"a combination of beliefs and feelings about objects, people or situations which predispose us to behave in a certain way towards them"
Triadic model
3 components of an attitude
- Cognitive - knowledge (e.g. training is good for me and keeps me fit)
- Affective - emotions & feelings (e.g. I don't enjoy training)
- Behavioural - action or intent to act (e.g. I intend to train 3 times per week)
Attitudes are formed entirely from socialisation.
The following people have an effect on our attitudes:
- parents
- role models
- peers
- siblings
- teachers
- coaches
- famous people
- powerful people
Measuring attitudes
- Interviews
- Observations
- Questionnaires (Thrustone, Likert, Osgood's and Semantic Differential scales)
Attitudes influences behaviour and therefore a good attitude can lead to an improvement in motivation, happiness and performance. A good attitude can also develop social norms and values of society.
Bad attitudes
Stereotype: a standardised social image expecting people to behave in a certain way due to them belonging to a certain group.
Prejudice: an extreme attitude that is pre-judged and influences behaviour.
Discrimination: unjust treatment of people based on prejudicial views.
Changing attitudes
Persuasive communication
To change an attitude, a person must attend to, understand, accept and retain the message.
Persuader - should be an expert/trusted (role model)
Message - should be clear and balanced between emotion and logic
Recipient - needs to be willing to listen
Situation - can affect the attitude (e.g. others present)
Cognitive dissonance
Humans like consonance (high correlation of thoughts and feelings). Dissonance occurs when there is conflict between feelings, this produces a negative psychological tension and desire to erase the dissonance. Therefore in order to change an attitude we must create dissonance so the person may look to change their whole attitude and get back to consonance. The easiest way to do this is to change one part of the triadic model.
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