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Prejudice refers to a preconceived judgment, opinion or attitude directed toward certain people based on their membership in a particular group. It is a set of attitudes, which supports, causes, or justifies discrimination.

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Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person holds contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values, and is typically experienced as psychological stress when they participate in an action that goes against one or more of them
https://www.google.com/search?q=cognitive+dissonance

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Persuasion, the process by which a person’s attitudes or behaviour are,  influenced by communications from other people. Persuasion often involves manipulating people, and for this reason many find the exercise distasteful.

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Attitudes are changed through 2 processes:
1- PERSUASION(How we change other's attitude?) : Persuasion can attempt to influence a person's beliefs, attitudes, intentions, motivations, or behaviors.
2- COGNITIVE DISSONANCE (How we change our own attitude?): Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.

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Cognitive dissonance | Behavior | MCAT | Khan Academy

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How are attitudes formed?
1- Learning through association (classical conditioning).
2- Learning through rewards and punishments (Operant conditioning).
3- Learning through modelling ( Observational learning).
4- Genetics
5- Learning through exposure to information (media).
6- Learning attitudes through group or cultural norms.

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEPTION & ATTITUDE

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PERCEPTION & ATTITUDE

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Perception leads to Learning about an object and repeated learning about an object leads to development of an attitude. Our attitude about something is our perceptions about that thing. These perceptions must control our behaviour toward this thing. either its actions or talks. In conclusion,every attitude is a perception but not every perception is an attitude.

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATTITUDE & BELIEFS 

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATTITUDE & BELIEFS 

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Attitude and Beliefs- Beliefs refer to the cognitive component of attitudes and form the ground on which attitudes stands, such belief in God or belief in democracy as a political ideology. Beliefs are assumptions and convictions we hold to be true based on past experiences.

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATTITUDE & BEHAVIOUR

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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATTITUDE & BEHAVIOUR

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Attitude behaviour consistency is when a person's attitude is consistent with their behaviour.

There will be consistency between attitude and behaviour when :

1- Attitudes are strong and occupies a central place in the attitude system.
2- The person is aware of his or her attitude.
3- There is little or no external pressure for the person to behave in a particular way.
4- The person's behaviour is not being watched or evaluated by others.
5- The person thinks that the behvaiour would have a consequence and therefore intends to engage in that behaviour.

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AFFECTIVE COMPONENT - It refers to the emotional reaction one has towards the attitude object. Eg. attitude towards politics, religion etc.

BEHAVIOURAL COMPONENT - It refers to the way one behaves when exposed to an attitude object. Eg. behaviour towards working women.

COGNITIVE COMPONENT - It refers to the belief that an individual has about the attitude object. A belief that discrimination is wrong.

https://youtu.be/cDq1_R-J51w

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Attitudes and Behavior

By Saul McLeod updated 2018

An attitude is "a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols" (Hogg & Vaughan 2005, p. 150)

"..a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor" (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, p. 1)

Structure of Attitudes

Attitudes structure can be described in terms of three components.

Affective component: this involves a person's feelings / emotions about the attitude object. For example: "I am scared of spiders".

Behavioral (or conative) component: the way the attitude we have influences on how we act or behave. For example: "I will avoid spiders and scream if I see one".

component: this involves a person's belief / knowledge about an attitude object. For example: "I believe spiders are dangerous".

This model is known as the ABC model of attitudes.

One of the underlying assumptions about the link between attitudes and behavior is that of consistency. This means that we often or usually expect the behavior of a person to be consistent with the attitudes that they hold. This is called the principle of consistency.

The principle of consistency reflects the idea that people are rational and attempt to behave rationally at all times and that a person's behavior should be consistent with their attitude(s).

Whilst this principle may be a sound one, it is clear that people do not always follow it, sometimes behaving in seemingly quite illogical ways; for example, smoking cigarettes and knowing that smoking causes lung cancer and heart disease.

There is evidence that the cognitive and affective components of behavior do not always match with behavior. This is shown in a study by LaPiere (1934).

Attitude Strength

The strength with which an attitude is held is often a good predictor of behavior. The stronger the attitude the more likely it should affect behavior. Attitude strength involves:

Importance / personal relevance refers to how significant the attitude is for the person and relates to self-interest, social identification and value.

If an attitude has a high self-interest for a person (i.e. it is held by a group the person is a member of or would like to be a member of, and is related to a person's values), it is going to be extremely important.

As a consequence, the attitude will have a very strong influence upon a person's behavior. By contrast, an attitude will not be important to a person if it does not relate in any way to their life.

The knowledge aspect of attitude strength covers how much a person knows about the attitude object. People are generally more knowledgeable about topics that interest them and are likely to hold strong attitudes (positive or negative) as a consequence.

Attitudes based on direct experience are more strongly held and influence behavior more than attitudes formed indirectly (for example, through hear-say, reading or watching television).

Function of Attitudes

Attitudes can serve functions for the individual. Daniel Katz (1960) outlines four functional areas:

The basic idea behind the functional approach is that attitudes help a person to mediate between their own inner needs (expression, defense) and the outside world (adaptive and knowledge).

APA Style References

Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers.

Hogg, M., & Vaughan, G. (2005). Social Psychology (4th edition). London: Prentice-Hall.

Katz, D. (1960). Public opinion quarterly, 24, 163 - 204.

LaPiere, R. T. (1934). Attitudes vs. Actions. Social Forces, 13, 230-237.

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By Saul McLeod updated 2018 An attitude is "a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols" (Hogg & Vaughan 2005, p. 150) "..a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor" (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, p.

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Lasting evaluation of various aspects of the social world that are stored in the memory.

They are not only confined to our thoughts but also to our actions. They are the predictors of behaviour.

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Attitude Definition:

In psychology, an attitude refers to a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors toward a particular object, person, thing, or event.

Attitudes are often the result of experience or upbringing. They can have a powerful influence over behavior and affect how people act in various situations. While attitudes are enduring, they can also change.

This article explores what attitudes mean in psychology and how they are formed. It also covers how attitudes impact behaviors and factors contributing to attitude change.

Overview of Attitude

To understand the meaning of attitudes, it can be helpful to look at a few different examples:

Your opinion on the death penalty

Your opinion about which political party does a better job of running the country

Whether prayer be allowed in schools

Whether violence on television be regulated

Chances are that you probably have fairly strong opinions on these and similar questions. You've developed attitudes about such issues, and these attitudes influence your beliefs as well as your behavior. Attitudes are an important topic of study within the field of social psychology. But what exactly is an attitude? How does it develop?

How Psychologists Define Attitudes

Psychologists define attitudes as a learned tendency to evaluate things in a certain way. This can include evaluations of people, issues, objects, or events. Such evaluations are often positive or negative, but they can also be uncertain at times.

For example, you might have mixed feelings about a particular person or issue. Researchers also suggest that there are several different characteristics that make up attitudes. The components of attitudes are sometimes referred to as CAB or the ABC's of attitude.

3 Components of Attitude

Cognitive Component: Your thoughts and beliefs about the subject

Affective Component: How the object, person, issue, or event makes you feel

Behavioral Component: How attitude influences your behavior

Attitudes can also be explicit and implicit. Explicit attitudes are those that we are consciously aware of and that clearly influence our behaviors and beliefs. Implicit attitudes are unconscious but still have an effect on our beliefs and behaviors.

Attitude Formation

Several factors can influence how and why attitudes form, including:

Experience

Attitudes form directly as a result of experience. They may emerge due to direct personal experience, or they may result from observation.

Social Factors

Social roles and social norms can have a strong influence on attitudes. Social roles relate to how people are expected to behave in a particular role or context. Social norms involve society's rules for what behaviors are considered appropriate.

Attitudes can be learned in a variety of ways. Consider how advertisers use classical conditioning to influence your attitude toward a particular product. In a television commercial, you see young, beautiful people having fun on a tropical beach while enjoying a sports drink. This attractive and appealing imagery causes you to develop a positive association with this particular beverage.

Conditioning

Operant conditioning can also be used to influence how attitudes develop. Imagine a young man who has just started smoking. Whenever he lights up a cigarette, people complain, chastise him, and ask him to leave their vicinity. This negative feedback from those around him eventually causes him to develop an unfavorable opinion of smoking and he decides to give up the habit.

Observation

Finally, people also learn attitudes by observing people around them. When someone you admire greatly espouses a particular attitude, you are more likely to develop the same beliefs. For example, children spend a great deal of time observing the attitudes of their parents and usually begin to demonstrate similar outlooks.

Recap

Attitudes can form through direct experience, social influence, formal education, conditioning processes, and observation.

Attitudes and Behavior

We tend to assume that people behave according to their attitudes. However, social psychologists have found that attitudes and actual behavior are not always perfectly aligned.

After all, plenty of people support a particular candidate or political party yet fail to vote. People also are more likely to behave according to their attitudes under certain conditions.

Factors Influencing Attitude Strength

Are an expert on the subject

Expect a favorable outcome

Experience something personally

Stand to win or lose something due to the issue

Are repeatedly expressed attitudes

Changing to Match Behavior

In some cases, people may alter their attitudes to better align them with their behavior. Cognitive dissonance is a phenomenon in which a person experiences psychological distress due to conflicting thoughts or beliefs. In order to reduce this tension, people may change their attitudes to reflect their other beliefs or actual behaviors.

Using Cognitive Dissonance

Imagine the following situation: You've always placed a high value on financial security, but you start dating someone very financially unstable. You have two options to reduce the tension caused by conflicting beliefs and behavior.

You can end the relationship and seek a more financially secure partner, or you can de-emphasize the importance of fiscal stability.

In order to minimize the dissonance between your conflicting attitude and behavior, you either have to change the attitude or change your actions.

Why Attitudes Change

While attitudes can have a powerful effect on behavior, they are not set in stone. The same influences that lead to attitude formation can also create attitude change.

Learning Theory

Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning can be used to bring about attitude change. Classical conditioning can be used to create positive emotional reactions to an object, person, or event by associating positive feelings with the target object.

Operant conditioning can be used to strengthen desirable attitudes and weaken undesirable ones. People can also change their attitudes after observing the behavior of others.

Elaboration Likelihood Theory

This theory of persuasion suggests that people can alter their attitudes in two ways. First, they can be motivated to listen and think about the message, thus leading to an attitude shift.

Or, they might be influenced by the characteristics of the speaker, leading to a temporary or surface shift in attitude. Messages that are thought-provoking and that appeal to logic are more likely to lead to permanent changes in attitudes.

Dissonance Theory

As mentioned earlier, people can also change their attitudes when they have conflicting beliefs about a topic. In order to reduce the tension created by these incompatible beliefs, people often shift their attitudes.

Recap

Attitudes are not set in stone and may change when people learn new information, when they are persuaded by influential people, or when they experience discomfort due to holding conflicting beliefs.

A Word From Verywell

Attitudes play a pivotal role in shaping human behavior, from the choices people make about living their lives to the health behaviors they engage in daily. Understanding where these attitudes come from and how they sometimes change can help you look for ways to improve your attitudes, whether it means adopting a more positive outlook on life or changing your opinion based on new information.

Additional Reading

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How Can Our Attitudes Change and Influence Behaviors?

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In psychology, an attitude refers to a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors toward a particular object, person, thing, or event. Attitudes are often the result of experience or upbringing. They can have a powerful influence over behavior and affect how people act in various situations. While attitudes are enduring, they can also change.