GRADE : 12

SUBJECT : PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER NO.6
ATTITUDE AND SOCIAL COGNITION

BY: KAVITA PANDEY

 CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
EXPLAINING SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
 NATURE AND COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES
ATTITUDE FORMATION AND CHANGE
 ATTITUDE FORMATION
 ATTITUDE CHANGE
 ATTITUDE-BEHAVIOR RELATIONSHIP

PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION

STRATEGIES FOR HANDLING PREJUDICE
 INTRODUCTION

• Social psychology is that branch of psychology

which investigates how the behaviour of
individuals is affected by others and the
social environment.

• All of us form attitudes, or ways of thinking

about specific topics and people. We also
form impressions about persons we meet,
and assign causes to their behavior.

• Besides, our own behavior gets influenced by

other individuals and groups

• This chapter will describe the basic ideas

related to attitudes, social cognition as
explained by social psychologists.
EXPLAINING SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
 Cognitive processes cannot be
directly seen; they have to be
inferred on the basis of externally
shown behaviour.

 There are other examples of social

influence that are in the form of
observable behaviour.

 Two such examples are social

facilitation/ inhibition, i.e. the
improvement/decline in
performance in the presence of
others, and helping, or pro-social
behaviour, i.e. responding to
others who are in need or distress
 NATURE AND COMPONENET OF
ATTITUDE

• Attitude is a set of mind, a

set of views, or thoughts
regarding some topics which
have an evaluative feature.
(positive, negative or
neutral).
• These are relatively stable
predispositions.
 VARIOUS COMPONENTS OF AN
ATTITUDE ARE AS FOLLOWS:

(i) The thought component is referred to as the

cognitive aspect of attitude.

(ii) The emotional component is known as the

affective aspect.

(iii) The tendency to act is called the

behavioural (cognitive) aspect.

These three aspects have been referred to as

the A-B-C (affective-behavioural-cognitive)
components of attitude.

Attitudes are themselves not a tendency to

behave or act in certain ways. They are
part of cognition, along with an emotional
component
OTHER CONCEPT
FOR ATTITUDE
 FEATURES OF ATTITUDE
(i) Valence (positivity or negativity).

(ii) Extremeness indicates how positive or

negative an attitude is.

(iii) Simplicity or Complexity

(multiplexity) refers to how many
attitudes there are within a broader
attitude. An attitude system is said to
be ‘simple’ if it contains only one or a
few attitudes and ‘complex’ if it is
made up of many attitudes.

(iv) Centrality: This refers to the role of a

particular attitude in the system much
more than non-central (or peripheral)
attitudes would.
ATTITUDE FORMATION AND
CHANGE
 PROCESS OF ATTITUDE FORMATION:

 Association, e.g., a positive attitude towards a subject is learned through the

positive association between a teacher and a student.

 Reward or punishment increases/decreases the further development of that

attitude.

 Modeling observing others being rewarded or punished for expressing

thoughts, or showing behavior of a particular kind towards the attitude
object.
 Group or Cultural norms through the norms of our group or culture which
may become part of our social cognition, in the form of attitude.

 Exposure to information, e.g., positive and negative attitudes is formed

through the media.
FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE ATTITUDE
FORMATION
 ATTITUDE CHANGE

• Attitudes that are still

in the formative
stage, and are more
like opinions, are
much more likely to
change compared to
attitude that have
become firmly
established and have
become a part of the
individual’s values.
 PROCESS OF ATTITUDE
CHANGE

• Three major concepts

that draw attention to
some important
processes in attitude
change are:

• CONCEPT OF BALANCE
• THECONCEPT OF COGNITIVE
DISSONANCE
• THE TWO- STEP CONCEPT
CONCEPT OF BALANCE
Concept of balance proposed by FIRTZ HEIDER
he describe it in the form of P-O-X triangle.
• P is the person whose attitude is being
studied,
• O is another person
• X is the topic towards which the attitude is
being studied (attitude object).

 It is also possible that all three are persons.

 The basic idea is that an attitude changes if

there is a state of imbalance between the P-
O attitude, O-X attitude, and P-X attitude.

 This is because imbalance is logically

uncomfortable. Therefore attitude changes
in direction of balance
 THE TWO –STEPS
CONCEPT

S.M Moshin, an Indian psychologist proposed two

– steps concept.

According to him, attitude changes takes place in

the form of two steps .
(i) In the first step, the target of change identifies with the
source.

The target is the person whose attitude is to be changed.

The source is the person through whose influence the change

is to take place .
Identification The target of change identifies with the sources.
He or she put himself in the place of target and tries to feel
like her /him.

The source must also have a positive attitude towards the

target . And the regard and attraction become mutual.
(ii) In the second step, the source
himself/herself shows an attitude
change, by actually changing him/her
behavior towards the attitude object.

Observing the source’s changed attitude

and behavior. The target also shows
an attitude change through behavior.

This is a kind of imitation or

observational learning.
 FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE ATTITUDE
CHANGE
• Characteristics of the Existing Attitude

• All four properties of attitudes mentioned earlier,

namely, valence (positively or negatively),
extremeness, simplicity or complexity (multiplexity),
and centrality or significance of the
attitude,determine attitude change.

• Positive, less extreme, peripheral (less significant) and

simpler attitudes are easier to change. In addition,
one must also consider the direction and extent of
attitude change.

• Congruent (same direction of the existing attitude) or

incongruent (direction opposite). Moreover, an
attitude may change in the direction of the
information that is presented, or in a direction
opposite to that of the information presented.
• Message Characteristics:

• Attitudes will change when the

amount of information that is given
about the topic is just enough, neither
too much nor too little.

• Whether the message contains a

rational or an emotional appeal, also
makes a difference.
The motives activated by the
message and the mode of spreading
the message (face-to-face
transmission is more effective than
indirect transmission).
• Target Characteristics:

• Qualities of the target,

such as persuasibility
(open and exible
personality), strong
prejudices, self-esteem
and intelligence more
willing because they
base their attitude on
more information and
thinking.
 ATTITUDE-BEHAVIOR RELATIONSHIP

• Psychologists have found

that there would be
consistency between
attitudes and behavior
when—
(i) The attitude is strong and
occupies a central place in
the attitude system.
(ii) The person is aware of
his/her attitude.
(iii) There is very little or no
external pressure for the
person to behave in a
particular way.
 PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION
• PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION:
Prejudices are usually negative attitudes against a
particular group, and in many cases, may be based on
stereotypes (the cognitive component) about the
specific group.

• A stereotype is a cluster of ideas regarding the

characteristics of a specific group. The cognitive
component of prejudice is frequently accompanied by
dislike or hatred, the affective components of prejudice
are more difficult to change.
 SOURCES OF PREJUDICE

Learning: Prejudice can also be learned through association, reward

and punishment, observing others, group or cultural norms and
exposure to information that encourages prejudice. The family,
reference groups, personal experiences and the media may play a
role in the learning of prejudices. People who learn prejudiced
attitudes may develop a ‘prejudiced personality’.

• A strong Social Identity and in Group Bias: Individual who have a

strong sense of social identity and have a very positive attitude
towards their own group boost this attitude by holding negative
attitudes towards other groups.
• Scapegoating: This is a phenomenon by which the majority
group places the blame on minority group for its own
social, economic or political problems. The minority is too
weak or too small in number to defend itself against such
accusation.

• Kernel of Truth Concept: Sometimes people may continue

to hold stereotypes because they think that there must be
some truth, or ‘Kernel of truth’ in which everyone says
about the other group.

• Self-fulfilling Prophecy: The group that is the target of

prejudice is itself responsible for continuing the prejudice
by behaving in ways that justify the prejudice or confirm
the negative expectation.
 STRATEGIES FOR HANDLING PREJUDICE

(a) Minimizing opportunities for learning

prejudices
(b) Changing such attitudes
(c) De-emphasizing a narrow social identity
based on the in-group
(d) Discouraging the tendency towards self-
fulfilling prophecy among the victims of
prejudice.
 These goals can be accomplished through

• Education and information dissemination, for correcting

stereotypes related to specific target groups, and tackling
the problem of a strong in-group bias.

• • Increasing intergroup contact that allows for direct

communication, removal of mistrust between the groups,
and discovery context, there is close interaction and they
are not different in power or status.

• Highlighting individual identity rather than group identity,

thus weakening the importance of group (both in-group
and out-group) as a basis of evaluating the other person.