Thomas M. Ostrom

The Relationship between the Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive Components of Attitude.

Abstract It has long been assumed that attitudes have affective, behavioral, and cognitive components. Two hypotheses were derived from this assumption and tested in three correlational studies. Individuals were predicted to show greater consistency of response to attitude scales measuring the same component than to scales measuring different components. The Campbell and Fiske (1959) multitrait-multimethod matrix procedure was used to test this hypothesis. Second, it was hypothesized that the correspondence between verbal attitude scales and nonverbal attitudinal responses should be highest when both are drawn from the same attitude component. Indices of overt behavior were compared with verbal measures of the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components as a test for the second hypothesis. Construction of verbal measures for the three components required development of a procedure for assessing the amount each verbal statement reflected each component. Scales of attitude toward the church were prepared using the methods of equal-appearing intervals, summated ratings, scalogram analysis, and self-rating. Both hypotheses were supported, but the dominant feature was a high intercorrelation between the three components with the uniqueness of each component contributing very little additional variance.

Out-group homogeneity effects in natural and minimal groups.

This article reviews literature relevant to the out-group homogeneity effect. The review assesses whether the effect emerges in both natural- and minimal-group contexts. Data relevant to the out-group homogeneity effect are examined for 3 types of dependent measures

Computer simulation: the third symbol system

The role of computer simulation for theory construction in social psychology needs to be better understood. It should be viewed as a medium through which theoretical propositions can be articulated and predictions can be generated. It is one of several symbol systems available to theorists for expressing theoretical ideas. The first symbol system acquired by students in social psychology is natural language and the second is mathematics. Computer simulation offers a third symbol system. Theorists express their ideas in a program, and a computer is used to facilitate the generation of predictions from the theory-as-program. Five complexities inherent in social behavior have resisted theoretical understanding using the first two symbol systems. They are multiple manifestations of a single latent variable, qualitative cognitive and social structures, models of the linkage between latent variables and their overt expression, the interface between multiple latent variables, and time. The third symbol system, computer simulation, offers a substantial advantage to social psychologists attempting to develop formal theories of complex and interdependent social phenomena.

Guidelines for Empirically Assessing the Fairness of a Lineup

Issues regarding the fairness of lineups used for criminal identification are discussed in the context of a distinction between nominal size and functional size. Nominal size (the number of persons in the lineup) is less important for determining the fairness of a lineup than is functional size (the number of lineup members resembling the criminal). Functional size decreases to the extent that the nonsuspect members of the lineup are easily ruled out as not being suspected by the police. The extent to which the identification of the suspect can be considered an independently derived piece of incriminating evidence is positively related to functional size. Empirical estimates of functional size can be obtained through pictures of the corporal lineup from which mock witnesses make guesses of whom they believe the police suspect. A distinction is made between a functional size approach and hypothesis testing approaches. Uses of functional size notions in the court, by police, and in research are discussed.

Differential processing of in-group and out-group information.

People have a more differentiated cognitive representation of in-groups than of out-groups. This has led to the prediction that memory should be better for in-group information than for out-group information. However, past research has provided equivocal support for that prediction. This article advances a differential processing hypothesis that offers a solution to this paradox. The hypothesis suggests that whereas in-group information is organized by person categories, outgroup information is organized through attribute categories. In-group membership alters the categorical basis of memory for person information, but these categories are not necessarily superior to the attribute categories that are used to organize out-group information

An Abbreviated Measure of Internal-External Locus of Control

Summary An abbreviated scale of internal-external locus of control (I-E) was administered to a national probability sample of 4,330 males ranging from 16 to 26 years of age. Psychometric properties (distributional characteristics, scale reliability, and item-test correlations) of the abbreviated scale were found to be similar to the full 29-item Rotter I-E scale. Comparable factor structures were obtained for both black and white respondents. A significant race difference indicated that blacks gave more external responses than whites.

The Cognitive Organization of Social Information: A Converging Operations Approach.

Abstract : A neglected topic in social perception deals with how people organize the flow of information about the many individuals in their social environment. This flow of social information typically involves several items of information about each of several persons. The items about different persons are often arbitrarily intermixed in their temporal order of appearance. This paper questions the assumption that social information is automatically organized on a person-by-person basis, that the information items about each person are cognitively grouped into one person category that is separate from the other person categories. The notion that familiarity mediates this cognitive organization of person information was examined using a converging operations approach. Three distinct methodologies were used to study the relationship between familiarity and person organization: (1) a speeded sorting task; (2) a recognition reaction time task; and (3) a free recall task. Each of the three experiments demonstrated that this tendency to organize social information on a person-by-person basis was greater for familiar than for unfamiliar persons. Two of the three tasks provided evidence that social information is not organized by person when the stimulus persons are completely unfamiliar. (Author)

Perspective as a determinant of attitude change

Abstract It was hypothesized that the relationship between ones attitudinal beliefs (content) and the way one labels those beliefs (rating) on an evaluative dimension is mediated by perspective, or the range of a ternatives taken into consideration when the individual is making the evaluative judgment. Two experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis. The first experiment showed that the evaluative label the subject assigned to his attitude content was strongly affected by a manipulation of perspective. When matched for length of prison sentence advocated for a convicted criminal, subjects in one perspective condition viewed their recommended punishment as “slightly lenient” whereas those in the other perspective condition rated themselves as “extremely stern”. The second experiment showed that people will change their attitudinal content to remain consistent with their initial self-evaluation under conditions of a manipulated perspective. Subjects were induced, holding initial self-rating constant, to advocate as much as twice as long a prison sentence in one perspective condition than in the other.

Cognitive structure of neutral attitudes.

Abstract Having either all neutral experiences with an attitude object, or a wide range of positive, neutral, and negative experiences can produce overall affective neutrality, but these two types of experience should have different consequences for cognitive structure. An experiment in which the evaluative homogeneity (all neutral vs positive, neutral, and negative) of information about the attitude object was manipulated showed that the evaluative profile of cognitive structure was significantly influenced by homogeneity. However, the effects of this variable were not detectable using single-score measures of attitude.

Effects of pictures on the organization and recall of social information.

The role of visual stimuli in the organization and recall of social information was investigated in a study that presented photographs of stimulus persons along with verbal trait descriptors. Paired with four trait descriptors of each stimulus person, subjects saw either no picture, one trait-unrelated picture, four trait-unrelated pictures, or four trait-related pictures. These conditions permitted a test of several competing explanations for the previously obtained improvement in memory for semantic information when accompanied by pictorial information. Results indicated that pictures incremented recall of trait information in two distinct stages--once with the addition of pictorial information and again when the pictures became relevant to the traits. Clustering in free recall on the basis of person categories was unaffected by the experimental conditions. These findings were consistent with the hypothesis that pictures enhance person memory by fostering elaboration on stimulus information at encoding.