1. 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.

2. Key concept in ESP: operate at all levels of social influence
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. 3 main components
Cognitive
Emotional/affective
Behavioural

4. In ascribing an attitude to someone:
Are we attributing a relatively permanent mental state? or
Are we commenting on the way s/he performs certain [discursive] acts?

5. Having this attitude causes that behaviour…
Attitudes are the unobservable causes of observable behaviour, e.g.,
anti-intellectualism = an attitude.
showing contempt for high culture = one of its effects
cause & effect metaphysics

6. Danziger 1997
An attitude is a kind of display, it doesn’t cause a display
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
Expression ≠ causation
Groaning is not caused by pain, it expresses pain: groan + pain = aspects of a single psychological whole

7. But metaphysics of causality overlaid original expressive relation
Attitudes are now conceived of as causing behaviour
(e.g., gas under pressure causes a cylinder to move)

8. Two features of history of attitude concept
Transformation from observable category to denoting a purely dispositional concept
Expressive link between inner and outer became causal
Observable physical stance became a psychological evaluation

9. Not due to any empirical discovery but shift from normative metaphysics of meaningful action to a causal metaphysics of behaviour
Driven by social forces

10. Two main factors account for flourishing industry
External: popular interest in social attitudes (opinions)
Internal: attitude measurement

11. How attitudes became Social
Allports in 1920’s imported category from sociology
Social psychological concept of attitude used to study interdependence of individual consciousness & cultural values
Psychological, not sociological, social psychology

12. ≠ the subjective side of collective values of sociologists
psychology, attitudes = individual attributes
= responses of separate individuals to artificially constructed situations
≠ the subjective side of collective values of sociologists

13. collective or cultural values had no existence apart from reactions/dispositions of individuals
all-purpose tool for tracing social problems to source in individual minds
By 1930s term synonymous with OPINION (LaPiere 1934 study)

14. Assumptions about attitudes:
Strictly individual attributes
Acquired, learned therefore modifiable
States with causal properties, have effects, THEREFORE real, distinct entities that push person from within
THEREFORE can be measured
(sociology: ‘action’ rather than ‘behaviour’)

15. 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)

16. Ideology (European)/values vs. individual attitudes (US)
Layer of social consciousness to account for coherence among attitudes
not separate entities, but meaningfully interconnected parts of larger whole, traceable to social conditions
Psychology - individual reactions to social stimuli
Sociology – Mead 1912 ‘a conversation of attitudes’

17. Cognitive Social Psychology
Attitudes play key role in maintaining consistent sense of self
human mind resists cognitive change, select & interpret information in ways consistent with established attitudes

18. How are attitudes formed & maintained?
Information gathered about attitude object
Classical conditioning
Instrumental conditioning
Imitation or modelling

19. Belief perseverance cause disconfirming evidence to be ignored
generate causal explanations to support underlying beliefs
attitudes become more extreme

20. Five functions of attitudes
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

21. 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

22. Reading Hogg & Vaughan, Ch. 5 & 6
Danziger, K Naming the Mind. London: London: Sage. Chapter 8.
Additional:
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. & Donaghue, N. (2006) (2nd ed.). Social Cognition. London: Sage. Chapter 4