We need to start with some terminology. (Warning: this is from the late 80s; maybe someone will come along and say that parts of this have changed. If so, fine.) "Emotion" is a hard term to define, but one intrinsic part of it is "affect" (pronounced "AFF-ect"), which is the pure feeling of positivity or negativity, also called a "valence." An attitude is a pairing of a tangible or intangible target with an affective response. ("Pie is good.") It may be contrasted with a belief, which is a pairing of a target with a non-affective proposition about it. ("Pie is fattening." Note that while we may in turn have an attitude towards "fattening" itself, we can hold the same factual belief about "pie" regardless of whether we think that "fattening" is good or bad, generally or in a specific context.) A belief may, to various degrees, be motivated or not; that is, does it serve simply to understand the world or is it adopted in part to make us happy or serve other motivational ends. An opinion can sometimes be honed down to a single attitude, but often will involve more elaborate emotional reactions and combinations of attitudes and beliefs. ("Pie is only appropriate for dessert.")
One of the most critical models that everyone should understand is the functional approach to the study of attitudes. My sense, from when I left social psychology, is that this is much less understood now than when it was first presented by Daniel Katz in 1960. That’s a shame – it sheds a great deal of light on topics we care about – and argue about. I had the great good fortune to consult with Dr. Katz while finishing my dissertation in Social Psychology at the University of Michigan, and he was still sharp as hell in his old age. It’s a pleasure to lay some of his theories of the table for you all.
1. The functional approach to the study of attitudes
Why do we have attitudes towards things? What purpose do they serve?
That may seem like an odd question, but it’s what set Daniel Katz off on an especially fruitful line of inquiry. Our attitudes about things – tangible and intangible – serve different purposes for us. They help us in various ways. They are, in scientific terms, functional. Katz listed four functions that attitudes provide for us.
a. The Knowledge Function
Many attitudes simply exist to help us better understand the world. We know that we like certain sensations – smells, sounds, sights. We elaborate this into larger structures – we know that we like being at the beach, for example. These don’t necessarily serve any sort of psychodynamic purpose. We don’t care about having these attitudes, they simply exist, are part of us and, by our assessment of our own feelings, help us direct ourselves towards things that will make us more happy and less unhappy. The more we know what we like, the happier we can be.
The other three types of attitudes by contrast, are ones that do serve a psychodynamic purpose. Respectively, they help us get rewards from the environment, defend ourselves against attack from others, and establish a sense of self in which we take pride.
b. The Instrumental Function
Some attitudes develop because having them helps us better adapt to, and thrive in, our environment. These serve an instrumental function: they "pay off" for us. If you’re living in Columbus, chances are that you like the Buckeyes. The attitude helps you get ahead. You will be rewarded by the good remarks of like-minded fans. You will have things to talk about with them. People will not yell at you. There is nothing necessarily nefarious, intentional, or fake about this. Part of it is a function of having more information about them (we tend to like things with which we become more familiar), and part of it is that it becomes easier to like one’s home team than to dislike them. Now, when you move to Ann Arbor, you may find yourself getting strong negative feedback for your having this same attitude. And it will tend to change – or, if not, its function will change to fit one of those described below.
Similarly, if you post on Daily Kos, you will probably develop certain attitudes – without even trying to do so, although you can do that too – because they tend to get a better response and make you happier. (In fact, we can even track it here with mojo!) You will probably be a liberal/progressive, or will at least like people on that side of the divide. You will probably not have as warm feelings towards Republicans (on the one hand) or Greens (on the other.) Again, there’s nothing sinister about this; we’re all, to an extent, products of our environment, and our environment rewards and punishes us, embraces and neglects us.
The last two functions deal with our sense of self – the defensive and offensive components, respectively, of building a good sense of self.
c. The ego-protective function
We don’t like feeling bad about ourselves. (Even "wallowing in depression" helps us heal depression by fatiguing our "depression muscle," or making it ridiculous, or standing outside of ourselves to get perspective.) We have a rich set of defense mechanisms – repression, denial, projection, intellectualization and the like – precisely to maintain a positive view of ourselves, that we are good and that we are safe and that we are loved. (Sometimes that positive view can be paradoxical; we may derive some gratification from our validation of our view that we’re a screw-up or that we’re doomed or that we’re alone. Psychology is complicated. But, mostly, the above statement holds true.) And therefore, we develop attitudes (and beliefs) that help foster the overall beliefs that we are good and safe and loved – that protect our ego. "My drinking water is safe," "my boyfriend/girlfriend isn’t cheating on me," "my candidate will win if he takes XYZ position." (Astute readers will note that, based on the definitions up above, properly speaking these are more "beliefs" than attitudes: yes, they’re what we would call "motivated" beliefs. This is Katz’s model, and I think that’s a slight weakness, but it’s not all that consequential.)
You want to get someone to hate you? Start ripping apart the attitudes that serve their ego-protective function. We react to this with panic, anger, depression, irrationality. To successfully undermine an ego-protective belief, you have to do it slowly, gently, calmly. Otherwise, you may just be tuned out. And hated. "Blame the messenger" is a defense mechanism, after all.
d. The value-expressive function
But we’re not just rats milling around in search of food pellets and avoiding pain. Katz’s most original contribution to the earlier work on this subject was to introduce this fourth function of attitudes: the value-expressive function. It’s the one that may strike us as the most distinctively human. The notion is that we define ourselves – for ourselves and for others – in terms of what we like. To favor a position is to invest in it – to own it. And we react to criticism of those attitudes we own like we would to criticism of our pets or our children.
And so, if I define myself as a Michigan fan – or a Democrat – your being an Ohio State fan – or a Republican – is an affront to my very being. Now different people may take different attitudes as more or less firmly tied to the core of their being. (I would be willing to marry an Ohio State fan, for example. Other Democratic Wolverine fans would sooner be willing to have a "mixed marriage" with a Republican.) But to criticize my attitudes (and my motivated beliefs, and even my non-motivated beliefs) is in some way to criticize me, my value as an individual and as an intelligent human being. People may not be defensive about that, but they sure will get angry.
The characteristic that distinguishes value-expressive attitudes from the ones before is that having them feels great! My former professor, Claude Steele of Stanford, has done a lot of experimental work showing that people will go out of their way to express their values, especially when they are under stress or attack. Expressing our attitudes – I like this music and this food and this candidate – makes us feel good, active, alive, intelligent, important, integrated with our fellow believers.
So, with that behind us, let’s talk about impeachment.
2. The function of attitudes towards impeachment
Having written a friendly and useful little diary about what I think (and you had better agree! See point 4 above!) is a useful system for understanding attitudes, I’m a little hesitant to apply it to current controversies in which I and others are embroiled. And yet, I think it’s worthwhile to see what light it sheds on what we say about impeachment and why we say it.
The fear that I have often expressed on impeachment diaries is that the attitude of favoring impeachment regardless of the consequences – which I realize represents some but by no means all advocates of the position – is that the attitude is serving a value-expressive function. It feels good to express the attitude. It’s seductive. It’s all the more seductive to do so in a social group (such as ours) where the influence of others can lead to effects such as group think where people are motivated to support a party line and to suppress dissent. I worry that we become so intoxicated with the sense of ourselves as powerful and right and able to predict the future that we lose the reality-testing function that attitudes are supposed to provide.
Beyond that, I worry that we may conclude that our expressing an attitude is of the utmost importance – more important, in fact, than actually fostering change. We can disagree on whether it is better to have expressed our condemnation or to have a positive effect on the world. And maybe these two goals aren’t in conflict; sometimes God is kind. But if someone argues that these two goals may be in conflict, and people simply deny it – "The public wants us to impeach! There’s no cost in trying! If we try, we’ll succeed! No ill could come of failing! – then a new concern arises for me: that people have become so invested in the self-gratification of being publicly know to be on the right and moral side of history that they are no longer viewing things clearly. And so, as much as I enjoy expressing my values, and as much as I no doubt engage in ego-defense, I will often be arguing in such diaries for green-eyeshaded, cold-blooded realism. Passion will never be lacking here. Realism often may.
I’m sure that this theory is a two-edged sword and that it could be turned against my positions as well. Be my guest. (I’d do it myself, but why take away your fun?) I hope that these concepts, at least, will give us a better framework in which to debate.
