ATTITUDES; FROM A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

ATTITUDES; FROM A SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE Attitudes which differ to person to person but very important to decide one’s position is a very important topic in social psychology. This importance increases as human’s cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions include in attitudes. Attitudes have a great relationship with behavior and they are interrelated. Attitudes are very helpful for people in day today life as well as in special occasions to decide one’s opinion. Here, in this letter, I have taken an effort to examine what are called attitudes, how they are formed and what’s the relationship between attitudes and the behavior from a social psychological perspective. As cognitively developed human beings, we have positive or negative evaluations, ideas and opinions towards people, animal, objects, incidents, etc. In social psychology those global evaluations towards some objects or issues is called an attitude. Actually, an attitude is a mixture of belief and emotion that predisposes a person to respond to other people, objects or groups in a positive or negative way and attitudes summarize a person’s evaluation of subjects . But, attitudes are not beliefs. For an instance your belief towards smoking may be “It is bad for me” and then your attitude towards smoking is “I do not like it.” According to the Oxford Advanced Learners’ Dictionary, an attitude is the way that you think and feel about somebody or something. So, it means the way that you behave towards somebody or something shows how you think and feel about it. Actually, attitudes are necessary and adaptive for humans. They help us to adjust to new situations seeking out those in our environment that reward us and avoiding those things that punish. In the same way, basically attitudes are a just a matter of liking and disliking. Attitudes also help us in making choices. However, there are various opinions, ideas and criticisms among social psychologists what exactly an attitude is, what are the functions of attitudes and the way they function. That is why Allport said that the concept of the attitude is probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary American social psychology. Dimensions of Attitudes According to social psychologists an attitude has mainly three dimensions. Cognitive dimension Affective or emotional dimension Behavioral dimension As social psychologists explain, if we deal with cognitively based attitudes, we consider the useful facts or the functions of a thing. For an instance, when a person buys something from a shop and if he or she considers only the utility and the functions of that object then he or she is using his or her cognitive based attitude. But if that person considers the color, smell, taste and other external factors that emotionally satisfy him or her, then he or she has affectively based attitude toward that object. Classical and operant conditioning have a close relationship with affectively based attitudes. In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus comes to evoke the response usually evoked by another stimulus by being paired repeatedly with the other stimulus. Think about the last time you felt nauseous or vomited. Think about what you were eating or drinking right before that. Can you eat that food or drink anymore? No, you can’t. That is called classical conditioning. In operant conditioning an organism learns to engage in behavior because it is reinforced. When a baby learns to speak, when he or she pronounces a word if the mother hugs him or her that baby continues to speak words. It is called operant conditioning. Behaviorally based attitudes do not have positive or negative evaluations on something. But, people form behaviorally based attitudes just considering his or her own behavior. For an instance if you spend some time with a strange person and if you seem to be happy with that person and you begin to like that person. That liking is a behaviorally based attitude and it comes from the self-perception theory and these attitudes are counter intuitive because cognition is not used when forming these attitudes. Types of Attitudes According to social psychology, there are three main types of attitudes. If a person’s attitudes are very clear, controlled and conscious evaluative responses and if the person is aware what he or she speaks; those attitudes are called explicit attitudes. The attitudes which are automatic, non-conscious evaluative responses, hidden, often not aware what he or she speaks and which are difficult to keep in consciousness are implicit attitudes. People do not openly talk about these attitudes. But, in the unconsciousness these attitudes exist. For an instance, Sinhalese people say that as Sinhalese they treat Tamil and Muslim people equally. But, though they consciously talk so, because of social and cultural factors, they treat them differently. Their behavior clearly proves it. If something wrong is done by a Tamil or Muslim person, they look at it with a different angle. But, if the same wrong thing is done by a Sinhalese person, they look at it with another angle. There is another type of attitudes called dual attitudes. Dual attitudes are defined as different evaluations of the same attitude object- an implicit attitude and an explicit attitude . How Do We Form Attitudes? We as humans form attitudes in several basic ways. Some attitudes come from direct contact which means through personal experience. Here, we form an attitude about a person seeing and examining the activities of that person. Some attitudes we learn from others through interaction with them. For an instance, if two friends of you belong to a certain political party and if those friends talk about their party with you, the attitudes of you probably come to favor of that political party listening to your friends’ talk. When, forming this type of attitudes mass media hold a very important place. Newspapers, magazines, radios, television, internet etc. can motivate people to form and change the attitudes through repeating the same thing. The advertisements do this well. In the same way, people form attitudes through chance conditioning too. Here, learning takes place by chance. For an instance, when a person goes to three dentists and if all of them hurt him or her, that person forms a negative attitude towards all the dentists. That attitude formation takes place by mere chance. But it may be correct or wrong. We also form attitudes through social learning or observational learning. Here, we form attitudes by imitating other’s behavior. Attitudes and Behavior The question whether the attitudes predict the behavior is controversial. As research studies prove, attitudes do not always predict the behavior. But, the assumption “our private beliefs, feelings and attitudes determine our public behavior” is not rejected. As demonstrated by genocidal killers and suicidal bombers it is true that extreme attitudes can produce extreme behavior. The research done by La Pierre concerning the attitudes of American about South East Asians proved that attitudes and the behaviors of Americans towards South East Asians do not match . Very important theory that goes with attitudes and behavior is the cognitive dissonance theory presented by Leon Festinger. As this theory suggests discrepancies between attitudes and behaviors produce psychological discomfort or cognitive dissonance. People experience a sense of guilt or uneasiness when two linked cognitions are inconsistent. This simply means that cognitive dissonance takes place when our attitudes do not match with our behavior. We become psychologically discomfort when we have to do something not accepted by ourselves and by others. For an instance, an honest student cheating in the exam as the exam is difficult can be pointed out. Just think you had to kill one man to save many people. How do you overcome from your psychological discomfort? Soldiers and people in the security sections have to do these things. How do they overcome from their psychological discomfort? When we are in a cognitive dissonance or when we psychologically discomfort, we try to escape from that discomfort. For that we follow three ways. We change our behavior to suit attitudes or we change our attitudes to suit our behavior or we add new information to the existing attitudes. Let us take one of above mentioned examples to clarify this. The honest student had to cheat in the exam as the exam was very difficult. Then, his or her attitudes do not match with his or her behavior and by that he or she becomes psychologically discomfort or there arises the cognitive dissonance. So, as he or she wants to get rid of that discomfort, he or she thinks that it is not wrong or it is not bad to copy in a difficult exam. Here, he or she has changed his or her attitudes to suit the behavior. In the same way, he or she can add new information such as “Others also cheat in exams. But, I cheated only in this exam. So, it is not a bad thing to copy only once.” Here, he or she has added new information to the existing information. Thus, cognitive dissonance makes people justify and rationalize any mistake that they have done. This is very important for mental health. When, innocent children are captured by former LTTE, those children have been commanded to suit Sri Lankan soldiers and innocent people. Though they really do not like to shoot others, they had to do so because if they do not shoot, they are shot by LTTE. So, they had to shoot others. Here, they have changed both their attitudes and behavior to suit each other. The dominant theory on attitude and behavior is the “Theory of Planned Behavior” proposed by Aizen and Fishbein in 1980. This theory talks about the procedures that should be taken to change one’s existing behavior. The following diagram would clarify this. As the above diagram shows if we want to change an existing behavior, we have to follow the steps mentioned in the diagram. The subjective norms means what do the people around you say when you are trying to change your behavior. For an instance in a smoking gang, smoking is ok. When a person tries to abstain from smoking, other group members do not let that person to abstain from smoking. To change an existing behavior, group support is essential. In the same way, there should be a specific attitude to change a behavior. It should not be a normal attitude. The most specific our attitude on something, the more likely you will change the behavior. Behavioral control which means how much you think that you have controlled the behavior is also very important to change a behavior. When you have subjective norms and behavioral control you get the behavioral intention which finally leads to the change of behavior. Our attitudes may change because of behavior. As “Justification of Effort Theory” explains, if we work hard on something that we do not like first, because of the hardness of that work, at the end, we change our attitudes and give it a value. Though all the young men who go to army first do not like army, but later because of the hard training they try to think that that they are doing a very hard job and begin to appreciate and value it, thus changing their previous attitudes towards army. As “Counter Attitudinal Advocacy” suggests there is an attitude change, if we get a small reward for appraising something that we do not like. As experiments suggest, here, the reward should be small to be an attitude change. For example, where we tell white lies in order to help other people or where stating our beliefs could harm us. When we do this, we will seek to reduce dissonance by justifying our actions. If we cannot find external justification, we will seek internal justification. This then leads to us change our attitudes. Counter-Attitudinal Advocacy has been extensively used for brainwashing, both with prisoners-of-war and peacetime cult members. It is usually done by making incrementally escalating requests. Small rewards are offered, which are too small for the victims to use to attribute their behavior change to, thus forcing internal attribution. As the “Self Fulfilling Prophecy” explains our behavior changes because of the expectations of others. For an instance, if there is a weak student in a class and if the attention and the encouragement are given always by the teachers to him or her, he or she may become a clever student. When considering evil and moral acts, attitudes and behavior are very important. According to the experiments, such as our attitudes lead to good and evil behavior, the evil behavior too leads to evil attitudes. So, it is true that behavior and attitude feed each other. However, as research studies show there are large differences too between attitudes and behavior- particularly between privately held attitudes and public attitudes. For an instance the members of a non-violence movement may eat meat and people who are against to prostitution in public may go to prostitutes secretly. As “Reactance Theory” explains people will do the opposite of what they think you want them to do. It is because they become upset when someone tries to take away free choice, so react by reasserting it. The research done by Pennebaker and Sanders clearly proves it. Attitudes and Emotions Attitudes and emotions also have a close relationship. Emotion is a state of psychological arousal, an expression or display of distinctive somatic and autonomic responses. It is a common component in persuasion, social influence and attitude change. Emotions work hand-in-hand with the cognitive process or the way we think about an issue or situation. Emotional appeals are commonly found in advertising, health campaigns and political messages. Research studies show that emotions can change one’s attitudes. Happiness and fear are very important two emotions. Especially the emotion “fear’’ helps us in attitude change. For example, as research studies show when smoking people are informed that smoking can leads to cancer, there has been an attitude change in those people because of the fear . But if we are over anxious about something, fear does not help to change our attitudes. In the same way, numbers of studies have proved that cognitive dissonance resembles an emotional reaction. When people do actions contrary to their attitudes they often feel uncomfortable. According to research studies, if the feeling is blocked, they do not change their attitudes. Attitude Change Attitude change simply means changing one’s existing attitudes to a new attitude because of a psychological change. There are three bases for attitude change, which includes compliance, identification and internalization. Compliance means to a change in behavior based on consequences, such as an individual’s hopes to gain rewards or avoid punishment from another group or person. The individual does not necessarily experience changes in beliefs or evaluation towards an attitude object, but rather is influenced by the social outcomes of adopting a change in behavior. The individual is also often aware that he or she is being urged to respond in a certain way. Identification refers one’s change of beliefs and affect in order to be similar to someone who one admires or likes. In this case, the individual adopts the new attitude, not due to the specific content of the attitude object, but more so because it is associated with the desired relationship. Often, children’s attitudes on race or their political party affiliations are adopted from their parents’ attitudes and beliefs. Internalization refers to the change in beliefs and affect when one finds the content of the attitude to be intrinsically rewarding and thus leading to actual change in beliefs or evaluation towards an attitude object. The new attitude or behavior is consistent with the individual’s value system and tends to be merged with the individual’s existing values and beliefs. So, behavior adopted through internalization are due to the content of the attitude object. The “Expectancy-Value Theory” is based on internalization of attitude change. This model describes the states that the behavior towards some object is a function of an individual’s intent which is a function of one’s overall attitude towards the action. As research studies show, for attitude change, “persuasion’’ is highly affected. Persuasion simply means any deliberate attempt to change attitudes or belief through information and arguments. In success of or failure of persuasion; communicator, the message and audience are very important. Asaranson, Petty and colleagues say for the success of the communication, the communicator should be likable, expressive, trustworthy and an expert on the topic. The “Yale Attitude Change Approach” too clearly proves it. When considering the message, according to Yale attitude change approach, it should be subtle which means people should not feel that the communicator is trying to persuade the audience. Concerning the audience, it has proved that the audience which is distracted, low in self esteem is easy to persuade. The age between 18-25 is easily persuasive. Another very important concept when considering attitudes is the “Elaboration Likelihood Model.’’ This model shows how likely a person to think about an argument and by that how an attitude change is taken place. According to the research studies, if we use central route of processing, we think what exactly the communicator says, we elaborate on it and probably there may be an attitude change. But, if we use peripheral route of processing which means we consider the external things of the message and the communicator, we tend to forget the message and there may be not an attitude change. Though normally, people use both these processings, central route of processing is more conscious since you are thinking about it while peripheral root of processing is unconscious. As, research studies show central root processing is long term while peripheral root processing is short term. Emotions are highly present in the peripheral root of processing. This central route of processing and peripheral root of processing can be clarified thus. If Arthur Charles Clarke talks about astrology in a meeting, the audience may gives attention to what he says and not what he has dressed, the color of his tie etc. But, if the same speech is done by Preity Zinta, things become different. The audience may not give attention to what she says, but to what she has worn, how she pronounces words, the color of the Saree etc. When Arthur Charles Clarke speaks, the audience uses the central route of processing and while Preti Zinta speaks, the audience uses peripheral route of processing. There is a very strong relationship between attitudes and role playing. Simply a role is a set of norms that defines how people in a given social position ought to behave. It is true that role playing affect to some people and not for some other people. It is like that in water salt dissolves and sand does not. Like that when placed in a rotten barrel some people become bad apples and others not. Considering this, McFarland and Carnahan (2009) say that behavior is a product of both the individual person and the situation. Normally people adapt what they say to others which means saying becomes believing. The experiment done by Tory Higgins and his colleagues illustrated how saying becomes believing . It proved that speakers tend to adjust their messages to listeners and try to believe the altered message. Here, as it clearly proves there has been an attitude change in the speakers. In the same way, we accept that we stand for what we believe. In the same way, we come to believe what we stand for. Several experiments done by hypnotizing, electrodes, severe seizures, it has proved that we believe what we stand for. Here also, an attitude change has taken place. The “Attitude Follows Behavior Principle” suggests that if you want people to do a big favor for you, an effective strategy is to get them to do a small favor first for you. In social psychology, it is known as “foot–in-the-door technique.” We use this technique in our day today life also. The people who commit themselves to public behavior and perceive those acts to be their own doing, they come to believe more strongly in what they have done. The technique “door-in–face” which suggests asking first more really a big thing and then asking a small thing does not work and it does not also change either attitude or behavior. The “low-ball technique” is also a very important concept when considering attitudes. If you want to use this technique, first make what you want the other person to agree to easy to accept by making it quick, cheap, easy, etc. Maximize their buy-in, in particular by getting both verbal and public commitment to this. Make it clear that they are agreeing to this of their own free will. Then change the agreement to what you really want. The other person may complain, but, if the low-ball is done correctly they should agree to the change. This technique is highly used by shop keepers, car dealers and other businessmen to sell their products. For an instance, think a person agrees to buy a car at a low price. The sales person then apologizes that the wrong price was on the car. The person still agrees to buy it at the higher price because that person does not like to be psychologically discomfort. According to Cialdini and his colleagues this technique indeed works . The concept “brain washing” is also closely related with attitudes. Brainwashing is the mechanism used to effect a radical change in the ideas and beliefs of (a person), especially by methods based on isolation, sleeplessness, hunger, extreme discomfort, pain, the alternation of kindness and cruelty. There are many theories related to brainwashing. This brainwashing technique is highly used to rehabilitate prisoners. Once America highly used this technique to convert their prisoners to suit them. But, evidences prove that brainwashing is not long term. How Do We Resist an Attitude Change? When resisting an attitude change, inoculation is very important. Inoculation makes people immune to persuasion attempts by initially exposing them to small doses of the arguments against their position . Here we expose a person to a smaller argument giving reasons. For an instance telling a child from time to time that smoking is bad. Here we give counter arguments for what the friends of that child says. McGuire’s experiment done on social truism clearly proves that inoculation really works . In the same way, to be aware of what is going around is also helps to resist from attitude change. Here one’s knowledge and wisdom is very important. We should be very careful about when people use foot-in-the-door technique, low ball technique and central vs. peripheral route of processings. Other than these two techniques there are various theories regarding resisting an attitude change. More about attitudes…. Sometimes people’s attitudes toward something become stronger or weaker by thinking more about it. The function here happens is that when we think about something, we may generate information that we did not consider when we form our initial attitudes. This extremeness is called “attitude polarization’’ in social psychology. According to Fazio and Powell, knowing your attitudes has a buffering effect against stress . As “Impression management” explains people sometimes adjust what they say to please rather than offend others. Therefore public attitude might not be the same as private attitude. When considering how to measure the attitudes the “Implicit Association Test” (IAT) is very important. People’s real attitudes can be measured using this test. For an instance, in this test if your attitude toward old people is negative, it will be easier for you to match old people with negative words than to positive words. In the same way, Bogus Pipeline Method is also used to measure attitudes. When considering above mentioned facts, it is clear that humans’ attitudes hold a very important place in their lives. Attitudes include cognitive, emotional and behavioral dimensions and they help to decide our behavior. Attitudes decide one’s uniqueness and they make easy our day today activities. They help us for mental categorization, to adjust to new situations, to navigate through thousands of commercial options in our society. Various theories in social psychology regarding attitudes help to understand our attitudes and behavior. However, our attitudes and behavior are not permanent. They can be changed in any time. If we know how our attitudes function, we can control our attitudes. 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