<p> Environmental attitudes</p><p>Importance of attitudes</p><p>Attitudes are a basic, pervasive part of social life</p><p>Functional Approach – Katz (1960)  Utilitarian – Helps the person to achieve rewards and gain approval from others  Knowledge – Helps the person to structure the world so that it makes sense  Ego defense – Helps the person create or maintain a positive sense of oneself  Value-expressive – Helps the person express important aspects of the self-concept </p><p>Current Definition Psychologists define an attitude as an enduring evaluation, positive or negative, of people, objects, or ideas. (Eagly and Chaiken, 1998)</p><p>Environmental attitudes are defined as an individual’s concern for the physical environment.</p><p>3 Components of Attitudes  Affective Component o Affectively based attitudes are based more on people’s feelings and values than on their beliefs. o Their function may be value-expressive. o Affectively based attitudes may result from either classical conditioning or operant conditioning</p><p> Cognitive Component o Cognitively based attitudes are based primarily on a person’s beliefs about the properties of the attitude object. o Their function is knowledge or utilitarian.</p><p> Behavioral Component o Behaviorally based attitudes are based on observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object o Their function is knowledge or utilitarian. How do we measure attitudes? </p><p>Attitudes are hypothetical constructs, abstract concepts that cannot directly be observed</p><p>We Infer attitude usually by one of several methods:  Overt behavior (Head Movements, Eye Contact, The lost letter technique)  Self-reports (Attitude scales)  Covert or implicit methods (IAT)  Self-report Methods  Interviews  One-items rating scales  Attitude scales</p><p>Problems with Self-report Measures</p><p>S-R assume that: (1) people know what their attitudes are and (2) they will report them honestly</p><p>Social desirability responding affects honestly</p><p>Ambivalence</p><p>Environmental Attitude Scales </p><p>New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale (revised) – Dunlap et. al. (2000) 15-item scale</p><p>This scale is a measure of people's tendency to be pro-environmental. </p><p>Research has found that scores on the scale correlate with membership in environmental organizations and other pro-environmental behaviors. </p><p>Dual Attitudes  Explicit attitudes are attitudes that we consciously endorse and can easily report.  Implicit attitudes are attitudes that are involuntary, uncontrollable, and at times unconscious. Attitude Formation - How did you form your attitudes toward wind energy? Global Warming</p><p>Socialization is the gradual acquisition of language, attitudes, and other socially approved values through reinforcement, observation and other learning processes </p><p>Attitude Formation Theories  Genetic influence  Mere Exposure - Zajonc  Classical Conditioning – Pavlov  Operant Conditioning – Thorndike, Skinner  Social learning or observation – Bandura</p><p>Mere Exposure Effect (Zajonc, 1968)</p><p>Mere exposure effect is the tendency to develop more positive feelings toward objects and individuals the more we are exposed to them</p><p>Over 100’s of studies confirm that mere exposure leads to greater liking</p><p>Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov) - A form of association learning</p><p>A previously neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus) come to evoke a response that it did not previously</p><p>Many of our emotional responses to objects etc have been classically conditioned (affectively based attitudes) Pavlov’s Experiment</p><p>Instrument Learning or Operant Conditioning</p><p>A type of learning in which behavior (or expressing an attitude) is strengthened if followed by a reinforcement and weakened if followed by a punishment</p><p>E.L Thorndike – Trial and error learning (The law of effect and Law of Exercise)</p><p>B. F. Skinner – Operant Conditioning</p><p>Skinner believed that learning is learning the consequences of behaving or responding</p><p>You learn that a response (r) leads to a stimulus events or reinforcement (s)</p><p>A reinforcement is any stimulus event that strengthens the behavior it follows Social Learning Theory (Bandura)</p><p>According to Bandura, we often learn our attitudes by modeling or observational learning</p><p>We observe and imitate the actions and attitudes expressed by social models such as parents and peers. </p><p>Attitude and Behavior - Is there a relationship between environmental attitudes and behavior?</p><p>Relationship between environmental attitudes and behavior has shown a lot of inconsistent results </p><p>Jody Hines and colleagues (1986) did a meta-analysis on environmental attitudes and behavior (128 different studies)</p><p>They were able to show that the relationship between attitudes and behavior is positive although not very strong</p><p>Attitude and behavior are more related when actual behavior and not self-reported behavior is measured.</p><p>The theory of reasoned action (TRA) (Fishbone & Ajzen, 1975) was developed in response to research on the weakness of attitudes in predicting behaviors</p><p>The theory of planned behavior (TPB) extended the TRA to include Perceived Behavioral Control</p>