minimize its importance. In addition to playing upon states of need, the propagandist can make perceptible the old cues associated with the attitude he is trying to elicit. These cues may have associated with them favorable affect, or feeling, though the related needs are inactive. For example, the fighters for old causes can be paraded across the political platform in an attempt to arouse the attitudes of the past. The two basic conditions, then, for the arousal of existing attitudes are the activation of their relevant need states and the perception of the appropriate cues associated with the content of the attitude. To change attitudes which serve a utilitarian function, one of two conditions must prevail: (1) the attitude and the activities related to it no longer provide the satisfactions they once did, or (2) the individual's level of aspiration has been raised. The Chevrolet owner who had positive attitudes toward his old car may now want a more expensive car commensurate with his new status. Again the mass media play a role secondary to direct experience in changing attitudes directly related to economic matters. Once dissatisfaction exists, they can exert a potent influence in suggesting new ways of solving the problem. In the field of international affairs, mass media have a more primary role be cause in times of peace most people have no direct experience with other countries or their peoples. The threat of war comes from what they read, hear, or see in the mass media. The area of freedom for changing utilitarian attitudes is of course much greater in dealing with methods of satisfying needs than with needs themselves. Needs change more slowly than the means for gratifying them, even though one role of the advertiser is to create new needs. Change in attitudes occurs more readily when people perceive that they can accomplish their objectives through revising existing attitudes. Integration of white and Negro personnel in the armed forces came to pass partly because political leaders and military leaders perceived that such a move would strengthen our fighting forces. And one of the powerful arguments for changing our attitudes toward Negroes is that in the struggle for world democracy we need to put our own house in order to present a more convincing picture of our own society to other countries. Carlson has experimentally demonstrated that discriminatory attitudes toward minority groups can be altered by showing the relevance of more positive beliefs to such individual goals and values as American international prestige and democratic equalitarianism.24 Just as attitudes formed in the interests of adjustment can be negative evaluations of objects associated with avoidance of the harmful effects of the environment, so too can attitudes change because of unpleasant experiences or anticipation of harmful consequences. The more remote the cause of one's suffering the more likely he is to seize upon a readily identifiable target for his negative evaluation. Public officials, as highly visible objects, can easily be associated with states of dissatisfaction. Thus there is truth in the old observation that people vote more against the candidates they dislike than for the candidates they like. The use of negative sanctions and of punishment to change utilitarian attitudes is more complex than the use of rewards. To be successful in changing attitudes and behavior, punishment should be used only when there is clearly available a course of action that will save the individual from the undesirable consequences. To arouse fear among the enemy in time of war does not necessarily result in desertion, surrender, or a disruption of the enemy war effort. Such channels of action may not be available to the people whose fears are aroused. The experiment of Janis and Feshback in using fear appeals to coerce children into good habits of dental hygiene had the interesting outcome of a negative relation ship between the amount of fear and the degree of change. Lurid pictures of the gangrene jaws of old people who had not observed good dental habits were not effective.25 Moreover, the group exposed to the strongest fear appeal was the most susceptible to counterpropaganda. One factor which helps to account for the results of this investigation was the lack of a clear-cut relation in the minds of the children between failure to brush their teeth in the prescribed manner and the pictures of the gangrene jaws of the aged. -------------------- 24 Earl R. Carlson, "Attitude Change through Modification of Attitude Structure," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 52, 1956, pp. 256-261. 25 Irving L. Janis and Seymour Feshback, "Effects of Fear-arousing Communications," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 48, 1953, pp. 78-92. ------------------- The necessity of coupling fear appeals with clear channels of action is illustrated by a study of Nunnally and Bobren." These investigators manipulated three variables in communications about mental health, namely, the relative amount of message anxiety, the degree to which messages gave apparent solutions, and the relative personal or impersonal phrasing of the message. The high-anxiety message described electric shock treatment of the psychotic in distressing detail. People showed the least willingness to receive communications that were high in anxiety, personalized, and offered no solutions. When solutions were offered in the communication, there was more willingness to accept the high-anxiety message. The use of punishment and arousal of fear depend for their effectiveness upon the presence of well-defined paths for avoiding the punishment, i.e. negative sanctions are successful in redirecting rather than suppressing behavior. When there is no clearly perceptible relation between the punishment and the desired behavior, people may continue to behave as they did before, only now they have negative attitudes toward the persons and objects associated with the negative sanctions. There is, however, another possibility if the punishment is severe or if the individual is unusually sensitive. He may develop a defensive avoidance of the whole situation. His behavior, then, is not directed at solving the problem but at escaping from the situation, even if such escape has to be negotiated by absorbing extra punishment. The attitudes under discussion are those based upon the adjustive or utilitarian function, but if the individual is traumatized by a fearful experience he will shift from instrumental learning to defensive reactions. AROUSAL AND CHANGE OF EGO-DEFENSIVE ATTITUDES Attitudes which help to protect the individual from internally induced anxieties or from facing up to external dangers are readily elicited by any form of threat to the ego. The threat may be external, as in the case of a highly competitive situation, or a failure experience, or a derogatory remark. It is the stock in trade of demagogues to exaggerate the dangers confronting the people, for instance, Joe McCarthy's tactics with respect to Communists in the State Department. Many people have existing attitudes of withdrawal or of aggression toward deviants or out-groups based upon their ego-defensive needs. When threatened, these attitudes come into play, and defensive people either avoid the unpleasant situation entirely, as is common in the desegregation controversy, or exhibit hostility. Another condition for eliciting the ego-defensive attitude is the encouragement given to its expression by some form of social support. The agitator may appeal to repressed hatred by providing moral justification for its expression. A mob leader before an audience with emotionally held attitudes toward Negroes may call out these attitudes in the most violent form by invoking the good of the community or the honor of white womanhood. ------------------ 26 Jum C. Nunnally and Howard M. Bobren, "Variables Governing the Willingness to Receive Communications in Mental Health," Journal of Personality, Vol. 27, 1959, pp. 38-46. -------------- A third condition for the arousal of ego-defensive attitudes is the appeal to authority. The insecurity of the defensive person makes him particularly susceptible to authoritarian suggestion. When this type of authoritarian command is in the direction already indicated by his attitudes of antipathy toward other people, he responds quickly and joyously. It is no accident that movements of hate and aggression such as the Ku Klux Klan or the Nazi Party are authoritarian in their organized structure. Wagman, in an experimental investigation of the uses of authoritarian suggestion, found that students high in ego-defensiveness as measured by the F-scale were much more responsive to directives from military leaders than were less defensive students." In fact, the subjects low in defensiveness were not affected at all by authoritarian suggestion when this influence ran counter to their own attitudes. The subjects in F-scores could be moved in either direction, although they moved more readily in the direction of their own beliefs. A fourth condition for defensive arousal is the building up over time of inhibited drives in the individual, for example, repressed sex impulses. As the drive strength of forbidden impulses increases, anxiety mounts and release from tension is found in the expression of defensive attitudes. The deprivations of prison life, for example, build up tensions which can find expression in riots against the hated prison officials. In other words, the drive strength for defensive reactions can be increased by situation frustration. Though the basic source is the long-standing internal conflict of the person, he can encounter additional frustration in immediate circumstances. Berkowitz has shown that anti-Semitic girls were more likely than less prejudiced girls to display aggression toward an innocent bystander when angered by a third person.28 In a subsequent experiment, Berkowitz and Holmes created dislike by one group of subjects for their partners by giving them electric shocks which they thought were administered by their partners.2° In a second session, subjects worked alone and were threatened by the experimenter. In a third session they were brought together with their partners for a cooperative task of problem solving. Aggression and hostility were displayed by subjects to ward one another in the third session as a result of the frustration produced by the experimenter, and were directed more against the disliked partner than to ward an innocuous partner. ----------------- 27 Morton Wagman, "Attitude Change and the Authoritarian Personality," Journal of Psychology, Vol. 40, 1955, pp. 3-24. The F-scale is a measure of authoritarianism comprising items indicative of both defensiveness and ideology. 28 Leonard Berkowitz, "Anti-Semitism and the Displacement of Aggression," Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 59, 1959, pp. 182-188. 28 Leonard Berkowitz and Douglas S. Holmes, "The Generalization of Hostility to Disliked Objects," Journal of Personality, Vol. 27, 1959, pp. 565-577. ----------------------- Studies outside the laboratory have confirmed the principle that, where negative attitudes exist, frustration in areas unrelated to the attitude will increase the strength of the prejudice. Bettelheim and Janowitz found that war veterans who had suffered downward mobility were more anti-Semitic than other war veterans." In a secondary analysis of the data from the Elmira study, Greenblum and Pearlin report that the socially mobile people, whether upward or downward mobile, were more prejudiced against Jews and Negroes than were stationary people, provided that the socially mobile were insecure about their new status. Though it is clear in these studies that the situation frustration strengthens a negative attitude, it is not clear as to the origin of the negative attitude. Most research on ego-defensive attitudes has been directed at beliefs concerning the undesirable character of minority groups or of deviants, with accompanying feelings of distrust, contempt, and hatred. Many ego-defensive attitudes, however, are not the projection of repressed aggression but are expressions of apathy or withdrawal. The individual protects himself from a difficult or demanding world and salvages his self-respect by retreating within his own shell. His attitudes toward political matters are anomic: "It does not make any difference to people like me which party is in power" or "There is no point in voting because I can't influence the outcome." Threat to people of this type takes the form of a complexity with which they cannot cope. Thus, they daydream when the lecturer talks about economic theories of inflation or the public official talks about disarmament proposals. The usual procedures for changing attitudes and behavior have little positive effect upon attitudes geared into our ego defenses. In fact they may have a boomerang effect of making the individual cling more tenaciously to his emotion ally held beliefs. In the category of usual procedures should be included increasing the flow of information, promising and bestowing rewards, and invoking penalties. As has already been indicated, punishment is threatening to the ego defensive person and the increase of threat is the very condition which will feed ego-defensive behavior. The eneuretic youngster with emotional problems is rarely cured by punishment. Teachers and coaches know that there are some children who respond to censure and punishment by persevering in the forbidden behavior. But what is not as well recognized is that reward is also not effective in modifying the actions of the ego-defensive person. His attitudes are an expression of his inner conflicts and are not susceptible to external rewards. The shopkeeper who will not serve Negroes because they are a well-fixated target for his aggressions will risk the loss of income incurred by his discriminatory reactions. Three basic factors, however, can help change ego-defensive attitudes. In the first place, the removal of threat is a necessary though not a sufficient condition. ------------------ 30 Bruno Bettelheim and Morris Janowitz, Dynamics of Prejudice, New York, Harper, 1950. 31 Joseph Greenblum and Leonard I. Pearlin, "Vertical Mobility and Prejudice," Reinhard Bendix and Seymour M. Lipset, editors, Class, Status and Power, Glencoe, Ill., Free Press, 1953. ---------------------- The permissive and even supportive atmosphere which the therapist attempts to create for his patients is a special instance of the removal of threat. Where the ego-defensive behavior of the delinquent is supported by his group, the social worker must gain a measure of group acceptance so as not to be perceived as a threat by the individual gang members. An objective, matter-of-fact approach can serve to remove threat, especially in situations where people are accustomed to emotional appeals. Humor can also be used to establish a nonthreatening atmosphere, but it should not be directed against the audience or even against the problem. Cooper and Jahoda attempted to change prejudiced attitudes by ridicule, in the form of cartoons which made Mr. Biggott seem silly, especially when he rejected a blood transfusion which did not come from 100 percent Americans.32 Instead of changing their attitudes, the subjects in this experiment found ways of evading the meaning of the cartoons. In the second place, catharsis or the ventilation of feelings can help to set the stage for attitude change. Mention has already been made of the building up of tension owing to the lack of discharge of inhibited impulses. When emotional tension is at a high level the individual will respond defensively and resist at tempts to change him. Hence, providing him with opportunities to blow off steam may often be necessary before attempting a serious discussion of new possibilities of behavior. Again, humor can serve this purpose. There are many practical problems in the use of catharsis, however, because of its complex relationship to other variables. In his review of the experimental work on the expression of hostility Berkowitz reports more findings supporting than contradicting the catharsis hypothesis, but there is no clear agreement about the mechanisms involved.3" Under certain circumstances permitting emotional outbursts can act as a reward. In a gripe session to allow individuals to express their complaints, group members can reinforce one another's negative attitudes. Unless there are positive forces in the situation which lead to a serious consideration of the problem, the gripe session may have boomerang effects. The technique often employed is to keep the group in session long enough for the malcontents to get talked out so that more sober voices can be heard. Catharsis may function at two levels. It can operate to release or drain off energy of the moment, as in the above description. It can also serve to bring to the surface something of the nature of the conflict affecting the individual. So long as his impulses are re pressed and carefully disguised, the individual has little chance of gaining even rudimentary insight into himself. --------------------- 32 Eunice Cooper and Marie Jahoda, "The Evasion of Propaganda: How Prejudiced People Respond to Anti-prejudice Propaganda," Journal of Psychology, Vol. 23, 1947, pp. 15-25. 33 Leonard Berkowitz, "The Expression and Reduction of Hostility," Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 55, 1958, pp. 257-283. ------------------------ In the third place, ego-defensive behavior can be altered as the individual acquires insight into his own mechanisms of defense. Information about the nature of the problem in the external world will not affect him. Information about his own functioning may have an influence, if presented without threat, and if the defenses do not go too deep into the personality. In other words, only pro longed therapy can help the psychologically sick person. Many normal people, however, employ ego defenses about which they have some degree of awareness, though generally not at the time of the expression of such defenses. The frustrations of a tough day at work may result in an authoritarian father displacing his aggression that night on his family in yelling at his wife, or striking his youngsters. Afterward he may recognize the cause of his behavior. Not all defensive behavior, then, is so deep rooted in the personality as to be inaccessible to awareness and insight. Therefore, procedures for arousing self-insight can be utilized to change behavior, even in mass communications. One technique is to show people the psychodynamics of attitudes, especially as they appear in the behavior of others. Allport's widely used pamphlet on the ABC's of Scapegoating is based upon the technique.34 Katz, Sarnoff, and Mc Clintock have conducted experimental investigations of the effects of insightful materials upon the reduction of prejudice.35 In their procedure the psycho-dynamics of prejudice was presented in the case history of a subject sufficiently similar to the subjects as to appear as a sympathetic character. Two findings appeared in these investigations: (1) Subjects who were very high in defensiveness were not affected by the insight materials, but subjects of low or moderate defensiveness were significantly affected. (2) The changes in attitude produced by the arousal of self-insight persisted for a longer period of time than changes induced by in formation or conformity pressures. In a further experiment Stotland, Katz, and Patchen found that involving subjects in the task of understanding the dynamics of prejudice helped arouse self-insight and reduce prejudice." McClintock com pared an ethnocentric appeal, an information message, and self-insight materials, with similar results.37 There was differential acceptance of these influences ac cording to the personality pattern of the subject. McClintock also found a difference in F-scale items in predicting attitude change, with the projectivity items showing a different pattern from the conformity items. --------------------- 34 Gordon W. Allport, The Nature of Prejudice, Cambridge, Mass., Addison-Wesley, 1954. 35 Daniel Katz, Irving Sarnoff, and Charles McClintock, "Ego Defense and Attitude Change," Human Relations, Vol. 9, 1956, pp. 27-46. Also their "The Measurement of Ego Defense as Related to Attitude Change," Journal of Personality, Vol. 25, 1957, pp. 465-474. 36 Ezra Stotland, Daniel Katz, and Martin Patchen, "The Reduction of Prejudice through the Arousal of Self-insight," Journal of Personality, Vol. 27, 1959, pp. 507-531. 37 Charles McClintock, "Personality Syndromes and Attitude Change," Journal of Personality, Vol. 26, 1958, pp. 479-593. ---------------------- Of practical concern are four general areas in which insufficient attention has been paid to the ego-defensive basis of attitudes with respect to the role of communication in inducing social change: 1. Prejudices toward foreigners, toward racial and religious out-groups, and toward international affairs often fall into this category. The thesis of the authors of The Authoritarian Personality that the defenses of repression and projectivity are correlated with racial prejudice has seen more confirmation than disproof in spite of the fact that not all racial prejudice is ego-defensive in nature. In a re view of studies involving the California F-scale, Titus and Hollander report investigations where positive correlations were obtained between high scores on authoritarianism and prejudice and xenophobia." Of course not all the variance in social prejudice can be accounted for by ego-defensiveness. Pettigrew has shown that a sample of Southern respondents was almost identical with a sample of Northern respondents on the F-scale mea sure of authoritarianism, but the Southern sample was much more negative to ward Negroes with respect to employment, housing, and voting.39 Relations have also been found between authoritarianism and attitudes to ward nationalism and internationalism. Levinson constructed a scale to give an index of internationalism which included such items as opinions about immigration policy, armaments, the get-tough with Russia policy, cooperation with Red China, our role in the UN, etc. This measure of internationalism correlated .60 with the F-scale.4° A study by Lane in 1952 showed that a larger proportion of authoritarians than of equalitarians were against working toward a peaceful settlement of the Korean issue. The authoritarians either favored the bombing of China and Manchuria or else were for complete withdrawal." And Smith and Rosen found such consistent negative relations between world-mindedness and the dimension of authoritarianism that they suggested in the interest of parsimony the two be considered as slightly different aspects of the same basic personality structure. 2. A related area of attitudes consists of opinions toward deviant types of personalities, e.g. delinquents, the mentally ill, Beatniks, and other non-conformers. The problem of the rehabilitation of the ex-convict or the discharged mental patient is sometimes impeded by the emotional attitudes of the public toward individuals with a record of institutionalization. ----------------- 38 H. Edwin Titus and E. P. Hollander, "The California F-Scale in Psychological Research: 1950-1955," Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 54, 1957, pp. 47-64. 38 Thomas F. Pettigrew, "Personality and Socio-cultural Factors in Intergroup Attitudes: A Cross-national Comparison," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 2, 1958, pp. 29-42. 40 Daniel J. Levinson, "Authoritarian Personality and Foreign Personality," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 1, 1957, pp. 37-47. 41 Robert E. Lane, "Political Personality and Electoral Choice," American Political Science Review, Vol. 49, 1955, pp. 173-190. 42 Howard P. Smith and Ellen W. Rosen, "Some Psychological Correlates of World mindedness and Authoritarianism," Journal of Personality, Vol. 26, 1958, pp. 170-183. ------------------- 3. Attitudes toward public health measures, whether the fluoridation of the water supply of a community, the utilization of X-ray examinations for the prevention of disease, or the availability of information about birth control, often have their roots in unacknowledged anxieties and fears. Davis, for example, believes that opposition to fluoridation is not so much a matter of ignorance of the specific problem as it is a function of a deeper attitudinal syndrome of naturalism.'" Governmental interference with natural processes is regarded as the source of many evils, and this general ideology is tinged with suspicion and distrust suggestive of defensive motivation. 4. Apathy toward political issues and especially toward atomic weapons may reflect a defensive withdrawal on the part of some people. The information officer of a government agency or the public relations officer in charge of a health campaign faces the difficult problem of changing public attitudes which may satisfy different needs for different people. To present information designed to show the dangerous situation we are in may be effective for some people but may prove too threatening for others. What is needed in such cases is research which will get at the reasons why people hold the attitudes they do. There are times when dramatically confronting the public with the dangers of a situation may be more effective strategy than a more reassuring approach. But there are also occasions when the first strategy will merely add to defensive avoidance. Gladstone and Taylor presented communications to their students, two of which were news stories from the New York Times.'" One reported speeches made by Malenkov and Khrushchev about the peaceful intentions of the Soviet Union but its readiness to crush aggressors. The second news story reported British reactions to the American opinion about the situation in Indo-China. A third communication concerned the H-bomb and its dangers. Students were previously tested on their susceptibility to being threatened. Those who were threat-prone tended to deny the truth of the points in the communications or to overlook them entirely. For these subjects the communications had no effect on existing attitudes. The use of mass communication has been better adapted to supplying information and to emphasizing the advantages of a course of action than to changing defensive attitudes. A new field in communication to large publics is the creation of self-understanding, which so far has been pre-empted by personal advice columns. The specifics for this new development remain to be worked out, but they may well start with techniques based upon attitude research of the basic reasons for resistance to an objectively desirable program. ----------------- 43. Morris Davis, "Community Attitudes toward Fluoridation," Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 23, 1959, pp. 474-482. 44. Arthur I. Gladstone and Martha A. Taylor, "Threat-related Attitudes and Reactions to Communication about International Events," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 2, 1958, pp. 17-28. ------------------- CONDITIONS FOR AROUSING AND CHANGING VALUE-EXPRESSIVE ATTITUDES Two conditions for the arousal of value-expressive attitudes can be specified. The first is the occurrence of the cue in the stimulus situation which has been associated with the attitude. The liberal Democrat, as a liberal Democrat, has al ways believed in principle that an income tax is more just than a sales tax. Now the issue has arisen in his state, and the group in which he happens to be at the moment are discussing an increase in sales tax. This will be sufficient to cue off his opposition to the proposal without consideration of the specific local aspects of the tax problem. The second condition for the arousal of this type of attitude is some degree of thwarting of the individual's expressive behavior in the immediate past. The housewife occupied with the routine care of the home and the children during the day may seek opportunities to express her views to other women at the first social gathering she attends. We have referred to voters backing their party for bread and butter reasons. Perhaps the bulk of voting behavior, however, is the elicitation of value-expressive attitudes. Voting is a symbolic expression of being a Republican or a Democrat. Party identification accounts for more variance in voting behavior than any other single factor.45 Though there is a minority who consider themselves independent and though there are minor shifts in political allegiance, the great majority of the people identify themselves as the supporters of a political party. Their voting behavior is an expression of this self-concept, and it takes a major event such as a depression to affect their voting habits seriously. Identification with party is in good measure a function of the political socialization of the child, as Hyman has shown." An analysis of a national sample of the electorate in 1952 by Campbell, Gurin, and Miller revealed that of voters both of whose parents were Democrats, 76 percent identified themselves as Democrats, another 10 percent as independent Democrats, and 12 percent as Republicans.47 Similarly, of those with Republican parents 63 percent considered themselves Republican and another 10 percent as independent Republicans. Attachment to party, Hyman suggests, furnishes an organizing principle for the individual and gives stability to his political orientation in the confusion of changing issues. Even in European countries, where we assume greater knowledge of issues, political behavior is the symbolic expression of people's values. Members of the Labor Party in Norway, for example, are little more conversant with the stand of their party on issues than are voters in the United States. In fact, the policy of their party in international affairs and armament in recent years has been closer to the views of Conservative voters than to their own. Nevertheless, they consider themselves supporters of the party which reflects their general values. ---------------------- 45. Angus A. Campbell, Philip Converse, Warren Miller, and Donald Stokes, The American Voter, New York, Wiley, 1960. 46. Herbert H. Hyman, Political Socialization, Glencoe, Ill., Free Press, 1959. 47. Angus A. Campbell, Gerald Gurin, and Warren Miller, The Voter Decides, Evanston, Ill., Row, Peterson, 1954. --------------------------- The problem of the political leader is to make salient the cues related to political allegiance in order to arouse the voters who consider themselves party sup porters to the point of expressing their attitudes by voting on election day. One technique is to increase the volume and intensity of relevant stimulation as the election approaches. If the relevant cues could be presented to each voter on election day--for example, a ballot box in his home--then the appropriate behavior would follow. But the citizen must remember on the given Tuesday that this is election day and that he must find time to go to the polls. The task of party organization is to try to remind him of this fact the weekend before, to call him that very day by phone, or even to call for him in person. Again, two conditions are relevant in changing value-expressive attitudes: 1. Some degree of dissatisfaction with one's self-concept or its associated values is the opening wedge for fundamental change. The complacent person, smugly satisfied with all aspects of himself, is immune to attempts to change his values. Dissatisfaction with the self can result from failures or from the inadequacy of one's values in preserving a favorable image of oneself in a changing world. The man with pacifist values may have become dissatisfied with himself during a period of fascist expansion and terror. Once there is a crack in the individual's central belief systems, it can be exploited by appropriately directed influences. The techniques of brain washing employed by the Chinese Communists both on prisoners of war in Korea and in the thought reform of Chinese intellectuals were essentially procedures for changing value systems. In the brain washing of Chinese intellectuals in the revolutionary college, the Communists took advantage of the confused identity of the student." He had been both a faithful son and a rebellious reformer and perhaps even an uninvolved cynic. To make him an enthusiastic Communist the officials attempted to destroy his allegiance to his parents and to transfer his loyalty to Communist doctrines which could meet his values as a rebel. Group influences were mobilized to help bring about the change by intensifying guilt feelings and providing for atonement and redemption through the emotional catharsis of personal confession. To convert American prisoners of war, the Communists made a careful study of the vulnerability of their victims. They found additional weaknesses through a system of informers and created new insecurities by giving the men no social support for their old values." They manipulated group influences to sup port Communist values and exploited their ability to control behavior and all punishments and rewards in the situation. The direction of all their efforts, how ever, was to undermine old values and to supply new ones. The degree of their success has probably been exaggerated in the public prints, but from their point of view they did achieve some genuine gains. One estimate is that some 15 percent of the returning prisoners of war were active collaborators, another 5 percent resisters, and some 80 percent "neutrals." Segal, in a study of a sample of 579 of these men, found that 12 percent had to some degree accepted Communist ideology." ----------------------- 48 Robert J. Lifton, "Thought Reform of Chinese Intellectuals: A Psychiatric Evaluation," Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1957, pp. 5-20. ------------------------ 2. Dissatisfaction with old attitudes as inappropriate to one's values can also lead to change. In fact, people are much less likely to find their values un congenial than they are to find some of their attitudes inappropriate to their values. The discomfort with one's old attitudes may stem from new experiences or from the suggestions of other people. Senator Vandenburg, as an enlightened conservative, changed his attitudes on foreign relations from an isolationist to an internationalist position when critical events in our history suggested change. The influences exerted upon people are often in the direction of showing the in appropriateness of their present ways of expressing their values. Union leaders attempt to show that good union men should not vote on the old personal basis of rewarding friends and punishing enemies but should instead demand party responsibility for a program. In an experiment by Stotland, Katz, and Patchen there was suggestive evidence of the readiness of subjects to change attitudes which they found inappropriate to their values. Though an attempt was made to change the prejudice3 of the ego-defensive subjects, individuals who were not basically ego-defensive also changed. These subjects, who already approved of tolerance, apparently became aware of the inappropriateness of some of their negative evaluations of minority groups. This second factor in attitude change thus refers to the comparatively greater appropriateness of one set of means than another for confirming the individual's self-concept and realizing his ventral values. We have already called attention to the role of values in the formation of attitudes in the early years of life. It is also true that attitude formation is a constant process and that influences are continually being brought to bear through out life which suggest new attitudes as important in implementing existing values. An often-used method is to make salient some central value such as the thinking man, the man of distinction, or the virile man, and then depict a relatively new form of behavior consistent with this image. The role of motivational research in advertising is to discover the rudimentary image associated with a given product, to use this as a basis for building up the image in more glorified terms, and then to cement the association of this image with the product. -------------------- 49. Edgar H. Schein, "Reaction Patterns to Severe, Chronic Stress in American Army Prisoners of War of the Chinese," Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1957, pp. 21-30. 50. Julius Segal, "Correlates of Collaboration and Resistance Behavior among U.S. Army POW's in Korea," Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1957, pp. 31-40. 51. Stotland, Katz, and Patchen, op. cit. -------------------- AROUSING AND CHANGING ATTITUDES WHICH SERVE THE KNOWLEDGE FUNCTION Attitudes acquired in the interests of the need to know are elicited by a stimulus associated with the attitude. The child who learns from his reading and from his parents that Orientals are treacherous will not have the attitude aroused unless some appropriate cue concerning the cognitive object is presented. He may even meet and interact with Orientals without identifying them as such and with no corresponding arousal of his attitude. Considerable prejudice in this sense is race-name prejudice and is only aroused when a premium is placed upon social identification. Since members of a minority group have many other memberships in common with a majority group, the latent prejudiced attitude may not necessarily be activated. Prejudice based upon ego-defensiveness, however, will result in ready identification of the disliked group. The factors which are productive of change of attitudes of this character are inadequacies of the existing attitudes to deal with new and changing situations. The person who has been taught that Orientals are treacherous may read ex tended accounts of the honesty of the Chinese or may have favorable interactions with Japanese. He finds his old attitudes in conflict with new information and new experience, and proceeds to modify his beliefs. In this instance we are dealing with fictitious stereotypes which never corresponded to reality. In other cases the beliefs may have been adequate to the situation but the world has changed. Thus, some British military men formerly in favor of armaments have changed their attitude toward disarmament because of the character of nuclear weapons. The theory of cognitive consistency ... can draw its best examples from attitudes related to the knowledge function. Any situation, then, which is ambiguous for the individual is likely to pro duce attitude change. His need for cognitive structure is such that he will either modify his beliefs to impose structure or accept some new formula presented by others. He seeks a meaningful picture of his universe, and when there is ambiguity he will reach for a ready solution. Rumors abound when information is un available. Also in Part 4:
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