Social Psychology: Attitudes

Introduction

• Social psychology studies how individual behavior is influenced by others and the social environment.
• Everyone forms attitudes, which are ways of thinking about specific topics and people.
• The processes behind social behaviors can be complex.
• This chapter covers basic ideas related to attitudes, as explained by social psychologists.

Explaining Social Behaviour

• Social behavior is crucial for human life.
• It involves behavior that considers the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.
• Social psychologists study and explain the basis of various forms of social behavior.
• People form views or attitudes due to social influences, which exist as behavioral tendencies.
• Understanding how the social context affects individuals requires studying social-cognitive processes and social behavior.
• Social psychologists emphasize going beyond common sense to understand how people perceive and interpret their own and others' behaviors.

Nature and Components of Attitudes

• Opinions are what you fill in the blanks when you say "In my opinion..." or "Others may say so and so, but I feel...".
• Attitudes are views with emotional and action components, not just thoughts.
• Attitudes comprise a state of mind with views on a topic (the attitude object), possessing an evaluative feature (positive, negative, or neutral).
• Attitudes include an emotional component and a tendency to act in a way related to the attitude object.
• The cognitive aspect is the thought component.
• The affective aspect is the emotional component.
• The behavioral (or conative) aspect is the tendency to act.
• The A-B-C components are = Affective-Behavioural-Cognitive components of attitude

A 'Green Environment': The A-B-C Components of an Attitude

• Having a positive view towards a 'green environment' based on sufficient information is the 'C' component.
• Feeling happy seeing greenery and sad/angry when trees are cut down reflects the 'A' component.
• Actively participating in a tree plantation campaign demonstrates the 'B' component.
• All three components are generally expected to be consistent with each other
• Components may not be consistent in all situations
• The behavioural component may be neutral, even if the cognitive and affective aspects are strong and positive

Attitudes vs Beliefs vs Values

• Attitudes are distinguished from beliefs and values
• Beliefs: cognitive component of attitudes, form the ground on which attitudes stand (e.g., belief in God)
• Values: Attitudes or beliefs with a 'should' or 'ought' aspect, moral or ethical (e.g., honesty is the best policy)
• Values form when a belief or attitude becomes integral to one's outlook, making them hard to change.
• Attitudes provide a background for deciding how to act in new situations.
• Attitudes towards foreigners can provide a mental layout for how to behave when meeting one.

Features of Attitudes

• Valence pertains to positivity and negativity
• Extremeness indicates how positive or negative an attitude is.
• Simplicity or Complexity (multiplexity) signifies how many attitudes exist within a broader attitude (simple = few, complex = many)
• Attitude towards health and well-being contains several member attitudes
• Centrality refers to the role of a particular attitude in the attitude system.
• A core attitude like a negative view of high military expenditure can influence other attitudes in the system.

Attitude Formation

• Attitudes are generally learned through experiences and interactions with others.
• Some research indicates genetic factors have an indirect aspect.
• Social psychologists focus on the conditions that lead to attitude learning.
• Learning Attitudes by Association occurs when positive qualities of a teacher get linked to the subject, forming a positive attitude.
• Learning attitudes by being rewarded or punished means that praise for a specific attitude increases the odds that the person will develop that attitude more fully.
• Learning Attitudes by Watching others, we can learn attitudes from observing others being rewarded/punished.
• Learning attitudes through group or cultural norms, normative behaviour gets expected and socially approved/
• Learning Through Exposure to Information can be attained via the media

Factors that influence Attitude Formation

• Family and School Environment shapes attitude formation early in life.
• Reference Groups indicate acceptable behavior and ways of thinking.
• Personal Experiences bring drastic change in attitude towards people and our lives
• Media-related Influences strengthen cognitive and affective components which may affect the behavioral component.

Attitude Change

• During and after formation, attitudes can change through various influences.
• Attitudes still forming are more likely to change compared to firmly established attitudes.
• Attitude changes are of interest to community leaders, politicians, producers, advertisers, etc.
• Understanding how attitudes change plus conditions for change helps in taking steps to modify attitudes.

Process of Attitude Change

• The concept of balance, proposed by Fritz Heider forms the 'P-O-X' triangle, which represents the relationships between the person whose attitude is being studied, another person, and the topic.
• An attitude changes if there is a state of imbalance
• The concept of cognitive dissonance: Cognitive components of an attitude must be 'consonant',If an individual finds that two cognitions in an attitude are dissonant, then one of them will be changed.
• The two-step concept: the target of change identifies with the source, this will lead to attitude change in the second step.

Telling a Lie for Twenty Dollars

• Students who were paid just $1 to lie about a boring task later rated the task as more enjoyable because they experienced cognitive dissonance.
• The $20 group, who didn't experience dissonance due to sufficient compensation, rated the task as very boring.

Factors that Influence Attitude Change

• Existing attitude, namely, valence, extremeness, simplicity or complexity, and centrality, determines attitude change.
• Attitude change direction and extent must be considered
• An attitude may change in the same direction as the existing attitude, called congruent
• An attitude may change in a direction opposite to the existing attitude, called incongruent
• Source characteristics: Source credibility and attractiveness
• Message characteristics: amount of information, a rational or an emotional appeal
• Mode of spreading: face-to-face transmission is more effective than indirect transmission
• Target characteristics: Qualities of the target, such as persuasibility, strong prejudices, self-esteem, and intelligence

Attitude-Behaviour Relationship

• The expectation is that behavior follows logically from attitudes.
• However, an individual's attitudes may not always be exhibited through behaviour.
• Consistency between attitudes and behavior occurs when the attitude is strong, the person is aware, little external pressure exists, behavior is unobserved, and the behavior has positive consequences.

Prejudice and Discrimination

• Prejudices exemplify attitudes towards a group, typically negative and often based on stereotypes.
• Stereotypes contain a cluster of ideas regarding group characteristics. All members of the group are usually assumed to possess these characteristics.
• Prejudice can translate into discrimination, where people treat a target group less favorably.
• Prejudices may exist without discrimination, and vice versa, but they often occur together.
• Societies with prejudice or discrimination are likely to experience intergroup conflicts.

Sources of Prejudice

• Learning: Prejudices can be learned through association, reward, punishment, observation, group norms, or exposure to biased information.
• A strong social identity and ingroup bias: Individuals who have a strong feelings about their own group boost this attitude by holding negative views towards other groups.
• Scapegoating: A majority group blames a minority outgroup for its own problems.
• The kernel of truth concept: People assert that everything they say about another group must be partially true.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: The target group behaves in ways that justify the prejudice, and confirms the negative experctations.

Strategies for Handling Prejudice

• Minimize opportunities for learning prejudices.
• Change prejudiced attitudes.
• De-emphasize narrow ingroup-based social identity.
• Discourage self-fulfilling prophecy among victims.
• Education and information dissemination.
• Increasing intergroup contact.
• Emphasize individual identity rather than group.