Attitudes

Question 1

What is an attitude

Answer 1

An emotional response that influences behaviour and brings about an individual’s typical actions towards an attitude object
Attitudes are unstable meaning they can be changed
An attitude is a learned typical response based on a belief about an attitude object

Question 2

What are the factors affecting how an attitudes formed

Answer 2

Family
Friends
Social media
Past experiences
Education
Religion/ Culture

Question 3

What is the triadic model

Answer 3

CAB
Cognitive - What you believe about it
Affective - Emotion towards it
Behavioural - How you behave towards it

Question 4

What are consonance and dissonance

Answer 4

Consonance - all 3 components align
Dissonance - conflicting emotions where the components do not align

Question 5

What are the 2 ways of changing an attitude

Answer 5

Persuasive communication
Cognitive dissonance

Question 6

Persuasive communication

Answer 6

Effectiveness of this depends on 4 factors:
Person doing the persuading - role model/status
Quality of message - high quality with evidence
The situation - peer pressure, family, other persuaders

Question 7

Cognitive dissonance

Answer 7

Realigning the triadic model turning dissonance into consonance
By changing one component the whole attitude can be changed
Cognitive dissonance works because the person is motivated to restore balance between the attitude components

Question 8

Prediciting behaviour

Answer 8

Attitudes cant be relied on to predict behaviour e.g. may have a positive attitude about gym but don’t go regularly
The more specific the attitude the more likely it can be used to predict behaviour
Behavioural intention is the most effective predictor of behaviour - declaration of intended behaviour is made before the event