Attitude and Social Cognition — Class 12 Psychology

This chapter, from social psychology, explains how individuals are influenced by others and how they make sense of social situations. An attitude is a state of mind or set of evaluative thoughts about an attitude object, with three A-B-C components: affective (emotional), behavioural (conative) and cognitive (thought). Attitudes differ from beliefs and values, and have features of valence, extremeness, simplicity or complexity (multiplexity) and centrality. Attitudes are learned through association, reward and punishment, modelling, group or cultural norms and exposure to information, shaped by family, school, reference groups, personal experience and media. Attitude change is explained by Heider's balance theory (the P-O-X triangle), Festinger's cognitive dissonance (the drive for cognitive consistency) and Mohsin's two-step concept of identification and imitation. Change depends on the existing attitude, and on source, message and target characteristics. Attitudes do not always predict behaviour; consistency is greater when the attitude is strong, central and the person is aware of it. Prejudice is a usually negative attitude towards a group, often based on stereotypes (cognitive) with dislike (affective) and discrimination (behavioural). Sources of prejudice include learning, strong social identity and ingroup bias, scapegoating, the kernel-of-truth idea and self-fulfilling prophecy. Prejudice can be reduced through education, increased cooperative intergroup contact and emphasising individual identity.