ATTITUDE AND ATTITUDE
FORMATION
Social Psychology
Definition
• Attitude: a relatively global and enduring
evaluation of an object, issue, person, or
action.
• It is an expression of favor or disfavor toward a
person, place, thing, or event
Characteristics of Attitude
1. Attitudes are the complex combination of things we tend to
call personality, beliefs, values, behaviors, and motivations.
2. It can fall anywhere along a continuum from very favorable to
very unfavorable.
3. All people, irrespective of their status or intelligence, hold
attitudes.
4. An attitude exists in every person’s mind. It helps to define
our identity, guide our actions, and influence how we judge
people.
5. Although the feeling and belief components of attitude are
internal to a person, we can view a person’s attitude from his
or her resulting behavior.
Conti…
6. Attitude helps us define how we see situations, as well as
define how we behave toward the situation or object.
7. It provides us with internal cognitions or beliefs and thoughts
about people and objects.
8. It can also be explicit and implicit. Explicit attitude is those
that we are consciously aware of an implicit attitude is
unconscious, but still, have an effect on our behaviors.
9. Attitudes cause us to behave in a particular way toward an
object or person.
10. An attitude is a summary of a person’s past experience; thus,
an attitude is grounded in direct experience predicts future
behavior more accurately.
11. It includes certain aspects of personality as interests,
appreciation and social conduct.
12. It indicates the sum total of a man’s inclinations and
feelings.
13. An attitude is a point of view, form or otherwise, true or
false which one holds towards an idea, object or person.
14. It has aspects such as direction, intensity, generality or
specificity.
15. It refers to one’s readiness for doing Work.
16. It may be positive or negative and may be affected by age,
position, and education.
Components of Attitude
• 3 components of attitude are;
• Cognitive Component.
• Affective Component.
• Behavioral Component.
Functions of Attitude
• functions of attitudes are;
• Adjustment Function.
• Ego-Defensive Function.
• Value-Expressive Function.
• Knowledge Function.
Adjustment Function
• Attitudes often help people to adjust to their work
environment. When employees are well treated,
they are likely to develop a positive attitude toward
management and the organization.
• When employees are criticized and given a minimal
salary, they are likely to develop a negative attitude
toward management and the organization.
Ego-Defensive Function
• The ego-defensive function refers to holding attitudes that -protect our self-
esteem or that justify actions that make us feel guilty.
• This function involves psychoanalytic principles where people use defense
mechanisms to protect themselves from psychological harm. Mechanisms include
denial, repression, projection, rationalization etc.
• For example- an older manager whose decisions are continually challenged by a
younger subordinate manager may feel that the later is immature, and
inexperienced. In truth, the younger subordinate may be right in challenging the
decisions.
• The older manager may not be a very effective leader and may constantly make
poor decisions. On the other hand, the older manager is not going to admit this
but will try to protect the ego by putting the blame on the other party.
Value-Expressive Function
• Whereas ego defensive attitudes are formed to protect a person’s self-
image, value-expressive attitudes enable the expression of the person’s
centrally held values.
• Central values tend to establish our identity and gain us social approval
thereby showing us who we are, and what we stand for.
• Some attitudes are important to a person because they express values
that are essential to that person’s self-concept.
• Therefore consumers adopt certain attitudes in an effort to translate
their values into something more real and easily expressed. Our value-
expressive attitudes are closely related to our self-concept.
Conti…
• One whose central value is freedom, the
individual may express very positive attitudes
towards decentralization of authority in the
organization, flexible work schedules, and
relaxation of dress standards.
Knowledge Function
• The knowledge function refers to our need which is consistent and
relatively stable.
• This allows us to predict what is likely to happen, and so gives us a sense
of control. Some attitudes are useful because they help to make the world
more understandable.
• They help people ascribe causes to events and direct attention towards
features of people or situations that are likely to be useful in making sense
of them.
• Consequently, they help to make the world more understandable,
predictable, and knowable. Knowing a person’s attitude helps us predict
their behavior.
Conti…
• For example- people who are not familiar with
nuclear energy may develop an attitude that it
is dangerous and should not be used as an
energy source. Stereotyping is another
example. In the absence of knowledge about a
person, we may use a stereotyped attitude for
judging the person.
Formation/Sources of Attitudes:
• Attitudes refer to the feelings and beliefs of
“individuals or groups of individuals. But the
question is how these feelings and beliefs
developed? The point which has been stressed
by many people are that attitudes are
acquired, but not inherited. A person acquires
these attitudes from several sources.
1. Direct Personal Experience:
• A person’s direct experience with the attitude object
determines his attitude towards it. The personal experience of
an individual, whether it is favourable or unfavourable, will
affect his attitude deeply. These attitudes which are based on
personal experience are difficult to change.
• For example, an individual joins a new job, which is
recommended to him by his friend. But when he joins the job,
he find his work repetitive, supervisors too tough and co-
workers not so co-operative, he would develop a negative
attitude towards his job, because the quality of his direct
experience with the job is negative.
2. Association:
• Sometimes an individual comes across a new attitude object
which may be associated with an old attitude object. In such a
case, the attitude towards the old attitude object may be
transferred towards the new attitude object.
• For example, if a new worker remains most of the time in the
company of a worker, who is in the good books of the
supervisor, and towards whom the supervisor has a positive
attitude, the supervisor is likely to develop a favourable
attitude towards the new worker also.
• Hence the positive attitude for the old worker has been
transferred towards the new worker because of the association
between the old and the new worker.
3. Family and Peer Groups:
• Attitudes like values are acquired from parents, teachers and
peer group members. In our early years, we begin modeling our
attitudes after those we admire, respect or may be even fear.
• We observe the way our family and friends behave and we
shape our attitudes and behaviour to align with theirs. We do
so even without being told to do so and even without having
direct experience.
• Similarly, attitudes are acquired from peer groups in colleges
and organisations. For example, if the right thing is to visit
“masjid ”, or/and the “relatives”, you are likely to hold that
attitude. If your parents support one political party, without
being told to do so, you automatically start favouring that party.
4. Neighbourhood:
• The neighbourhood in which we live has certain
cultural facilities, religious groupings and ethnic
differences. Further, it has people, who are
neighbours. These people may be Northerners,
Southerners etc.
• The people belonging to different cultures have
different attitudes and behaviours. Some of these
we accept and some of these we deny and possibly
rebel. The conformity or rebellion in some respects
is the evidence of the attitudes we hold.
5. Economic Status and Occupations:
• The economic status and occupational position of
the individual also affect his attitude formation.
• Our socio-economic background influences our
present and future attitudes. Research findings
have shown that unemployment disturbs former
religious and economic values.
• Children of professional class tend to be
conservatives. Respect for the laws of the country
is associated with increased years of higher
education.
6. Mass Communications:
• Attitudes are generally less stable as
compared to values. Advertising messages for
example, attempt to alter the attitude of the
people toward a certain product or service.
• For example, if the people at Hyundai Santro
can get you to hold a favourable feeling
toward their cars, that attitude may lead to a
desirable behaviour (for them)-your purchase
of a Santro car.
Theories of Attitude Formation
• 1. Learning Theory
• – Can explain a wide range of phenomena from conditioned fears to the acquisition of sex
roles to the development of personality traits.
• Classical Conditioning
• – Creates an affective, or emotional component in an attitude by pairing products with
stimuli that elicit pleasant emotional responses
• Operant Conditioning
• -Openly expresses an attitude
• -Agreement from others functions as a reinforce
• -Disagreement from others functions as a form of punishment
• Observational Learning
• -Parents and children have similar political attitudes
2. Dissonance Theory
• – Created by Festinger
• – Asserts that inconsistent attitudes cause tension
• – People alter their attitudes to reduce cognitive dissonance
• – Cognitive dissonance: exists when related cognitions are inconsistent (that is when, when
they contradict each other)
• – Creates unpleasant state of tension that motivates people to reduce their dissonance
• – Used to explain attitude change following counter attitudinal behavior and efforts that
haven’t planned out
• – Results can be explained by self perception theory which states that people may infer
their attitudes from their behavior
Specific situations and Dissonance Theory
• Dissonance Following A Decision
• Counter Attitudinal Behavior (attitude- discrepant
behavior)
• Threats
• Choice
• Irrevocable Commitment
• Forseeable Consequences
• Responsibility for Consequences
• Effort
3. Self Perception Theory
• – Explains why people can come to believe
their own lies
• – People infer their attitudes from their
behavior
4. Elaboration Likelihood Model
• -The central route to persuasion tends to yield
longer lasting attitude change than the
peripheral route(attached cues)
Expectancy-Value Theory
• Attitude formation and change is a process of
weighing the pros and cons of various possible
attitudes on a topic and then adopting the best
alternative.
• The theory assumes that in adopting attitudes,
people try to maximize the subjective utility of the
various expected outcomes, which is the product of
(1) the value of a particular outcome and (2) the
expectancy that this position will produce that
outcome.
REFERENCE BOOK
Social Psychology (12th ED) by Taylor, Peplau and
Sears.
