Psy-1005 Attitude

1.       What is an attitude? An attitude is a positive, negative, or mixed feeling or opinion about a person, object, or idea.

2.       The Three Components of Attitude:

  1. Cognitive Component: This involves your thoughts and beliefs about the attitude object. For example, you might believe that smoking is harmful to your health.

  2. Affective Component: This involves your feelings or emotions towards the attitude object. For example, you might feel disgusted by the smell of cigarette smoke.

  3. Behavioral Component: This involves your actions or behaviors towards the attitude object. For example, you might avoid smoking or advocate for smoke-free environments.

3.       Mere Exposure Effect: The mere exposure effect is the tendency to develop positive attitudes toward things simply because we are exposed to them repeatedly. For example, you might initially dislike a song, but after hearing it many times, you might start to like it.

4.       Evaluative Conditioning: Evaluative conditioning is a type of classical conditioning in which we develop positive or negative attitudes towards a neutral stimulus because it is paired with a positive or negative stimulus. For example, if you see a product advertised with attractive people or beautiful scenery, you may develop a positive attitude towards the product.

5.       Attitudes and Theories:

  • Balance Theory (Heider): This theory suggests that people strive for consistency in their attitudes and beliefs. If there is inconsistency, we may change our attitude to restore balance. For example, if you like a person who dislikes a certain type of music, you may start to dislike that type of music as well.

  • Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger): This theory suggests that people experience discomfort when their attitudes and behaviors are inconsistent. To reduce this discomfort, we may change our attitude to match our behavior or vice versa. For example, if you smoke but believe smoking is harmful, you may either quit smoking or change your attitude towards smoking.

6.       Functions of Attitudes: Attitudes serve several functions, including:

  • Knowledge: Attitudes help us organize and understand the world around us.

  • Instrumental: Attitudes help us obtain rewards and avoid punishment.

  • Ego-defensive: Attitudes help us protect our self-esteem.

  • Value-expressive: Attitudes help us express our values and beliefs.

7.       Measuring Attitudes: Direct measures of attitudes, such as self-report questionnaires, can be influenced by social desirability bias, where people may not be honest about their true attitudes.

8.       Factors Increasing Attitude-Behavior Consistency: Several factors can increase the likelihood that attitudes will predict behavior:

  • Attitude strength: Stronger attitudes are more likely to influence behavior.

  • Accessibility: Attitudes that are easily accessible in memory are more likely to influence behavior.

  • Specificity: Attitudes that are specific to the behavior in question are more likely to predict that behavior.

  • Personal experience: Attitudes based on personal experience are more likely to influence behavior.