Attitude and Behavior in Psychology
In psychology, an attitude is defined as a set of emotions, beliefs and behaviors expressed towards a particular person, object, thing, or event. Attitudes are oftenly the result of upbringing or experience, and they do have a substantial influence over behavior. While an attitude can endure for a long time, they can also change. Some of the factors that influence attitude formation include a person’s experience, classical and operant conditioning, social roles and norms, and observation of people in an environment. This paper will focus on attitude and behavior in Psychology.
Attitudes are an important topic of study covered within the field of social psychology. Which political party operates better in the affairs of the country? Should prayer be allowed in educational institutions? Is the death penalty appropriate in punishing crimes? Should the communication authorities regulate violence captured on national television? There are high chances that you can express reasonably strong opinions about the questions above and even more. You have thus developed attitudes about the issues in the questions, and the attitudes have influenced your beliefs and behavior.
Psychology defines attitudes as a learned tendency to evaluate matters or thing in a certain way. The evaluation can be of people, events, ideas, issues, or objects, and can be positive or negative. The evaluation can also be uncertain sometimes, as in the case of a person who has mixed feelings about another person or issue.
There are several components of attitudes that researchers have suggested. The most common elements of attitudes can be referred to as CAB or ABC’s of attitudes. They include Cognitive component, affective component, and behavioral component. A cognitive part is made up of one’s thoughts and beliefs about the object. Affective component, on the other hand, refers to how the object, issue, person, or event makes one feel. The behavioral part consists of how attitude influences one’s behavior. Apart from the components, attitudes can also be described as implicit or explicit. Explicit attitudes are those that influence or behavior and beliefs. They are those that we are consciously aware of. Implicit attitudes are those attitudes that are unconscious yet still affect our behaviors and beliefs.
What are those factors that influence how and why attitudes form? Experience is one right way that leads to attitudes form. Attitudes form directly as a result of one’s experience of an event or person. They may emerge from direct personal experience or sometimes from observations. Someone can observe an event, for example, and develop an attitude about it, without having an immediate effect from it. As mentioned above, social roles and social norms can strongly influence attitudes. Social norms consist of society’s rules and expectations, and the behaviors considered appropriate. Social roles include how people are expected to behave in a particular context or function.
Learning is also a way in which attitudes form. They can be learned in several ways. For example, during advertisements on television, you see beautiful and young people having fun on a tropical bench as they enjoy a sports drink. The attractive and appealing imagery develops in you a positive attitude or association with that beverage, even before you have a taste and experience of it. Another factor that influences how attitudes form is operant conditioning. An excellent example of an operant conditioning is a young man who has just started smoking and every time he lights his cigar, there are complains, and chastisements from people and they ask him to stay away from them. The negative feedback this young man receives will eventually cause him to develop a negative attitude towards smoking and can decide to give up the habit.
Attitudes also form by observation of others around you. When someone you admire dramatically develops an attitude about a particular thing, you are more likely to espouse the same belief. An excellent example is how children spend a good time observing their parents’ attitudes and often begin to demonstrate similar outlooks.
Attitudes and actual behavior are not usually perfectly aligned, according to research done by social psychologists. A good example is how a lot of people support a particular party or candidate, yet they fail to turn up on the voting day. They have a specific attitude yet not perfectly aligned with their behavior. Only under these conditions will someone’s attitude and their behavior perfectly align when the attitudes were formed as a result of personal experience when one is an expert in the subject, when one expects a favorable outcome, when the attitudes are repeatedly expressed, and when one stands to lose or win something because of the issue. Apart from the above conditions, attitude will not always align to behavior.
In many cases, people may alter their attitudes to align them with their behavior. When a person experiences psychological distress as a result of conflicting thoughts or beliefs, that condition is referred to as cognitive dissonance. One way to minimize the effects of cognitive dissonance is to change the attitude and align it to your other beliefs or actual behaviors. A good example is of a lady who has placed a high value in financial security, but it starts to date a guy who is very financially unstable. The lady has two options here that can help her reduce the tension caused by the conflicting beliefs and behaviors. She can either end the relationship or seek out for a guy who is financially stable, or she can de-emphasize fiscal stability importance. To reduce the dissonance between the two conflicting attitudes and behavior, she can either change the attitude or change the behavior.
The same influences that we discussed that can lead to the formation of attitudes can also create attitude change. Classical conditioning, observational learning, and operant conditioning can be used to bring about attitude change. Classical conditioning creates positive emotional reactions to a person, object, or event, while operant conditioning strengthens desirable attitudes and weaken the undesirable ones. People can also shift their attitudes after observing others’ behaviors. The theory of persuasion suggests that people have two ways in which they can alter their attitudes. The first way is being motivated to listen and think about the message. This leads to a change or shift in perspective. The second way is to be influenced by the characteristics of the speaker, and this leads to a temporary change in attitude. Messages that easily provoke the thoughts and are appealing to logic are more likely to lead to permanent changes in the attitude. Also, as mentioned above, people are more likely to change their attitudes when they have conflicting beliefs about a topic. The contradictory beliefs cause tension, something that is reduced by a shift in perspective.
In conclusion, attitudes are learned tendency to evaluate matters or things in a certain way. One’s mood can influence his behavior. Attitude and action may be aligned together, but are not naturally aligned as many think. Opinions can be formed and can also be changed either permanently or just shift temporarily.
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