Attitudes Social Psychology's Most Indispensable Concept
Augoustinos & Walker (1995) claim the attitudes area has been the most
researched and heavily invested topic in social psychology. The
1960/70's saw an era of pessimism regarding the attitude-behaviour
association. However, by the 80's there was resurgence due to
cognitive psychology's impact (Hogg and Vaughan 2002). Attitudes
influence perceptions of others and also how we perceive ourselves.
Augoustinos & Walker (1995:12) believe attitudes are 'real and
tangible, which influence the way that attitude owner behaves'. They
are tangible in the sense that attitudes are displayed through
specific human behaviours and so can be observed e.g. a lazy attitude
shown though someone sleeping a lot. But this does not mean that
'attitude' in itself exists as the question infers, it is a
concept/theoretical construct. If G.Allport is correct then, attitudes
are the causal stimuli that determine particular behaviour(s). Alike
many social psychological concepts there is a definition problem.
There are blurred boundaries between scientific and everyday meanings
of 'attitude'. Reber and Reber (2001:63) vaguely claim 'an attitude is
some internal affective orientation that explains the actions of a
person - an intended action'. Hogg and Vaughan (2002) believe it has
four components: cognitive (conscious opinion), affective (emotional
feeling), evaluative (positive/negative) and behavioural (character
for action). It depends on the theoretical approach taken when
considering which factor is more important e.g. behaviourists
favouring behavioural - based upon observed behaviour whilst
cognitiv...
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...erbal and Overt Behavioural Responses to Attitude Objects. Journal of
Social Issues. 25: 41-78.
Sources Utilised
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Ajzen, I. & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding Attitudes and
Predicting Behaviour. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Augoustinos, M. & Walker, I. (1995). Social Cognition: An Integrated
Introduction. London: Sage.
Eiser, R.J. (1980) Cognitive Social Psychology: A Guidebook To Theory
and Research. London: McGraw-Hill Ltd.
Hogg, M. T. & Vaughan, G. M. (2002) Social Psychology (3rd Edition).
Chapters 5 & 6. London: Prentice Hall.
Ibáňez, T. & Ãňiguez, L. (1997) Critical Social Psychology. London:
Sage.
Reber, A.S. & Reber, E. (2001). The Penguin Dictionary Of Psychology.
London: Penguin.
Tesser, A. (1995) Advanced Social Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
The World of Psychology. (2002). A Pearson Education Company. Boston, MA: Samuel Wood & Ellen Green Wood p. 593
Bibliography 3rd edition Psychology (Bernstein-Stewart, Roy, Srull, & Wickens) Houghton Mifflin Company Boston, Massachusetts 1994
...onson, E., Wilson, T.D., & Akert, R.M. (2013). Social Psychology (8th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
Davis, S. F., & Palladino, J. J. (2003). Psychology. (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
...ommunity and belonging that they had wanted. They’d gone through hard times, however they gained a community that they can call “family.” After all, they believed that their hard work benefited the community and enjoyed in knowing that. Because of them, the community became a “family.”
I did not really believe that it was accurate until I took the tests. I accurately relied on my explicit attitudes that I never thought about what I subconsciously thought of. Taking the IAT’s allowed me to see a different perspective, moreover, even though I had an explicit attitude for both tests, I still got different results. In the textbook, it states that we can have both explicit and implicit attitudes toward the same topic (p. 169). Furthermore, taking the IAT’s allowed me to notice my implicit and explicit attitudes toward the same topic and how it contradicted to what I had initially
Myers, David G. “Chapter 14: Social Psychology.” Psychology. 10th ed. New York, NY US: Worth
Social cognitive theory (SCT) involves four key components: reciprocal interaction, enacting learning, vicarious learning, and modeling. Despite Ann, the English teacher in the video, may not know what SCT is, she does apply the theory to her teaching strategy.
The word attitude is generally a term used to describe the way we perceive and evaluate the social world around us, the way in which we build a positive or negative opinion towards something or someone (Crisp and Turner 2007). Most social psychologists believe attitudes are not innate and that they are learned (Baron and Byrne 2004). However there is some evidence that suggests genetics factors may have a small influence over attitudes. This can be seen in studies involving identical and non identical twins, whereby identical twins share stronger attitude beliefs than non- identical twins (Baron and Byrne 2004). However this link does not mean that our genes determine our attitudes it just shows that the relationship between genes and personality can have an effect on our attitudes (Aronson,Wilson and Akert 2005).
Crisp, R, J. Turner, R, N. (2007). Essential Social Psychology. Sage Publications Limited. London. (UK). First Edition.
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.
Hergenhahn, B.R. (2009). Social and Theoretical Psychology: Conceptual and Historical Issues 1. An introduction to the History of Psychology. 1 (1), p1-28.
Personality can be defined as an individual’s characteristic pattern of thinking, feeling and acting. Many personality theorists have put forward claims as to where personality is derived from and how it develops throughout an individual’s life. The two main personality theories this essay will be focusing on is the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) (Bandura, 1986) and the Trait Theory – Five Factor Theory (FFT) (McCrae and Costa, 1995). The SCT allocates a central role to cognitive, observational learning and self-regulatory processes (Bandura, 1986). An individual’s personality develops through experiences with their sociocultural environment. Whereas the Trait Theory proposes that all individuals are predisposed with five traits (Extraversion, Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Neuroticism) which determines our personality. This theory also puts forward that personality is stable and cannot change as it’s biologically determined.
Social cognitive theory is the study on how an individual stores, processes, and applies information about others in their everyday life. It was first known as the “Social Learning Theory”, and was later changed to the term known today as the “Social Cognitive Theory”. The definition of social cognition is defined as any cognitive process that involves one or more than one person. While the definition of cognition is unconscious process in the brain that bring about representations. Social cognition purpose is to study social knowledge, social structure, group behavior, social influences, social categories (age, race, sex) defines a person. (Science Direct) Social cognition is thought to be the outcome of social interactions. One will learn by observing others, this is known as vicarious learning. For example, one is more likely to follow another’s behavior if they can identify with them, whether it be personality wise, age proximity, and more. (Verywell)
Attitudes are formed from learning. Moreover, the effects of home life, school, religious experience, and peers can help develop an individual’s attitude. An example, a child that grows up in a home where parents distrust law enforcement officials may grow up to despise police officers and other authority figures. Trustworthiness is the strongest source because just being an expert does not mean that person is truthful.