Attitudes Flashcards
Problem 4
attitude
a) relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings & behavioral tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols
b) general feeling or evaluation (positive or negative) about some person, object or issue
one-component attitude model
attitude consists of affect towards or evaluation of the object
two-component attitude model
attitude consists of a mental readiness to act. It also guides evaluative (judgmental) responses
three-component attitude model
attitude consists of cognitive, affective and behavioral components
cognition
knowledge, beliefs, thoughts, ideas that people have about themselves & their environment; may also refer to mental processes through which knowledge is acquired, including perception, memory and thinking
balance theory
(Heider) people prefer attitudes that are consistent with each other over those that are inconsistent; person (P) tries to maintain consistency in attitudes to, and relationships with, other people (O) and elements of the environment (X)
information processing
evaluation of information; in relation to attitudes, the means by which people acquire knowledge and form and change attitudes
information integration theory
idea that a person’s attitude can be estimated by averaging across the positive and negative ratings of the object
theory of reasoned action
(Fishbein, Ajzen) relationship between attitudes and behavior, specific attitude that has normative support predicts an intention to act, which then predicts actual behavior
theory of planned behavior
(modification, Ajzen) predicting a behavior from an attitude measure is improved if people believe they have control over that behavior
protection motivation theory
adopting a healthy behavior requires cognitive balancing between the perceived threat of illness and one’s capacity to cope with the health regimen
self-efficacy
expectations about our capacity to succeed in particular tasks
attitude formation
FORMING ATTITUDES
process of forming attitudes, mainly from our own experiences, the influences of others and our emotional reactions
evaluative conditioning
FORMING ATTITUDES
stimulus will become more liked or less liked when it is consistently paired with stimuli that are either positive or negative
spreading attitude effect
FORMING ATTITUDES
liked or disliked person (or attitude object) may affect the evaluation of a second person directly associated & others merely associated with the second person
modelling
FORMING ATTITUDES
reproducing the actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real-life or symbolic model; also called observational learning
values
FORMING ATTITUDES
higher-order concept thought to provide a structure for organizing attitudes
ideology
FORMING ATTITUDES
systematically interrelated set of beliefs whose primary function is explanation; circumscribes thinking, making it difficult for holder to escape from it
social representations
FORMING ATTITUDES
explanations of unfamiliar, complex phenomena that transform them into a familiar, simple form
expectancy-value model
FORMING ATTITUDES
direct experience with attitude object informs a person how much that object should be liked or disliked in the future
belief based (reasoned) evaluation
FORMING ATTITUDES
easy to change
cue driven (automatic) evaluation
FORMING ATTITUDES
hard to change
explicit attitudes
FORMING ATTITUDES
conscious, voluntarily formed; (self reports)
implicit attitudes
FORMING ATTITUDES
unconscious, involuntarily formed; (implicit association test)
