ATTITUDES

Should pokie machines be banned? Should VCE students be allowed to leave the school grounds when they are not required in class? Is a one year break between VCE and Uni worthwhile What is the best age at which to get married Should public transport be free What do you think?

Live Cattle exports article Read the article and complete the questions at the end

Your reactions to these questions reflect your likes and dislikes about objects, people, groups, events and issues These reactions are what psychologists call attitudes We have intense feelings about some of our attitudes but others are less important to us Although some of our attitudes are not as strong as others the attitudes we form tend to last

WHAT ARE ATTITUDES AND WHERE DO WE GET THEM FROM? Attitudes learned through experience Reflect our unique experience as individuals as well as our socio-cultural background As interact with different individuals and groups we are exposed to various kinds of media and life in general

DEFINITION OF ATTITUDE We form attitudes, are influenced by them, display them to others argue about them and sometimes change them Attitudes – viewed as ideas that we hold about ourselves, others, objects and experiences Attitude – evaluation a person makes about an object, person, group, event or issue Evaluation refers to a judgment being made, either positive, negative or neutral about some specific aspect of our lives and the world in which we live – the judgment must be relatively consistent and lasting for it to be called an attitude.

Tri-component model of attitudes Psychologists proposed many theories and models to explain and/or describe what attitudes are Most influential and widely used model Proposes that attitude has 3 related components ABCs of attitudes Affective, behavioral and cognitive components

AFFEECTIVE – based on emotional reactions or feelings an individual has towards an object, person, group, event or issue Based on a judement which results in a positive response (liking or favouring) A negative response (disliking or hating) Neutral response (lack of interest or concern)

BEHAVIOURAL – the way in which an attitude is expressed through our actions Eg. running to keep fit, protesting about an increase in HECS fees

COGNITIVE – beliefs we have about an object, person, group, event or issue Our beliefs are linked to what we know about the world Develop as a result of experience Some beliefs are based on fact some are false

Although the ABC components have been described separately the tri-component model proposes that all three components must be present before it can be said that an attitude exists Learning Activity 8.2 – Choose 2 from the 5 questions and identify the affective, behavioural and cognitive components

Find the ABC of the live cattle article Summarise the ABC’s on a paper plate

Create a poster about a person, issue, object that attract a range of attitudes. Provide example and discuss the attitudes toward your person/place/issue with respect to each component of the model. Get students to use magazines and other visual material to create their poster and annotate for each component

Complete learning activity 8.2 pg 328

Why do some psychologists believe that there are possibly only the affective and cognitive components of attitudes? Summarize the limitations of the tri- component model

Break class into 4 each summarize below and teach class divide page into 4 Strength of attitude Accessibility of the attitude Social context of the attitude Perceived control over the behaviour

Analysing attitudes pg 328 Limitations of tri-component model Strength of the attitude Accessibility of the attitude Social context of the attitude Perceived control over the behaviour

Factors influencing attitude formation We are not born with particular attitudes towards school, studying, sport, drugs etc Attitudes are formed through the process of learning

3 different types of learning which influence attitude formation Classical conditioning Occurs through repeated association of two different stimuli Operant conditioning Based on assumption that we tend to repeat behaviours that has a desirable consequences or result and do not repeat undesirable consequences (punishment) Modelling Adopt attitudes by observing other people particularly those who we respect and admire

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Complete Learning Activity 8.8 –Question 2

Cognitive dissonance If we are aware of inconsistencies within our attitudes, or when the way in which we actually believe we should behave, then we can experience psychological tension or discomfort. This experience is called cognitive dissonance E.g. Likely to occur when people continue to smoke even though they know it is harmful to their health

Festinger (1957) developed cognitive dissonance theory – people will actively work at reducing or abolishing it. We can do this by: –Changing your attitude –Changing behaviour to suit attitude –Reducing the importance we give to our attitudes and behaviour –Add new elements to the situation to support our belief in the attitude or behaviour Theory states that we will choose the easiest course of action

Complete Attitudes QUIZ (on word doc)

Repeated exposure experiment – produced by Robert Zajonc (Zyence)

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Repeated exposure Attitudes can be formed through repeated exposure to an object, person, group, event or issue repeatedly The mere exposure effect – describes the increase in liking for an attitude, object, person, group, event or issue as a result of being repeatedly exposed to it

Research indicates that negative attitudes do not arise from repeated exposure unless there is a negative experience (for example, dislike, pain, fear, disgust) associated with the exposure In many cases we only need one negative experience to form a negative attitude Eg a single unexpected close encounter with a live snake in the bush can be enough to form a negative attitude towards snakes

Many advertisers are aware of the repeated exposure effect and use it to try and influence attitude formation of our attitude towards a product The assumption is that through repeated exposure we will gradually start to like the advertised product without ever having tried it However also possible to start disliking a product after viewing endlessly repeated adds, which is why advertisers regularly change adds

STEREOTYPING Ask students to draw a picture of a scientist. Get the students to include the working environment and as many features about the scientist. Follow it up with the questions: How many people depicted the scientist as male, and how many as female? How many depicted the scientist as wearing glasses, working alone in a lab? What age group was the scientist generally depicted as being? Do you think the ‘typical’ portrayal of a scientist depicted by the class is realistic? How could this image of a scientist affect the type of person attreacted to the profession?

Draw a big picture of a girl and a boy on either side of the board and had various stick it notes such as ‘pink’ ‘truck’ ‘doctor’ ‘blue’ and ‘teacher.’ The students were required to put up their hand and tell me which side they believed the label belonged

real men don’t cry’, ‘girls are meant to be stay at home mums when they grow up not doctors or lawyers’ and ‘girls who are skinnier are prettier’, we discussed how these stereotypes make us feel and how in reality everybody is unique and has different dreams and goals in their life.

ask the students how we could be active agents in changing stereotypes and suggested that one way of doing so was to create mixed up fairytales, where the roles of prominent characters are reversed. I stressed that boys do not always have to be fighters and rescuers, adventurers and hero’s and girls don’t necessarily have to be caretakers, mothers and princesses in need of rescuing. We discussed that in a lot of children’s books the way characters are presented impacted on our attitudes and perceptions of gender appropriate behaviour. The students were divided into groups and required to make up their own ‘mixed up fairytales’ where gender roles were reversed. I gave the example of what would happen if sleeping beauty was a man.

Stereotyping When we evaluate people we do so by trying to fit them into a category based on our knowledge of people and the world This process of grouping or fitting people into a category based on what we know about them is called stereotyping

A stereotype is a collection of beliefs that we have about the people who belong to a certain group, regardless of individual differences among members of that group E.g. stereotype of a doctor might be – wealthy, drives expensive car, lives in a big house and works late Read bottom half of page 337

Read box 8.3 and summarize on pg wfXV0http:// wfXV0

Complete Activity 8.10, 8.11 – write up and 8.12, 8.13 pg

STIGMITISATION A stigma – is a negative label associated with disapproval or rejection by others who are not labeled in that way If a social or cultural group is stigmatised or negatively evaluated then members of that group can feel like outcasts who are devalued, ignored or rejected by others Lead to feelings of shame, disgrace, low self esteem and restricted ambitions in life