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Attitudes and Attention: How Attitude Accessibility and Certainty Influence Attention and Subjective Choice

Gwinn, Rachael E

Abstract Details

2016, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Psychology.
Many studies have concluded that attention plays a causal role in decision-making. Prior research shows that attention is drawn by physical properties of stimuli, such as brightness. Additionally, the attitudes literature suggests that in decisions, attention is also drawn to items of high attitude accessibility, or ease of recalling an attitude or judgment, and high certainty, or confidence in an attitude. Alternatively, the perceptual decision-making literature posits the opposite, so that we are more certain in our final evaluation. Here, we aim to determine how attitude accessibility and certainty influence attention by using eye-tracking to monitor visual attention during binary decisions between food items, and how this in turn influences decision-making. Our eye tracking results replicate previous studies; participants tend to choose items they look at for longer and items they fixate last. Surprisingly, participants also looked longer at lower accessibility items, yet chose higher accessibility items. Looking time did not vary between items of higher and lower certainty and strength, however. While certainty did not have an effect on choices, participants did seem to choose items with higher overall attitude strength under specific conditions, and attitude strength did encourage people to choose more in line with their preferences. Due to the different effects that attitude accessibility and certainty had on attention and choice, we also determined that these two items are not correlated measures, and are entirely different properties of attitudes, as opposed to two facets of the same underlying concept of attitude strength.
Ian Krajbich, PhD (Advisor)
Andrew Leber, PhD (Committee Member)
Duane Wegener, PhD (Committee Member)
63 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Gwinn, R. E. (2016). Attitudes and Attention: How Attitude Accessibility and Certainty Influence Attention and Subjective Choice [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu14804247828136

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Gwinn, Rachael. Attitudes and Attention: How Attitude Accessibility and Certainty Influence Attention and Subjective Choice. 2016. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu14804247828136.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Gwinn, Rachael. "Attitudes and Attention: How Attitude Accessibility and Certainty Influence Attention and Subjective Choice." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu14804247828136

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)