PS270 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Safe Sex, Social Desirability Bias, Breathalyzer
Document Summary
Definition: favourable or unfavourable evaluative reaction toward something or someone, exhibited in one"s beliefs, feelings, or intended behaviour, have to have an evaluative attitude towards something. Key points: general evaluation, toward an attitude object, involves: affect, cognition, behaviour. Components: 3 component view of attitudes, the abcs of attitudes. Affect (how we feel about an object), behaviour (how we intend to behave), cognition (our beliefs about an object: importance: Attitudes are presumed to determine our judgments and behaviours in many social contexts. Safe sex attitudes does not = safe sex. Positive attitudes toward church: weak predictor of this sunday"s attendance. Attitudes toward helping: didn"t predict who stopped to help someone in need. Negative attitudes toward cheating: don"t predict cheating. But first: a review of the varieties of attitude measurement, strengths, weaknesses and predictive value. Single-item measures scales can use descriptive labels or analogical formats. Pictures are sometimes better than words but not always continuous.
