ATTITUDES AND HOW TO CHANGE THEM

Yesterday morning I interviewed a candidate for an important job managing marketing projects here at Casey Research. Within seconds of his beginning to speak, I had formed a negative attitude about his capabilities to do the job.

Why?

Simply because the slow cadence of his speech evoked in me the belief that he was one of those low-energy individuals I would have to constantly push to get the job done. So, the odds of his getting the job were determined in a matter of seconds, based on nothing more than a style of speech. Right or wrong, that is all it takes for an attitude to form. Careers are made or broken, customers are enticed or turned off, relationships formed or not--all in the blink of an eye.

Understanding where attitudes come from and how to change them is critical because everyone has an attitude about literally everything. For instance, your children have an attitude about homework... your co-workers and your spouse have attitudes about you... your clients have attitudes about your products and services... and business prospects, on being exposed to you or your company, will immediately form attitudes.

The list is, literally, endless. Attitudes count, and count large. You may be surprised to learn, therefore, that attitudes are relatively simple to understand. And once you understand how they are formed, there are specific measures you can take to influence them.

THE FIVE ATTITUDE FUNCTIONS
After decades of research, social psychologists and behavioral researchers have identified just five key attitude functions.

Utilitarian
A utilitarian attitude is based on the belief that by doing something you will either be rewarded or punished. For instance, as the aforementioned job candidate began speaking, I visualized the pain of having to constantly manage him and, in time, having to go through the pain of firing him. So, the cue of speaking slowly triggered a utilitarian attitude in me. Other examples: you may believe that praying for something will increase your chances of receiving it; or, that tapping your quarter three times before putting it in a slot machine will help you come up a winner. On the punishment side, if you believe that the potential risks of smoking far outweigh any pleasure, you may decide to quit.

Knowledge-based
Knowledge-based attitude functions are those that we use to categorize and therefore make sense of this complex world. For example, since 9/11 many Americans have developed a black and white attitude that all Arabs are "enemies." Or, you might have the attitude that all Japanese electronics are better manufactured than those produced in the USA or China. If you are politically conservative, you might blindly label all the major media outlets as part of the "liberal elite." Conversely, you might think that all Republicans are dangerous fascists. Knowledge-based attitudes are, in a nutshell, a mental filing system.

Value-expressive
A value-expressive attitude is one that you adopt as a way of projecting your self-image to the world. For example, a person might choose a bumper sticker for their car that reads "Vote for Bush," or "Save the Planet," or even "I Brake for Aliens". Do you dress conservatively or choose the tie with the wild design to let your co-workers know you are a fun-loving kind of guy? Do you drive a BMW when you can only afford a Ford? If so, it is likely because you are trying to present an image of success to friends, neighbors and business associates (and are willing to bear the extra payment pain in order to do so).

Ego-defensive
An ego-defensive attitude is adopted to make the holder feel better about him or herself. Racial prejudice is a classic example of this function--the belief that someone else is inferior helps the attitude holder feel superior. Along the same lines, you've probably had a co-worker who habitually derided others in the company, going out of their way to make others look bad in meetings and complaining about other employees in almost every conversation. This is an ego-defensive attitude function at work.

Social-adjustive
This is actually a mix of the attitude functions above, whereby a person adopts an attitude because they believe it will help them fit in with their peers. Thus, if you live in a conservative neighborhood, you might have a George Bush bumper sticker on your car not only because it expresses your values, but because it shows your neighbors that you are "one of them."

AGENTS OF CHANGE
When you are confronted with an attitude in a friend, family member, business associate, or just someone on the street that you would like to influence in some fashion, first take a moment to try and match the attitude with one or more of the five functions just listed. Only then can you decide the best approach either to strengthen the attitude (for instance, make new customers fall in love with your company), to weaken it (reduce the perception that the service at your company is lousy), or to change it altogether (convince someone that your US-manufactured television is as good or better than a Japanese one).

Each attitude function has a soft underbelly you can use to effect change, but before I tell you about those, it is important to recognize that often an attitude may be based on more than one attitude function.

For instance, the decision to overspend on a BMW may contain the elements of multiple attitude functions: utilitarian (projecting an image of success will win me new business); knowledge-based (German cars are better built); value-expressive (I'll look classy), and social-adjustive (my wealthier neighbors will think I'm one of them.) While the multi-functional nature of many attitudes can make assessment a bit more complex, it is usually possible to identify the one or two strongest attitude functions at work. And once you have identified the underlying attitude function, you are then armed to influence it.

Which brings us to the agents of change for each of these attitude functions.

* A utilitarian function may be susceptible to change if the connection between "A" (the action) and "B" (the reward or punishment) is broken. Losing at the slots 20 times in a row despite first tapping your quarters will quickly change your attitude about that superstition. More seriously, taking the time to graphically demonstrate to a teenager how the potential negative consequences of smoking far outweigh any possible benefits can actually result in a life-saving change of attitude.

* A knowledge-based function might change with new information(knowledge). If an Arab family moved in next door and over time you came to know and like them, your black vs. white view of Arabs would be subject to modification. Having your Sony TV break within a month of purchase might change your view of Japanese manufacturing. In terms of proactively trying to change a knowledge based attitude, fact-based comparisons can be effective. For instance, if you are selling US television sets, try a side-by-side quality comparison of your manufacturing processes vs. those used by Japanese firms. Then, slap on a 10-year warranty for good measure.

* If a value-expressive object stops being reflective of a person's attitude, it is susceptible to change. Belonging to a country club and sporting the membership decal on your car window can be as much about expressing your values as it is about having a nice place to play golf. If, however, the country club was taken to court for excluding membership candidates based on race, you might consider scraping off the decal. Current politics provide another example: John Kerry's continued reference to his military service is a classic example of his spin masters trying to win over blue-collar independents who would otherwise be tempted to think that he's just another liberal "softie".

* Changing an ego-defensive attitude can be very challenging, because attitude functions such as prejudice run deep. One approach is to point out to the individual the underlying reason for their attitude, but that will usually not win you any friends.

When you get right down to it, as complex as we humans like to think we are, our fundamental operating systems are fairly simple. Taking a little time to understand the five primary attitude functions can be an important tool in learning how to deal with people. Try this interesting bit of homework. Over the next few days make an attempt to evaluate the attitudes you hold, and those that confront you. For instance, why do you drive the car you drive? Why do you vote the way you do? Why have you been unable to stay on a diet? Why does your spouse dislike your best friend? What attitudes about your company does your Web site evoke?

As I said at the beginning of this article, people have attitudes about literally everything. With just a little digging, you can become a pro at identifying underlying attitude functions. Then, armed with those insights, you can begin to develop specific strategies to affect a change.