How Does Age Affect Susceptibility to Attitude Change - Literature review Example

How does age affect susceptibility to attitude change? In social psychology studies, age and susceptibility to attitude change have been shown to have a complex relationship. This essay will explore various research studies carried out on the link between age and attitude change in relation to various situations and will attempt to establish what effect, if any, age has on susceptibility to attitude change. It will also explore how decreased susceptibility to attitude change comes to take place and various theories on why this happens. It will then look at attitude change susceptibility at three stage; up to early adulthood, middle age and old age. Finally, it will come to a conclusion as to how age affects susceptibility to attitude change. The basic starting point for this essay is the assumption that age and stubbornness are inextricably linked. The aged grandparent, set in their ways and unwilling to listen to any other point of view is a cultural stereotype which is largely accepted and unquestioned. However is it really true that increasing age reduces a person’s susceptibility to change, or is it simply an unfounded assumption? Albaraccin, Johnson and Zanna (2005: p.601) open their discussion of the relation between age and susceptibility to attitude change by noting that ‘popular wisdom suggests that young people are more susceptible to persuasion than are older adults. Laboratory research has generally confirmed this assumption’. A general decrease in susceptibility to persuasion with age increase leads to a decrease in attitude change, research appears to confirm. Albarracin et al. (2005: p.601) have three alternative key arguments which they put forward for this phenomenon and which will form the base of a wider discussion within this essay. The first is that ‘this effect is due to a gradual decrease in susceptibility’. This argument holds that as a person ages, previous experience in being persuaded to believe things which have then been proved to be untrue means that there is an increasing unwillingness to be convinced into changing their opinion. It is also held that as a person ages they become more fixed in their surroundings and social groups, leading to a stability of ideas. Over time, it is therefore experience and increased stability which leads to decreased susceptibility to attitude change. Albarracin et al.’s alternative argument is that ‘this effect is the result of an abrupt change in resistance to persuasion after young adulthood’. (p.601) Rather than a gradual change, this argument maintains that there is a sudden and rapid change when passing out of young adulthood, resulting in a distinct move from high to low susceptibility to change. The third argument is that there is a ‘curvilinear relationship with younger and older individuals being more susceptible to change’. (Albarracin et al., 2005: p.601) This argument would actually refute the stereotype of stubborn old grandparents, and indicates a trend reversal in susceptibility to attitude change moving from middle age into old age. It is this argument which Albarracin et al. are most in favour of, however they warn that age may be one of many variables which can affect susceptibility to attitude change, such as attitude strength and the probability that a person will challenge their own ideas. Indeed, this is an important fact to bear in mind, since age does not act as an independent variable. It is therefore essential to recognise that any conclusions drawn about the relationship between age and susceptibility to attitude change must be treated as provisory and not full conclusive without reference to other variables. A study which has investigated the relationship between age and susceptibility to attitude change is that conducted by Krosnick and Alwin (1989). In this study, data was collected over a long period of time and focused on the political attitudes of a representative sample of American adults between 1956 and 1976. The data was taken from interviews in the National Election Study series. One set of interviews focused on 1132 people interviewed in 1956, 1958 and 1960. The second looked at 1130 people interviewed at the 1970, 1972 and 1974 elections. The aim of the study was to investigate to what extent attitude towards different political parties had changed among different age groups over these four year periods. This study returned results which would support the argument in Albarracin et al. (2005) that there is a period of time up to young adulthood when a person is particularly likely to change their attitude, after which there is a trend towards limited tendency to attitude change. This is referred to by Kronsnick and Alwin (1989: p.421) as the ‘impressionable years hypothesis’. In this hypothesis, susceptibility to attitude change is high, and then suddenly drops and remains consistent at a lower level thereafter. In both study groups, Kronswick and Alwin found this trend. Research which, however, demonstrates the curvilinear relationship between age and susceptibility to attitude change has been carried out by Visser and Krosnick (1998). In their study they indicate five different hypotheses which have been put forward to describe the relationship between age and susceptibility to attitude change. As well as the three arguments mentioned above, there is what Visser and Kronsnick refer to as the ‘perpetual susceptibility’ (p. 1390) hypothesis, which argues that there is no relationship between aging and attitude change susceptibility In addition, they cite the ‘lifelong openness’ (p.1390) hypothesis which suggests that there is a relatively stable relationship between age and attitude change throughout life. Visser and Kronsnick (1998) conducted a series of studies via mass telephone interviewing to a representative cross section of ages. In the telephone interview, the people were asked about their attitudes to relevant social and political issues. Visser and Kronsnick then subjected the interviewees to what they describe as ‘potentially change inducing experiences’, (p.1392) after which their attitudes were reassessed. These studies were conducted to investigate the differences between ages groups with regards to the rate of attitude change and the possible causes of these differences. The findings of these studies demonstrated that, across all studies, susceptibility to attitude change followed a curvilinear relationship. However, they also found that at all ages there is some susceptibility to change, demonstrating that susceptibility to attitude change follows a pattern more akin to the lifelong openness hypothesis, rather than the hypothesis which posits that susceptibility reduces rapidly after the young adult stage and remains inflexible. Even more significantly, their findings indicate that a person’s certainty in their own knowledge and their willingness to challenge their own perceptions rise and fall roughly in parallel with their susceptibility to attitude change. This reinforces the need to consider age in relations to other factors. That this is a more recent study than that carried out by Kronsnick and Alwin (1989) shows a shift away from an impressionable years hypothesis and towards a curvilinear hypothesis in social psychology research into the relationship between age and susceptibility to attitude change. However, it is important to note that Visser and Kronsnick (1998) studied change in attitude over a relatively short time, and so more research needs to be carried out to confirm their findings. From these research findings it is clear that to understand the relationship between age and attitude change it is necessary to consider different life stages individually. There seems to be a consensus amongst researchers that susceptibility to attitude change is very high amongst children, teenagers and young adults. Young people are more likely to change attitude and are more easily persuaded to do so. Theories on this matter suggest that the reason for this tendency towards attitude change is the fact that children and young people are in a formative stage of their lives. They may come into contact with lots of ideas and opinions and tend to have dynamic and changing social groups which expose them to a wide range of opinions. Having moved through the childhood stage where attitudes are often formed by family members, young people are open and receptive to attitude change. Hogg and Vaughan (2008: p. 203) refer to this stage as the ‘impressionable years’ and state that ‘respected adults...are enormously influential on the development of young children’s attitudes.’ They also refer to ‘greater plasticity’ in young people’s lives. Children and young people therefore have their opinions formed by those around them These impressionable years mean that susceptibility to attitude change is high, as every study which has been discussed has confirmed. Children and young people are susceptible to attitude change both because they are still forming their own set of social norms, but also because the process of teaching (both formal and informal) to which they are subjected means that they are in constant contact with new ideas and the people they come into contact with regard it as their job to impart their own opinions. Children and young people are therefore bombarded with different opinions as at not other life stage, because adults freely impart advice and ideas, indeed it is regard as a necessary social role that this take place. The research also seems to confirm a much reduced susceptibility to attitude change amongst the middle aged. A person in this life stage is much less likely to be persuaded to change their opinions than a person in the stage of life up to young adulthood. The research varies as to how this takes place, whether as a sudden drop off in susceptibility after young adulthood or as a slow decline through middle age. However there is consensus on the fact that susceptibility to change is low. The suggested reasons for this in social psychological theory are many. Some theorists hold that during middle age, social groups tend to become more fixed. This would mean that people at this life stage come into contact with fewer new opinions and tend to settle in groups where their own already formed opinions are accepted and supported. In this case, not only is there a much more limited opportunity to form new opinions, but those outside the largely stable group which do put forward alternative ideas are regarded as invasive and threatening. There is therefore a much reduced tendency towards attitude change. An alternative theory to explain this phenomenon holds that opinions are naturally formed in the pre-adult stage of socialising. This argument suggests that opinions and ideas become somewhat hardwired by the time a person reaches early adulthood, which would explain why some research shows a sudden drop in susceptibility to attitude change. Rather than a lack of opportunity to change attitude or a stable social circle which regards alternative attitudes as hostile, this explanation suggests that it is rather a deep-rooted psychology block, with attitude change being a near impossibility after early adulthood. However, the recent discovery in some research of an upturn in attitude change susceptibility in old age challenges this theory. It is therefore only in the older age group category that debate remains as to the relationship between age and susceptibility to attitude change. Some research suggests that there is a continued decline into old age, or at the very least a maintaining of an already low tendency towards attitude change. This would be explained by the above suggestions which explain the low susceptibility in middle age, since in old age social groups tend to become even more stable and if there does exist a psychology hard wiring which see attitudes formed in the period up to young adulthood, old age would therefore perform like middle age in this respect. However, research which has emerged in the last ten years has challenged this position. Rather, it argues for a return to a level of susceptibility to attitude change similar to that in young adulthood. This has been explained in social psychology theory by the major changes in social group stability and lifestyle more generally which take during this period. Although much more research is needed in this area in order to confirm these results, and the complex relation between age and other factors which impact on attitude change must be better understood, it marks a significant move forward in social psychology theory and understanding of the relationship between age and susceptibility to attitude change. Word Count: 2015 References Aiken, Lewis R., (2002) Attitudes and Related Psychosocial Constructs. London: SAGE Albarracín, Dolores, Johnson, Blair T. and Zanna, Mark P., (2005) The Handbook of Attitudes. Oxford: Routledge Bordens, Kenneth and Horowitz, Irwin (2001) Social Psychology. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Crano, William D. and Prislin Radmila (2008) Attitudes and Attitude Change. London: GCR press Eiser, J. Richard Social Psychology: Attitudes, Cognition, and Social Behaviour. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Hogg, Michael A. and Vaughan, Graham M. (2008) Social Psychology. 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Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Zanna, Mark (2006) Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press Zimbardo, Philip G. The Psychology of Attitude Change and Social Influence. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991. Read More