Attitude Formation

mental attitude FormationCCSF, Shardlow In Social psychological science attitudes argon defined as decreed or negative evaluations of objects of thought. Attitudes typically take away three comp iodinents. The cognitive dowry is made up of the thoughts and beliefs muckle hold about the object of the attitude. The affective component consists of the emotional tactile sensationings wound up by the object of the attitude. The behavioral component consists of predispositions to act in trusted ways toward an attitude object. The object of an attitude can be anything wad have opinions about.Therefore, individual people, separates of people, institutions, products, social trends, consumer products, etc. all can be attitudinal objects. Attitudes involve social judgments. They are either for, or against, pro, or con, positive, or negative however, it is possible to be ambivalent about the attitudinal object and have a mix of positive and negative feelings and thoughts about it. Attitudes involve a readiness (or predisposition) to respond however, for a variety of reasons we dont perpetually act on our attitudes. Attitudes vary a foresighted dimensions of strength and accessibility.Strong attitudes are rattling important to the individual and tend to be durable and have a powerful impact on behavior, whereas weak attitudes are not very important and have little impact. Accessible attitudes come to mind quickly, whereas slightly other attitudes may rarely be noticed. Attitudes tend to be stable over time, but a number of factors can cause attitudes to deviate. Stereotypes are wide held beliefs that people have certain characteristics because of their membership in a occurrence group. A prejudice is an arbitrary belief, or feeling, directed toward a group of people or its individual members.Prejudices can be either positive or negative however, the term is unremarkably used to refer to a negative attitude held toward members of a group. Prejudi ce may lead to discrimination, which involves behaving differently, usually unfairly, toward the members of a group. Psychological factors gnarled in Attitude Formation and Attitude Change 1. Direct Instruction involves being told what attitudes to have by parents, schools, companionship organizations, religious doctrine, friends, etc. 2. Operant Conditioning is a simple contrive of learning. It is based on the Law of Effect and involves voluntary responses.Behaviors (including verbal behaviors and peradventure even thoughts) tend to be repeated if they are reinforced (i. e. , followed by a positive experience). Conversely, behaviors tend to be stopped when they are penalise (i. e. , followed by an unpleasant experience). Thus, if one expresses, or acts out an attitude toward some group, and this is reinforced by ones peers, the attitude is strengthened and is possible to be expressed again. The reinforcement can be as elusive as a smile or as obvious as a raise in salary. Op erant conditioning is especially involved with the behavioral component of attitudes. 3.Classical conditioning is another simple form of learning. It involves free responses and is acquired through the pairing of two stimuli. Two events that repeatedly occur occlude together in time become fused and before long the individual responds in the same way to both events. Originally canvass by Pavlov, the process requires an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) that produces an involuntary (reflexive) response (UCR). If a neutral stimulus (NS) is paired, either very dramatically on one occasion, or repeatedly for several acquisition trials, the neutral stimulus allow for lead to the same response elicited by the unconditioned stimulus.At this elevation the stimulus is no longer neutral and so is referred to as a conditioned stimulus (CS) and the response has now become a in condition(p) response and so is referred to as a conditioned response (CR). In Pavlovs research the UCS was meat powd er which led to an UCR of salivation. The NS was a bell. At first the bell elicited no response from the dog, but finally the bell alone caused the dog to salivate. Advertisers create positive attitudes towards their products by presenting entrancing models in their ads. In this case the model is the UCS and our reaction to him, or her, is an semiautomatic positive response.The product is the original NS which through pairing comes to elicit a positive conditioned response. In a similar fashion, pleasant or unpleasant experiences with members of a particular group could lead to positive or negative attitudes toward that group. Classical conditioning is especially involved with the emotional, or affective, component of attitudes. 4. Social (Observational) Learning is based on modeling. We ob dish out others. If they are get reinforced for certain behaviors or the expression of certain attitudes, this serves as vicarious reinforcement and makes it more ikely that we, too, bequeat h behave in this manner or express this attitude. Classical conditioning can also occur vicariously through observation of others. 5. Cognitive Dissonance exists when related cognitions, feelings or behaviors are inconsistent or contradictory. Cognitive dissonance creates an unpleasant state of strain that motivates people to reduce their dissonance by changing their cognitions, feeling, or behaviors. For example, a person who starts out with a negative attitude toward marijuana will experience cognitive dissonance if they start smoking marijuana and rule themselves enjoying the experience.The dissonance they experience is thus likely to motivate them to either change their attitude toward marijuana, or to stop using marijuana. This process can be conscious, but often occurs without conscious cognisantness. 6. Unconscious Motivation. Some attitudes are held because they serve some unconscious(p) function for an individual. For example, a person who is threatened by his homosexua l feelings may employ the defense mechanism of reaction organization and become a crusader against homosexuals.Or, someone who feels inferior may feel somewhat better by putting down a group other than her own. Because it is unconscious, the person will not be aware of the unconscious motivation at the time it is operative, but may become aware of it as some later point in time. 7. Rational analytic thinking involves the careful weighing of evidence for, and against, a particular attitude. For example, a person may carefully listen to the presidential debates and read opinions of political experts in order to decide which candidate to vote for in an election.