Attitude Formation Research Paper

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Attitude Formation

How cognition, affect, and behavior have an impact on attitude formation

Cognition, affect, and behavior are the most common measures used to examine attitudes. Sometimes it is difficult to measure attitudes because they are arbitrary. Following their implicit-explicit dichotomy, attitudes could be examined through observed behaviors or cognitive reports. William McGuire's tripartite model views attitude to be made up of behavioral, effective, and cognitive components (Castelli & Carraro, 2011). However, critics argue that the view requires effective, behavioral, and cognitive relations of attitudes for it to be consistent. However, this could be implausible. Therefore, some perceptions on attitude formation see the behavioral and cognitive aspects as derivative effect, behavior or affect as derivative of prevailing beliefs.

The theory of self-perception has been greatly utilized in the conceptualization of how cognition, affect, and behavior can affect the attitude formation. However, studies indicate that an individual's past behavior depends on attitudes towards the behavior. This means that individuals called to make a behavior-related decision when past behaviors are relatively salient to them, could assume that they previously performed the act so that to apply it in the future. Therefore, they could utilize their past behavior as a foundation for making the decision of repeating it without factoring in their attitudes towards the behavior (Hogg & Cooper, 2007).

Psychologists have discovered most attitudes are derived from learning. Attitudes refer to how people form evaluations of things, places, and persons. Theories of instrumental conditioning, social learning, and classical conditioning are answerable for the formation of attitudes. Attitudes change through experience. Subjection to the objects of attitudes affects how people form their attitudes. Individuals are more expected to show a positive attitude towards an attitude object when they are subjected to it more often than if they were not. If a person is exposed to stimuli, it is obvious that the person will develop an attitude towards it. Hereditary factors tend to affect attitudes. However, they could do so indirectly like in the case of consistency theories that demand us to remain consistent in our values and beliefs.

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From his Dissonance-reduction theory, Leon Festinger explains that a person may adjust the attitude components (behavior and cognition) to match each other when at odds. This may include adjusting behavior to match cognition (Irimia, 2011).

Three functions attitude serve

Daniel Katz argues that attitudes helps individuals define themselves, interpret events and objects and determine how they should act in different situations. The following are some of the functions served by attitudes:

Knowledge -- attitudes are a source of knowledge and meaning of life. Here, the knowledge purpose alludes to the need for a word that is relatively and consistently stable. This enables people to predict what is expected to happen and gives them a sense of control. Attitudes help people structure and organize their experience. Knowing an individual's attitude is beneficial in predicting his/her behavior. For instance, knowing that an individual is religious could help us predict their tendency to go to church (Irimia, 2011).

Ego/self expressive -- the attitudes that people express helps in two ways. First, communicating who they are. Secondly, making them feel good because they have asserted their identity. Self-expressing attitudes could be non-verbal like a T-shirt slogan. Thus, peoples' attitudes are part of their lives and identity and help them be aware through expressing their values, feelings and beliefs (Irimia, 2011).

Adaptive -- if an individual expresses or holds socially valuable attitudes, others will reward them with social acceptance and approval. For instance, when a person flatters his boss and keeps it silent believing that the attitude if popular. In addition, the expression could be non-verbal. Then, attitudes are concerned with being part of a social community and adapting to the functions that help them fit in that social community or group. Individuals may seek out others sharing the same attitudes and create similar attitudes to those they prefer (Castelli & Carraro, 2011).

The extent to which you believe attitudes can have an impact on behavior

Educators, philosophers, and theologians continue to speculate the connection between behavior and attitude. The underlying presumption, which prevails most counseling, teaching, and child.....

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