Son House Blues performer What were the names of some of the songs he sang? My Black Mama" and "Preachin' the Blues". Were they his original songs or covers? Two songs he learned from McCoy would later be among his best known: " How did he become a blues singer? He immediately changed his attitude about the blues,
How did his attitude change?
How did Son House change attitude about the blues?
In 1927, at the age of 25, House underwent a change of musical perspective as rapid and dramatic as a religious conversion. In a hamlet south of Clarksdale, he heard one of his drinking companions, either James McCoy or Willie Wilson (his recollections differed), playing bottleneck guitar, a style he had never heard before. He immediately changed his attitude about the blues, bought a guitar from a musician called Frank Hoskins, and within weeks was playing with Hoskins, McCoy and Wilson. Two songs he learned from McCoy would later be among his best known: "My Black Mama" and "Preachin' the Blues". Another source of inspiration was Rube Lacey, a much better known performer who had recorded for Columbia Records in 1927 (no titles were released) and for Paramount Records in 1928 (two titles were released). In an astonishingly short time, with only these four musicians as models, House developed to a professional standard a blues style based on his religious singing and simple bottleneck guitar style.  Around 1927 or 1928, he had been playing in a juke joint when a man went on a shooting spree, wounding House in the leg, and he allegedly shot the man dead. House received a 15-year sentence at the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm), of which he served two years between 1928 and 1929. He credited his re-examination and release to an appeal by his family, but also spoke of the intervention by the influential white planter for whom they worked. The date of the killing and the duration of his sentence are unclear; House gave different accounts to different interviewers, and searches by his biographer Daniel Beaumont found no details in the court records of Coahoma County or in the archive of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.  Upon his release in 1929 or early 1930, House was strongly advised to leave Clarksdale and stay away. He walked to Jonestown and caught a train to the small town of Lula, Mississippi, sixteen miles north of Clarksdale and eight miles from the blues hub of Helena, Arkansas. Coincidentally, the great star of Delta blues, Charley Patton, was also in virtual exile in Lula, having been expelled from his base on the Dockery Plantation. With his partner Willie Brown, Patton dominated the local market for professional blues performance. Patton watched House busking when he arrived penniless at Lula station, but did not approach him. He observed House's showmanship attracting a crowd to the cafe and bootleg whiskey business of a woman called Sara Knight. Patton invited House to be a regular musical partner with him and Brown. House formed a liaison with Knight, and both musicians profited from association with her bootlegging activities. The musical partnership is disputed by Patton's biographers Stephen Calt and Gayle Dean Wardlow. They consider that House's musicianship was too limited to play with Patton and Brown, who were also rumoured to be estranged at the time. They also cite one statement by House that he did not play for dances in Lula. Beaumont concluded that House became a friend of Patton's, traveling with him to gigs but playing separately. CANNOTANSWER
Another source of inspiration was Rube Lacey,
Edward James "Son" House Jr. (March 21, 1902 – October 19, 1988) was an American delta blues singer and guitarist, noted for his highly emotional style of singing and slide guitar playing.

After years of hostility to secular music, as a preacher and for a few years also working as a church pastor, he turned to blues performance at the age of 25. He quickly developed a unique style by applying the rhythmic drive, vocal power and emotional intensity of his preaching to the newly learned idiom. In a short career interrupted by a spell in Parchman Farm penitentiary, he developed his musicianship to the point that Charley Patton, the foremost blues artist of the Mississippi Delta region, invited him to share engagements and to accompany him to a 1930 recording session for Paramount Records.

Issued at the start of the Great Depression, the records did not sell and did not lead to national recognition. Locally, House remained popular, and in the 1930s, together with Patton's associate Willie Brown, he was the leading musician of Coahoma County. There he was a formative influence on Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. In 1941 and 1942, House and the members of his band were recorded by Alan Lomax and John W. Work for the Library of Congress and Fisk University. The following year, he left the Delta for Rochester, New York, and gave up music.

In 1964, a group of young record collectors discovered House, whom they knew of from his records issued by Paramount and by the Library of Congress. With their encouragement, he relearned his repertoire and established a career as an entertainer, performing for young, mostly white audiences in coffeehouses, at folk festivals and on concert tours during the American folk music revival, billed as a "folk blues" singer. He recorded several albums, and some informally taped concerts have also been issued as albums. House died in 1988.  In 2017, his single "Preachin' the Blues" was inducted in to the Blues Hall of Fame.

Biography

Early life 

House was born in the hamlet of Lyon, north of Clarksdale, Mississippi, the second of three brothers, and lived in the rural Mississippi Delta until his parents separated, when he was about seven or eight years old. His father, Eddie House, Sr., was a musician, playing the tuba in a band with his brothers and sometimes playing the guitar. He was a church member but also a drinker; he left the church for a time, on account of his drinking, but then gave up alcohol and became a Baptist deacon. Young Eddie House adopted the family commitment to religion and churchgoing. He also absorbed the family love of music but confined himself to singing, showing no interest in the family instrumental band, and hostile to the blues on religious grounds.

When House's parents separated, his mother took him to Tallulah, Louisiana, across the Mississippi River from Vicksburg, Mississippi. When he was in his early teens, they moved to Algiers, New Orleans. Recalling these years, he would later speak of his hatred of blues and his passion for churchgoing (he described himself as "churchy" and  "churchified"). At fifteen, probably while living in Algiers, he began preaching sermons.

At the age of nineteen, while living in the Delta, he married Carrie Martin, an older woman from New Orleans. This was a significant step for House; he married in church and against family opposition. The couple moved to her hometown of Centerville, Louisiana, to help run her father's farm. After a couple of years, feeling used and disillusioned, House recalled, "I left her hanging on the gatepost, with her father tellin' me to come back so we could plow some more." Around the same time, probably 1922, House's mother died. In later years, he was still angry about his marriage and said of Carrie, "She wasn't nothin' but one of them New Orleans whores".

House's resentment of farming extended to the many menial jobs he took as a young adult. He moved frequently, on one occasion taking off to East Saint Louis to work in a steel plant. The one job he enjoyed was on a Louisiana horse ranch, which later he celebrated by wearing a cowboy hat in his performances. He found an escape from manual labor when, following a conversion experience ("getting religion") in his early twenties, he was accepted as a paid pastor, first in the Baptist Church and then in the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church. However, he fell into habits which conflicted with his calling—drinking like his father and probably also womanizing. This led him after several years of conflict to leave the church, ceasing his full-time commitment, although he continued to preach sermons from time to time.

Blues performer

In 1927, at the age of 25, House underwent a change of musical perspective as rapid and dramatic as a religious conversion. In a hamlet south of Clarksdale, he heard one of his drinking companions, either James McCoy or Willie Wilson (his recollections differed), playing bottleneck guitar, a style he had never heard before. He immediately changed his attitude about the blues, bought a guitar from a musician called Frank Hoskins, and within weeks was playing with Hoskins, McCoy and Wilson. Two songs he learned from McCoy would later be among his best known: "My Black Mama" and "Preachin' the Blues". Another source of inspiration was Rube Lacey, a much better known performer who had recorded for Columbia Records in 1927 (no titles were released) and for Paramount Records in 1928 (two titles were released). In an astonishingly short time, with only these four musicians as models, House developed to a professional standard a blues style based on his religious singing and simple bottleneck guitar style.

Around 1927 or 1928, he had been playing in a juke joint when a man went on a shooting spree, wounding House in the leg, and he allegedly shot the man dead. House received a 15-year sentence at the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman Farm), of which he served two years between 1928 and 1929. He credited his re-examination and release to an appeal by his family, but also spoke of the intervention by the influential white planter for whom they worked. The date of the killing and the duration of his sentence are unclear; House gave different accounts to different interviewers, and searches by his biographer Daniel Beaumont found no details in the court records of Coahoma County or in the archive of the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Upon his release in 1929 or early 1930, House was strongly advised to leave Clarksdale and stay away. He walked to Jonestown and caught a train to the small town of Lula, Mississippi, sixteen miles north of Clarksdale and eight miles from the blues hub of Helena, Arkansas. Coincidentally, the great star of Delta blues, Charley Patton, was also in virtual exile in Lula, having been expelled from his base on the Dockery Plantation. With his partner Willie Brown, Patton dominated the local market for professional blues performance. Patton watched House busking when he arrived penniless at Lula station, but did not approach him. He observed House's showmanship attracting a crowd to the café and bootleg whiskey business of a woman called Sara Knight. Patton invited House to be a regular musical partner with him and Brown. House formed a liaison with Knight, and both musicians profited from association with her bootlegging activities. The musical partnership is disputed by Patton's biographers Stephen Calt and Gayle Dean Wardlow. They consider that House's musicianship was too limited to play with Patton and Brown, who were also rumoured to be estranged at the time. They also cite one statement by House that he did not play for dances in Lula. Beaumont concluded that House became a friend of Patton's, traveling with him to gigs but playing separately.

Recording 
In 1930, Art Laibly of Paramount Records traveled to Lula to persuade Patton to record several more sides in Grafton, Wisconsin. Along with Patton came House, Brown, and the pianist Louise Johnson, all of whom recorded sides for the label. House recorded nine songs during that session, eight of which were released, but they were commercial failures. He did not record again commercially for 35 years, but he continued to play with Patton and Brown, and with Brown after Patton's death in 1934. During this time, House worked as a tractor driver for various plantations in the Lake Cormorant area.

Alan Lomax recorded House for the Library of Congress in 1941. Willie Brown, the mandolin player Fiddlin' Joe Martin, and the harmonica player Leroy Williams played with House on these recordings. Lomax returned to the area in 1942, where he recorded House once more.

House then faded from the public view, moving to Rochester, New York, in 1943, and working as a railroad porter for the New York Central Railroad and as a chef.

Rediscovery 

In 1964, after a long search of the Mississippi Delta region by Nick Perls, Dick Waterman and Phil Spiro, House was "rediscovered" in Rochester, New York working at a train station. He had been retired from the music business for many years and was unaware of the 1960s folk blues revival and international enthusiasm for his early recordings.

He subsequently toured extensively in the United States and Europe and recorded for CBS Records. Like Mississippi John Hurt, he was welcomed into the music scene of the 1960s and played at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, the New York Folk Festival in July 1965, and the October 1967 European tour of the American Folk Festival, along with Skip James and Bukka White.

The young guitarist Alan Wilson (later of Canned Heat) was a fan of House's. The producer John Hammond asked Wilson, who was just 22 years old, to teach "Son House how to play like Son House," because Wilson had such a good knowledge of blues styles. House subsequently recorded the album Father of Folk Blues, later reissued as a 2-CD set Father of Delta Blues: The Complete 1965 Sessions. House performed with Wilson live, as can be heard on "Levee Camp Moan" on the album John the Revelator: The 1970 London Sessions.

House appeared in Seattle on March 19, 1968, arranged by the Seattle Folklore Society. The concert was recorded by Bob West and issued on Acola Records as a CD in 2006. The Arcola CD also included an interview of House recorded on November 15, 1969 in Seattle.

In the summer of 1970, House toured Europe once again, including an appearance at the Montreux Jazz Festival; a recording of his London concerts was released by Liberty Records. He also played at the two Days of Blues Festival in Toronto in 1974. On an appearance on the TV arts show Camera Three, he was accompanied by the blues guitarist Buddy Guy.

Ill health plagued House in his later years, and in 1974 he retired once again. He later moved to Detroit, Michigan, where he remained until his death from cancer of the larynx. He had been married five times. He was buried at the Mt. Hazel Cemetery. Members of the Detroit Blues Society raised money through benefit concerts to put a monument on his grave.

Honors
In 2007, House was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in Tunica, Mississippi.

In 2017, his single "Preachin' the Blues" was inducted in to the Blues Hall of Fame.

Discography

78-RPM recordings

Recorded May 28, 1930, in Grafton, Wisconsin, for Paramount Records

 "Walking Blues" (unissued and lost until 1985)
 "My Black Mama – Part I" 
 "My Black Mama – Part II"
 "Preachin' the Blues – Part I"
 "Preachin' the Blues – Part II"
 "Dry Spell Blues – Part I" 
 "Dry Spell Blues – Part II" 
 "Clarksdale Moan" (unissued and lost until 2006)
 "Mississippi County Farm Blues" (unissued and lost until 2006)

Recordings for Library of Congress and Fisk University

Recorded August 1941, at Klack's Store, Lake Cormorant, Mississippi.
There are some railway noises in the background on some titles, as the store (which had electricity necessary for the recording) was close to a branch line between Lake Cormorant and Robinsonville.
 "Levee Camp Blues", with Willie Brown, Fiddlin' Joe Martin, Leroy Williams
 "Government Fleet Blues", with Brown, Martin, Williams
 "Walking Blues", with Brown, Martin, Williams
 "Shetland Pony Blues", with Brown
 "Fo' Clock Blues", with Brown, Martin
 "Camp Hollers", with Brown, Martin, Williams
 "Delta Blues", with Williams

Recorded July 17, 1942, Robinsonville, Mississippi
 "Special Rider Blues" [test]
 "Special Rider Blues"
 "Low Down Dirty Dog Blues"
 "Depot Blues"
 "Key of Minor" (Interviews: Demonstration of concert guitar tuning)
 "American Defense"
 "Am I Right or Wrong"
 "Walking Blues" 
 "County Farm Blues"
 "The Pony Blues"
 "The Jinx Blues (No. 1)"
 "The Jinx Blues (No. 2)"

The music from both sessions and most of the recorded interviews have been reissued on LP and CD.

Singles
 "The Pony Blues" / "The Jinx Blues", Part 1 (1967)
 "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" (Willie Brown) / "Shetland Pony Blues" (1967)
 "Death Letter" (1985)

Other albums

This list is incomplete. For a complete list, see external links.
The Complete Library of Congress Sessions (1964), Travelin' Man CD 02
Blues from the Mississippi Delta, with J. D. Short (1964), Folkways Records
The Legendary Son House: Father of Folk Blues (1965), Columbia 2417
In Concert (Oberlin College, 1965), Stack-O-Hits 9004
Delta Blues (1941–1942), Smithsonian 31028
Son House & Blind Lemon Jefferson (1926–1941), Biograph 12040
The Real Delta Blues (1964–1965 recordings), Blue Goose Records 2016
Son House & the Great Delta Blues Singers, with Willie Brown and others, Document CD 5002
Son House at Home: Complete 1969, Document 5148
Son House (Library of Congress), Folk Lyric 9002
John the Revelator, Liberty 83391
American Folk Blues Festival '67 (1 cut), Optimism CD 2070
Son House (1965-1969), Private Record PR 1
Son House – Vol. 2 (1964–1974), Private Record PR 2 (1987)
Father of the Delta Blues: The Complete 1965 Sessions, Sony/Legacy CD 48867
Living Legends (1 cut, 1966), Verve/Folkways 3010
Real Blues (1 cut, University of Chicago, 1964), Takoma 7081
John the Revelator: The 1970 London Sessions, Sequel CD 207
Son House (1964–1970), Document (limited edition of 20 copies)
Great Bluesmen/Newport, (2 cuts, 1965), Vanguard CD 77/78
Blues with a Feeling (3 cuts, 1965), Vanguard CD 77005
Masters of the Country Blues, House and Bukka White, Yazoo Video 500
Delta Blues and Spirituals (1995)
In Concert (Live) (1996)
"Live" at Gaslight Cafe, N.Y.C., January 3, 1965 (2000)
New York Central Live (2003)
Delta Blues (1941–1942) (2003), Biograph CD 118
Classic Blues from Smithsonian Folkways (2003), Smithsonian Folkways 40134
Classic Blues from Smithsonian Folkways, vol. 2 (2003), Smithsonian Folkways 40148
The Very Best of Son House: Heroes of the Blues (2003), Shout! Factory 30251
Proper Introduction to Son House (2004), Proper

References

External links
Memphis Beale Street Brass Note Submission Biography 
Illustrated Son House discography

Inaugural (1980) inductee to Blues Hall of Fame (bio by Jim O'Neal)
, History of National Reso-Phonic Guitars, Part 3
House Discography at Smithsonian Folkways
 (biography by Cub Koda)
Bob West interview of Son House March 16, 1968

Delta blues musicians
Country blues musicians
Blues revival musicians
Gospel blues musicians
Country blues singers
American blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Blues musicians from Mississippi
Resonator guitarists
Juke Joint blues musicians
Slide guitarists
Columbia Records artists
1902 births
1988 deaths
20th-century American criminals
People from Coahoma County, Mississippi
Deaths from cancer in Michigan
Paramount Records artists
20th-century American guitarists
Guitarists from Mississippi
People from Lula, Mississippi
American male criminals
Mississippi Blues Trail
African-American guitarists
20th-century African-American male singers
Attitudes are 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 by the individual's motivation to maintain cognitive consistency when cognitive dissonance occurs—when two attitudes or 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 emotional node, attitude change may be possible, though affective and cognitive components tend to be intertwined.

Bases
There are three bases for attitude change: 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 evaluations of 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 responses were in line with majority influence and were the same answers the confederates picked. Variations in the experiments showed that compliance rates increased as the number of confederates increased, and the plateau was reached with around 15 confederates. The likelihood of compliance dropped with minority opposition, even if only one confederate gave the correct answer. 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 one admires or likes. In this case, the individual adopts the new attitude, not due to the specific content of the attitude object, but 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 leads to actual change in beliefs or evaluations of 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, behaviors adopted through internalization are due to the content of the attitude object.

The expectancy-value theory is based on internalization of attitude change. This model 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.

Emotion-based
Emotion plays a major role in persuasion, social influence, and attitude change. Much of attitude research has emphasised the importance of affective or emotion components. Emotion works hand-in-hand with the cognitive process, or the way we think, about an issue or situation. Emotional appeals are commonly found in advertising, health campaigns and political messages. Recent examples include no-smoking health campaigns (see tobacco advertising) and political campaigns emphasizing the fear of terrorism. Attitude change based on emotions can be seen vividly in serial killers who are faced with major stress. There is considerable empirical support for the idea that emotions in the form of fear arousal, empathy, or a positive mood can enhance attitude change under certain conditions.

Important factors that influence the impact of emotional appeals include self-efficacy, attitude accessibility, issue involvement, and message/source features. Attitudes that are central to one's being are highly resistant to change while others that are less fixed may change with new experiences or information. A new attitude (e.g. to time-keeping or absenteeism or quality) may challenge existing beliefs or norms so creating a feeling of psychological discomfort known as cognitive dissonance. It is difficult to measure attitude change since attitudes may only be inferred and there might be significant divergence between those publicly declared and privately held.  Self-efficacy is a perception of one's own human agency; in other words, it is the perception of our own ability to deal with a situation. It is an important variable in emotional appeal messages because it dictates a person's ability to deal with both the emotion and the situation. For example, if a person is not self-efficacious about their ability to impact the global environment, they are not likely to change their attitude or behaviour about global warming.

Affective forecasting, otherwise known as intuition or the prediction of emotion, also impacts attitude change. Research suggests that predicting emotions is an important component of decision making, in addition to the cognitive processes. How we feel about an outcome may override purely cognitive rationales.
In terms of research methodology, the challenge for researchers is measuring emotion and subsequent impacts on attitude. Since we cannot see into the brain, various models and measurement tools have been constructed to obtain emotion and attitude information. Measures may include the use of physiological cues like facial expressions, vocal changes, and other body rate measures. For instance, fear is associated with raised eyebrows, increased heart rate and increased body tension. Other methods include concept or network mapping, and using primes or word cues.

Dual models: depth of processing
Many dual process models are used to explain the affective (emotional) and cognitive processing and interpretations of messages, as well as the different depths of attitude change. These include the heuristic-systematic model of information processing and the elaboration likelihood model.

Heuristic-systematic model of information processing

The heuristic-systematic model of information processing describes two depths in the processing of attitude change, systematic processing and heuristic processing. In this model information is either processed in a high-involvement and high-effort systematic way, or information is processed through shortcuts known as heuristics. For example, emotions are affect-based heuristics, in which feelings and gut-feeling reactions are often used as shortcuts.

Systematic processing
Systematic processing occurs when individuals are motivated and have high cognition to process a message. Individuals using systematic processing are motivated to pay attention and have the cognitive ability to think deeply about a message; they are persuaded by the content of the message, such as the strength or logic of the argument. Motivation can be determined by many factors, such as how personally relevant the topic is, and cognitive ability can be determined by how knowledgeable an individual is on the message topic, or whether or not there is a distraction in the room. Individuals who receive a message through systematic processing usually internalize the message, resulting in a longer and more stable attitude change.

According to the heuristic-systematic model of information processing, people are motivated to use systematic processing when they want to achieve a "desired level of confidence" in their judgments. There are factors that have been found to increase the use of systematic processing; these factors are associated with either decreasing an individual's actual confidence or increasing an individual's perceived confidence. These factors may include framing persuasive messages in an unexpected manner; self-relevancy of the message.

Systematic processing has been shown to be beneficial in social influence settings. Systematic reasoning has been shown to be successful in producing more valid solutions during group discussions and greater solution accuracy. Shestowsky's (1998) research in dyad discussions revealed that the individual in the dyad who had high motivation and high need in cognition had the greater impact on group decisions.

Heuristic processing
Heuristic processing occurs when individuals have low motivation and/or low cognitive ability to process a message. Instead of focusing on the argument of the message, recipients using heuristic processing focus on more readily accessible information and other unrelated cues, such as the authority or attractiveness of the speaker. Individuals who process a message through heuristic processing do not internalize the message, and thus any attitude change resulting from the persuasive message is temporary and unstable.

For example, people are more likely to grant favors if reasons are provided. A study shows that when people said, "Excuse me, I have five pages to xerox. May I use the copier?" they received a positive response of 60%.  The statement, "Excuse me, I have five pages to xerox. I am in a rush. May I use the copier?" produced a 95% success rate.

Heuristic processing examples include social proof, reciprocity, authority, and liking.

Social proof is the means by which we utilize other people's behaviors in order to form our own beliefs. Our attitudes toward following the majority change when a situation appears uncertain or ambiguous to us, when the source is an expert, or when the source is similar to us. In a study conducted by Sherif, he discovered the power of crowds when he worked with experimenters who looked up in the middle of New York City. As the number of the precipitating group increased, the percentage of passers-by who looked up increased as well.
Reciprocity is returning a favor. People are more likely to return a favor if they have a positive attitude towards the other party. Reciprocities also develop interdependence and societal bonds. 
Authority  plays a role in attitude change in situations where there are superior-inferior relationships. We are more likely to become obedient to authorities when the authority's expertise is perceived as high and when we anticipate receiving rewards. A famous study that constitutes the difference in attitude change is the Milgram experiment,  where people changed their attitude to "shocking their partner" more when they followed authorities whereas the subjects themselves would have not done so otherwise.
Liking has shown that if one likes another party, one is more inclined to carry out a favor. The attitude changes are based on whether an individual likes an idea or person, and if he or she does not like the other party, he/she may not carry out the favor or do so out of obligation. Liking can influence one's opinions through factors such as physical attractiveness, similarities, compliments, contact and cooperation.

Elaboration likelihood model

The elaboration likelihood model is similar in concept to and shares many ideas with other dual processing models, such as the heuristic-systematic model of information processing.  In the elaboration likelihood model, cognitive processing is the central route and affective/emotion processing is often associated with the peripheral route. The central route pertains to an elaborate cognitive processing of information while the peripheral route relies on cues or feelings. The ELM suggests that true attitude change only happens through the central processing route that incorporates both cognitive and affective components as opposed to the more heuristics-based peripheral route. This suggests that motivation through emotion alone will not result in an attitude change.

Cognitive dissonance theory

Cognitive dissonance, a theory originally developed by Festinger (1957), is the idea that people experience a sense of guilt or uneasiness when two linked cognitions are inconsistent, such as when there are two conflicting attitudes about a topic, or inconsistencies between one's attitude and behavior on a certain topic. The basic idea of the Cognitive Dissonance Theory relating to attitude change, is that people are motivated to reduce dissonance which can be achieved through changing their attitudes and beliefs. Cooper & Fazio's (1984) have also added that cognitive dissonance does not arise from any simple cognitive inconsistency, but rather results from freely chosen behavior that may bring about negative consequences. These negative consequences may be threats to the consistency, stability, predictability, competence, moral goodness of the self-concept, or violation of general self-integrity.

Research has suggested multiple routes that cognitive dissonance can be reduced. Self-affirmation has been shown to reduce dissonance, however it is not always the mode of choice when trying to reduce dissonance. When multiple routes are available, it has been found that people prefer to reduce dissonance by directly altering their attitudes and behaviors rather than through self-affirmation. People who have high levels of self-esteem, who are postulated to possess abilities to reduce dissonance by focusing on positive aspects of the self, have also been found to prefer modifying cognitions, such as attitudes and beliefs, over self-affirmation. A simple example of cognitive dissonance resulting in attitude change would be when a heavy smoker learns that his sister died young from lung cancer due to heavy smoking as well, this individual experiences conflicting cognitions: the desire to smoke, and the knowledge that smoking could lead to death and a desire not to die. In order to reduce dissonance, this smoker could change his behavior (i.e. stop smoking), change his attitude about smoking (i.e. smoking is harmful), or retain his original attitude about smoking and modify his new cognition to be consistent with the first one--"I also work out so smoking won't be harmful to me". Thus, attitude change is achieved when individuals experience feelings of uneasiness or guilt due to cognitive dissonance, and actively reduce the dissonance through changing their attitude, beliefs, or behavior relating in order to achieve consistency with the inconsistent cognitions.

Sorts of studies
Carl Hovland and his band of persuasion researchers learned a great deal during World War 2 and later at Yale about the process of attitude change.
High-credibility sources lead to more attitude change immediately following the communication act, but a sleeper effect occurs in which the source is forgotten after a period of time.
Mild fear appeals lead to more attitude change than strong fear appeals. Propagandists had often used fear appeals. Hoveland's evidence about the effect of such appeals suggested that a source should be cautious in using fear appeals, because strong fear messages may interfere with the intended persuasion attempt.

Belief rationalization
The process of how people change their own attitudes has been studied for years. Belief rationalization has been recognized as an important aspect to understand this process. The stability of people's past attitudes can be influenced if they hold beliefs that are inconsistent with their own behaviors. The influence of past behavior on current attitudes is stable when little information conflicts with the behavior. Alternatively, people's attitudes may lean more radically toward the prior behavior if the conflict makes it difficult to ignore, and forces them to rationalize their past behavior. 

Attitudes are often restructured at the time people are asked to report them. As a result, inconsistencies between the information that enters into the reconstruction and the original attitudes can produce changes in prior attitudes, whereas consistency between these elements often elicits stability in prior attitudes. Individuals need to resolve the conflict between their own behaviors and the subsequent beliefs. However, people usually align themselves with their attitudes and beliefs instead of their behaviors. More importantly, this process of resolving people's cognitive conflicts that emerges cuts across both self-perception and dissonance even when the associated effect may only be strong in changing prior attitudes

Comparative processing
Human judgment is comparative in nature. Departing from identifying people's need to justify their own beliefs in the context of their own behaviors, psychologists also believe that people have the need to carefully evaluate new messages on the basis of whether these messages support or contradict with prior messages, regardless of whether they can recall the prior messages after they reach a conclusion. This comparative processing mechanism is built on "information-integration theory" and "social judgement theory". Both of these theories have served to model people's attitude change in judging the new information while they haven't adequately explained the influential factors that motivate people to integrate the information.

More recent work in the area of persuasion has further explored this "comparative processing" from the perspective of focusing on comparing between different sets of information on one single issue or object instead of simply making comparisons among different issues or objects. As previous research demonstrated, analyzing information on one target product may trigger less impact of comparative information than comparing this product with the same product under competing brands.

When people compare different sets of information on one single issue or object, the effect of people's effort to compare new information with prior information seemed to correlate with the perceived strength of the new, strong information when considered jointly with the initial information. Comparison processes can be enhanced when prior evaluations, associated information, or both are accessible. People will simply construct a current judgment based on the new information or adjust the prior judgment when they are not able to retrieve the information from prior messages. The impact this comparative process can have on people's attitude change is mediated by changes in the strength of new information perceived by receivers. The effects of comparison on judgment change were mediated by changes in the perceived strength of the information. These findings above have wide range of applications in social marketing, political communication, and health promotion. For example, designing an advertisement that is counteractive against an existing attitude towards a behavior or policy is perhaps most effective if the advertisement uses the same format, characters, or music of ads associated with the initial attitudes.

See also 

 Attitudinal fix
 Fear appeals
 Reactance (psychology)
 Yale attitude change approach

References

 
Human behavior
Psychological attitude
Children's rights
Parenting An attitude object is the concept around which an attitude is formed and can change over time. This attitude represents an evaluative integration of both cognition and affect in relation to the attitude object.  An example of an attitude object is a product (e.g., a car). People can hold various beliefs about cars (cognitions, e.g., that a car is fast) as well as evaluations of those beliefs (affect, e.g., they might like or enjoy that the car is fast). Together these beliefs and affective evaluations of those beliefs represent an attitude toward the object.

See also  
 Attitude (psychology)

References 

Attitude change