ATTITUDES:Affective component, Behavioral component, Cognitive component

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Lesson 20

ATTITUDES

Aims

�

To introduce the concept of attitudes, components, and ways of assessment.

Objectives

�

To discuss definition of an attitude and its components

�

To describe direct and indirect methods of assessing attitudes.

Discussion about new section "Evaluating Persons and Relationships" of study in Social Psychology

Since with the study of Attitudes, a new section is being started, some discussion was carried out

about the main components of this section "Evaluating persons and relationships". This section will

comprise on the general study of attitude formation and change. This section will also focus on specific

attitudes like negative attitudes of prejudice and discrimination, and positive attitudes of interpersonal

attractions and attachments. The section will discuss causes of social intolerance and different forms of

prejudice. Discussion will also be carried out on how positive attractions are formed.

What is an Attitude?

� A positive or negative evaluation of an object (Schuman, 1995), where an attitude object is a

person, thing, event, or issue

� Earliest use of the term attitude came from theatre, described it as a body posture; dates back to the

1800s; later referred to as a "posture of mind" than of body.

� According to Allport, attitude is the most indispensable concept of social psychology. He

maintained that "Attitudes determine for each individual what he will see and hear, what he will

think and what he will do. To borrow a phrase from Willliam James, "they engender meaning upon

the world" (Allport, 1935, p. 806).

Three components of Attitudes

Before 1990s attitudes were interpreted in terms of their three components (tricomponent). This

idea was based on "ABC" information namely:

� Affective component: the person's emotions and affect towards the object

�

Behavioral component: how person tends to act towards the object; Attitudes are but one

determinant of behavior but not the only one; conversely past behavior also determines attitudes.

�

Cognitive component: consists of thoughts and beliefs the person has about the object. Attitudes are

often cognitively complex but evaluative simple.

Because all of these components may not be present always, many psychologists have moved to single

dimension definition-evaluative.

Commonly used words for T h r e e d if f e r e n t t y p e s o f a t t i t u d e a n t e c e d e n t s

evaluating objects are bad,

good, dislike, hate, love, etc.

B e h a v io r a l

p ro c e s s e s

However, specialized terms are

also employed to evaluate, for

example, attitude toward self is

A ttitu d e

A ffe c tiv e

referred to as self esteem,.

p ro c e s s e s

Similarly negative specific

attitudes are prejudice and

discrimination whereas specific

C o g n itiv e

positive

attitudes

are

p ro c e s s e s

interpersonal attractions and

Social Psychology (PSY403)

relationships. Prejudice is an attitude toward group, whereas interpersonal attractions are for individuals.

Although evaluative component is central to an attitude, the other two dimensions -behavior and beliefs-

can also not be overlooked.

Assessing Attitudes

Direct Assessment:

Usually three methods are employed to measure attitudes directly:

1. Likert (Summated Ratings) scales:

What is your opinion about co-education at college level?

-4

-3

-2

-1

Very much opposed

Very much in favour

2. Semantic Differential Scales: Do you feel about the taste of this (any brand) coffee?

Unpleasant ______________________________________ Pleasant

3. Latitude of Acceptance

-4

-3

-2

-1

All options acceptable to the respondent are encircled, while those not acceptable are encircled.

Indirect Assessment

� Social desirability problem in direct assessment led to indirect assessment of attitudes.

� Studies conducted in 1930s and then in 1969 showed reduction in stereotypes of White against

black people. However, the evidence does not show a reduction in prejudice over time. This artifact

thus can be attributed to social desirability factor.

� Bogus pipeline technique is used to convince the respondents that the experimenter has a pipeline

into the respondent's real attitudes

� Bogus pipeline techniques are effective in getting people to admit that they smoke or drink too

much, and engage in other unhealthy behaviors

� Recent advances in electrophysiology may remove the "bogus" from the bogus pipeline and make

it possible to detect attitudes directly. For example, electromyographic recordings can detect

minute changes in these muscles accurately reflecting a person's feelings and thus can help detect

attitudes.

Reading

� Franzoi, S. (2003). Social Psychology. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 6.

� Lord, C.G. (1997). Social Psychology. Orlando: Harcourt Brace and Company. Chapter 6.

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