Many theorists have attempted to define what an attitude is, thus, some are utilized more than others within contemporary research. One, which is commonly referred to, is that of Fazio (1995) whereby he states an attitude is “an association in memory between a given object and a given summary evaluation of the object” (p. 247). A recent definition of attitudes would be that of Haddock (2010). He defines attitudes based on more contemporary ideas and research by saying, ‘…we define an attitude as an overall evaluation of an object that is based on cognitive, affective and behavioural information’ (p.4). There seems to be much conflict of ideas, between theorists as to which component (cognition, affect or behaviour) holds more salience in the formation and change of attitudes. As the emphasis of attitudes lay with the three components, within the literature, this shall be of focus. By exploring the three components, this could provide insight, as to how Patrick may have been influenced to hold the attitudes he does.
Before analysing how these three components may influence attitudes, it is firstly appropriate to define each one. As this will be the recurrent theme, this will provide the setting for the evidence discussed. The Tripartite Model has been the leading paradigm utilised by many researchers, when investigating attitudes and stereotypes (Breckler, 1984). More commonly referred to as the ABC or CAB model, its emphasis relies on three components, these being Affect, Behaviour and Cognition. These three components all have distinct features within them, suggesting that affect concerns the feelings (Breckler, 1984, pp. 1191).
It will be important to consider the three components in turn and the relevant research pertai...
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...fective influence upon attitudes, such as the early works of Zajonc (1968). He believes that the more that an individual is exposed to something, the more our attitudes become favourable of it. Zajonc (1968) attempted to prove this within his experiments. The use of ideographs, foreign words and photos were used in order to determine whether increased exposure of items had an effect on the participant’s favourable attitudes. The results highlighted that, this was true. This could support the hypothesis that the affect component influenced Patrick’s attitude toward blacks. For example, the more Patrick might have been exposed to blacks, the more positive feelings result, influences more favourable attitudes of blacks.
Works Cited
Zajonc (1968), Petty and Cacioppo (1980), Devine (1989), Fiske (1989), Wyer et al (2010), Breckler (1984), Haddock (2010), Fazio (1995)
Hogg, M.A., Abrams, D., & Martin, G.N. (2010). Social Cognition and Attitudes. In Martin, G.N., Carlson, N.R., Buskist W., (Ed.), Psychology (pp 646-677). Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.
Reading about how the way information is given to an individual can alter someone’s opinion on a particular idea or product was fascinating to me. I thought about how this relates to my everyday life and how individuals form their own personal opinions based on what they know before hand or how they identify with something. For instance, in the subsection The Blind Leading the Blind Gladwell discusses how when performing a taste test for competitors in the soft drink industry the problem may not even be the taste of the product. A consumer could just be uninterested in the way a product is presented to them. When relating it to how I perceive the opinions of others in the real world I had a new way to understand how an opinion is subject to change depending on how information is presented relating to that topic to
As said earlier, in one study researchers used different conditions to assess the differences in people’s behavior. The two conditions were the prejudice condition and the no prejudice condition. The prejudice condition involved one’s religion being mentioned. The participants were in a casual setting and thought that all the other men in the room were Gentiles and knew they were Jewish. After interacting and the experiment concluded, the men were asked to fill out a mood adjective check list, and rated themselves on positive and negative Jewish stereotypes and self- esteem traits. On the other hand, in the no prejudice condition religion and ethnicity were not mentioned which left the men with attribution to prejudice (Dion & Earn,
Prejudice is the attitude of conveying negative stereotypes to a particular group, usually known as the out-groups. Usually the stereotypes are generalizations based on superficial opinions, so they have an invalid connotation behind it. Stereotypes in some cases evoke prejudice mindsets, leading to discriminate a certain ethnic group, age group, religion, seuxal orienntation, or body size. Stereotypes are usually socially learned from one’s environment and latched onto the mind of a young child. This could possibly later influence their opinion about something they are not fully educated on. One cannot control what they are taught, but one can control what they do with that information. They can either not believe a word of it or take it into
This allowed people to write down all stereotypes they know of African Americans. The results showed that both low and high prejudice groups wrote down similar stereotypes and therefore there was no significant differences between the groups and any category. “High- and low-prejudice persons are indeed equally knowledgeable of the cultural stereotype (Devine, 1989).” Although this is the case for both high- and low-prejudice persons, this does not mean that consciousness of a stereotype equals the influence and inevitability of prejudice. “The inevitability of prejudice approach, however, overlooks an important distinction between knowledge of a cultural stereotype and acceptance or endorsement of the stereotype” (Ashmore & Del Boca, 1981; Billig, 1985). Knowing about versus actually believing in stereotype are two very different things: “Beliefs can differ from one’s knowledge about an object or group or one’s affective reaction toward the object or group (Pratkanis, in press).” Therefore, while stereotypes are automatically activated, beliefs require conscious
Wade, T. D., Tiggemann, M., Bulik, C. M., Fairburn, C. G., FMedSci, Wray, N. R., Martin, N.
By reading on Greenwald’s studies gave the researcher a base ground to start from and draw hypothesis as to what to look for when starting. While continuing with the study it has includes measures, which were “the measure of attitude toward a group should predict behavior favorable or unfavorable to the group; and measures of stereotype of the group should predict stereotype-consistent judgments or behavior toward member of that group” (Oswald, Mitchell, Blanton, Jaccard, &
A stereotype is defined as “an often unfair and untrue belief that many people have about [an entire group of] people or things with a particular characteristic” (stereotype, n.d.). While not all stereotypes are necessarily negative, the word “stereotype” itself has a negative connotation that it has earned over the course of human history. Stereotyping has been a mental phenomenon that has intrigued psychologists and others alike for many years. There have been questions to whether or not it is an automatic response or a controlled cognitive belief. More specifically, this study addresses the question if a person’s perception of another person or subject influences the automaticity of stereotyping. This is an important subject because it approaches the issue of whether we as humans can control our immediate, initial thoughts, positive or negative, about a person or thing; which ultimately determines our attitude toward the individual or thing, which effects our behavior.
Attitudes can be formed in a number of different ways. The three component model consists of Affective, Cognitive and behavioural based attitude experiences and has been a main area of focus among social psychologists. These three components are held within most attitudes, however not all attitudes are equal and different experiences can change the ...
With the Social Judgement Theory; we take messages we hear and place them on an attitude scale in our mind. Our reading used the example of a man’s fear of flying and how someone might try to alleviate that fear. I personally know where this man is coming from; as I prefer not to fly unless it is necessary. This fear comes from seeing a plane crash personally and having to deal with the aftermath as a first responder. This theory goes into more detail of the message received by looking at how much does the person care and judging the message for content to decide if there should be a change or not.
Watson, J. B. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. The American Psychologist, 55(3), 313-317. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu/
Taking all this information into consideration, the present study sought to investigate the effects occupational stereotypes have on forming impressions and personality judgements. The aim of the study was to see how different groups of participant rated a photograph of an unknown individual on things such as likability, wealth, education and status. This was done by using three separate groups, the same face was used on each image but the job title was changed for each test group.
Theories Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Theories It is a well-known fact that different factors affect on human behavior as well as various aspects of people’s life. Among them the emotions detect a powerful force on humans. Strong emotions may cause people to take actions they might not perform as usual, or obviate situations that they generally enjoy. Psychologists, researchers, and philosophers have proposed a set of different theories that explain how and why people experience the emotions. I have chosen two theories of emotion that I am interested in such as: the James-Lange Theory of Emotion and the Cannon-Bard Theory of Emotion. This paper describes those theories by comparing and contrasting them; discusses the theory that I agree with and explain the reasons of it.
Attitudes are relatively stable positive, negative or neutral person's evaluations that can vary in level of intensity, and has an affective, cognitive, and behavioral component, (Piotrowski, 2005). The main difference between attitudes and a trait is variability. To consider an element as a trait, there should be considered two elements: longitudinal stability and consistency across situations.
Psychologist’s definitions of attitudes include assessing problems, persons, or actions. These assessments are regularly affirmative or adverse, and unclear. Humans have established attitudes about such issues, and these attitudes influence his or her beliefs as well as behavior. Because people are largely unaware of his or her implicit attitudes, they can have difficulty changing these attitudes.