Attitudes

• Attitude

  An opinion or feeling towards and object or view
• Triadic Model- components of attitude

  Cognitive part- belief towards it/thoughts

  Affective part- emotions towards it/feelings

  Behavioural part- actions done about it/training
• Cognitive Dissonance

  Cause conflict with one factor of the triadic model, tension through challenge, question their belief
• Persuasive Communication

  Using knowledge to persuade them to change their attitude, must be a MKO, have a clear message and the performer must want to change their attitude
• Attitudes can be positive or negative and are developed through experiences rather than being innate, often form at an early age.
• They can be formed by - Past experiences: winning matches for example is a positive experience which can lead to the individual developing a positive attitude. Therefore, individual develops high perception of their own ability, so confidence increases. A bad experience e.g. loosing or injury, can lead to a negative attitude. This then leads to poor perception of ability and low self-confidence. This can lead to individual developing a negative attitude towards sport as a whole and individual may develop learned helplessness.
• They can be formed by - Socialisation: describes how an individual wants to fit in with the cultural norms surrounding them. If it’s the norm for your family/friends to participate regularly in physical activity and have +ve attitudes, then you will conform to fit in. And vice versa for negative attitudes.
• They can be formed by - o   Social learning: imitating the attitudes of significant others (parents, teachers, and peers). If parents/friends have a +ve attitude towards physical activity, its likely you will copy them, especially if you are reinforced or praised for doing so. And vice versa for -ve attitudes.
• They can be formed by - Media: high-profile role models in the media/on TV often display +ve attitudes, as we regard them highly, we are likely to adopt their +ve attitudes towards being active.
• Triadic model

  Suggests attitude is made up of 3 components:

  1)     Cognitive – beliefs/thoughts – e.g. ‘I think I can be a successful netball player’.

  2)     Affective – emotions/feelings – e.g. ‘I enjoy playing netball and feel happy after each match’.

  3)     Behavioural – actions/responses – e.g. ‘I have netball training twice a week and compete in club matches’.
• Attitudes are very inconsistent. An individual may believe that going to the gym is good for them and enjoy it but lack the motivation or time to go. Beliefs do not always correspond to behaviour, and sometimes all 3 aspects of a person’s attitude may be negative.
• Changing attitudes

  General strategies:

  o   Ensuring positive and successful experiences.

  o   Praising positive attitudes/behaviour

  o   Punishing negative attitudes/behaviour by substitution/bans for example.

  o   Using positive role models to highlight positive attitudes.
• Persuasive communication – the process of using discussion, debate, or argument in attempt to change someone’s point of view.
• Coach’s might also try persuasive communication, particularly by significant others who encourage you to change your mind and take on board their more positive point of view. If someone has a deep-seated -ve attitude they are realistically only going to change if a significant other or expert asks them to do so. The message they give needs to be clear about why the attitude should change. They might enlist the support of your peers to support the message. Ultimately the individual must want to change.
• Persuasive communication - Characteristics of persuader = high status in eye of receiver, high credibility (message can be trusted), and high popularity (effective message transfer).

  Characteristics of message = accurate, stated with confidence, appealing, relatable, and there should be clarity in the argument.

  Persuasive communication doesn’t work with someone with strong beliefs and attitudes, therefore cognitive dissonance is used.
• Cognitive dissonance – individuals like to be consistent in what they do, feel, and believe. If they do something that goes against their belief or encounter new knowledge, they’ll develop feelings of dissonance. This is then reduced by changing existing attitudes/beliefs.
• When an individual’s attitude components all match, whether positively or negatively, they are in a state of cognitive consonance. Their beliefs and feelings and actions are in harmony and the individual’s attitude will remain. To change the attitude, you create cognitive dissonance. Dissonance is caused by creating unease in the individual. This unease is created by changing one or more of the negative attitude components into a positive, causing individual to question their attitude and thus change it into a positive one.
• There are 3 components to cognitive dissonance: affective, cognitive, and behavioural, they must be consistent with each other. If attitude isn’t helpful to individual it can be changed by causing 1 component to be inconsistent with the others. Cognitive – give new information through education. Affective – create new emotion e.g. fun, ensure success.