Attitudes

Definition

Attitudes refer to our overall evaluations of people, groups, and objects in our social world. Reporting an attitude involves making a decision concerning liking versus disliking or favoring versus disfavoring an attitude object. Attitudes are important because they affect both the way we perceive the world and how we behave. Indeed, over 70 years ago, Gordon Allport asserted that the attitude concept is the most indispensable concept in social psychology. That statement remains equally valid today; the study of attitudes remains at the forefront of social psychological research and theory, as illustrated by the number of relevant entries in this encyclopedia. This entry concentrates on three key aspects of attitudes: their content, structure, and function.

The Content of Attitudes

One of the most influential models of attitude content has been the multicomponent model. According to this perspective, attitudes are summary evaluations of an object that have affective, cognitive, and behavioral components. The affective component of attitudes refers to feelings or emotions associated with an object. Affective responses influence attitudes in a number of ways. First, attitudes are influenced by the emotions that are aroused in a person after exposure to the attitude object. For instance, spiders make some people feel scared, and this negative affective response is likely to produce a negative attitude toward spiders. In addition, feelings influence attitudes via processes such as classical conditioning and mere exposure. Here, the environment repeatedly pairs the object with other stimuli that elicit particular emotions (classical conditioning) or repeated exposure causes the object to seem more familiar and positive over time.

The cognitive component of attitudes refers to beliefs, thoughts, and attributes associated with an object. Cognitions have an impact on many types of [Page 68]attitudes. For example, someone buying a used car is likely to devote considerable attention to its attributes, such as its safety record, gas mileage, and past repair costs. The person's attitude toward the car is likely to be influenced by its positive and negative characteristics. Within the study of intergroup attitudes, stereotypes are beliefs about the attributes possessed by a particular social group. Many studies have revealed that possessing negative stereotypes about a group of people is associated with having a prejudicial attitude toward the group.

Behavioral information is the mental representation of current, past, and future behaviors regarding an attitude object. For instance, research has demonstrated that performing a behavior with evaluative implications influences the favorability of attitudes. In a study by Pablo Briñol and Richard Petty, participants moved their heads in either an up-and-down motion (nodding the head in agreement) or a side-toside motion (shaking the head in disagreement) as they listened to an editorial that was played over the headphones. It was found that participants were more likely to agree with the content of a highly persuasive appeal when they moved their heads up-and-down, as compared to side-to-side. While performing a behavior can influence a person's attitude, attitudes also influence future behavior. As discussed elsewhere in this encyclopedia, attitudes play an important role in predicting how an individual will behave in a particular situation.

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