This document discusses the concept of attitude. It defines attitude as how one thinks or feels about something and notes that attitudes can be positive, negative, ambivalent, or neutral. Attitudes have three main components - cognitive, affective, and behavioral. The cognitive component involves one's thoughts and beliefs, the affective component involves emotions and feelings, and the behavioral component involves tendencies to act in a certain way. The document also discusses factors that influence attitude formation and change, such as experiences, context, and cognitive dissonance. Measurement of attitudes can involve self-report measures, physiological measures, or covert measures.
2. Attitude
• Attitude in simple terms can be described as how one thinks or feels about a thing, person, place or even
event. It can also be described as an evaluation of the attitude object and can be positive, negative, mixed or
neutral (Barrett, 2017).
• Though initially attitude were described mainly based on whether the attitude object is favoured or not, it is
not possible to define attitude along a single dimension because it is possible that individuals' attitude towards
certain attitude objects could be ambivalent. Further, there could also be inconsistent attitudes towards a
single object.
• Most often, when you are asked to express your attitude towards an object, you may not be able to provide a
single attitude and your response could include more than one attitude with regard to various aspects of that
object.
3. Attitude Cont…
• Attitudes could be positive, negative, ambivalent or neutral based on the following (Barrett, 2017):
- A positive attitude could be as a result of low negative and high positive.
- A negative attitude could be as a result of high negative and low positive.
- An ambivalent attitude could be as a result of high negative and high positive.
- A neutral attitude can be as a result of low negative and low positive.
• Attitude can also be classified as implicit, explicit and dual.
- Implicit attitude: These are the attitudes that individuals may not be conscious or aware about.
- Explicit attitude: These are the attitudes that individuals are aware about.
- Dual attitude: These are the attitudes that are inconsistently implicit or explicit.
4. Components of Attitude
Cognitive component: This denotes the thoughts of an individual with regard to a particular object. These
thoughts could be related to facts, knowledge, ideas, opinions and even beliefs with regard to the object. When an
individual utilises the information available to him/her in forming an opinion about the object, whether favourable
or unfavourable, that represents the cognitive element of the attitude. Cognitive component can also be termed as
storage component where the information about the attitude object is organised. For example, suppose when an
individuals has an unfavourable opinion or negative attitude about smoking because it can have a negative impact
on one’s health, then he/she derived this attitude as a result of information he/she has about the ill effects of
smoking on health.
5. Components of Attitude Cont…
Behavioural component: This denotes the tendency of the individual to act with regard to the attitude object.
The behaviour will, thus, be based on the attitude whether negative or positive. Behaviour (overt actions) though
needs to be differentiated from behavioural tendency, which may not actually predict one’s actual behaviour.
And this behavioural tendency or intention to behave in a particular manner is more in sync with cognitive and
affective component of attitude rather than the actual behaviour. For example, a person may believe that he
needs to wear helmet while riding, but may not actually wear it; though the person may have intentions to wear
the helmet, it may not translate in to actual behaviour of wearing it.
Affective component: This is related to the emotions or feelings of the person towards the attitude object. For
example, feelings people have towards music or people and so on. Further, these feelings may also vary in terms
of their intensity. A person may have strong favourable feelings about freedom of speech but may have a casual
unfavourable feeling about rain water harvesting. Thus, this person will be more involved in activities related to
freedom of speech and not so much in activities related to rain water harvesting.
6. Functions of Attitude
1. Utilitarian function: Attitudes play a role in helping individuals have a better relationship and an overall
better
life. For example, a positive attitude towards one’s spouse will help maintain the relationship or a negative
attitude towards smoking will lead to less health-related hazards that come with smoking. Conformity also
plays a role here where we may have an attitude that is in agreement with others. This in a way helps us
maintain the membership of the group. Thus one’s public attitude could be different from one’s private attitude.
For example, a person may actually have a negative attitude towards working women but his/ her public
attitude will be positive towards working women because significant people around him/her have that attitude.
7. Functions of Attitude Cont…
1. Knowledge function: Attitude also makes life more meaningful and coherent as it contributes to organising
as well as predicting the social world and, thus, it can be explained as cognitive schemas (Crisp & Turner,
2010). For example, stereotypes denote one’s expectations with regard to various social groups.
2. Ego defensive function: This function of attitude helps individuals protect themselves from certain truths
about themselves that could be threatening and, thus, help them develop a positive attitude about themselves.
This helps in maintenance of self-esteem of the individual. For example, a student may develop a negative
attitude about a classmate who has scored more marks than him/her.
3. Value expression function: Attitude also functions as an expression of certain values that are considered as
important by the individual. For example, if an individual values handmade products by traditional artisans
then he/she will be involved in buying and promoting handmade products by traditional artisans.
8. Measurement of Attitude
Self-report measures: A simple way in which the attitude of individuals can be measured is by
asking them directly about it (as was discussed in the examples above). Self-report measures thus, can be
effectively used in this context. These are questionnaires that are designed to measure the strength of attitude
displayed by an individuals towards an attitude object. This can be termed as an overt measure of attitude as
the person answering them are aware about what is being measured. Other measures that can be termed as
overt measures are surveys and interviews. The items in self-report measures could be close-ended or open-
ended.
Physiological measures: Various physiological measures, such as skin resistance, heartbeat, heart cycle, pupil
dilation and so on can also be used to measure attitudes (Pallak et al., 1984). This can be done by comparing
the physiological indicators in presence of a neutral object and in presence of the attitude object.
Covert measures: Attitude can also be measured with the help of covert measure, in which the participant is
not aware that his/ her attitude is measured and thus will not make any attempts to change or modify his/her
response. This again will help deal with the issue of social desirability. One technique that can be termed as an
indirect measure of attitude is lost-letter technique developed by Milgram (1977).
10. Relationship Between Attitude and
Behaviour
• Specificity
• Time
• Self-awareness
• Accessibility of the attitude
• Attitude strength
• Mindlessness
• Balance theory
• Theory of planned behaviour
11. Attitude Change
• Cognitive dissonance theory: Cognitive dissonance theory was proposed by Festinger in 1957. The theory
states that feelings of discomfort are created when behaviour contradicts existing attitudes. Thus, when
individuals act in ways that are not consistent with their attitude they will feel uncomfortable.
The following factors can have an effect on dissonance.
1. Justification: This is with regard to whether persons have any justification with regard to their certain
behaviour or not. When they have a justification, they can explain the same and, thus, change in attitude is not
required. However, if there is no justification, that the attitude needs to be changed.
2. Choice: This denotes whether the person has choice or was forced to behave in a particular manner. If he/she
was forced to behave in a certain way, then they can explain accordingly and dissonance will not take place. But
if he/she had a choice but still behaved in a particular way, then dissonance would take place.
12. Attitude Change Cont…
3. Investment: The more the investment in ones opinion or point of view, the more it is significant for the self-
concept of that person and the effects of dissonance will be stronger. However, if the investment in ones
opinion or point of view is less, then they are not as significant for ones self-concept and, thus, the effects of
dissonance will also be lower.
• Persuasion: We are constantly exposed to external messages where we are told to buy a particular shampoo
or deodorant through advertisements in newspaper, radio and television or appealed to contribute to certain
charitable organisation and so on. These are examples of external messages that are trying to persuade us in
a particular manner. In persuasion, attitude changes takes place as a result of messages that are external
rather than due to internal inconsistencies as in cognitive dissonance theory.
There are various approaches to understand persuasion.
1. Traditional approach
2. Cognitive approach
