Transcript Lecture 4: Attitudes

ATTITUDES
A set of beliefs that we hold in relation to
an attitude object.
A psychological tendency that is
expressed by evaluating a particular entity
with some degree of favour or disfavour.
Key concept in ESP: operate at all
levels of social influence
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Individual level - influence people’s perception,
thinking & behaviour
Interpersonal level –key element in how people
get to know each other, respond to each other
Intergroup level – group members’ attitudes to in/out-groups
(prejudice, self-esteem…)
3 main components
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Cognitive
Emotional/affective
Behavioural
In ascribing an attitude to someone:
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Are we attributing a relatively permanent
mental state?
or
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Are we commenting on the way s/he
performs certain [discursive] acts?
Having this attitude causes that
behaviour…
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Attitudes are the unobservable causes of
observable behaviour, e.g.,
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anti-intellectualism = an attitude.
showing contempt for high culture = one of its
effects
cause & effect metaphysics
Danziger 1997
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An attitude is a kind of display, it doesn’t cause a display
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concept of attitude 1st used to describe how a person appeared
in public, esp. positioning of the body
Link between bodily posture and psychological state
= postures (attitudes) expressed private thoughts/feelings
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Expression ≠ causation
Groaning is not caused by pain, it expresses pain: groan + pain
= aspects of a single psychological whole
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But metaphysics of causality overlaid
original expressive relation
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Attitudes are now conceived of as causing
behaviour
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(e.g., gas under pressure causes a cylinder to
move)
Two features of history of attitude
concept
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Transformation from observable category
to denoting a purely dispositional concept
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Expressive link between inner and outer
became causal
Observable physical stance became a
psychological evaluation
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Not due to any empirical discovery but shift
from normative metaphysics of meaningful
action to a causal metaphysics of
behaviour
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Driven by social forces
Two main factors account for
flourishing industry
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External: popular interest in social attitudes
(opinions)
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Internal: attitude measurement
How attitudes became Social
Allports in 1920’s imported category from
sociology
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Social psychological concept of attitude used
to study interdependence of individual
consciousness & cultural values
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Psychological, not sociological, social psychology
psychology, attitudes = individual attributes
= responses of separate individuals to
artificially constructed situations
≠ the subjective side of collective values
of sociologists
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collective or cultural values had no existence
apart from reactions/dispositions of
individuals
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all-purpose tool for tracing social problems to
source in individual minds
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By 1930s term synonymous with OPINION
(LaPiere 1934 study)
Assumptions about attitudes:
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Strictly individual attributes
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Acquired, learned therefore modifiable
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States with causal properties, have effects, THEREFORE
real, distinct entities that push person from within
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THEREFORE can be measured
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(sociology: ‘action’ rather than ‘behaviour’)
Measurement
Thurstone end of 1920’s psychophysics - judgement
applied to verbal statements having a social target
Attitude variable, operational definition
Likert – agree/disagree responses
Technology defined practical employment of concept (Like
IQ measurement)
Attitudes are what attitude scales measure (preset scales)
Ideology (European)/values vs.
individual attitudes (US)
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Layer of social consciousness to account for
coherence among attitudes
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not separate entities, but meaningfully
interconnected parts of larger whole, traceable to
social conditions
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Psychology - individual reactions to social stimuli
Sociology – Mead 1912 ‘a conversation of attitudes’
Cognitive Social Psychology
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Attitudes play key role in maintaining
consistent sense of self
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human mind resists cognitive change,
select & interpret information in ways
consistent with established attitudes
How are attitudes formed &
maintained?
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Information gathered about attitude object
Classical conditioning
Instrumental conditioning
Imitation or modelling
Belief perseverance
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cause disconfirming evidence to be ignored
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generate causal explanations to support
underlying beliefs
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attitudes become more extreme
Five functions of attitudes
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To understand events: knowledge function
To express values
To protect self-esteem: ego defensive
function
Maximizing rewards: utilitarian function
Matching social situations: social adjustive
function
Attitude-Behaviour Consistency
Factors affecting how well
attitudes predict behaviour:
Attitudes predict behaviour better when:
Thought-feeling consistency
Thoughts & feelings match
Subjective norms
Belief that important others will approve of behaviour
Specificity matching
Attitudes & behaviour are either both specific or both at
general level
Direct experience
Attitude developed through direct personal experience
Attitude accessibility
Attitude that comes easily to mind
Introspection
Person has recently introspected about feelings toward
the attitude object & NOT about reasons for holding
attitude
Reading
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Hogg & Vaughan, Ch. 5 & 6
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Danziger, K. 1997. Naming the Mind. London:
London: Sage. Chapter 8.
Additional:
 Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. & Donaghue, N.
(2006) (2nd ed.). Social Cognition. London: Sage.
Chapter 4