Attitudes Flashcards
Attributes
Inferences we make about the causes of events or behaviours in order to understand social experiences
Cause of behaviour or action is either located within a person (dispositional - internal) or outside a person (situational - external)
Dispositional: traits, ability, motivation, attitude, mood, effort
Situational: environmental setting, situation, luck?, actions of another person
Attribution Theory
Dispositional attribution - assigning behaviours to internal factors such as personality traits
Situational Attribution - assigning behaviours to external factors such as traffic
Theory suggests that humans ned to understand why people behave in certain ways, and there are 2 ways to explain behaviour: dispositional and situational factors. Humans have an innate need to try and understand why things happen the way they do.
Actor Observer Bias
The tendency to explain ou rown actions by external factors, and explain the actions of others by internal factors. Are we performing the action or observing someone else? When we observe the behaviour of others, we tend to consider or blame internal factors of their personality.
Social Categorisation
The human tendency to classify [eople into groups based on characteristics that we perceive them to have in common
Functions of Stereotype
To organise knowledge, especially when meeting new people.
Tru-component model of attitudes
The theory that an attitude consists of cognitive, affective and behavioural components.
Affective component: how an individual feels about an attitude object. Connections to stereotypes (assumptions are made about a group of people).
Behavioural Component: how a person behaves towards the attitude object. Connection to stereotypes (feelings are either friendly or hostile towards a group of people based on assumptions)
Cognitive Component: how the person thinks about the attitude object. Connection to stereotypes (behaviour towards a group of people is influenced by the assumption)
Stereotypes and the tri-component model
When people hold stereotypes about other groups of people, there is usually a consistency between how they think (cognitions), feel (affect), and act (behaviours) towards people in these groups.
When a stereotype is negative, the TCM can explain how affect, behaviour and cognition can be linked t prejudicial and discriminatory behaviour
Cognitive: assumptions made about a group of people. E.g.
Affective: Feelings are either friendly or hostile toward a group of people is influenced by the assumption. E.g.
Behavioural: behaviour towards a group of people is influenced by the assumption. E.g.
Ageism and Sexism
What is sexism?
Prejudice and sicrimination on the basis of an individual’s sex.
Sexism is not acknowledgeing differences between sexes, rather, its the assumption that because of these differences what an individual should/will be able to do, or how they should behave is determined.
Ageism and Sexism
What is ageism?
Predjuice and discrimination on the basis of age - typically the elderly
