Question 2: What are attitudes and how do they influence message reception and attitude change?
The influence communication has on our lives is often taken for granted. How we have been taught to communicate shapes our behaviour, opinions, perceptions and entire value system. How we then communicate with one another reflects our attitude towards our social environment. According to Baron and Byrne (1997), “Attitudes are lasting evaluations of various aspects of the social world” (p. 112). It is essentially the mental state when responding to objects and situations through the opinions, perceptions and value systems formed, which are all as a result of early socialisation. Communication, whether verbal or non-verbal, is essential in human interaction. Therefore, the study of communication is essential in understanding human behaviour. The field of social psychology deals with how we think about and interact with others, so it is no surprise that this field will be the basis of reasoning in this paper.
Relationships are very important in our social reality; however, they are also very fragile. Building relationships instead of destroying them will depend on our understanding of our ongoing interaction with people. Our attitudes will always tell a very interesting story as they are deeply imbedded in our self identity. As individuals we tend to get passionate about specific concepts, this passion really demonstrates our attitudes on social information. For this reason, the influence of attitudes on human behaviour is dominant and relevant. It can then be said that our behaviour intention is actually dependent on our attitude towards the particular behaviour.
The communication process is one of transferring meaning from one person to another. More than often, this transfer of meaning is intended to influence or persuade whoever it is directed at. The communication process involves a message being sent through a particular medium from a ‘sender’ to a ‘receiver’. A very important component of this process is the ‘feedback’ from the ‘receiver’ to the ‘sender,’ which indicates whether they have properly interpreted the message sent or whether meaning has been transferred effectively. Attitudes play a very important role in message reception and feedback. How are these attitudes formed? Baron and Byrne ( 1997) reasoned that attitudes are acquired through social learning, social comparison and possible genetic factors. Social learning takes place by observing and interacting with others in our immediate environment. Attitudes are learned from adults present in our early childhood. Chances are, these adults picked up these attitudes from their parents or other adults present in their childhood just the same, so it is possible and likely to see common attitudes among generations of families. This social learning can take place by simple association. Association happens when there is a repeated pairing of a certain stimulus with a certain reaction. For example, if at a very young age you witness a parent repeatedly making them self throw up food if they believe they have had too much, in your own reality having too much food will be associated with this practice. This type of learning by association is called classical conditioning. Another type of social learning occurs when we see children being very vocal about religious and political views that they are unable to understand at that age, and these views may then continue throughout our lives. They have learned the “right” views by being rewarded with positive gestures like smiles and hugs from adults in their environment when vocal about them. Social learning also takes place by following example. An example of this ‘learning by example’ is a parent who swears on a regular basis when angry. Even though this parent is telling their child that swearing is wrong, the child forms an attitude of doing the same anyway. The concept of social comparison as described by Baron and Byrne ( 1997) refers to “the process through which we compare ourselves to others in order to determine whether our view of social reality is or is not correct”(p. 117). This merely means that if there is a group of people who one admires and respects, one generally will try to align their views about issues with those of the group. Lastly, the argument that genetic factors may play a role in attitude formation is not yet concrete but social psychologists accept and admit its influence on general dispositions which affect attitudes in certain situations.
Olson and Zanna ( 1993) declare the foundational view of attitudes split into three components: affective, cognitive and behavioural. The affective component refers to the emotional reaction or instinctual response/conditioning associated with an attitude. The cognitive component refers to a knowledge based evaluative element of the attitude. Lastly, the behavioural component consists of deductions made from past actions or experiences with the attitude.
In the communication process, our attitudes may act as biases when decoding or receiving a message. Whether this bias is positive of negative will depend on the affective, cognitive and behavioural connection to the issue at hand. These biases may well be unknown to the receiver because of how ingrained they are. In message reception, the first thing that happens is an attitude is triggered. This triggered attitude will influence how we perceive the message being transferred based on our stored knowledge or existing experience with the particular object or a concept relating to it. An important facet of understanding message reception is that senders and receivers will most likely be coming from different socialisations and life experiences. Therefore building relationships depend on the understanding of this difference and how it will influence interpretation and feedback on both ends during the communication process. As suggested by Baron and Byrne (1997), the effect of an attitude on message reception will be in line with how important this attitude is to the individual. This importance is based on how it affects an individual’s goals in life or if it affects a group with which one is a part of( e.g. Race, gender) or if it simply is connected very deeply to the persons values.
. The concept of persuasion is considered a change in attitude based on information in some message communicated Attitude change is then all about peruasion at the cognitive, affective or behavioural level. Is this possible and how does it happen? In looking at the concept of attitude change one must explore the psychological function of attitudes. From the theoretical approach of attitude functionality expressed by Olson and Zanna (1993), “attitudes fulfil psychological needs for the individual”(p. 125). From this perspective, it is evident then how these attitudes become such a strong part of our identity and may be resistant to change. Olson and Zanna (1993) also asserted the effects of certain attributes of attitudes on likely attitude change or persuasion. The most dominant of the attributes are accessibility and strength. Therefore, the influence attitudes have on attitude change will depend on how dominant these attributes of the attitudes are. If an attitude is easily accessible from memory then it is more likely to create a bias during message reception with the intent of persuasion by such message. Also, attitude strength is a very important attribute when considering attitude change. The stronger the attitude the more imbedded it will be in ones sense of self, which means the more resistant it will also be to change.
Zimbardo and Leippe (1991) emphasised that “the thoughts people have as they receive a message are pivotal, according to the cognitive response approach to persuasion” ( p. 149). They went on to describe how attitude change could occur by quality messages and by messages tailored to specific audiences based on what one believes the receivers prior knowledge about the message is.
A study done by Cacioppo et al in 1982 (Zimbardo, Leippe 1991) demonstrating this is described below: One study identified people who were either “legalistic” or “religious” types in terms of the traits they identified as self-descriptive. A pro-attitudinal message about abortion that took a legalistic perspective on the issue was rated more persuasive by the legalistic types than by the religious types. But when the message took a religious angle, religious types found it more persuasive. (p. 152) Attitudes are very resistant to change. However, they can change. As human beings we are always striving for balance in our lives. If we find ourselves in a state of Cognitive dissonance which Baron and Byrne (1997) describe as “an internal state that results when individuals notice inconsistency between two or more of their attitudes or between their attitudes and behaviour” (p. 138), the process of attitude change may begin. Therefore, attitude change is influenced by the nature of the attitudes one holds, in this case whether or not they are contradictory. In concluding, attitudes are our individual judgement or evaluation carried out from information stored in our memories. Attitudes are very influential on message reception in communication as well as the possibility of attitude change. Most people are not aware of how their perceptions, opinions and value systems are shaped. These are reflected from attitudes formed in early childhood by social learning and comparison. There is also a possibility of genetic factors playing a role in our attitude formation. Our communication process must take into consideration the presence of individual attitudes in message reception and decoding. Message reception is biased by our attitudes on social information and relies a lot on the affective, cognitive and behavioural connection to what is being communicated. Attitude change is really the act of being persuaded by a message communicated in our social reality. This is very difficult because attitudes are so deeply imbedded in our self identity. Attitude change is however possible depending on characteristics of the attitude itself like its accessibility, strength and whether or not these attitudes are contradictory to themselves or our behaviour.

REFERENCES
Baron, R.A., & Byrne, D. (1997). Social Psychology. 8th Edition. Massachusetts: A Viacam Company

Olson, J. M., & Zanna, M. P. (1993). Attitudes and attitude change. Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 117-154.

Leippe, M. R., & Zimbardo, P.G. (1991). The Psychology of Attitude Change and Social Influence. New York: McGraw-Hill

Diploma Cohort 11

SBBA6000 Essentials of Critical Analysis & Communication

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