1. The Journal 1 – 19th November 2013
Today we are learning something that are common among ourselves. Attitudes which was
defined simply as a positivity or the negativity evaluation of subject of thoughts. Such subject
includes the categories such as social issues or consumer’s product and more. Attitudes
contains three possible components; Cognitive which are affected by belief and ideas,
Affective which are affected emotionally and Behavioral which are mainly a tendency or a
preparation to act upon the subject. The lecture continues with three theories of attitude
changes; Evaluative Conditioning, Operational Conditioning and Observational Learning.
Operant Conditioning states that a person’s behaviour are affected by the consequences they
receive after a creation of response. Operational Conditioning were founded by two
psychologists with a Law and Principle respectively; Edward L Thorndike’s Law of Effect
which states that associationg will strengthen should the consequences are satisfying and B.F
Skinner’s Principle of Reinforcement which states that action will repeat itself followed by
favourable consequences. In Observational Learning, which were defined as a form of
learning through observation, we were taught that there were four key processes; Attention,
Retention, Motivation and Reproduction. Observational Learning are also affected by
Cognitive Dissonance which exist when cognitions contradicts one another. Our lecturer
showed us Festinger and Carlsmith’s study on cognitive dissonance with the hypothesis
stating that higher dissonance about counter attitudinal, or in simple term the state of
psychological tension, changes the attitude of the subject. The conclusion proved the
hypothesis correct.