What Is an Attitude?
Psychologists define attitudes as a learned
tendency to evaluate things in a certain way. This can include evaluations of
people, issues, objects or events. Such evaluations are often positive or
negative, but they can also be uncertain at times. For example, you might have
mixed feelings about a particular person or issue.
Researchers also suggest that there are
several different components that make up attitudes.
An Emotional Component: How the object,
person, issue or event makes you feel.
A Cognitive Component: Your thoughts and
beliefs about the subject.
A Behavioral Component: How the attitude
influences your behavior.
Attitudes can also be explicit and implicit.
Explicit attitudes are those that we are consciously aware of and that clearly
influence our behaviors and beliefs. Implicit attitudes are unconscious, but
still have an effect on our beliefs and behaviors.
How Do Attitudes Form?
Attitudes form directly as a result of
experience. They may emerge due to direct personal experience, or they may
result from observation. Social roles and social norms can have a strong
influence on attitudes. Social roles relate to how people are expected to
behave in a particular role or context. Social norms involve society's rules
for what behaviors are considered appropriate.
Attitudes can be learned in a variety of
ways. Consider how advertisers use classical conditioning to
influence your attitude toward a particular product. In a television
commercial, you see young, beautiful people having fun in on a tropical beach
while enjoying a sport drink. This attractive and appealing imagery causes you
to develop a positive association with this particular beverage.
Operant
conditioning can also be used to influence how attitudes
develop. Imagine a young man who has just started smoking. Whenever he lights
up a cigarette, people complain, chastise him and ask him to leave their
vicinity. This negative feedback from those around him eventually causes him to
develop an unfavorable opinion of smoking and he decides to give up the habit.
Finally, people also learn attitudes by observing the
people around them. When someone you admire greatly espouses a
particular attitude, you are more likely to develop the same beliefs. For
example, children spend a great deal of time observing the attitudes of their
parents and usually begin to demonstrate similar outlooks.
How Do Attitudes Influence Behavior?
We tend to assume that people behave in
accordance with their attitudes. However, social psychologists have found that
attitudes and actual behavior are not always perfectly aligned. After all,
plenty of people support a particular candidate or political party and yet fail
to go out and vote.
Researchers have discovered that people are
more likely to behave according to their attitudes under certain conditions:
When your attitudes are the result of
personal experience.
When you are an expert in the subject.
When you expect a favorable outcome.
When the attitudes are repeatedly expressed.
When you stand to win or lose something due
to the issue.
In some cases, people may actually alter
their attitudes in order to better align them with their behavior. Cognitive
dissonance is a phenomenon in which a person experiences
psychological distress due to conflicting thoughts or beliefs. In order to
reduce this tension, people may change their attitudes to reflect their other
beliefs or actual behaviors.
Imagine the following situation: You've
always placed a high value on financial security, but you start dating someone
who is very financially unstable. In order to reduce the tension caused by the
conflicting beliefs and behavior, you have two options. You can end the
relationship and seek out a partner who is more financially secure, or you can
de-emphasize the importance of fiscal stability. In order to minimize the
dissonance between your conflicting attitude and behavior, you either have to
change the attitude or change your actions.
Attitude Change
While attitudes can have a powerful effect on
behavior, they are not set in stone. The same influences that lead to attitude
formation can also create attitude change.
Learning Theory of Attitude Change: Classical
conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning can be used to
bring about attitude change. Classical conditioning can be used to create
positive emotional reactions to an object, person or event by associating
positive feelings with the target object. Operant conditioning can be used to
strengthen desirable attitudes and weaken undesirable ones. People can also
change their attitudes after observing the behavior of others.
Elaboration Likelihood Theory of Attitude
Change: This theory of persuasion suggests
that people can alter their attitudes in two ways. First, they can be motivated
to listen and think about the message, thus leading to an attitude shift. Or,
they might be influenced by characteristics of the speaker, leading to a
temporary or surface shift in attitude. Messages that are thought-provoking and
that appeal to logic are more likely to lead to permanent changes in attitudes.
Dissonance Theory of Attitude Change: As
mentioned earlier, people can also change their attitudes when they have
conflicting beliefs about a topic. In order to reduce the tension created by
these incompatible beliefs, people often shift their attitudes.
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