Definitions of Attitudes
Many definitions exist that attempt to determine what exactly an attitude is, however, a few widely accepted definitions will be used to illustrate.
A widely accepted definition of an attitude is offered by Judd, Ryan and Parke, (1991) which says that attitudes can be viewed as evaluations of various objects that are stored in memory.
Attitudes, according to Baron and Byrne (2000), refer to our evaluations of various aspects of the social world.
Krech, Crutchfield and Ballachey (1962), describes it as an enduring system of positive or negative evaluations, emotional feelings and pro or con action tendencies with respect to a social object.
The objects of attitudes are anything that exits for the individual. As
individuals, we have a vast array of attitudes towards objects in the physical
world.
There are three (3) primary approaches of analyzing attitudes.
They are attitudes as memories, evaluations and dissection into three (3) major components call the ABC Triparte Model.
Attitudes can be formed from memory. The more we master a task, the more we enjoy doing it and cultivate a positive attitude towards doing or learning something. For example, if an individual knows how to perform a task well, using a particular method, which has been repeated and memorized numerous times, they will be more likely to use the same method if asked to repeat the same task, as they are more familiar and comfortable with this method.
Attitudes can be formed from simple evaluation. It is the ability to assess an object, idea, or person and form opinions hence cultivating an attitude towards them. If an individual is about to taste caviar for the first time, they may be able to assess the colour, scent, and shape and read the ingredients on the container, to form an opinion and attitude. The evaluation process allows them to decide if the individual thinks it may be appealing or distasteful to them.
Attitudes consist of three (3) components, which are the affective, behavioral and cognitive components.
The affective component is the feeling component, where our attitudes are based on high or low desirability towards an object, idea or person. Pizza may be of high desirability for an individual as opposed to steamed vegetables.
The behavioral component relates to our intended physical reaction towards an object, idea or person. It does not necessarily mean that the individual will act in a particular way towards the object. For instance, most people who live in upper-class neighborhoods view people of lower classes moving into the area as undesirable. The homeowners in the upscale neighborhood may want to sign a petition to block certain people from entering into their area. The idea of the action is there, but not necessarily carried through.
The cognitive component consists of an individual's beliefs about an object, idea ...
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The behavioral component relates to our intended physical reaction towards an object, idea or person. It does not necessarily mean that the individual will act in a particular way towards the object. For instance, most people who live in upper-class neighborhoods view people of lower classes moving into the area as undesirable. The homeowners in the upscale neighborhood may want to sign a petition to block certain people from entering into their area. The idea of the action is there, but not necessarily carried through.
The cognitive component consists of an individual's beliefs about an object, idea or person. My personal example is the cellular phone and its place in a public setting. I do not think it is appropriate to have a cellular phone on during a public event. Hence, my attitude towards people who continue to display this lack of consideration is negative, and I view guilty individuals as persons without any social graces.
Most psychologists agree that attitudes are acquired through social learning, which is the process of acquiring attitudes through others. Social learning occurs through classical, instrumental and observational learning. Other factors include self-comparison and genetics.
Classical conditioning is the process of learning by association, which involves the pairing of stimuli; when one (1) stimulus regularly precedes another, the one that occurs first is a signal for the other to occur. If an individual eats spicy cuisine, which constantly gives them heartburn, they associate the spicy food with heartburn. The individual recognizes that once spicy food is ingested, heartburn will follow next. Hence the attitude towards spicy foods may not be positive.
Instrumental conditioning is the process by which the individual learns the difference between rewards and punishments and actions with these consequences as the end result. If a child knows that his/her parent(s) will spank them for breaking a glass, then the attitude towards such an action will be negative, in order to deter punishment, but if he/she recognizes that doing well at school reaps rewards, then the attitude towards studying and excelling will be positive.
Observational conditioning is simply developing an attitude from example learning. An attitude is observed and influences and individual's own attitude towards the subject in question. In a parent-child relationship, children observer their parent's attitude and often times adopt them. If a child hears their parent making negative comments about an issue, they may possibly develop a negative attitude towards the same issue.
Comparing our views to those of others, to see if our social reality is or is not correct, can form attitudes. We often change our attitudes to fit in with everyone else's so that we do not feel 'left out'. Political views are an example of this. An individual may hold a particular view on the current political administration, however, while in a group discussion, the general consensus may not be the same as that of the individual, who may then sway his/her attitude, towards that of the groups' in order to be a part of the discussion and use their views to second guess his/her views.
Genetics play a small role in attitude formation. Studies conducted with identical twins suggest that attitudes may be influenced by genetic factors.
Daniel Katz proposed a functional theory of attitudes. He thought that attitudes are determined by the functions they serve as they help the individual to achieve their goals. The four (4) functions are the instrumental, knowledge, value-expressive and ego-defensive. Katz's theory also says that our attitudes change, once they no longer serve its functions and the individual feels frustrated.
The instrumental function helps individuals to form negative and positive attitudes by adopting favorable attitudes to maximize rewards and shunning unsavory ones to minimize punishments and help us to realise specific goals.
The knowledge function helps us to evaluate surroundings and seeks to give clarity about ideas, objects and persons.
The value-expressive function serves to publicly express ourselves. From the way we dress to our religious convictions, this function helps to adopt attitudes consistent with our views.
The ego-defensive function masks our willingness to accept the truth about ourselves. This function serves as a defense mechanism.
There is no simple and perfect correspondence between attitude and a relevant behaviour, because a) behaviour is a product not only of attitudes, but also of the current situation at hand, and b) attitudes relevant to a situation are often multiple, meaning that a particular behaviour may be triggered by various attitudes. However, our behaviour can be affected by our attitude, whether negatively or positively.
Attitudes affect our behaviour based on several issues. The relevance of a particular subject to an individual determines the individual's behaviour pattern. If the individual has a strong attitude about an issue, for instance, police brutality against citizens of poorer classes, he/she may take part in demonstrations or become a serious activist against such an issue.
If the matter is irrelevant or of little importance, then maybe the individual will just discuss with friends, if someone raises the topic, and does not get active for such a cause.
An individual's behaviour is determined by the situation they are in at any given time. Sometimes an individual is able to carefully and logistically evaluate the consequences of their actions before reacting and sometimes not.
In the case where the individual is afforded time, rewards and punishments are weighed to evaluate their behaviour output. In a situation where there is little or no time to evaluate, the individual's preconceived attitude comes into play. The subject is stereotyped from a preconceived attitude; hence the behaviour of the stereotyped scenario is demonstrated.
Persuasion is another tool, which affects attitudes and behaviour. Persuasion is the effort used to change attitudes through messages.
The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM), suggests that persuasion can occur by either a central or peripheral route. The central route involves careful evaluation of message content, while the peripheral route uses the heuristic/mental shortcut method of evaluating messages. Individuals often rely on authority as the 'experts must be right'.
Reactance is caused from the oppression of an individual's personal freedom. For instance, an insurance salesman trying to convince a prospective client to purchase life insurance may be the recipient of such a reaction. While his/her message content may be important, his persistent and annoying sales pitch is a major turn off. People do not generally like to have things forced down their throats, hence a negative attitude may be developed.
Forewarning is another form of persuasion where the individual has prior knowledge of the message holder's intent. While in a shopping mall, members of the Jehovah's Witness faith, called Pioneers like to stop people and preach their message. The message content may be important, but the individual knows that should they decide to stop and listen, they are in for a long-winded speech. Even if they are attention is caught, they may tune out the Pioneer, as the message is of little relevance to the individual.
If we have pre-existing views on an issue, it may be difficult at times, for our views to change, and we usually resist any efforts to change our own views, by blocking out any instrument, which may be seeking to do so. This is called selective avoidance.
Cognitive dissonance is a state that occurs when an individual's attitude and behaviour are inconsistent with each other. An individual may not agree with the opinion of his/her boss, but publicly supports the boss's view, perhaps because of the fear of not being considered for a promotion in the future. Dissonance, even though universal, may differ or vary culturally.
To conclude, attitudes are very important to our everyday lives, because it depicts our emotions and feelings towards subjects and the way we handle these feelings and emotions to such subjects.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY (2000) 9th edition, by Robert A. Baron and Donn Byrne.
2. INDIVIDUAL IN SOCIETY (1962) by David Krech, Richard S. Crutchfield, Everton L. Ballachey.
3. SOCIAL PSYCOLOGY-The study of human interaction,(1969) by, Theodore M. Newcomb, Ralph H. Turner, Philip E. Converse.