Transcript of Audio Lecture
Lesson six, module
three. In this lesson we’re going to talk about defending attitudes.
Let’s begin by moving to
slide two. Attitude inoculation. This is when you allow people to
practice counter-arguing or provide them with counter-arguments before
they’re ever even presented to them in a real world. DARE and America's
Sex Education program tend to not do inoculation. They used the method
Just Say No or abstinence is best. Clearly if we look at our teen
pregnancy rate or the rate of STDs spreading in the US, you will find that
these methods have not worked. The problem is that we’re not matching
the ABC's of peer pressure. Even if you give students all the
statistics about rate of teen pregnancy, poverty and teen mothers, drugs
and academic performance, drugs and income, drugs and death, those are not
going to match the ABCs that peers provide them when trying to lure them
into doing things that they would not otherwise do. For example, what
you’re providing is a cognitive answer. You’re telling students to just
say no, use their knowledge, knowledge is power. We’ve heard these things
our entire lives. Now their behavior for most of the time is going to be
congruent with a don’t do it attitude. However the affective component is
very important, especially to teenagers and this is where peers make their
arguments. Don’t you want to be cool, don’t you want to fit in; it feels
good. Your parents don’t know what they’re talking about. If they had
felt this, they wouldn’t have done it, they wouldn’t have told you not to
do it. These are the ABC's of peer pressure. Therefore, you need to do
attitude inoculation, that is, providing students or children with
counter-arguing skills, just saying no usually won’t cut it. They need to
be able to counter-argue at the effective basis of the attitude.
Let’s move on to slide
three and discuss defending the attitude. Some people believe in
subliminal persuasion. There’s very little evidence to support it. It
could just be mere exposure. The more you see of something, the more your
attitude is shaped by that. This is what people talk about when they
discuss violence on TV or sex on TV. You have to perceive subliminal
persuasion for it to be effective. For a long time it was thought that
several liquor companies would put nude women in the drinks
subliminally to persuade people, but if you don’t perceive the subliminal
persuasion, it’s not going to be effective. Placebo effects may be
part of the reason that people believe that subliminal persuasion works.
For example, in one study they provided self-help tapes to several folks. Now
some people received a self-esteem tape with subliminal people underneath
awareness providing them with phrases that would increase self-esteem.
Another half of the people received a memory tape that was meant to
improve their memory and give them strategies for remembering better. Half
of the tapes were labeled self-esteem and half were labeled memory.
Everyone believed they were getting the self-help tapes. Those who
received a memory labeled tape and actually received the memory tapes that
matched showed a slight increase in memory. Everyone else showed no
effects. Therefore, memory was the only time that people who had a tape
and label that matched is there was any evidence for what might be called
subliminal persuasion. But here perhaps people were just more likely to
remember what was on the tape simply because of the content of the tape
emphasizing memory.
Let’s move on to slide four, reactance theory. We know that when freedom is limited, people
perform that behavior that is being limited to reduce the sense of threat
to freedom. Pennebaker and Sanders in 1976 did a study in which they
wrote on a bathroom wall, put up a sign that said do not write on these
walls under any circumstances. In other stalls they put up a sign that
said please don’t write on these walls. Upon returning several weeks
later, they found that those who had read the signs please don’t write on
these walls followed that. A request is made, not a demand, and people
didn’t feel it limited their freedom. But do not write on these walls
under any circumstances resulted in a great deal of graffiti.
This concludes our small
discussion of defending attitudes. Thank you.
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