attitudes and social change

• attitude - general feeling or evaluation that is positive or negative about something
• Rosenberg & Hovland's three component model:

  • Affective - expression of feelings
  • Cognitive - expression of belief
  • Behavioural- overt action concerning behaviour
• simple dimension - direct emotion, no other factor influencing that feeling
• complex (or inconsistent) dimension - e.g. liking something but there's one feature of it that you do not enjoy
•  attitudes become stronger when complex and evaluated consistently
• The function of attitudes:

  knowledge function - provides a sense of meaning and coherence
• the function of attitudes:

  utilitarian function - achieve positive outcomes, avoid punishment
• the function of attitudes:

  ego-defensive - protects one's self esteem from the harmful world
• the function of attitudes:

  value expressive - helps one express their core values
• mere exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968):

  repeated exposure to a stimulus > increased preference for the stimulus