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Running Head: ATTITUDES AND ATTITUDE CHANGE
Attitudes and Attitude Change
Name
Institution
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Table of Contents
Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 3
Components of attitude ....................................................................................................... 3
How attitudes develop......................................................................................................... 4
Measuring attitudes ............................................................................................................. 5
How attitudes change .......................................................................................................... 6
Consequences of attitudes ................................................................................................... 9
Strategies to improve attitude ........................................................................................... 10
Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 11
References ......................................................................................................................... 12
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Attitudes and Attitude Change
Introduction
Educators and psychologists are able to describe how human beings constantly
learn new things. According to Smith and Mackie (2007), there are three general types of
learning that take place in human beings namely attitudes, knowledge, and skills. One of
the core topics of contemporary social psychology that has attracted the attention of
researchers is attitudes and attitude change. Bohner and Dickel (2011) defines attitude as
a person’s feelings about something. Suppose attitude is a type of learning, then the
different feelings that people have are learnt. For instance, human beings learn to be
attracted to different people, to enjoy doing certain things, and to hate or like someone.
Social psychologists are highly concerned about the various components of attitude, how
attitude is formed, how attitude is measured, and how attitude change. Attitude can either
be positive or negative, but it may sometimes be unclear. For example, a person may
have mixed feelings about someone or an issue (Smith and Mackie, 2007). This paper
analyzes the concept of attitude as well as how attitude change occurs.
Components of attitude
Majority of social psychologist believe that attitude involves three components:
cognitive component, affective component, and behavioral component. The cognitive
component involves thoughts and beliefs about a particular object or issue (Barden and
Tormal, 2014). For example one might believe that an object is either good or bad. The
affective component is concerned with how a person, issue, or an object makes someone
feel. In this case, the object or issue is always defined by a person’s feelings. As far as
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behavioral component is concerned, social psychologists are concerned with how a
person’s attitude influences his or her behavior. For instance, a person may develop a
negative attitude towards an object in order to get rid of it (Bohner and Dickel, 2011).
The cognitive, affective, and behavioral components of attitude describe how
people understand, feel, and behave respectively. This explains why there is a close
relationship between attitude and image. As human beings interact with others, they
constantly send signals that people in their immediate environment pick up. Depending
on the nature of a person’s attitudes, people will either be attracted towards or away from
him. Basically, attitudes can make people to view a person as either attractive or
repulsive. Therefore, the image that one’s friends and associates have of him or her is
what he or she projects through attitudes (Schwarz and Bohner, 2001).
How attitudes develop
Development of attitudes is influenced by a number of factors including
experience, social factors, and learning. A person’s attitudes develop directly as a result
of experience. For instance, one may develop a positive attitude towards an object
following a personal experience with that object or by observing the good things
associated with it. According to Schwarz and Bohner (2001), development of attitudes
can also be influenced by social norms and social roles. Social roles concern how people
within a given environment are expected to behave while social norms involve rules that
define behaviors that are considered appropriate by a particular group of people.
Additionally, people develop attitudes through learning. However, the manner in
which attitude is developed differs from the way a person develops skills or knowledge.
Social psychologists who have studied human learning have revealed that the critical
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factor in the development of attitudes is emotion. Examples of emotions that shape
people’s feelings about life events include joy, compassion, anxiety, and fear. When a life
event is accompanied by a particular emotion time after time, it creates an intense feeling
that may be very difficult to transform. Attitudes can be learnt through operant
conditioning, classical conditioning, and by observing things done by people in the
surrounding. Operant conditioning works when a person quits a given behavior after
receiving a negative feedback from people around him. Classical conditioning works
when one develops either a positive or negative attitude towards a given object following
repeated exposure to attractive and appealing imagery of the object (Smith and Mackie,
2007).
Measuring attitudes
Researchers are always interested in measuring the attitudes of participants in
order to understand how they evaluate objects, people, and issues. In order to effectively
measure attitudes, researchers often use self-report scales which require the respondent to
evaluate an object by giving responses that can be given numeric values. Self-report
scales are effective tools in measuring attitudes because they are easy to use and allow
respondents to report their attitudes accurately. One major disadvantage of using selfreport scales to measure attitudes is the fact that some people may hide their negative
attitudes in order to present positively (Bohner and Dickel, 2011).
In order to overcome this challenge, difference in response time is used to
minimize any form of biases that may result during measurement of attitudes. When
using variations in response time when measuring attitudes, researchers assume that
people evaluate objects differently therefore, they should produce different levels of
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responses when given an opportunity to evaluate a given stimulus. Ideally, variations in
response times allow researchers to discover hidden attitudes (Smith and Mackie, 2007).
According to Schwarz and Bohner (2001), attitudes may be more stable than
previously thought. Even though self-reports are prone to biases, they are capable of
revealing implicit attitudes mainly because they are context-dependent and can be made
to suit a given group of people basically by changing the question format or question
order. People are assumed to hold stable attitudes but their feelings can easily be
influenced by causing contextual variations. Bohner and Dickel (2011) add that when
researchers measure attitude, they try to evaluate the types of judgement that respondent
construct, based on their feelings towards people, issues, or objects. With this regard, it
becomes easy to learn human behavior and cognition through detailed analysis of their
judgmental processes (Hew and Cheung, 2014). People with stable attitudes can give
variable attitude reports when self-report is used to measure their attitudes depending on
the knowledge structure accessed by the researcher. As Schwarz and Bohner (2001)
emphasize, individuals can hold multiple attitudes about an object, but the stability of
these feelings depend in the knowledge structure being accessed.
How attitudes change
Modification of an individual’s general evaluation of an object, person, or issue is
what is referred to as attitude change. Therefore, alterations in a person’s feelings
towards a stimulus, whether the feelings are positive or negative, are classified under
attitude change. Attitude change represents a particular form of social control that does
not occur through compulsion (Wood, 2000). A number of theories can be used to
explain how attitude change occurs. These theoretical perspectives include conditioning
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and modeling approach, verbal learning approach, judgmental approach, motivational
approach, attributional approach, combinatory approach, and self-persuasion approach
(Cacioppo, Petty and Crites, 1994).
Conditioning and modeling approach focuses on the impacts of the direct
administration of punishments or rewards on the subject. Positive attitudes towards a
stimulus are associated with pleasant contexts while negative feelings are associated with
unpleasant contexts. Thus, evaluative conditioning plays a very big role in attitude
change. Additionally, studies of modeling indicate that a person’s attitude towards a
specific stimulus can change through classical and operant conditioning (Cacioppo, Petty
and Crites, 1994).
As far as verbal learning approach is concerned, attitude change is also associated
with effects of various factors of communication on a person. These include the source
factors such as trustworthiness, message factors such two-sided message, recipient factors
such as intelligence, and channel factors such as print (Hew and Cheung, 2014).
Additionally, the retention of arguments contained in a verbal message play a very
significant role in information processing which underly attitude change (Cacioppo, Petty
and Crites, 1994). Judgmental approach to attitude change focuses on how judgments are
made based on a person’s past experiences with the object or issue in question.
Distortions in a person’s judgement are directly associated with attitude change because
they alter a person’s feelings towards a stimulus. A number of variables ranging from
cultural backgrounds to the nature experience can alter a person’s attitudes towards a
stimulus, leaving the attitude strength unchanged (Cacioppo, Petty and Crites, 1994).
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The next approach to attitude change known a motivational approach focuses on
the relationship between a person’s motives and persuasion. The most important motive
is to main a state of equilibrium among different cognitive elements. When a person
wants to remove feelings of unpleasant tension, he or she has to restore consistency
among cognitive elements. In this manner, negative attitudes towards a stimulus are
replaced by positive feelings towards the same stimulus. As far as attributional approach
is concerned, attitude change occurs through inferences generated by a communicator’s
behavior. It means therefore that a person’s attitude can be attributed either to something
about a person or to a situation (Cacioppo, Petty and Crites, 1994).
Combinatory approach can also be used to explain how attitudes change.
According to Cacioppo, Petty and Crites (1994), attitude change can also occur through a
combination of beliefs about a stimulus that can be expressed using mathematical
models. For instance, beliefs that result into attitudes can be represented in terms of
syllogisms, and any change in attitude can be predicted using a mathematical function
related to changes in beliefs. Self-persuasion approach views attitude change as a
consequence of ideas, arguments, and thoughts that are generated by individuals
themselves. This theory assumes that when a person receives a persuasive
communication, he or she makes an attempt to relate that information to an already
existing attitude towards a stimulus. In this sense, the self-generated report may either be
positive or negative which determines the type of attitude developed towards a stimulus
(Cacioppo, Petty and Crites, 1994).
Irrespective of the type of approach used to explain attitude change, Cacioppo,
Petty and Crites (1994) document that there are only two routes to attitude change. The
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two routes to attitude change include; where an individual responds to various heuristics
in a situation, and where a person generates and processes attitude-relevant information.
Basically, attitude change only takes one of two routes at any given time. Therefore, the
various approaches to attitude change are useful in organizing and understanding the
basic processes that underly attitude change (Wood, 2000). Social psychologists should
be conversant with the different theories used to explain attitude change as well as the
two routes to attitude change in order to understand why people’s attitudes towards
stimuli can change with time.
Consequences of attitudes
The main reason why attitudes and attitude change is a very important topic in
social psychology is the fact that attitudes influence behavior and guide information
processing (Brinol, Rucker and Petty, 2015). Depending on the attitude that a person has
towards a stimulus, he or she will communicate either positively or negatively about an
object or a person. This explains the degree of influence that people’s attitudes have on
their cognitions. Furthermore, attitudes influence a person’s behavior because people’s
behaviors are largely guided by their attitudes. A number of factors make people behave
according to their attitudes. For instance, when a person’s attitudes are the result of his
personal experience, he will develop behaviors that either support or reject those attitudes
(Bohner and Dickel, 2011).
Additionally, when one is an expert in a particular subject, he or she will develop
behaviors that encourage him or her to participate in the subject. Moreover, expectations
of favorable outcomes will attract positive behaviors. Again, attitudes that are expressed
repeatedly are likely to generate behavior that is related to that particular attitude. Social
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psychologists agree that a person’s attitudes can change to match behavior, a term known
as cognitive dissonance. This is a phenomenon where, if a person experiences
psychological distress as a result of conflicting beliefs, he or she will have to change
attitudes to reflect a specific belief in order to reduce the tension. However, the change in
attitude must always occur to assist a person achieve personal desires at any given time
(Smith and Mackie, 2007).
Strategies to improve attitude
Attitude determines the nature of relationship that a person will have with his or
her colleagues in a social setting. Attitude change may not be easy but one thing that
people must agree about is the fact that attitude change can only be done by a person
himself and developing positive attitudes towards people, objects, or issues can be very
satisfying and enlightening. Replacing negative attitudes with positive ones is the best
kind of personal reform that a person can do. In order to eliminate negative attitudes, one
can follow three steps towards self-improvement as suggested by Barden and Tormal
(2014).
First, it is important to identify specific attitudes that need to be replaced. In order
to achieve this, one needs to have a mental picture of his or her current image and the
new image that needs to be acquired following attitude improvement. Second, one needs
to make a resolution to develop the new attitudes. The main goal here should be to
cultivate new qualities that are needed to model self-renewal. Third, a person should use
the image of his or her personality as a model for the new behavior. Ideally, the new
attitudes will serve to improve a person’s personality (Velasco and Harder, 2014).
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Conclusion
Attitudes and attitude change remain a very significant topic in the field of social
psychology. When studying attitudes and attitude change, social psychologists need to
focus on the affective, behavioral, and cognitive components of attitudes. Again, by
understanding how attitudes develop, it becomes possible to explain how attitudes
change. People can avoid negative consequences that result from negative attitudes by
changing their feelings towards specific stimuli.
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References
Barden, J. & Tormala, Z. L. (2014). Elaboration and attitude strength: The new metacognitive perspective. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 8 (1): 17-29.
Bohner, G. & Dickel, N. (2011). Attitudes and attitude change. The Annual Review of
Psychology, 62: 391-417.
Brinol, P., Rucker, D. D. & Petty, R. E. (2015). Naïve theories about persuasion:
Implications for information processing and consumer attitude change.
International Journal of Advertising, 34 (1): 85-106.
Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E. & Crites, S. L. (1994). Attitude change. Encyclopedia of
Human Behavior, 1: 261-270
Hew, K. F. & Cheung, W. S. (2014). Promoting attitude change toward country: A
theoretical framework and blended learning theory. Using Blended Learning, DOI
10.1007/978-981-287-089-6_2
Schwarz, N. & Bohner, G. (2001). The construction of attitudes. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
Smith, E. R. & Mackie, D. M. (2007). Social Psychology. London: Psychology Press.
Velasco, I. & Harder, M. K. (2014). From attitude change to behavior change:
Institutional mediators of education for sustainable development effectiveness.
Sustainability, 6: 6553-6575.
Wood, W. (2000). Attitude change: Persuasion and social influence. The Annual Review
of Psychology, 51: 539-570.