Attitudes

Attitude = A predisposition to act in a particular way towards something or someone in a persons environment

  • positive and negative

  • seen as a part of someone's personality

often directed towards a particular situation, person or object - Attitude Object

Components of Attitude - Triadic Model:

Cognitive

  • knowledge and beliefs

  • formed through significant others and past experiences

 you know running is good for your health 

Affective

  • emotions

  • based on past experiences

you enjoy running, so it is a past experience

Behavioural

  • physical response

  • based on beliefs and emotions

  • you know running is good for you, and you enjoy it, so you keep doing it

Cognitive Consonance

  • all 3 elements of the Triadic Model align, so our behaviour matches our attitude

  • know running is good for you and you enjoy it so you keep doing it

Cognitive Dissonance

  • 2 or more elements conflict, so behaviour does not match attitude - new information must be introduced to change the attitude

know running is good for you but you don't enjoy it, so you stop running

Attitude Formation:

  • Education - told by a significant other that running is good for you, so you believe them 

  • Media - see that 30% of cyclists take PEDs and get away with it, so you form a negative attitude and stop watching cycling

  • Religion - some religions can't expose some body arts, limiting their participation in some sports - form a negative attitude to these sports

  • Past Experiences - play a new sport and enjoy it - form a positive attitude - carry on playing that sport

Social Learning Theory - copy your friends' view on VAR being introduced in football as you want to be like them

Changing Attitudes

  • change attitudes by using persuasive communication

  • explain the benefits or negative side effects of something to convince them to change their attitude

    Only effective if:

  • person doing the persuading is a role model

  • message is clear

  • person being persuaded has a growth mindset

message makes sense and is believable

Stereotype

  • A belief held by a group of people about traits shared by a certain category of person