PSYC 215 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Social Influence, Likert Scale, Twin
Lecture 13 Feb 20th
➢ Components of Attitudes:
• Affective:
▪ An affectively based attitude is based primarily on peoples
emotions and feelings about the attitude object.
▪ They emerge from our values, morals and beliefs.
▪ They also emerge from sensory experience (eg: smell, taste)
or aesthetic reaction (eg: colours of a painting)
• Cognitive:
▪ A cognitively based attitude is based primarily on a persons
beliefs about the properties of an attitude object.
▪ We classify the advantages and limitations of the attitude
object, usually for utilitarian purposes.
• Behavioral:
▪ A behaviorally based attitude is based primarily on
observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object.
▪ An individual infers their attitude from their behaviour.
▪ ) guess ) believe in a healthy lifestyle because I go to the
gym everyday
➢ Nature of Attitudes:
• Explicit Attitudes:
▪ The attitudes we consciously endorse.
▪ An individual is aware of this type of attitude.
• Implicit Attitudes:
▪ They are involuntary, uncontrollable and unconscious.
➢ Where do attitudes come from?
• Social Influence:
▪ Family Environment: When you are exposed to a lot of
thoughts, beliefs and values growing up, you take them in
and they start to become a part of your way of thinking.
▪ Social Group: Not only do they expose you to information
but they also demand a certain degree of conformity.
▪ Experiences: Sometimes we make decisions in relation to
an attitude object that might have a negative or positive
outcome and that outcome can change the way we view that
object. Negative events seem to be more impactful than
positive events
▪ Media/Information Exposure
• Genetic Influences:
▪ Tesser (1993)
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