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CHAPTER 11
ATTITUDES AND
INFLUENCING
ATTITUDES

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Define attitude and its role in consumer behavior

2. Summarize the three components of attitudes
3. Discuss attitude change strategies associated with each
attitude component
4. Describe the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion
5. Describe the role of message source, appeal, and structure on
attitudes
6. Discuss segmentation and product development applications
of attitudes

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ATTITUDES AND INFLUENCING ATTITUDES

• An attitude is an enduring organization of motivational, emotional,

perceptual, and cognitive processes with respect to some aspect of
our environment.
• It is a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable
→
or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object an
attitude is the way one thinks, feels, and acts toward some aspect
of his or her environment, such as a retail store, television
program, or product

ATTITUDE COMPONENTS

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ATTITUDE COMPONENTS (CONT.)

1. Cognitive component: consists of a consumer’s beliefs about an object
• Beliefs can be about the emotional benefits of owning or using a product
• Many beliefs about attributes are evaluative in nature
• Multiattribute Attitude Model: Ab = σ =1

where
Ab = Consumer’s attitude toward a particular brand b
= Consumer’s belief about brand b’s performance on attribute i
n = Number of attributes considered

✓ This version assumes that all attributes are equally important in determining our overall
evaluation.

✓ Where i= The importance the consumer attaches to attribute i

=σ =1

✓ Where = Consumer’s ideal level of performance on attribute i

=σ =1 −

ATTITUDE COMPONENTS (CONT.)

2. Affective component: Feelings or emotional reactions to an object represent the
affective component of an attitude
• Marketers are increasingly turning their attention to the affective or “feeling”
component of attitudes to provide a richer understanding of attitudes than that
→
based solely on the cognitive or “thinking” component marketers now
commonly distinguish utilitarian or functional benefits and attitudes from hedonic
or emotional benefits and attitudes
• Marketers are beginning to consider both form and function in product designs
and focus considerable attention on the aesthetic aspects of design
(appearance and sensory experience)
• Affective reactions to a specific product or benefit can vary by situation and
individual
• Marketers sometimes measure the affective component on verbal scales
much like those used to measure the cognitive component

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ATTITUDE COMPONENTS (CONT.)

2. Attitude component (cont.)
Emotion SAM (Self-Assessment Mannequin)
Dimension

Copyright 2000 AdSAM Marketing LLC.

P=Pleasure; A=Arousal; D=Dominance

ATTITUDE COMPONENTS (CONT.)

3. Behavioral component: one’s tendency to respond in a certain manner
toward an object or activity
• Provides response tendencies or behavioral intentions
• Actual behaviors reflect these intentions as they are modified by the
situation in which the behavior will occur
• Direct versus Indirect Approach:
• Actual behaviors and response tendencies are most often measured
by fairly direct questioning
• Asking indirect questions such as estimating the behaviors of other
people similar to themselves (neighbors, those with similar jobs,
etc.) may help reduce the bias.

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ATTITUDE COMPONENTS (CONT.)

• Component Consistency:
• A change in one attitude component tends to produce related changes in the
other components

ATTITUDE COMPONENTS (CONT.)

• Component Consistency (cont.):
o Factors that may account for inconsistencies:
1. Lack of Need
2. Lack of Ability
3. Failure to Consider Relative Attitudes
4. Attitude Ambivalence
5. Weakly Held Beliefs and Affect
6. Failure to Consider Interpersonal Influence

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ATTITUDE CHANGE STRATEGIES

• Marketers often attempt to influence consumer behavior by
changing one or more of the underlying attitude components
• Change the Cognitive Component:
✓
Change beliefs
✓
Shift importance
✓
Add beliefs
✓
Change ideal
• Change the Affective Component:
✓
Classical conditioning
✓
Affect toward the Ad or
Website ✓Mere exposure
• Change the Behavioral Component: Behavior can lead directly
to affect, to cognitions, or to both simultaneously

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INDIVIDUAL AND SITUATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

THAT INFLUENCE ATTITUDE CHANGE
• Attitude change is determined by individual and situational factors as well
as marketing activities
o Individual factors include gender, need for cognition, consumer
knowledge, ethnicity, and regulatory status.
o Situational factors include program context, level of viewer distraction,
and buying occasion

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INDIVIDUAL AND SITUATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

THAT INFLUENCE ATTITUDE CHANGE (CONT.)
• The elaboration likelihood model (ELM) is a theory about how attitudes are formed
and changed under varying conditions of involvement
o Involvement is a key determinant of how information is processed and attitudes are changed.

✓ High involvement results in a central route to attitude change by which consumers deliberately and
consciously process those message elements that they believe are
→
relevant to a meaningful and logical evaluation of the brand These elements
are elaborated on and combined into an overall evaluation

✓ Low involvement results in a peripheral route to attitude change in which consumers form impressions of the brand
based on exposure to readily available cues in the message
→
regardless of their relevance to the brand or decision Attitudes formed through the
→
peripheral route are based on little or no elaborative processing Classical conditioning,
Aad, and mere exposure represent low-involvement views of attitude change.

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INDIVIDUAL AND
SITUATIONAL
CHARACTERISTICS THAT
INFLUENCE ATTITUDE
CHANGE (CONT.)

The elaboration likelihood model

(ELM)

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INDIVIDUAL AND SITUATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

THAT INFLUENCE ATTITUDE CHANGE (CONT.)
• Cue Relevance and Competitive Situation:
• Compared with attitudes formed under the peripheral route, attitudes
formed under the central route tend to be stronger, more resistant to
counter persuasion attempts, more accessible from memory, and more
predictive of behavior
• Central route processing involves extensive processing of decision-
relevant information or cues and what consumers find relevant can vary by
product and situation
• The competitive situation can also work to enhance the role of
peripheral cues even under high involvement

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INDIVIDUAL AND SITUATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS

THAT INFLUENCE ATTITUDE CHANGE (CONT.)
• Consumer Resistance to Persuasion:
• Consumers are often skeptical (an individual characteristic) and
resist persuasion
• Consumers frequently infer an advertiser’s intent and respond in light of
that presumed selling intent
• Strongly held attitudes are harder to change than weakly held attitudes

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COMMUNICATION CHARACTERISTICS THAT

INFLUENCE ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE
Communication techniques that can be used to form and change attitudes:
• Source Characteristics: the source of a communication represents “who”
delivers the message.
o Include people (celebrities, typical consumers), animated spokes characters
(Jolly Green Giant, Mr. Peanut), and organizations (the company, a third-
party endorser).
o Source Credibility: consists of trustworthiness and expertise

✓ Testimonial ad: a person, generally a typical member of the target market, recounts his or her
successful use of the product, service, or idea

✓ Independent third-party endorsements (e.g. ADA- American Dental Association)

✓ Can influence persuasion in various situations

✓ Cultural differences can play a role

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COMMUNICATION CHARACTERISTICS THAT INFLUENCE

ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE (CONT.)
• Source Characteristics (cont.):
o Celebrity Sources: are effective for a variety of reasons
✓ Attention

✓ Attitude toward the ad

✓ Trustworthiness

✓ Expertise

✓ Aspirational aspects

✓ Meaning transfer

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COMMUNICATION CHARACTERISTICS THAT INFLUENCE

ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE (CONT.)
• Source Characteristics (cont.):
o Celebrity Sources (cont.): When the three components are well matched,
effective attitude formation or change can result

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COMMUNICATION CHARACTERISTICS THAT INFLUENCE

ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE (CONT.)
• Source Characteristics (cont.):

Sponsorships
o Sponsorship: a company providing financial support for an event
✓

often work in much the same manner as using a

celebrity endorser
✓
Sponsorships should be promoted through offline,
online, and social media to maximize awareness and effectiveness

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COMMUNICATION CHARACTERISTICS THAT INFLUENCE

ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE (CONT.)
• Appeal Characteristics:
1. Fear Appeals: use the threat of negative (unpleasant)
consequences if attitudes or behaviors are not altered
2. Humorous Appeals
3. Comparative Ads: directly compare the features or benefits of
two or more brands
4. Emotional Appeals
5. Value-Expressive versus Utilitarian Appeals

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COMMUNICATION CHARACTERISTICS THAT INFLUENCE

ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE (CONT.)
Appeal Characteristics

Value-expressive versus Utilitarian appeals

Value-expressive appeals Utilitarian appeals involve

attempt to build a personality informing the consumer of
for the product or create an one or more functional
image of the product user. benefits that are important
to the target market.

* Most effective for *Most effective for

products designed to functional products
enhance self-image or
provide other intangible
benefits

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COMMUNICATION CHARACTERISTICS THAT INFLUENCE

ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE (CONT.)
• Message Structure Characteristics:
1. One-Sided versus Two-Sided Messages
2. Positive versus Negative Framing:
o Message framing refers to presenting one of two equivalent
value outcomes either in positive or gain terms (positive framing)
or in negative or loss terms (negative framing)
o Goal framing is where “the message stresses either the positive
consequences of performing an act or the negative consequences of
not performing the act
3. Nonverbal Components

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MARKET SEGMENTATION AND PRODUCT

DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES BASED ON ATTITUDES

• Market Segmentation:
o Benefit segmentation: segmenting consumers on the basis of their
most important attribute or attributes.
o To define benefit segments, a marketer needs to know the importance
that consumers attach to various product or service feature
• Product development

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SUMMARY
LO1: Define attitude and its role in consumer behavior
• Attitudes can be defined as the way people think, feel, and
act toward some aspect of their environment
• Attitudes influence and reflect the lifestyle individuals pursue.

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SUMMARY
LO2: Summarize the three components of attitudes

• The cognitive component consists of the individual’s beliefs or knowledge

about the object.
• The affective component: feelings or emotional reactions to an object
• The behavioral component reflects overt actions and statements of behavioral
intentions with respect to specific attributes of the object or the overall object.

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SUMMARY
LO3: Discuss attitude change strategies associated with each attitude
component
• Attitude change strategies can focus on affect, behavior, cognition, or
some combination
o Attempts to change affect generally rely on classical conditioning.
o Change strategies focusing on behavior rely more on operant conditioning. o Changing cognitions
usually involves information processing and cognitive learning: changing beliefs about such things as a
brand’s attribute levels,
shifting the importance of a given attribute, adding beliefs about new
attributes, or changing the perceived ideal point for a specific attribute or for
the brand concept overall.

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SUMMARY
LO3: Discuss attitude change strategies associated with each
attitude component (cont.)
• Marketers often attempt to influence consumer behavior by changing one
or more of the underlying attitude components
• Change the Cognitive Component:
✓
Change beliefs
✓
Shift importance
✓
Add beliefs
✓
Change ideal
• Change the Affective Component:
✓
Classical conditioning
✓
Affect toward the Ad or
Website ✓Mere exposure
• Change the Behavioral Component: Behavior can lead directly to affect,
to cognitions, or to both simultaneously

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SUMMARY

LO4: Describe the elaboration

likelihood model of persuasion
• The elaboration
likelihood model (ELM) is
a theory about how attitudes
are formed and changed
under varying conditions of
involvement

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SUMMARY
LO5: Describe the role of message source, appeal, and structure on attitudes
• Three communication characteristics are important to attitudes: source characteristics,
message appeal characteristics, and message structure characteristics.
1. Source characteristics:
✓ Source credibility: trustworthiness and expertise
✓ Celebrities source
✓ Sponsorship
2. Message appeal characteristics:
✓ Fear appeals
✓ Humorous appeals
✓ Comparative ads
✓ Utilitarian appeal
✓ Emotional appeals
3. Message structure characteristics:
✓ Two-side messages
✓ Message framing effects
✓ Non-verbal aspects

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SUMMARY
LO6: Discuss segmentation and product development applications of attitudes
• Market Segmentation:
o Benefit segmentation

• Product development

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Assume you wanted to improve or create favorable attitudes among
college students toward the following. Would you focus primarily on
the affective, cognitive, or behavioral component? Why?
• A new drink in Phuc Long coffee
• WSU Student Council
2. Construct a multiattribute model for ISB. Based on your findings,
suggest how ISB could improve their establishment’s image via the
strategies described in this chapter.

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