Download Attitudes - Winston Knoll Collegiate

ATTITUDES
What are Attitudes?
 Long lasting patterns of feelings and beliefs
about other people, ideas, or objects that based
in people’s experiences and shape their future
behaviour.
 A psychological tendency that is expressed by
evaluating a particular entity with some degree
of favor or disfavor. (Eagly& Chaiken, 1993)
 A positive or negative evaluation of people,
objects, event, activities, ideas, or just about
anything in your environment. (Zimbardo et al.,
1999
Why Study Attitudes?
 Attitudes influence social cognition
 They can function as schemas for organizing and
interpreting information about social entities.
 Think about your attitudes toward "spending money,"
professors, and eating out during the week.
 I suggest to class: "Hey class, let's celebrate the end of
semester by going out to dinner together at the
Silver’s restaurant." What's your response?
 How is response informed by each of these attitudes?
 Attitudes may influence behavior
 People will behave in ways consistent with their
attitudes
Types of Attitudes
 Cognitive
 Affective
 Behaviour
Cognitive
 Head over heart
 Based primarily about people’s beliefs about
the rewards and punishments thy can provide
or the pluses and minuses of an object
Affective
 Heart over head
 Based more on people’s feelings and values
than on beliefs about the nature of the object
 Come from a variety of sources:
 Religious beliefs
 Moral beliefs
 Sensory reactions (chocolate)
 Conditioning
Behavior
 Based more on self-perception,
 How you feel about something is based on
performance or activity
How are Attitudes Formed?
 Attitudes are acquired through:
 social learning
 social comparison
 genetic factors (not all agree on this)
What is Social Learning?
 The theories covering social learning are:
 Classical Conditioning
 Operant or Instrumental Conditioning
 Observational Learning or Modeling
Classical Conditioning
 From class this would be the lemonade
experiment.
 Many studies show that when initially neutral
social stimuli are paired repeatedly with
positive or negative stimuli, subjects will
develop positive or negative attitudes toward
the previously neutral stimulus.
 Think of advertisements where products are
tied closely to babies or cute animals.
Classical Conditioning
Operant or Instrumental
Conditioning
 Persons are rewarded for expressing the
"correct" attitudes/punished for "incorrect.“
 Ex: Think about response I would get from
others if I were to express these attitudes
publically:
 It's okay to smoke and drink.
 The Taliban should not be attacked by the U.S.
 Tuition should be abolished at USU.
 Students should never have to take an exam.
Operant or Instrumental
Conditioning
The rich should pay less in
taxes.
It is OK to text and drive.
 Persons form attitudes by observing and then
Learning
imitating
models theyor
likeModeling
and admire.
 Ex: Your mother states that "Only
biodegradeable products should be used to
do laundry." (Will you model that attitude?)
Social Comparison
 Social comparison is our tendency to
compare ourselves with others to judge
whether our view of social reality is correct or
not
 When physical reality is vague we rely more
and more on others to determine social
reality
Social Comparison
Genetic Factors
 Controlled twin studies in US and Sweden
reveal that identical twins share more similar
attitudes than fraternal twins
 Genetic factors may influence general
dispositions (e.g., tendency to have positive
affect) and conditionability that may
influence formation of more specific attitudes
Gender Attitudes
 How men and women think about things is
not always the same.
 In the next two slides you will see the top 10
attributes that each sought in the other.
Women most sought in a man
1. A record of achievement
2. Leadership qualities
3. Skills at his job
4. Earning potential
5. A sense of humor
6. Intellectual ability
7. Attentiveness
8. Common sense
9. Moral perception
10. Good abstract reasoning
Men most sought in a woman
1. Physical attractiveness
2. Ability in bed
3. Warmth and affection
4. Social skills
5. Homemaking ability
6. Dress sense
7. Sensitivity to other’s needs
8. Good taste
9. Moral perception
10. Artistic creativity
Discussion
 What are the attitudes of a successful
student?
The Task
 What are the necessary attitudes to be
successful in life?
 Create a top 5 list of these attitudes.
 Explain why each of these attitudes is
important in detail.