Psychology 3721F/G : psych 3721 notes.docx
19 Sep 2013
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Controversy of whether to study attitudes or behavior. Attitudes are the most commonly studied topic in social psychology. Bridges the gap between nature and nurture: attitude is an interdisciplinary concept psychologists, sociologists, scientists, communications researchers all study it. Description - less interested in explaining or understanding behavior. Measurement there have been many sophisticated methods developed to measure attitudes, but they haven"t been properly utilized. Theories primarily concerned with explaining the basic nature of attitudes, how they"re formed and how they can change. In most cases they aren"t concerned with precise measurements. Experiments concentrated on investigating the factors that can produce attitude change and on testing the hypothesis of attitude theories. Emphasize that scientific usage of the term attitude is different from some current colloquial or slang meanings of the word. Attitude used to refer to a person"s bodily posture or position. Allport central feature of attitudes is a readiness for response. In social science, attitude means posture of the mind.
