Week 7 - Attitudes part 1.

Question 1

What is the definition of attitudes?

Answer 1

• the overall evaluation of a stimulus object, person, group, issue, or concept on a dimension ranging from a negative to positive.
• attitudes are generalisable, stable, socially significant
• Related to ‘beliefs’ and ‘values’

Question 2

What is attitudinal ambivalance?

Answer 2

a psychological state in which a person silmuntaneously holds both positive and negative feelings towards an object,

Question 3

Attitudes are made up of three components, what are they?

Answer 3

Affective: emotional
Behavioural: Actions
Cognitive: Thoughts and beliefs

Question 4

The ‘‘why’’ of attitudes:

Answer 4

UTILITY: allows us to make judgements
SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT: to fit in with friends
EGO-DEFENSE: protect ourselves
VALUE EXPRESSION: express deep-seated beliefs

Question 5

What are implicit and explicit attitudes?

Answer 5

EXPLICIT: direct, what we think.
IMPLICIT: indirect, what we do/really think?

problems with explicit:
- are we really aware?
- language used can confuse
- demand characteraistics / social desirability

Question 6

What is cognitive dissonance?

Answer 6

The mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values or attitudes.

Question 7

What are 3 ways to reduce dissonance?

Answer 7

1. Change one of the dissonant attitudes or behaviours
2. Acquire new information to increase consonance
3. Negating the importance of dissonant attitudes

consonance: agreemant or compatibility between opions or actions

Question 8

Yale model of communication and persuasion.

Look up in the lecture slide

Answer 8

Attitude change fits into the study of persuasion, a form of social influence.