Attitudes

• Attitudes

  A predisposition for feelings or behaviours towards something or someone’. 
• Attitudes are used to explain a pattern of behaviour or a response in a given situation.
• Attitudes can strongly influence behaviour.
• How are attitudes formed

  • Past experiences - good or bad
  • Social learning - role models
  • Media - through coverage can reinforce stereotypes
  • Education - class, school or teacher
  • Social norms - eg football is a big sport in uk
  • Culture / religion - eg muslim culture limits women sports opp
• Well entrenched attitudes gives rise to prejudices
• Prejudices

  An attitude based on prejudgement arising from an evaluation based on unfounded beliefs or opinions
• Triadic model of attitude - 3 components

  • Cognitive
  • Affective
  • Behavioural
• Cognitive component

  • Beliefs and knowledge an individual holds about the attitude object
• Affective component

  • Feelings or emotions towards an attitude object
• Behavioural component

  • How an individual intends to behave towards an attitude subject
• EgHow could the triadic model explain different attitudes towards keeping fit?

  Cognitive

  Benefits of participation/ health

  Affective

  Emotion: Beliefs it may be boring/enjoyable, difficult, fun, expensive

  Behavioural

  Task related behaviour: Attendance, commitment, dedication, working hard, giving up.
• Methods of changing attitudes

  • Cognitive dissonance
  • Persuasive communication
• Cognitive dissonance

  • Creating disagreement between the components of an attitude is likely to cause emotional discomfort
  • Changing one aspect of the triadic model is likely to cause dissonance
  • Changing a component will make us try to change the other elements , thus changing our attitudes
• Persuasive communication

  An active non coercive attempt to change the attitude of others

  • Effectiveness of persuasion depends on :
  • The persuader - person attempting the change
  • The message- quality of the message persuader is giving
  • The receiver - the person whose attitude the persuader is trying to change
• How can you change attitudes

  • Reinforcement
  • Punishment
  • Role models
  • Cognitive methods - educate/ raise awareness
  • Affective methods - help them feel the benefits