Attitudes (Research)

Attitudes and attitude research have been a mainstay in social psychology since its experimental inception decades ago. Attitudes serve important psychological functions for an individual, representing important values, morals and mores. Some attitudes are so important to one's self-definition that information attacking an attitude may be distorted in order to uphold the attitude. As such, the study of attitudes, their formation, and their relationship with behaviour and affect have garnered much attention. Allport (1935) defined attitudes as "a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related" (p.169). Attitudes are viewed as cognitively complex organizations with cognitive, affective and behavioral components. A number of different theories have tried to explain attitudes, their formation and their relationship with affect and behaviour. Factors affecting the endurance of different attitudes as well as the consistency between attitudes and behaviour are major areas of research.

Learning Theory

In the mid 1950s, Hovland put forth the idea that attitudes are acquired much as habits are. We learn attitudes through the same process that we acquire other types of behaviour. The process of association aids in learning attitudes simply by acquiring information and feelings about an attitude object, then associating these things with the object in order to form an attitude. Reinforcement and punishment also affect the formation of attitudes. If a positive reinforcer follows a given object, a positive attitude toward that object will ensue. Conversely if a punisher follows an object, a negative attitude will ensue. Imitation, another learning process, also plays a role in attitude acquisition. Individuals learn certain attitudes simply by imitating others, especially strong, significant people in an individual's life. All of these processes assume that the individual is a passive processor, at the hands of the environment. Other theories take a more cognitive approach in which the individual is a more active participant in the formation and changing of attitudes.

Balance Theory

An early theory of attitudes, purported by Heider (1958), involves the idea of cognitive consistency. Cognitive consistency involves the need to make cognitions consistent. If cognitions are not consistent, psychological tension and the need to change one of these cognitions results. Balance theory involves an individual's evaluation of an attitude object and the evaluation of another individual. If an individual has a positive attitude toward a second person, and a positive attitude toward a certain object, the system will be in balance if the second person has a positive attitude toward the object as well. If the second person held a negative attitude toward the object, the system would be in imbalance, causing tension and the need to change one of these attitudes. The direction of change will be determined by that which would involve the least effort. This theory touches on the idea that attitudes need to be consistent within a given individual.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

This theory also involves the idea of consistency, yet focuses on consistency between attitudes and behaviour. Dissonance is an aversive motivational state which results from overt behaviour being inconsistent with our attitudes. This creates psychological tension which needs to be relieved. Therefore one would expect that people should act in accordance with their attitudes in order to avoid dissonance. yet, "counterattitudinal behaviour" occurs regularly. This behaviour, that is inconsistent with one's attitudes creates psychological tension. This tension has been shown to increase physiological arousal such as galvanic skin response in times of cognitive dissonance (Elkin & Lieppe, 1986). In order to relieve this tension, one's attitude can change since behaviour which has already been performed cannot change. Whether one's attitude will change or not depends upon a number of different factos such as incentive to commit the behaviour, commitment to the behaviour, and effort put into the behaviour. Such factors will be elaborated upon in following summaries on attitude change.

Self-Perception Theory

Self-perception theory (Bem, 1967) states that individuals know their attitudes from inferring them from their own behaviour. Attitudes are "casual verbal statements" in this regard rather than strong enduring predispositions as cognitive dissonance would assume. It appears that self-perception theory applies when attitudes are vague and ambiguous. If we do not have any well-defined specific attitudes, we will infer them from our behaviour. Conversely, if we do have specific well-defined attitudes, cognitive dissonance processes appear more likely to occur. Most attitudinal theorists accept that both processes do occur, yet under different circumstances.

Questions do exist as to whether consistency is a cultural value or a fundamental cognitive process. It appears that other cultures such as certain Eastern cultures, do not value the idea of consistency a much as Western cultures do. In Japan, depending upon the situation one is in, one's attitude may change in order to conform to the situation and with the other individuals in the situation. Therefore consistency among cognitions and behaviour is not as important as conforming to the situation in order to please the group.

Expectancy-value Theory

This theory states that the attitude toward an object will be chosen after all possible positive and negative outcomes resulting from that attitude are weighed. The value of a particular outcome will be weighed, as well as the expectancy that the outcome will occur. The attitude that maximizes gains will be the position that is adopted.

Cognitive Response Theory

Cognitive response theory states that one reacts to a position with either positive or negative thoughts. These thoughts determine whether the position will be supported or not. Again, the individual is seen as an active processor in the formation of attitudes rather than a passive recipient. In relation to this theory the "elaboration likelihood model" states that an individual can respond to a message in either a thoughtful, rational way or an emotional, automatic way. This is referred to as either central or peripheral processing respectively.

Attitude and Behaviour Consistency

Questions exist as to whether behaviour acts in accordance with attitudes or not. Originally it was assumed that individuals would act in accordance with their attitudes in order to avoid psychological tension. Yet, in a 1934 study by LaPiere in which hotel and restauranteurs were asked whether they would serve Chinese customers, it was found that many of these individuals stated they would not serve Chinese customers, but later did serve them when encountered with the situation. Here, the hoteliers and restauranteurs did not act in accordance with their stated attitudes.

It appears that there is great variation in how consistent one's attitudes and behaviours are. Behaviour is more likely to be consistent with attitudes when these attitudes are "strong". Strong attitudes are ones which we have a great amount of information about, ones which are rehearsed and practiced, and ones in which we have a vested interest.

The "reasoned action model" attempts to explain the factors that determine attitude-behaviour consistency. Here, behaviour id defined in terms of behavioural intentions. These intentions are affected by a person's attitudes and social norms. This takes into account both an individual'smotives and the perceived expectations of others which affects behaviour as well. If one's behavioral intentions are known then behaviour can be predicted from this.

Attitude research is a large and growing area, examining how attitudes are formed, why they are formed, and the impact they have on behaviour. The above concepts just touch the surface of such findings and mention some questions that have resulted from this research.