Chair person : Dr. N.Anusha
Presenter
:Dr. J Ramya Rachel
SCHEME OF PRESENTATION
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Introduction
Formation of attitude
Functions of attitude
Theories of attitude
Measurement of attitude
Attitude change
Attitude and behaviour
Attitude and psychiatry
INTRODUCTION
• When a person feels about something ,about a
place, commodity and a situation or an idea is
called attitude.
• Attitude represent ones belief, feeling and ideas
,action tendency towards object.
DEFINITION
Gordon Allport defined attitude as
“mental and neural state of readiness ,
organized through experience ,exerting a
directive or dynamic influence upon the
individual’s response to all objects and
situations with which it is related”.
NATURE OF ATTITUDE
• Attitude are learned
• Feeling ,Beliefs of individual and groups.
• These feelings are defined by one’s
Predispositions towards given aspects of the
world.
• The object of attitudes can be entities , people or
abstract concepts.
• Attitudes express an evaluation of an object by
terms such as liking –disliking, pro-anti , favouring
–not favouring, positive-negative.
• It is not permanent, it changes
COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDE
Cognitive components
Emotional components
Behavioural component
COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDE
A
B
C
• Affective component
• person’s emotions and affect toward the stimulus
• Behavioural component
• how the person tends to react to the stimulus
• Cognitive component
• thoughts the person has about that particular attitude
Model of Attitude
Ideas
Belief
Information's
Positive
Negative
Feelings
Attitude
Attitude Objects
Tendency to behave
FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDE
• Katz discussed four functions that attitude
perform the personality
-adjustment function
-ego defensive function
-value-expressive functions
-knowledge functions
Functions of attitude1.Determine function- Determine the meaning of what is
seen in the environment may be good or bad ..
2. Contradiction –They give two meaning words and
diplomatic opinions about the same things.
3.Adjustment function- adjust themselves in the
environment..
4.Ego Defense Function- Protect our self-esteem, by avoiding
unpleasant truths about ourselves
5.Expressive Function- provides someone values and self
identity of a person.
6.Knowledge function- Maintain stable ,Organized and
meaningful structure of a person not to bluff anything.
Formation Of Attitude
Mass
Communication
Economic
Status
Neighborhood
Experience with
Object
Attitude
Family and Peer
Groups
Classical
Conditioning
Operant
Conditioning
Vicarious
Learning
THEORIES OF ATTITUDE
• LEARNING THEORIES
• CONSISTENCY THEORIES
- Balance Theory
- Cognitive Dissonance
• SELF PERCEPTION THEORY
• EXPECTANCY-VALUE THEORY
• DUAL-PROCESSING THEORY
-Cognitive Response Theory
LEARNING THEORY :
• Use concepts from classical conditioning and
instrumental conditioning.
• Assumes that a person’s attitudes are based on
principles of reinforcement , association , imitation, and
punishment.
Message learning
Association
Reinforcement
Transfer of affect
Punishment
Imitation
Attitude change
CONSISTENCY THEORIES
BALANCE THEORY
• Given by Heider.
• Considers the consistency among the affects and
beliefs held by a person
• There are three relevant evaluations:
•
(1) the first person’s evaluation of the other
person
•
(2) the first person’s evaluation of the attitude
object
•
(3) the other person’s evaluation of the attitude
object.
BALANCE THEORY
Mary
Bob
Mary
Bob
X
Balanced
Mary
Balanced
Bob
X
Unbalanced
X
BALANCE THEORY
• Imbalanced system produce pressures
toward attitude change and continue this
pressure until they are balanced.
• Balance theory does not predict that
imbalance will always be resolved- only
there is a tendency toward balance and
that unbalanced structures produce
tensions and discomfort.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
• Proposed by Leon Festinger.
• Deals with inconsistencies between people’s
attitude and behaviour.
• DISSONANCE: defined an aversive motivational
state that results when some behaviour we
engage in is inconsistent with our attitudes.
• Creates psychological tension and negative
affect and consequently, people feel pressure to
reduce or remove it..
• Appears to be most consistently aroused when
the attitudes and behaviour that are dissonant
are important to the self.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
• Counter attitudinal role-playing involves
situations in which people express
attitudes publicly that are opposite to
their private attitudes.
• The dissonance prediction is that the less
people are offered as an inducement to
agree to counter attitudinal role-playing
,the more they will change their private
attitudes.
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
• Implications
 Postdecsional dissonance
 Insufficient justification
 Threats

Irrevocable commitment

Foreseeable consequences

Responsibility for consequences

Effort

Self relevance
SELF PERCEPTION THEORY
• Proposed by Bem..
• people infer their attitudes from their
behaviour and perceptions of the external
situation , rather than from their internal
state.
EXPECTANCY-VALUE THEORY
• Maintains that decisions are based on the
value of possible outcomes and the likelihood
that each outcome will occur.
• Attitude formation and change is a process of
weighing the pros and cons of various possible
attitudes and then adopting the best
alternative.
• The approach treats people as calculating,
active, and rational decision makers.
DUAL-PROCESSING THEORIES
• People will process a persuasive message
systematically when they have both motivation
and ability to do so.
• At these times , we learn arguments , shift
through them for the points that are relevant to
us, and counter argue them if we disagree with
them.
• At other times ,however , we seemingly lazy and
not motivated to analyze the pros and cons of
complex argument.
COGNITIVE RESPONSE THEORY
• Maintains that attitude change following the
receipt of a persuasive communication depends
on the cognitive responses it evokes.
• Seeks to understand attitude change processes by
understanding the thoughts that people generate
in response to persuasive communications.
• Predicts that attitude change depends on how
much and what kind of counterarguing a message
triggers.
• Counterarguing : actively rebutting the
arguments made by the communicator.
Measurement of attitude
Self report methods
Public opinion
(attitude)
polling
Attitude scales
Thurstone Scale
Bogardus Scale
Involuntary methods
Physiological
Measures
Galvnic skin response(GSR)
Facial EMG
Likert scale
Guattams Scale
Osgood semantic differential scale
Based on
classical
conditioning
Strength of an Attitude - Factors
• Self-interests
• Deeply held philosophical, political, and
religious values.
• Concern to one’s close friends, family, and
social groups.
• Source of information
• Consistency (attitude-behavior)
• Awareness
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ATTITUDE CHANGE
• Attitudes can be changed in a variety of ways:
– New information from other people or through
the mass media.
– Direct experience.
– Legislation.
– Modifying membership group or the reference
group.
FACTORS IN ATTITUDE CHANGE
• Source of the message
credibility
Attractiveness
• Content of the message
Suggestion
Appeals of fear
One sided versus two-sided messages
• Receiver of the message
Influenaceability
Selective attention and interpretation
Immunization
Model of the persuasion process
The External Stimuli
Communicator
(source of message)
credibility
likeability
reference group
Communication
Discrepancy
Motive arousal
Argument strength
Situation
forewarning
distraction
The response
Attitude change
The target
Involvement
inoculation
Intervening processes
Message learning
Transfer of affect
Consistency mechanisms
counter arguing
Source derogation
Message distortion
Blanket rejection
Barriers To Attitude Change
• Prior commitments
• Strong commitment
• Publicly expressed attitudes
• Low credibility
• Insufficient information
• Degree of fear
• Weak arguments
Ways To Overcome The Barriers
• Providing new information
• Use of fear
• Resolving discrepancies
• Influence of friends and peers
• The co-opting approach
• Repetition of message
• Strong arguments
ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOUR
• Human behaviour is intentional and reflects
individual preferences.
• Attitudes represent preferences.
• To predict behaviour, we can simply look at
attitudes.
• If we wish to change people’s behaviours, we
should start by changing their attitudes.
• Some studies have found no link between
people’s attitude and their behaviour.
ATTITUDE AND BEHAVIOUR
• In general, attitudes have been found to
predict behaviour best when
– (1) they are strong and consistent,
– (2) they are specifically related to the behaviour
being predicted (Martin Fishbein)
– (3) they are based on the person’s direct
experience (Fazio and Zanna )
– (4) the individual is aware of his or her attitudes.
• La Piere found discrepancy in between attitude
and behaviour
ATTITUDE AND PSYCHIATRY
• To know the personality in people.
• Drug compliance can be assessed by knowing the attitude of
patient and care givers towards mental illness.
• Many papers were done on this particular aspects.
• In 1990 and 2011 population surveys were conducted in
Germany on attitudes about schizophrenia , depression and
alcohol dependence.
• Results found out that public’s readiness to recommend helpseeking from mental health professionals and using
psychotherapy and psychotropic medication has increased
considerably.
• Attitudes towards people with schizophrenia worsened,
where as for depression and alcohol dependence no or
inconsistent changes were found.
ATTITUDES AND PSYCHIATRY
• Perception and attitude towards mental illness
in urban community in Delhi : lack of
biomedical concept of mental illness
• Beliefs and attitudes towards mental illness
among medical professionals in Delhi :
inaccurate and incomplete knowledge
regarding mental illness.
• Knowledge and attitudes towards ECT among
final year medical students.
REFERENCES
• Introduction to psychology (Morgan and king,
seventh edition)
• Kuppu Swamy -Text book of social psychology
• Taylor , Peplau , Sears- Text book of social
psychology
• Introduction to psychology (Atkinson and
Hilgard’s,15th edition)
• The British journal of psychiatry Aug 2013
Matthias C et all -Attitudes towards psychiatric
treatment and people with mental illness:
changes over two decades