PSYCO241 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Negativity Bias, Social Psychology, Social Environment
5 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Attitude: a positive, negative, or mixed reaction to a person, object, event, or idea. One can have a positive attitude, a negative attitude, indifference, or dual attitudes (ambivalence). Social psychological research has centered primarily on 3 dimensions of attitude: affect, behaviour, and cognition. The affective base: based on emotions and feelings about the attitude object. It is more important for survival to avoid the things that you are scared of, instead of acting upon things you like. Cognitive base: based on beliefs about the properties of an attitude object; knowledge and beliefs that typically reinforce a person"s feelings. Behavioural base: based on observations of behaviour; acting ourselves into thinking, self- perception theory. We aren"t always consciously aware of our attitude until we act on it. Attitude formation: attitudes can be formed very quickly, often without conscious awareness. Ex: the last time you ate a certain thing and got sick, so you probably won"t eat it again.
