Attitude (from the French attitude — posture) — readiness to perform any action. Synonym: installation
Attitude is a specific course of action that a person implements or wants to implement in a particular situation. Attitude is an unobservable, hypothetical construct that is derived from measurable reactions to the object of the attitude.
Attitude is usually defined as the tendency to respond in a favorable or unfavorable way to some object, person, institution, or event. People may hold attitudes that vary in degree of favorableness towards themselves and towards any particular aspect of their environment. Shared by a wide range of people, positive attitudes towards relatively abstract objects (freedom, honesty, security) are called values.
Attitude is considered a hypothetical construct; being unobservable, it is inferred on the basis of measurable reactions that reflect positive or negative assessments of the object of the attitude.
There are 3 categories of reactions:
1) Cognitive reactions or beliefs (reflecting the individual perception of the object of attitude and knowledge about it);
2) Affective reactions (assessments of the object and feelings towards it);
3) Conative reactions (behavioral intentions, tendencies and actions in relation to the object).
Most social psychologists define attitude in terms of affect or evaluation, although some see it as including all 3 of the above classes of reactions.
Attitude formation
Currently, the role of information as a basis for the formation of attitudes is emphasized. According to this point of view, the main determinants of attitude are beliefs that represent people’s subjective knowledge of themselves and the world around them. Each belief associates an object of attitude with a positively or negatively valued attribute: for example, smoking (object) causes lung cancer (attribute). In a broad sense, the more beliefs are associated with the positive attributes of an object and the fewer are associated with its negative attributes, the more favorable the resulting attitude will be towards that object. More precise formulations are achieved using expected value or expected utility models of attitude. According to these models, the value or utility of each attribute contributes to attitude in direct proportion to the magnitude of the subjective likelihood (or strength of belief) that the object in question possesses the attribute in question. The sum or average value of such weighted attribute utilities determines the overall attitude towards that object.
Sources of Beliefs
See sources of belief.
Attitudes and behavior
Individual behaviors can be predicted based on attitudes about those behaviors, for example:
- Attitude toward marijuana use (as opposed to global attitudes toward this counterculture).
- Attitude toward attending church services (as opposed to attitudes toward the church itself).
- Attitude towards blood donation (instead of global attitudes associated with altruism).
Evidence is mounting, however, that responsive tendencies reflected in attitudes toward specific actions can change as a result of situational demands or unforeseen events. In addition, it was found that people differ in the degree of their susceptibility to the influence of such external factors. Thus, even though attitudes towards certain actions may elicit corresponding behavioral intentions, the extent to which intentions are actually realized is mediated by situational factors and individual differences. However, in the absence of unforeseen events, behavioral attitudes and intentions tend to be fairly accurate predictors of subsequent actions.