Attitude Questions

Questions for Today! Where do our attitudes come from? Can they change? Based on what? Explain dissonance and how it can affect behavior. Come up with a personal example of when you have felt this. What is an example of an implicit attitude? What is an example of an explicit attitude?

A person’s conscious views toward people, objects, or concepts A person’s conscious views toward people, objects, or concepts. That is, the person is aware of the feelings he or she holds in a certain context. Example: His grandfather is unapologetically racist; the man makes no attempt to hide his negative views toward members of various ethnic minorities.

Unacknowledged attitudes external to a person’s awareness which nonetheless have measurable effects on people’s response times to stimuli. Example: A version of an Implicit Attitudes Test (IAT) has participants make the split-second decision whether to “shoot” intruders in a video game based on whether or not they are holding a gun; many people exhibit an implicit bias toward blacks, manifested as faster and more frequent decisions to “shoot” when the intruder pictured is a black man.

Efforts to reduce dissonance: Reject belief Change behavior Deny the evidence Rationalize (boring task) Cognitive dissonance Tension (cognitive dissonance) Cognitions conflict Behavior conflicts with attitude or belief Efforts to reduce dissonance: 4 things above

POWER OF THE SITUATION Leadership style (not personality) 3 groups of boys Autocratic (became hostile and aggressive) Laissez fair (free to do what they want, little accomplished) Democratic (higher motivation levels) Personality traits don’t matter if situation is powerful enough “Fundamental Attribution Error” “The person I was distant from me” 8 hr shift – real personal identity was replaced