Social Cognition: Attitudes
A set of beliefs, behaviors, and emotions toward a given event, thing, or person in psychology can be termed as attitudes. Ajzen (2013) indicates that human beings’ socializations are revealed majorly in their attitudes created from the norms and values of their reference society or groups. Moreover, an analysis of attitudes brings an individual to the center of the dynamics of social processes and relations. Attitudes capture multifaceted and complex ways that human beings are capable of behaving, representing, and synthesizing them to create predispositions, which guide their subsequent social behaviors. They are often the result of upbringing, and besides being enduring, attitudes can also change. Attitudes …show more content…
Experience contributes to the formation of attitudes through direct personal experience or observation. Social norms and roles have a strong influence on attitudes. Social roles link to how people are expected to conduct themselves in a specific context or situation. Social norms encompass society’s rules and guidelines for particular behaviors that are considered appropriate. An individual can learn attitudes through various ways such as classical and operant conditioning and by observing other people around …show more content…
Explicit attitudes pertain to conscious beliefs that guide behaviors and decisions. In contrast, implicit attitudes are unconscious beliefs that can still influence behavior and decisions. Cognitive, affective, and behavioral components are the three main aspects that make up attitudes. An attitudinal shift can be enhanced through both classical and operant conditioning and observational learning to bring about a behavioral change. Classical conditioning creates positive or negative emotional reactions to a particular object, event, or person by associating the negative or positive feelings with the target object. Operant conditioning can be utilized to enhance or strengthen desirable attitudes and weaken the undesirable ones. Moreover, individuals can change their attitudes after observing the character of other people around them. People also change their attitudes as a result of having conflicting beliefs regarding a topic. They shift their attitudes to acceptable ones so that the tension between the incompatible beliefs is reduced significantly. Additionally, persuasion messages provoke people to shift their attitudes temporarily or permanently (Ajzen, 2013; Smith & Mackie,
A set of beliefs, behaviors, and emotions toward a given event, thing, or person in psychology can be termed as attitudes. Ajzen (2013) indicates that human beings’ socializations are revealed majorly in their attitudes created from the norms and values of their reference society or groups. Moreover, an analysis of attitudes brings an individual to the center of the dynamics of social processes and relations. Attitudes capture multifaceted and complex ways that human beings are capable of behaving, representing, and synthesizing them to create predispositions, which guide their subsequent social behaviors. They are often the result of upbringing, and besides being enduring, attitudes can also change. Attitudes …show more content…
Experience contributes to the formation of attitudes through direct personal experience or observation. Social norms and roles have a strong influence on attitudes. Social roles link to how people are expected to conduct themselves in a specific context or situation. Social norms encompass society’s rules and guidelines for particular behaviors that are considered appropriate. An individual can learn attitudes through various ways such as classical and operant conditioning and by observing other people around …show more content…
Explicit attitudes pertain to conscious beliefs that guide behaviors and decisions. In contrast, implicit attitudes are unconscious beliefs that can still influence behavior and decisions. Cognitive, affective, and behavioral components are the three main aspects that make up attitudes. An attitudinal shift can be enhanced through both classical and operant conditioning and observational learning to bring about a behavioral change. Classical conditioning creates positive or negative emotional reactions to a particular object, event, or person by associating the negative or positive feelings with the target object. Operant conditioning can be utilized to enhance or strengthen desirable attitudes and weaken the undesirable ones. Moreover, individuals can change their attitudes after observing the character of other people around them. People also change their attitudes as a result of having conflicting beliefs regarding a topic. They shift their attitudes to acceptable ones so that the tension between the incompatible beliefs is reduced significantly. Additionally, persuasion messages provoke people to shift their attitudes temporarily or permanently (Ajzen, 2013; Smith & Mackie,