Chapter 5

Structure and function of attitudes

Attitude is not only a word that is part of everyday language but has also been called social
psychology’s most indispensable concept.

Attitude
(a) A relatively enduring organisation of beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies towards socially
significant objects, groups, events or symbols.
(b) A general feeling or evaluation – positive or negative – about some person, object or issue.

According to Allport, an attitude is:

a mental and neural state of readiness, organised through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic
influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related.

Social psychology as the scientific study of attitudes.

A radical behavioural view argues that an attitude is merely a figment of the imagination – people
invent attitudes to explain behaviour that has already occurred.

Three phases of interest in attitude: attitude measurement and how these measurements related to
behaviour (20-30), dynamics of change in a person’s attitudes (50-60), cognitive and social structure
and function of attitudes and attitude systems (80-90).

Latin aptus, which means ‘fit and ready for action’.

This ancient meaning refers to something that is directly observable, such as a boxer in a boxing ring.
Today, however, attitude researchers view ‘attitude’ as a psychological construct that, although not
directly observable, precedes behaviour and guides our choices and deci- sions for action.

Most recently there has been a focus on biochemical dimensions of attitude phenomena and on neural
activity associated with attitudes.

Attitudes are basic to and pervasive in human life. Without having attitudes, people would have
difficulty in construing and reacting to events.

Attitude structure

One-component attitude model - An attitude consists of affect towards or evaluation of the object.
How simple can you get – do you like the object or not? Thurstone

Allport (1935) favoured a two-component attitude model. To Thurstone’s ‘affect’ Allport added a
second component – a state of mental readiness. Mental readiness is a predisposi- tion that
influences how we decide what is good or bad, desirable or undesirable, and so on.

Two-component attitude model - An attitude consists of a mental readiness to act. It also guides
evaluative ( judgemental) responses.

Three-component attitude model - An attitude consists of cognitive, affective and behavioural

components. This threefold division has an ancient heritage, stressing thought, feeling and action as
basic to human experience.

This definition not only included the three components but also emphasised that attitudes are:
● relatively permanent: they persist across time and situations; a momentary feeling is not an attitude;
● limited to socially significant events or objects;
● generalisable and capable of abstraction. If you drop a book on your toe and find that it hurts, this is
not enough to form an attitude, because it is a single event in one place and at one time. But if the
experience makes you dislike books or libraries, or clumsiness in general, then that dislike is an
attitude.

Attitudes, then, are made up of (a) thoughts and ideas, (b) a cluster of feelings, likes and dislikes and
(c) behavioural intentions.

attitude functions

Katz (1960), for example, proposed that there are various kinds of attitude, each serving a different
function, such as:
● knowledge;
● instrumentality (means to an end or goal);
● ego-defence (protecting one’s self-esteem);
● value-expressiveness (allowing people to display values that uniquely identify and define them).

An attitude saves cognitive energy, as we do not have to figure out ‘from scratch’ how we should
relate to a particular object or situation. This function parallels the utility of a schema or stereotype
and fits the cognitive miser or motivated tactician models of contemporary social cognition.

Schema - Cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus,
including its attributes and the relations among those attributes.

Stereotype - Widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social group and its members.

The main function of any kind of attitude is a utilitarian one: that of object appraisal. Merely
possessing an attitude is useful because it provides an orientation towards the attitude object. For
example, having a negative attitude towards snakes (believing they are dangerous) is useful if we
cannot differentiate between safe and deadly varieties.

Cognitive consistency

Cognitive consistency theories - A group of attitude theories stressing that people try to maintain
internal consistency, order and agreement among their various cognitions.

Cognition - The knowledge, beliefs, thoughts and ideas that people have about themselves and their
environment. May also refer to mental processes through which knowledge is acquired, including
perception, memory and thinking.

Two thoughts are inconsistent if one seems to contradict the other, and such a state of mind is
bothersome. This disharmony is known as dissonance. Consistency theories argue that people are
motivated to change one or more contradictory beliefs so that the belief system as a whole is in
harmony. The outcome is restoration of consistency.

Balance theory
The consistency theory with the clearest implications for attitude structure is Fritz Heider’s balance
theory.

Balance theory focuses on the P–O–X unit of the individual’s cognitive field. Imagine a triad
consisting of three elements: a person (P), another person (O), and an attitude, object or topic (X). A
triad is consistent if it is balanced, and balance is assessed by counting the number and types of
relationships between the elements. For instance, P liking X is a positive ( + ) relationship, O disliking
X is negative ( − ), and P disliking O is negative ( − ).

Balance theory - people prefer attitudes that are consistent with each other over those that are
inconsistent. A person (P) tries to maintain consistency in attitudes to, and relationships with, other
people (O) and elements of the environment (X).

Unbalanced structures are usually less stable and more unpleasant than balanced structures. However,
in the absence of contradictory information, people assume that others will like what they themselves
like. Further, we often prefer to agree with someone else – or, in balance-theory language, P and O
seek structures where they agree rather than disagree about how they evaluate X.

Sometimes people organise their beliefs so that elements are kept isolated and are resistant to change.
For example, if P likes opera and O does not, and if P and O like each other, P may decide to isolate
the element of opera from the triad by listening to opera when O is not present.

Cognition and evaluation

Pratkanis and Greenwald’s sociocognitive model, where an attitude is defined as ‘a person’s

evaluation of an object of thought”. An attitude object is represented in memory by:
● an object label and the rules for applying that label;

● an evaluative summary of that object; and

● a knowledge structure supporting that evaluation.

For example, the attitude object we know as a ‘shark’ may be represented in memory as a really big
fish with very sharp teeth (label); that lives in the sea and eats other fish and some- times people
(rules); is scary and best avoided while swimming (evaluative summary); and is a scientifically and
fictionally well-documented threat to our physical well-being (knowledge structure).

However, despite the cognitive emphasis, it was the evaluative component that Pratkanis and
Greenwald highlighted.

The evaluative dimension of attitudes is of course a central focus of research on prejudice, where the
key problem is that members of one group harbour negative attitudes towards members of another
group.

Decision-making and attitudes

Information processing approaches emphasise how complex it is to acquire knowledge and to form
and change our attitudes. According to information integration theory, we use cognitive algebra to
construct our attitudes from information we receive about attitude objects.

People are sophisticated problem-solvers and vigilant evaluators of new information. As new
information arrives, people evaluate it and combine it with existing information stored in memory.
For example, a warning from health authorities that a certain brand of food may cause serious illness
may lead people to re-evaluate their attitude, change their behaviour and not eat that brand again.

Information processing - The evaluation of information; in relation to attitudes, the means by which
people acquire knowledge and form and change attitudes.
Information integration theory - The idea that a person’s attitude can be estimated by averaging
across the positive and negative ratings of the object.

Cognitive algebra - Approach to the study of impression formation that focuses on how people
combine attributes that have valence into an overall positive or negative impression.

Patricia Devine suggested that people’s attitudes are underpinned by implicit and automatic
judgements of which they are unaware. Because these judgements are automatic and unconscious,
they are less influenced by social desirability bias (i.e. how others might react). more reliable measure
of a person’s ‘true’ attitudes and may even be more closely related to what people actually do.

Can attitudes predict behaviour?

Attitudes and overt behaviour are not related in a one- to-one fashion, and not all behaviours can be
predicted accurately from verbally expressed attitudes. There are conditions that promote or disrupt
the correspondence between having an attitude and behaving.

For example, attitude–behaviour consistency can vary according to:

● how accessible an attitude is;

● whether an attitude is expressed publicly, say in a group, or privately, such as when

responding to a questionnaire;

● how strongly someone identifies with a group for which the attitude is normative.

Beliefs, intentions and behaviour

Better prediction depends on an account of the interaction between attitudes, beliefs and behavioural
intentions, and the connections of all of these with subsequent actions.

Specific attitudes:

Ajzen and Fishbein believed that attitude research suffered from either trying to predict specific
behaviours from general attitudes or vice versa, so that low correlations were to be expected. Ajzen
and Fishbein believed that behaviour was better predicted by measuring attitudes that were very
specific to the behaviour.

An example of a specific attitude predicting specific behaviour would be a student’s attitude towards a
psychology exam predicting how diligently he or she studies for that exam.

the closer the question was to the actual behaviour, the more accurately the behaviour was predicted

Meta-analysis - Statistical procedure that combines data from different studies to measure the overall
reliability and strength of specific effects.

General attitudes predict behaviour if we adopt a multiple-act criterion. The idea here is that general
attitudes predict multiple behaviours (acts) much better than they predict a specific single behaviour,
because single behaviours are usually affected by many factors. For example, the specific behaviour
of participating in a paper-recycling programme on a given day is a function of many factors, even the
weather. Yet a person engaging in such behaviour may claim to be ‘environmentally conscious’, a
general attitude.

Multiple-act criterion - Term for a general behavioural index based on an average or combination of
several specific behaviours.

Theory of reasoned action - Fishbein and Ajzen’s theory of the relationship between attitudes and
behaviour. A specific attitude that has normative support predicts an intention to act, which then
predicts actual behaviour.

The theory encapsulates three processes of beliefs, intention and action, and it includes the
following components:
● Subjective norm – a product of what the person thinks others believe. Significant others provide
direct or indirect information about ‘what is the proper thing to do’.
● Attitude towards the behaviour – a product of the person’s beliefs about the target behaviour and
how these beliefs are evaluated
● Behavioural intention – an internal declaration to act.
● Behaviour – the action performed.

Usually, an action will be performed if (1) the person’s attitude is favourable; and (2) the social norm
is also favourable.

Overall if you know someone’s very specific behavioural intentions, then you are effectively almost
there in terms of predicting what they will actually do – their behaviour.

Ajzen has argued that perceived behavioural control can relate to either the behavioural intention or to
the behaviour itself. He referred to this theory as the theory of planned behaviour. Predicting a
behaviour from an attitude measure is improved if people believe they have control over that
behaviour (measuring the perception of control that students thought they had over these behaviours
improved the accuracy of prediction of future behaviour, and, to some extent, the actual performance
of the act).

Perceived control improved the prediction accuracy for both intentions and actions, and this
improvement was substantially effective in predicting the action itself.
People’s moral values may play a role in determining action. For example, if you wanted to know
whether someone would donate money to charity, you would do well to find out whether acting
charitably is a priority in their lives. where the context emphasised the expression of one’s values.

Habit is also a predictor of future behaviour. An action can become relatively auto- matic (discussed
later in this chapter), and can operate independently of processes under- lying the theory of planned
behaviour.

Another theory, related to the theories of reasoned action and planned behaviour, that focuses on how
people can protect their health, maintain better practices and avoid risky behaviour is protection
motivation theory. Motivation towards protection results from a perceived threat and the desire to
avoid potential negative outcomes.

Protection motivation theory - Adopting a healthy behaviour requires cognitive balancing between
the perceived threat of illness and one’s capacity to cope with the health regimen.

Other components built into protection motivation theory included the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic
reward (related to social learning theory) and Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy, which in turn is
closely related to that of perceived behavioural control in the theory of planned behaviour.

adaptive intentions and behaviour are facilitated by:

● an increase in the perceived severity of a health threat;
● the vulnerability of the individual to that threat;
● the perceived effectiveness of taking protective action ● self-efficacy.
Protection motivation theory specifies two mediating cognitive processes: threat appraisal (intrinsic-
extrinsic rewards) and coping appraisal.

Self-efficacy - Expectations that we have about our capacity to succeed in particular tasks.
attitude accessibility

Attitudes are represented in memory, and accessible attitudes are those that can be recalled from
memory more easily and can therefore be expressed more quickly. Accessible attitudes exert a strong
influence on behaviour and are associated with greater attitude–behaviour consistency. They are also
more stable, more selective in judging relevant information and more resistant to change.

attitude strength and direct experience

Strong attitudes must be highly accessible. They come to mind more readily and influence behaviour
more than weak attitudes.

automatic activation - According to Fazio, attitudes that have a strong evaluative link to situational
cues are more likely to come automatically to mind from memory. For example, people who have had
a nuclear reactor built in their neighbourhood will have stronger and more clearly defined attitudes
regarding the safety of nuclear reactors. These people will be more motivated by their attitudes – they
may be more involved in pro- tests or more likely to move house.

Attitudes formed through actual experience are more consistently related to behaviour. Suppose Mary
has participated in several psychology experiments but William has only read about them. We can
predict Mary’s willingness to participate in the future more accurately than William’s.

reflecting on the attitude–behaviour link

As attitudes are being formed, they correlate more strongly with a future behaviour when:
● the attitudes are accessible (easy to recall);
● the attitudes are stable over time;
● people have had direct experience with the attitude object;
● people frequently report their attitudes.

Moderator variables
Moderator variable - A variable that qualifies an otherwise simple hypothesis with a view to
improving its predictive power (e.g. A causes B, but only when C (the moderator) is present).
Moderators include the situation, personality, habit, sense of control and direct experience.

Aspects of the situation, or context, can cause people to act in a way that is inconsistent with their
attitudes. Weak attitudes are particularly susceptible to context, and in many cases, social norms that
are contextually salient overwhelm people’s underlying attitudes.

Attitudes are more likely to express themselves as behaviour if the attitudes and associated behaviour
are normative properties of a contextually salient social group with which people identify.

Individual: habit, degree of control, mood, self-identity

Forming attitudes

Attitude formation - The process of forming our attitudes, mainly from our own experiences, the
influences of others and our emotional reactions.

Behavioural approaches

How attitudes formed: mere exposure, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, social learning
and self-perception.

Direct experience provides information about the attributes of an object, which shapes our beliefs and
how much we like or dislike the object. Even a mildly traumatic experience can trigger a negative
attitude and make certain beliefs more salient than others. If your first visit to the dentist is painful,
you may conclude that dentists hurt rather than help you, despite their friendly smile.

Mere exposure to an object on several occasions is likely to affect how we evaluate it – the mere
exposure effect. The first time you hear a new song, you may neither strongly like nor dislike it; but
with repetition, your response in one direction or the other is likely to strengthen. However, the effect
of continued repeated exposure diminishes. For example, increased liking for photos of people
levelled off after about ten exposures. Mere exposure has most impact when we lack information
about an issue.

Classical conditioning

Evaluative conditioning - A stimulus will become more liked or less liked when it is consistently
paired with stimuli that are either positive or negative. For example, children initially have no
political party preference but later vote as young adults for a specific party after years of exposure to a
parent who has been an enthusiastic supporter of that party – a classically conditioned response has
become the basis of a subsequent political attitude. A wide variety of attitudes may be formed in this
way through classical conditioning.

Classical conditioning can be a powerful, even insidious, form of attitude learning. In one study, the
positive feelings associated with the soft drinks or with guitar music became associated, via classical
conditioning, with the persuasive messages.
Spreading attitude effect - A liked or disliked person (or attitude object) may affect not only the
evaluation of a second person directly associated but also others merely associated with the second
person. Mary is at a conference where she notices Peter and Paul talking. She barely knows either one
– they are affectively neutral. Then she sees Peter talking with Marc, someone she dislikes. First,
Peter is now less likeable (evaluative conditioning); second, Paul is also less likeable (the spreading
attitude effect). Peter’s bad company has had a ripple effect on someone merely associated with him
(in this case, Paul).

Instrumental conditioning - Behaviour that is followed by positive consequences is reinforced and is

more likely to be repeated, whereas behaviour that is followed by negative consequences is not. For
example, parents use verbal reinforcers to encourage acceptable behaviour in their children – quiet,
cooperative play wins praise.

Attitude formation can also be treated as a social learning process that does not depend on direct
reinforcers, but involves a process of modelling. Modelling - Tendency for a person to reproduce the
actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by a real-life or symbolic model. Also called
observational learning. If a significant other expresses an attitude or behaves in a way that attracts a
favourable response, then you will be more likely to acquire that attitude or behaviour.

Cognitive development

Bem’s self-perception theory states that people acquire knowledge about what kind of person they
are, and thus their attitudes, by examining their own behaviour and asking: ‘Why did I do that?’ A
person may act for reasons that are not obvious and then determine their attitude from the most readily
available cause. For example, if you often go for long walks, you may conclude that ‘I must like them,
as I’m always doing that’. Bem’s theory suggests that people act, and form attitudes, without much
deliberate thinking.

Sources of learning

parents and peers

For children, their parents are a powerful influence, involving all the kinds of learning mentioned
earlier (classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning and observational learning). The correlation
between the specific attitudes of parents and their children is generally positive, but it is also
surprisingly weak; the correlation is stronger for broad attitudes. Restrictive parenting at age five was
reflected in higher conformity values and lower self-directed values in adulthood.

The mass media strongly influence attitudes, and there is little question that visual media, particularly
television, play an important part in attitude formation in children, particularly when attitudes are not
strongly held. Before age seven, American children got most of their political information from
television and that this affected their views on politics and political institutions.

people overwhelmingly learn and fine-tune their attitudes by searching the Internet