Attitudes

Question 1

Describe implicit and explicit attitudes

Answer 1

Attitudes are positive or negitive feelings or opinions about a particular situation, group of people or subject. These can be classifed as implicit attitudes, which are attitudes that are involuntary and sometimes unconscious, or explict attitudes which are attitudes that people openly share

Question 2

Describe stereotypes using tri-component model of attitudes

Answer 2

Structures attitudes as a combination of beliefs, feelings and behaviours.

Question 3

predict how disrepancies between attitudes and behaviours can lead to cognitive dissonance (Leon Festinger 1957)

Answer 3

When our attitudes don’t match our behaviours, we feel an unpleasent psychological tension that is called cognitive dissonance

Question 4

Evaluate social identity theory (Henry Tajfel 1970), with reference to social categorisation, social identification and social comparison

Answer 4

How we identify as individuals within a group can be explained using the social identity theory. Our social identity is created via three key processes: social comparison, social identification and social categroisation. These three processes can be used to build our social identity and can also explain how someone might end up as part of a particular group and from certain prejudices and stereotypes aginst others.

Question 5

Distinguish between prejudice and discrimination

Answer 5

prejudice is a negitive attitude towards a group of people, oftern arising from stereotyping. Discrimination is the action that expresses the attitude of prejucdice.

Question 6

describe scapegoating, direct experience, personal and group prejudice and the prejudiced personality

Answer 6

There are a number of predictor of prejudice, including scapegoating. direct experience, personal and group prejudice and the prejudiced personality

Question 7

prejudice can be on the basis of social differences; decribe prejudice expressed as sexism and ageism

Answer 7

Sexism involves having prejudice against someone on the basis of their sex, and is typically experienced by woman more than men.
Ageism occurs when there are stereotypes specific to particular age groups.

Question 8

describe attributions, and recognise how attributions are used to explain behaviour, with reference to situational and dispositional attributions, and the fundamental attibution error (Lee Ross et al. 1977)

Answer 8

The attribution theory suggest that we as human beings are inclined to explain our own and other people’s behaviours. Dispositional attributions explain the behaviours of others based on the characteristics of their personlity, and situational attributions explain behaviours on the basis of environmental and external characteristics.
The tendency for individuals to use dispositional factors rather than situational factors to explian behaviour is known as the fundamental attibution error.

Question 9

Contrast self-surving and confirmation biases

Answer 9

A bias is a from of an opinion or belief. A self-serving bias occurs when we view ourselves more favourably than others in the same situation, so we can maintain our self-esteem. A confirmation bias occurs when we selectively seek out information to support our pre-existing beliefs.