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.

Key concept in ESP: operate at all levels of social influence


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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, selfesteem…)

 Cognitive
 Emotional/affective
 Behavioural

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?

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

 An attitude is a kind of display, it doesn’t cause a display
 concept of attitude 1 st 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

 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)

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

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

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

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

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

 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)

 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’)

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)

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

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Psychology - individual reactions to social stimuli
Sociology – Mead 1912 ‘a conversation of attitudes’

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

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

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

 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

Attitudes predict behaviour better when: Factors affecting how well attitudes predict behaviour:
Thought-feeling consistency Thoughts & feelings match
Subjective norms Belief that important others will approve of behaviour
Specificity matching
Direct experience
Attitude accessibility
Introspection
Attitudes & behaviour are either both specific or both at general level
Attitude developed through direct personal experience
Attitude that comes easily to mind
Person has recently introspected about feelings toward the attitude object & NOT about reasons for holding attitude

 Hogg & Vaughan, Ch. 5 & 6
 Danziger, K. 1997. Naming the Mind . London:
London: Sage. Chapter 8.
Additional:
 Augoustinos, M., Walker, I. & Donaghue, N.
(2006) (2 nd ed.).
Social Cognition. London: Sage.
Chapter 4