Quantitative and qualitative perspectives on attitudes

The obvious difference between cognitive social perspective and that of discursive psychological is
in their distinctly different methodological approaches, i.e. qualitative vs. quantitative, or to be more
precise, experimental social psychology tries to replicate social settings in order to be able to
manipulate the variables, while the discourse analysis uses discourse as it occurs in social settings.

Cognitive social perspective: Within cognitive social psychology, researchers see the person as a
thinker in society, one whose thought processes are shaped by and helped create the world in which
they live. Within this tradition there are two main approaches. One, associated with mainstream
social cognition, tends to see the individual as a cognitive miser. This looks at the way in which
social thinking and information processing biases result from the fact that individuals have limited
cognitive resources. Within the second, social identity tradition, the emphasis is more on the person
as a socialised thinker, as someone whose cognitions are structured by group memberships that are
located within a particular social system.
The methodology of cognitive social psychology is primarily quantitative. Typically, researchers
conduct studies in which they gather quantitative data and test theory based hypotheses using
standard statistical techniques. This perspective takes adualist approach (individual-social) – there is
a clear division between what is inside and outside the person. Focus is on the individual, since
psychological processes only take place in the minds of individuals. However there is recognition
that the individual is affected/influenced by social context. The researcher is seen as objective and
neutral so reflexivity is not usually an issue that is considered.

Discursive perspective: Discursive psychology sees both the person and their social world as
constituted through discourse and social practises. This challenges the essentialist idea that human
personhood is an interior fixed, an ongoing phenomenon, or that social reality in some ways out
there waiting to be discovered and described prior to and independent of our construction of
practises.Discursive psychology methodology is qualitative, looking at how the social world of
objects and events is constituted in talk and text and how social identities are created using existing
cultural discourses.
Individual-social dualism. The individual is constituted by the social, there is no dualism.
Agency-structure dualism: Individuals actively take up positions within pre-existing discourses.
They actively do things with talk and actively construct the world and its objects through language.
Talk is social action. People can actively take up discourses or equally they may resist to them.
Although people have choice, this is necessarily constrained by the discourses that speak for them.
Reality is constituted through discourse that is historically situated (in time and place).

Numerous frameworks and conceptual models have been developed to iassist researchers in
examining the link between attitudes and behaviours. Two of the most influential frameworks to
have been developed are the theory of reasoned action and the theory of planned behaviour.

Ajzen and Fishbein’s theory of reasoned action (TRA) is a conceptual model that links attitudes to
intentions to actions. The theory of reasoned action is composed of three broad constructs:
behavioural intention, attitude and subjective norms. The theory proposes that a person's
behavioural intention depends on the person's attitude about the behaviour, and the subjective norms
that influence that person.

While a major feature of the theory of reasoned action is the proposal that the best way to predict a
behaviour is to ask whether the person intends to do it, it is also one of the major limitations of the
model. TRA emphasises the belief that the behaviour is under the individual’s conscious control, but
unfortunately this is not always the case. For example, a smoker may develop a negative attitude to
smoking and form a behavioural intention to quit, which would more than likely be supported by
social norms, yet fail to give up smoking. Because some actions are less under people’s control than
others, Ajzen extended the theory of reasoned action to include the role of perceived behavioural
control, and named it the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). The theory of planned behaviour
proposes that an individual’s behaviour can be more accurately predicted from an attitude when the
individual believes they have control over that behaviour.

A classical study of ethnic attitudes by LaPiere (1934) provided an early challenge to the validity of
the concept of attitude as a predictor for behaviour. LaPiere spent two years traveling the United
States with a Chinese couple and only in one instance he found prejudice towards the couple in 252
establishments they visited. This was entirey incongruent with the follow-up survey which found
that 92% of the 128 establishments replied they wouldn't accept chinese guests in their
establishments. LaPierre however doesn't explain why he expected to find prejudice and gives little
sense of attitudes as the product of larger society.

Fishbein and Azjen in response to the above criticism developed the Theory of Reasoned Action
(TRA), a model which took into account threee constructs: Behavioural intention, atitude and
subjective norm. An attitude combined with subjective norms forms intention. So, if we use the
example of women's attitudes towards breat feeding (Manstead study discussed by Azjen) the sum
of beliefs about breast feeding weighted by evaluations of those beliefs. For ex a mother might
believe that breast feeding provides best nourishment for the baby, it protects baby from infection
(these will be weighted in order of importance). The subjective norms is what she thinks other
significant people (referents) will think. e.g. “my husband wants me to do it, so my doctor, but not
my best friend” these will be weighted according to the importance attributed to each opinion. The
behavioural intention is the result from women's attitudes plus her subjective norms, this will form
her intention to breast-feed or not. Manstead 's research (1983) produced statistically significatn
findings and it can be seen to confirm the predictive power and the usefulness of the TRA model.

A variation of this is the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) whic was developed to impove the
predictive power model. Lets imagine that the mother believes that she can breast-feed, however,
whether she actually does breast feed could be influenced by things outside her control – she might
find breast-feeding very painful or she might be unable to produce enough milk to satisfy her baby.
In this case the behavioural intention might best be considered as a goal, her planne3d behaviours
will be affected by her perceived behavioural control.

Potter and Wetherell present a very different study of attitudes. They present theoretical and
methodological callenge to research whiches uses participant's responses as evidence of attitudes.
They are proposing a radically different approach to psychology which moves beyond the
individual and, as the term “discourse” indicates, one which foregrounds language, and specifically
talk.

Potter and Wetherell take issue with attitude research using a critique of Marsh's study of coloured
immigrants and then it goes on to analyse their own interviews with middle-class New Zealanders
on polynesian immigrants. They present a double challenge to the main tradition of attitude
research. One is methodological, they suggest that research which uses a graduated scale to record
an attitude is flawed because it takes responses out of context, ignores the inconsistencies in what
people say and also the ways that meanings are constructed in ordinary talk. They also question the
assumption that an evaluation can be translated into a numerical value to enable quantitative data
analysis. In contrast, their own analysis is qualitative and interpretative. The other challenge is
theoretical and relates to the concept of an attitue as an enduring,underlying state expressed in talk
and behaviour. Potter and Wetherell approach both an attitude and its object as fluid, their meaning
constantly redefined according to the context and purpose of talk.
Attitude research assume attitudes are in the head, that is a rather simplistic cause-response
relationship between attitude and behaviour which is consicioiusly planned but which might be
disrupted by intervening social variables. Potter and Wethererell argue that atitudes are active
constructions that are formed in talk which is highly contextualised. When people take positions on
a subject they do so to make arguments, defend positions, blame others. They will use extreme case
formulations or disclaimers. However, persuavise arguments are positions within cultural
interpretative repertoires, individuals actively make sense of the world but their choice of positions
are constrained by socially available positions. Potter and Wetherell state that attitudes are not fixed,
enduring and static. They are not stable enduring inner attitudes reflected coherently in talk but they
are processes that change. People's accounts can be incoherent, inconsistent and contradictory, as
such it is a fruitless chase trying to measure attitudes as if they were isolated entities.

Potter and Wetherel discourse analyis based on interviews made to middle class New Zealanders
about polynesion immigrants look at the context, variability and consitution. They are not interested
in the individual speaker as a holder of attitudes, they do not approach talk as an expression of
something inside the speaker. Instead, they are interested in what people do in talk. They are not
looking at causes but at talk as a kind of action in itself.
They see the interaction between speakers (including an interview interaction) as the context in
which meanings, like attitudes, are constructed. Rather than producing wholly new talk from inside
themselves, individual speakers join in the ongoing debates and take up ideas and arguments(for
instance about immigrants). In this sense talk is the social context and an analysis of talk becomes
an analysis of meanings and values which prevail within that society. Immigration and prejudice an
only be understood in terms of the meaning of “nation-state”, “territory” citizenship and so on.

Although there has been recent discursive psychological work on attitudes the majority of attitude
researchers do not follow Potter and Wetherell's methodological approach.
The mainstream of attitude research in psychology folows from the kind of theorising and empirical
research presented in Azjen reading. Its concern is not with an attitude as something inside a person
but, as a hypothetica, unobservable construct and this is not assumedto be enduring but to change
because of intervenig variables.