SOCPSY 1Z03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Participant Observation, Doomsday Cult, Dependent And Independent Variables
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An attitude is a predisposition to respond to a particular object in a favorable or unfavorable way. Formation: reinforcement (instrumental conditioning, classical conditioning, observational learning. Learning a new behaviour (or attitude) via the process of association: two stimuli are linked together to produce a new learned response. Little albert example (watson & rayner, 1920: 11-month old infant tested on response to stimuli. Initially, neutral unemotional reaction: but sound of hammer did produce negative reaction, after rat was repeatedly paired with hammer sound, albert developed a rat phobia even in absence of sound. Stage 1: unconditioned stimulus (ucs) produces an unconditioned response (ucr: ex. A loud noise (ucs) may produce a startled reaction (ucr) Stage 2: conditioning: a stimulus which produces no response (neutral) is associated with an unconditioned stimulus (ucs) at which point it now becomes known as the conditioned stimulus (cs, ex. Presence of rat (stimulus) becomes associated with the unconditioned stimulus (loud noise)