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.

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.

Observational Learning or Modeling Persons form attitudes by observing and then imitating models they like 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

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 A record of achievement Leadership qualities Skills at his job Earning potential A sense of humor Intellectual ability Attentiveness Common sense Moral perception Good abstract reasoning

Men most sought in a woman Physical attractiveness Ability in bed Warmth and affection Social skills Homemaking ability Dress sense Sensitivity to other’s needs Good taste Moral perception 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.