Christopher Tucciarone Writing Assignment 3 Psy216 Fall 2021

1. Attitudes are how people evaluate objects in their lives; an object is just another word for

people, things, or issues. Attitudes can be either implicit or explicit, implicit meaning that you

may be unconscious of the attitude and it is automatically activated based on past experiences,

explicit meaning that it is a consciously held evaluation. An implicit attitude is often passed

down from other people or by an event in your past. Say either your parents insisted that only

disagreeable people smoked cigarettes or you had an abusive partner who smokes cigarettes

frequently and then you meet a new coworker who smells of cigarette smoke and instantly are

hesitant to be around them and find yourself trying to get away from them as soon as possible.

You may not be aware of why you try to get away from the new coworker, but it is likely due to

your implicit attitude about people who smoke. An explicit attitude is usually formed through

much thought and deliberation, an example would be if you had successfully quit smoking and

held the attitude that smoking is bad for your health which caused you to not want to be around

people who smoke.

2. People can hold different attitudes towards an object for completely different reasons. This

stems from attitudes being malleable: one’s attitudes are held to fit their current needs and

change as the person’s needs do. For example, say two people person A and person B both hate

swimming, as a child person A almost drowned at the beach while they were swimming and had

to go to the hospital, while person B gets their hair done at a salon once a week and spends 2

hours on their makeup every single morning. Both individuals have the same attitude towards

swimming however the reasoning behind their attitudes could not be more different.