"Attitude"

ATTITUDE DEFINED
Attitudes are an important concept that help people to understand their social world. They help us define how we perceive and think about others, as well as how we behave toward them. Many definitions exist that attempt to determine what exactly an attitude is. These definitions often include the component of enduring evaluations of people, objects, or issues (e.g. an attitude toward dessert may be stated as "I like ice cream best".
A widely accepted definition of an attitude is offered by Judd, Ryan, & Parke, (1991). They believe that attitudes can be viewed as "evaluations of various objects that are stored in memory". According to the tri-component model, an attitude includes affect (a feeling), cognition (a thought), and behavior (an action).

Attitude formation
How are attitudes formed? Social learning, classical and instrumental conditioning, modeling, and direct experience

Just how do we develop attitudes? Recent research on identical twins raised in different environments has revealed that these twins have similar attitudes. This may suggest a possible genetic base for the formation of attitudes (i.e. attitudes can be inherited like eye color). (Arvey, et al., 1989). In addition, some negative attitudes seem to be universal and useful for survival. For example the fear of snakes and the revulsion for bodily wastes and decaying matter (McGuire, 1985).

Despite these findings, most psychologists concur that attitudes are learned through mere exposure, conditioning, and socialization. Specifically, attitudes can be acquired from others (i.e. social learning) in the form of classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, and modeling; as well as being acquired via direct experience.

Social Learning, often referred to as "socialization" refers to the "gradual acquisition of language, attitudes, and other socially approved values through reinforcement, observation, and other learning processes" (Forsyth, 1995). This definition implies that one's interaction with others, such as parents, teachers, peers, relatives, newspapers, books, television, religious groups, etc., can effect our attitudes toward various objects. This type of "learning" attitudes occurs in three diverse ways described below.

Classical conditioning is a learning-through-association process which involves the pairing of stimuli. "When one stimulus regularly precedes another, the one that occurs first may soon become a signal for the one that occurs second" (Baron & Byrne, 1994). After frequent pairings, their exists an expectation that when the first stimulus occurs, the second will then follow. Consider for example, a machine that emits a loud noise just before it breaks down. Over time, the loud noise may serve as a signal to the unpleasant occurrence. Attitudes can be conditioned in this way as well. This can occur when an attitude object is frequently paired with other objects or experiences that are pleasant or unpleasant. Consider a supervisor who frequently frowns or rolls their eyes whenever they interact with a particular employee. Initially the work group may have a neutral feeling toward the new worker. However, after repeated pairings of the supervisor's signs of displeasure and the presence of the employee, the work group may come to regard the new employee in a negative way.

Instrumental Conditioning. Rewards and punishments are commonly used to accomplish goals. Skinner (1975) theorized that whenever responses are immediately followed by positive reinforcers (rewards), these responses become more frequent in the future. In contrast, punished responses become less frequent. These same techniques are often utilized (either consciously or unintentionally) to form attitudes. For example, when praise, smiles, or other positive forms of recognition are given to a student who participates in class discussion, the result will be that the student will develop a fondness for speaking in groups.

Modeling. This third process of forming attitudes often occurs without intention. This process often referred to as "Social Learning Theory" suggests that behaviors and attitudes are acquired by observing and imitating the actions displayed by parents and peers (Bandura, 1969). So, for example, if a coworker is observed enjoying a particular meal from the cafeteria, another worker may also select the same meal and enjoy it, regardless of their personal taste.

Direct Experience. Finally, attitudes can be acquired from the mere exposure to a particular object. Such direct experience, repeated over time, often results in a preference for that object when compared to objects less often encountered. For example, when asked to choose a preference for the way a task should be completed, most workers will select the method with which they are most familiar. The more familiar the object/task, the more we generally like it (Bornstein, 1989).

Attitude Change
Ideas about attitude change. The learning model, elaboration likelihood model, heuristic model, cognitive dissonance (Festinger's Folly)

How can attitudes be changed? An abundance of information is available to us on a continuous basis. Often this information is presented in an attempt to persuade behavior. Advertisements, commercials, speeches and the like are designed to change attitudes toward (or make them favorable to) a given product, issue, or idea. The study of attempts at persuasion and their effects has resulted in three approaches to understanding how attitudes can be changed:

The Learning Model.
This 1950's explanation of persuasion assumed that attitude change is a learning process that is shaped by several characteristics. These include characteristics of:

Results of several studies provided that persuasive attempts will be most effective under the following circumstances:

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM).
This cognitive approach states that rather than study the messages used to create attitude change, the thoughts that are processed by an individual during a persuasion attempt should be of interest. This dual-process theory argues that attitude change occurs utilizing one of two routes: The central route or the peripheral route (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981). The central route requires a thoughtful analysis, or cognitive elaboration, of the presented issues. This "Consumers Reports" approach (Forsyth, 1995) involves logic for decision making. Therefore, the presentation of convincing factual information will result in greater attitude change.

The peripheral route, on the other hand, requires little mental effort. Persuasion cues or emotional factors, such as source attractiveness or expertise prompt attitude change. Attitude change occurs via this route primarily under two conditions:

The Heuristic Model.
This dual-process theory is quite similar to the ELM and argues that the use of mental shortcuts or heuristics occurs when the receiver has low involvement with the subject matter of the message. Thus, "systematic processing" (or rational examination of the arguments presented) occurs when the topic is of importance to the receiver.
"Heuristic processing" (or use of rules of thumb such as "length means strength") occurs when the topic is not one about which the receiver is highly concerned.

Resistance to persuasive attempts is effected by a number of factors such as reactance, forewarning, and selective avoidance and exposure. These concepts function to assist in the stabilization of one's attitudes. If individuals were susceptible to every attempt at persuasion, attitudinal change would be continuous because of the great number of persuasive messages encountered daily.

Reactance.
Is a both an emotional and cognitive reaction that individuals experience when obvious attempts are made at persuasion. When one's freedom to choose is threatened or eliminated, individuals strive to regain a feeling of autonomy. This often results in attitudes being changed in the opposite direction to that being suggested (Brehm, 1966). For example when a parent says to a child "I forbid you to see your friend Ivan", reactance will occur. The child will likely desire to spend time with Ivan more than ever.

Forewarning.
Advance knowledge of someone's attempt at persuasion often results in the receiver forming counter-arguments prior to the message (Cialdini & Petty, 1979). This allows the receiver to be forearmed with relevant facts and information to assist in the resistance of attitude change.

Selective Avoidance and Exposure.
This protection against persuasion involves the process of attention that is given to new information that refutes or supports one's original attitude. This theory of information processing suggests that their exists a tendency to direct attention away from information that challenges existing attitudes and to give increased attention to information that supports held beliefs (Baron & Byrne, 1994). Much like a TV viewer with a remote control in hand, individuals "tune in" and "tune out" to data that suits a persons point of view.

Cognitive Dissonance.
Not all attempts at attitude change stem from messages from others. Often, individuals change their own attitudes. This occurs, according to cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957) because individuals experience aversive psychological effects when two conflicting attitudes are held simultaneously or when an attitude is inconsistent with one's behavior. For example, when asked your opinion about a new production procedure during an important meeting with your boss and several others present, you praise the process. This occurs despite your negative attitude toward the new procedure. This inconsistency of being "forced to comply" with your boss's expectations for an agreeable or loyal employee causes an unpleasant state of dissonance. This state can than be restored to a sense of consonance by a number of methods.

Some examples of dissonance reduction

ATTITUDE CHANGE:
Adopting a more extreme attitudinal position. "I'm too busy to exercise."

ADDING CONSONANT COGNITIONS:
(Stressing the negative side of exercising.)
"I could injure myself."

RATIONALIZATION:
(Changing the importance of the cognitions)
"If I exercise, it will leave less time for work."

DENIAL:
(Claiming to exercise)
"I walk from my car to the office every day."

Attitudes and Behavior
Predicting behavior from attitudes, and attitudes from behavior. Attitude strength, specificity, accessibility. The role of direct experience

Given the theory of cognitive dissonance, the relationship between attitudes and behavior becomes questionable. Just when will knowledge of someone's attitude be useful in predicting an individual's behavior? Research has discovered that there are several conditions that lead to a strong link between attitudes and behavior.

Attitude Strength.
Some attitudes are extremely important to many aspects of our life, while other attitudes are less central to our being. For example, an individual may maintain a very strong attitude against abortion. This attitude, because of its pervasiveness, is likely to predict behavior. While, by contrast, one's attitude toward a particular food may be less likely to aid in attitude prediction. Additionally, the more "vested interest" a person has in the issue, the more likely attitudes and behaviors will be corespondent. Thus, if a worker with excellent attendance was in favor of a change in company policy (e.g. earning extra pay for perfect attendance) it is likely that their behavior would reflect this attitude -- perhaps in the form of lobbying for the policy change.

Attitude Specificity.
The issue of correspondence or the degree to which an attitude and some action is highest when both focus on identical objects, in the same context, and at the same time (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1977). Therefore asking ones attitude toward their religion would not be as useful in predicting whether someone attends church as would as assessing their specific attitude toward church-going.

Direct Experience.
As discussed before, attitudes are often formed from our direct experience of issues and events. Those attitudes formed in this way, as opposed to being learned through observing role models, are often more consistent with behavior. Research conducted by Fazio and Zanna (1978) revealed that attitudes acquired in this fashion are held with greater confidence, are more specific, more easily recalled, more resistant to change, and more likely to influence or subsequent behavior.

Attitude Accessibility.
The ease with which information can be located in one's mind plays a key role in the attitude-behavior link. Fazio (1989) provides a model of attitude accessibility that suggests that the presentation of an attitude object elicits a memory of that object, which leads to a perception of the object, and finally a consistent behavior toward the object. Seeing the attitude object is a key component in previously discussed issues of attitudes and their specificity, strength, and one's direct experience with the object -- which lead to more correspondent behavior.

Prejudice
Where does prejudice come from? Ingroups, outgroups, extremity bias, group attribution, how to combat and change prejudice,

A special type of attitude that has been highly researched is the attitude of prejudice. This attitude has been defined as a negative bias or disliking of people because they belong to a particular group one dislikes. The group is often an ethnic, racial, or other social category (Forsyth, 1995).

A related but different concept, discrimination, has also been widely studied. Discrimination refers to negative action toward individuals for whom we hold prejudice attitudes. Thus, discrimination stems from prejudice beliefs. However, not all prejudice attitudes result in discriminatory actions. Like any attitude, prejudice can be looked at from the tri-component model. This would suggest that prejudice consists of an affective and cognitive component, while discrimination serves as the behavioral component.

How do people become prejudiced?
Several theories provide insight as to why prejudice occurs. These sources are categorized into factors that are psychological, cognitive, interpersonal, and intergroup in nature. Psychological contributions include the concept of ego-defense. This theory suggests that some people feel threatened and uncertain about their own worth. Because of this, they reject people unlike themselves (the outgroup).

Another psychological source of prejudice stems from the belief that people will blame frustration and setbacks on others. This "scapegoating" can be a way of venting frustrations.

Cognitive causes of prejudice stem from the tendency for people to categorize others into groups; particularly groups of "us" and "them". This categorization is then effected by several biases and errors.

Ingroup-Outgroup Bias (aka the ultimate attribution error) is the idea that we favor our own group, its members, and products and reject the outgroup, its members, and its products.

Outgroup Homogeneity Bias is the assumption that all members of the outgroup possess similar characteristics and are 6therefore "all alike".

Ingroup Differentiation Bias is the opposite assumption, namely that the ingroup is composed of members who possess unique and distinctive qualities.

Extremity Bias suggests that we make more extreme judgements about people in the outgroup. The law of Small Numbers states that we base judgements about another group based on observations of a small number of individuals from that group (perhaps because we limit our exposure to that group).

Group Attribution Error asserts that we base judgments about individuals on the general characteristic of the group and often hold the group responsible (or at blame) for the behavior of the individuals. Finally, stereotypes (socially shared generalizations about people who are members of a particular group or social category) are developed as a result of these cognitive processes.

 Additional causes of prejudice are speculated to involve the interpersonal processes of social learning and modeling of others behavior (discussed as "how attitudes form" above); as well as the through the norms (should's and ought's) of society. Perhaps the oldest explanation of prejudice involves the Realistic Conflict Theory (Rabbie & Horwitz, 1969). This theory claims that prejudice is a result of competition between groups for scarce resources such as territory, wealth, status, etc.

Most theorists agree that no one theory accounts for the prevalence of prejudice that exists in society and that a complex interaction of a number of causes result in this negative attitudinal state.

However, just as prejudice attitudes can be formed, it is theorized that they can be changed. These remedies can also be categorized into four areas. Psychological approaches suggest the use of therapy to deal with the ego-defensiveness and scapegoating approaches used by individuals with low self-esteem. Thus, self-esteem enhancement may result in decreased prejudice. Cognitive approaches offer the tactics of finding ways to undo categorization. By redrawing the boundary between "us" and "them", people may find they have things in common with the previous "outgroup". Additionally, it is speculated that knowledge of the cognitive bias processes may assist in reducing prejudice. Seeking evidence that violates previously held stereotypes and biases is perhaps one of the easiest remedies. Interpersonal approaches involve the formal and informal teaching of equality and multiculturalism, in the home, school, social, and media settings. Finally, the increased opportunity for contact -- especially through cooperative settings is suggested as a means for dealing with intergroup sources of prejudice.