Attitudes
Chapter 8
Pages 265-293
What is an ATTITUDE???
Attitude...
• An evaluation a person makes about an
object, person, group, event or issue.
Your likes and dislikes.
• Eg: Carlton is the best footy team!!!!!
• Your attitude causes you to act in a positive or
negative way towards people, objects,
experiences and ideas...These are usually long
lasting.
• Can you give me some examples???
Where do attitudes come from? How do
we form them??
• Attitudes don’t form over night. We don’t wake up and think....
“Today i am going to be interested in cars”
We actually learn them through our individual life experiences. It is
a judgment we make about something, it is a continual process
that persists throughout our lives..
We can learn them through..
1. Through direct instructions (eg. Parents tell you that animals are
dirty and you grow up with that attitude towards animals)
2. Relationships with your peers (stronger when reinforced by
others)
Attitudes are formed when knowledge and experience interact with
what we already think about something.
• Does age affect your attitude? If so how?
• ACTIVITY 8.4
Theories of Attitude.
• The Tri-component theory is a popular theory used to
explain the main features that make up our attitudes.
All three components must be present before it can be
considered an attitude.
• It is know as the ABC model.
A: (affective)
B: (behavioural)
C: (cognitive)
ABC
A:(affective) this is the emotional component of
attitude. This is how you feel about things. Your feelings
can be good, bad or neutral. “I feel really good when I’m
at school”
B:(behavioural) This is the action component. What
you do or don’t do as an expression of your attitude.
How you might behave in certain situations. “I work hard
when I’m in class”
C:(cognitive) this is the mental component. The beliefs
or thoughts you have about the people, objects, places
etc. “I think homework is fun”
Cognitive Dissonance
• This is a condition of conflict or anxiety due to an
inconsistency between ones beliefs and ones actions.
• Disagreement of thoughts.
• Eg; Belief (cognitive): chocolate is bad for you.
Action (behvioural): you eat a block of chocolate.
• See how the behavioural and cognitive components don’t
match. When this happens we can experience a state of
psychological discomfort which is known as cognitive
dissonance.
HOW CAN THIS BE TREATED??? Pg 272
AFFECTIVE
I am scared of spiders
BEHAVIOURAL
I always avoid
spiders
COGNITIVE
I believe spiders will
Hurt me if i go near
them
A CONSISTENT ATTITUDE
AFFECTIVE
I feel good when i do exercise
BEHAVIOURAL
I don’t often
exercise
COGNITIVE
I believe exercise is
good for me
A INCONSISTENT ATTITUDE
How does your attitude
influence your interactions?
• Forming attitudes about people and groups helps us
categorise them so that way we can adjust our
behaviours accordingly.
• For example if you were in Japan you would need to be
extra polite because they are very polite and change
your behaviour because certain things you do can be
considered rude (eye contact).
• However categorising people according to our existing
schemas (a mentally organised piece of structured
information) can not always be accurate or appropriate.
• This can lead to stereotyping, discrimination and
prejudice.
• When you think of a scientist what would you
think of..
OR
This idea is very stereotypical
Stereotyping
• A stereotype is a commonly held idea about a person
or group which is based on observed behaviours or
the person’s appearance.
• A set of ideas or beliefs that we hold about members
of a certain group and these ideas may or may not be
true. They can be positive or negative.
• What are some examples that you can think
of?
All Italians eat pizza...
Discrimination
• A BEHAVIOUR that is directed towards a
particular group or an individual belonging to a
specific group.
• In Australia there are laws banning
discrimination against a persons age, gender,
race, colour, religion,
political opinion, medical
or criminal record,
disability or sexual
preference.
PREJUDICE
• The NEGATIVE judgement that is made about a
person, purely because they belong to a particular
group. There are 2 kinds..
1) Old fashioned prejudice: deliberate form of open
rejection towards an individual or group based on that
persons membership/ affiliation with that group.
2) Modern Prejudice: a more subtle form
of prejudice. Insinuates rejection whilst
displaying acceptance.
Quick recap..
Stereotyping is overgeneralizing statements with
people with similar characteristics. IE...saying all
hispanic women have many children.
Discrimination is the ACT of doing something
harmful to certain groups of people. IE...KKK
setting a blacks woman house on fire
Prejudice would be having a problem with certain
people, but not actually doing anything to them.
IE...saying asian women are ugly.
CAN YOU THINK OF ANY WAYS
THAT WE CAN REDUCE
PREJUDICE IN OUR SOCIETY??
How can we stop people who
THINK in a prejudiced way and
ACT in a discriminatory manner?
REDUCING PREJUDICE
Inter-group contact: For prejudice amongst groups to be
reduced there must be an increase in contact between
those two groups. Contact must be meaningful to both
parties. Must include the following conditions
 Sustained Contact: the more time you spend with them the
less likely you are to hold a prejudiced view of them.
 Mutual Interdependence: the two groups must some how
be dependent upon eachother. Two groups must work
together.
 Equality: be seen or treated equally, or fairly. One group
can not be seen as being more powerful over another.
 Super-Ordinate goals: when the co-operation of two
groups/people is required to complete a task which cannot
be completed alone.
Cognitive Interventions
• This involves teaching people about the way
they think about prejudice, with hope that it
can be reduced.
• Appealing to people and asking them to think
about other people’s perspectives.
• Getting people to think about the impacts of
prejudice and what they can do to stop it from
occurring.
Sherif’s Robbers Cave experiment
read pages 288-289
• Sherif’s classic social psychology experiment named Robbers Cave Experiment dealt
with in-group relations, out-group relations and intergroup relations.
• The experiment focused heavily on the concept of a ‘group’ and what a perception
of belonging to a group can actually do to the relationships of members within it
and their relationships with people outside their group.
• The same experiment also tried to observe conflicts or ‘friction’ between two
groups and the process of cooperation or ‘integration’ of two previously conflicting
groups.
THREE PHASES OF THE EXPERIMENT
1) Formation of the in-group – this phase involves the experimental creation of ingroups through activities that will promote group identification.
2) Development of negative attitudes towards the out group– this phase involves
bringing two experimentally formed groups into conflict with each other or forming
intergroup tension.
3) Reduction of inter-group hostility, reduction of prejudice– this phase involves
bringing the two previously conflicting groups into cooperation through the
attainment of super-ordinate goals.
OBSERVATIONS
• Definite group structures and dynamics consisting of
individual status and roles will be formed when a number of
individuals without previously established interpersonal
relations interact with one another under similar context and
events.
• During the Friction Phase, uneasy conflicts produce
unfavourable stereotypes in relation to the out-group and its
members placing the out-group at a certain social distance.
• In an event that a number of conflicting groups are brought
together with a common super-ordinate goal and the
attainment of which cannot be achieved by the efforts of one
group alone, the groups will tend to cooperate towards the
achievement of the super-ordinate goal.
RESULTS
HOMEWORK
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8.4 All questions
8.9 All questions
8.11 All questions
8.17 questions 1
8.20 All questions
POSTER ASSIGNMENT ON REMEMBER THE TITANS