The definition of an attitude has changed on many occasion over time starting with Thurstone’s one-component attitude model; “the affect for or against a psychological object” (Thurstone, 1931, p.261). The most recent thought about attitudes is the three-component model which states that an attitude consists of cognitive, affective and behavioural components. This definition expands on the idea of a simple feeling towards an object to include that attitudes are made up of thoughts, ideas, feelings, likes and dislikes as well as our behavioural intentions. With regards to our behaviour and attitudes, psychologists are split between situational explanations and personality and individual differences explanations. In this essay, the extent to
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The questionnaire simply asked about Chinese people in general whereas when observing the behaviour, he turned up with a specific couple (Ajzen and Fishbein (1975) believed that the key to success in attitudes predicting behaviours is to be specific). Upon a professor arriving at their restaurant with two, say well dressed and respectable looking people of Chinese origin, they may see no reason to refuse service. However upon answering the questionnaire, they probably result back to their stereotypical and discriminatory opinion of the Chinese – this negative attitude could have been strengthened by a bad newsworthy event in China for example and also, people find it easier to believe the general feelings of those around them rather than form their own opinions (especially true with stereotypes). Overall, this experiment raised important questions but did not answer whether attitudes can be indicative of behaviours. It has presented us though with many ways in which attitudes are more likely to predict …show more content…
Strong attitudes often stem from past or current experiences where emotion is involved or from repetition. If it is your house that is being flooded, it is likely that you will be much more active in reforms to flood prevention than someone who believes it is unfortunate that people’s houses are being flooded but it doesn’t directly affect them. Holland, Verplanken and Van Knippenberg (2002) provided experimental evidence of the correlation between strong attitudes and behaviours. They found that people with strong positive attitudes towards the charity Greenpeace were much more likely to make a donation than those with weak positive attitudes. A strong attitude is also more likely to survive the test of social norms. If you strongly believe in a cause, you are more likely to firstly express this interest and secondly be less interested in what the people around you think. Public norms can lead to people expressing different views to what they actually believe in to try and fit in with the group around them which is especially true with socially sensitive issues. If you believe strongly in something then you are likely to frequently report it; even if you don’t express the attitude to others, you are likely to think about it often and so reiterate the attitude to yourself leading to increased likelihood that your behaviour will be indicative of this
The questionnaire simply asked about Chinese people in general whereas when observing the behaviour, he turned up with a specific couple (Ajzen and Fishbein (1975) believed that the key to success in attitudes predicting behaviours is to be specific). Upon a professor arriving at their restaurant with two, say well dressed and respectable looking people of Chinese origin, they may see no reason to refuse service. However upon answering the questionnaire, they probably result back to their stereotypical and discriminatory opinion of the Chinese – this negative attitude could have been strengthened by a bad newsworthy event in China for example and also, people find it easier to believe the general feelings of those around them rather than form their own opinions (especially true with stereotypes). Overall, this experiment raised important questions but did not answer whether attitudes can be indicative of behaviours. It has presented us though with many ways in which attitudes are more likely to predict …show more content…
Strong attitudes often stem from past or current experiences where emotion is involved or from repetition. If it is your house that is being flooded, it is likely that you will be much more active in reforms to flood prevention than someone who believes it is unfortunate that people’s houses are being flooded but it doesn’t directly affect them. Holland, Verplanken and Van Knippenberg (2002) provided experimental evidence of the correlation between strong attitudes and behaviours. They found that people with strong positive attitudes towards the charity Greenpeace were much more likely to make a donation than those with weak positive attitudes. A strong attitude is also more likely to survive the test of social norms. If you strongly believe in a cause, you are more likely to firstly express this interest and secondly be less interested in what the people around you think. Public norms can lead to people expressing different views to what they actually believe in to try and fit in with the group around them which is especially true with socially sensitive issues. If you believe strongly in something then you are likely to frequently report it; even if you don’t express the attitude to others, you are likely to think about it often and so reiterate the attitude to yourself leading to increased likelihood that your behaviour will be indicative of this