Attitude change

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Attitudes are the evaluations and associated beliefs and behaviors towards some object. They are not stable, and because of the communication and behavior of other people, are subject to change by social influences, as well as an individual's motivation to maintain cognitive consistency when cognitive dissonance occurs--when two attitudes or when attitude and behavior conflict. Attitudes and attitude objects are functions of affective and cognitive components. It has been suggested that the inter-structural composition of an associative network can be altered by the activation of a single node. Thus, by activating an affective or emotion node, attitude change may be possible, though affective and cognitive components tend to be intertwined.

 Bases for attitude change
 There are three bases for attitude change, which includes compliance, identification, and internalization. These three processes represent the different levels of attitude change

Compliance

Compliance refers to a change in behavior based on consequences, such as an individual’s hopes to gain rewards or avoid punishment from another group or person. The individual does not necessarily experience changes in beliefs or evaluation towards an attitude object, but rather is influenced by the social outcomes of adopting a change in behavior. The individual is also often aware that he or she is being urged to respond in a certain way.

Compliance was demonstrated through a series of laboratory experiments known as the Asch experiments. Experiments led by Solomon Asch of Swarthmore College asked groups of students to participate in a "vision test". In reality, all but one of the participants were confederates of the experimenter, and the study was really about how the remaining student would react to the confederates' behavior. Participants were asked to pick, out of three line options, the line that is the same length as a sample and were asked to give the answer out loud. Unbeknown to the participants, Asch had placed a number of confederates to deliberately give the wrong answer before the participant. The results showed that 75% of participants succumbed to the majority's influence and gave the answer the confederates picked. Variations in the experiments showed that compliance rates increased as the number of confederates increased, which plateaus at around 15 confederates. Also, minority opposition, such as if even one confederate gave the correct answer, the likelihood of compliance drops. The basis for compliance is founded on the fundamental idea that people want to be accurate and right

Identification

Identification explains one’s change of beliefs and affect in order to be similar to someone who one admires or likes. In this case, the individual adopts the new attitude, not due to the specific content of the attitude object, but more so because it is associated with the desired relationship. Often, children’s attitudes on race, or their political party affiliations are adopted from their parents’ attitudes and beliefs.

Internalization

Internalization refers to the change in beliefs and affect when one finds the content of the attitude to be intrinsically rewarding, and thus leading to actual change in beliefs or evaluation towards an attitude object. The new attitude or behavior is consistent with the individual’s value system, and tends to be merged with the individual’s existing values and beliefs. Therefore, behavior adopted through internalization are due to the content of the attitude object.
The Expectancy-value theory is based on internalization of atittude change. This model describes the states that the behavior towards some object is a function of an individual’s intent, which is a function of one’s overall attitude towards the action.