The Concept of Attitude Change - Essay Example

?Social Psychology week 4 Assignment A public service advertisement that I came across which solely attempted to bring about a change in the attitude of its viewers was that of the anti-smoking campaign which was primarily launched in Australia on March 2007 and took a different perspective in trying to attempt smokers to quit. How this campaign was different is because it shifted its focus from hard hitting the consequences of smoking to concentrating on highlighting its negative aspects and then supplementing these by providing a support system that motivated smokers to quit. The public advertisement was based on the Yale attitude change model. This involves ‘analyzing who is making the communication, the quality of the communication and what kind of people the communication is intended for’ (Changingminds, web). Similarly in this campaign a two phase approach was adopted with a ‘quitting is hard, not quitting, is harder’ theme mass advertised depicting a female smoker with oral cancer speaking about her pain and torment. The motivational aspect of the advertisement was addressed through testimonials of young, healthy and successful stories of ex-smokers. The advertisement was meant to focus primarily to reduce smokers from the ages of 18 – 25. Based on the fact that the advertisement was well thought out and followed the Yale attitudinal change model its chances of success and effectiveness are seemingly high. Considering that its two phased approach not only addresses the crux of the problem but provides a alternative solution for the addiction as well as its chances of successful implementation depicted by the numerous testimonials of ex-smokers who have beaten their addiction it will most likely result in a change in behavior of viewers. I would not alter this advertisement in any way since its effectiveness is based on a combination of high feat tactics as well as practical behavioral advice about how to alleviate the fear by offering support to change. An effective combination of reason and emotion are what make this public health service message work and influence people (Knol, web). References Knol. Attitudes and Attitude change. Web. Retrieved from: http://knol.google.com/k/attitudes-and-attitude-change# Yale Attitude Change Approach. ChangingMinds. Web. Retrived from: http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/yale_attitude_change.htm Health Promotion Board Online. (2007). Quitting is hard. Not quitting is harder. National Smoking Campaign 07 to jolt smokers to quit smoking. Retrieved from: http://www.hpb.gov.sg/hpb/default.asp?pg_id=2980 online. Assignment 2 The major impact that social learning has on attitudes is one that is depicted by the influence of the media on individuals through advertisements. The power of advertisements being such that while some might depict views that are positive and contribute to a change in individuals which has a healthy impact on their lives. However the fact is that some commercials are created to products negative attitudes that will cause individuals to use a certain product. So while the advertisement I focused my assignment on aims to lead to a reduction in the smoking behavior of individuals by using a two phase approach adopted with a ‘quitting is hard, not quitting, is harder’ theme mass advertised depicting a female smoker with oral cancer speaking about her pain and torment. While the motivational aspect of the advertisement was addressed through testimonials of young, healthy and successful stories of ex-smokers who had beat their habit. However looking at the other side of the picture a different perspective of advertisements used for the same product, smoking is seen in the way the commercial contains the Marlboro man, the camel, a party scene with a DJ, and a woman saying smoking makes a person beautiful and independent. While the last part of the commercial is a man depicted in a wheelchair hooked up to an oxygen tank and other tubes going though his nostrils. He said the reality is that a person can end up like him. So while the attitude change in my commercial focuses on the Yale attitudinal model the attitude change that this advertisement is trying to elicit is one that will prevent people from smoking by hoping that if individuals associate the state of this man with a cigarette then they would not smoke at all. The fact that this commercial works is because no one really wants to picture themselves as sick, helpless, or even in a state of dying.  Assignment 3 The topic that interests me most is that of violence and aggression. To be more specific I am interested in the effects that the media has in progressing violence and aggression in children. The study that I found that addresses the problem of learnt aggression in children is that of “Bashing Bobo” by Albert Bandura. Bandura was of the belief that human beings learnt behavior by social imitation and copying, rather than inheriting through genetic factors (Shuttleworth Martyn, 2008). Similarly I would like to look at the social aspects of violence and aggression. . With the aim being to examine, analyze and judge the intensity of the relationship between the dependant variable, behavior of the youth, and the independent variable, exposure of the media. Hence the research would look at how media violence and aggression exposure can result in behavioral changes in teenage boys and girls. Attitudes towards this social problem are formed on the three different levels, cognitive, behavioral and emotional, depending on a number of factors. Some of these factors that contribute to the development of attitude changes are: firstly the “cognitive functions of the viewer, male sex hormones, the level of frustration of the viewer, and other factors that control emotions “(Manuel, 2010). Furthermore the formation of attitudes that media violence exerts is through emotional components such as, an individual’s ability to imitate violence, initiation of aggressive feelings, and eliciting fear. Also the attitudes pertaining to the behavioral aspect are acquired from other people mainly streaming from the social learning process. Such as the impact of subliminal messages conveyed by programs on television with research showing that individuals who watch violence on television repeatedly and frequently are more likely to be violent (Schneider, Gruman & Coutts, 2005). In order to measure changes in attitude towards media violence and aggression one can make use of the attitude scaling techniques as mentioned in the article ” "Thoughts on Attitude Measurement” by Norman Reid, 2006. By the use of scaling techniques attitudes are measured by the use of scoring items (for example,’ strongly agree’ = 5, ‘agree’ = 4, ‘neutral’ = 3, ‘disagree’ = 2 and ‘strongly disagree’= 1). These scores for all items are then added together to give a total score. Often these scores are interpreted using all kinds of statistical techniques to determine the results. However some assumptions are made such as if the questions are measuring the same thing and then adding them together will give greater accuracy. However despite being able to find a correlation between variables and hence measuring the attitude and responses of subjects towards a certain phenomenon there are several weaknesses of this scaling technique; Firstly we have no way of being sure if the steps on the scale are equally spaced since it is impossible to measure the spacing. Also the values on one question may not be comparable to those on another. Furthermore another major weakness is that correlations can be determined however they do not necessarily imply a direct relationship. So even though we might have founded variables to be correlated we can not really accurately know the magnitude of the relationship. References Baron, R., Branscombe, N., Byrne, D. (2009). Social Psychology (12th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.  Manuel,P. 2010. Media Violence and Aggression. Retrieved from: http://www.articlesbase.com/mental-health-articles/media-violence-and-aggression-3670690.html#axzz1QfyTZhZx N,Reid. (2006). Thoughts on attitude measurement. Research in Science & Technological Education, Vol. 24, No. 1, May 2006, pp. 3–27 Schneider, F., Gruman, J. & Coutts, L. (2005). Applied social psychology: Understanding and addressing social and practical problems. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage Publications. Shuttleworth, Martyn (2008). Bobo Doll Experiment. Retrieved from Experiment Resources: http://www.experiment-resources.com/bobo-doll-experiment.html Read More