[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Attitudes - How do we Develop the Views we Hold?
An attitude is directed to existing objects (e.g., issues, people, cars), it is evaluative (i.e., are affectively positive or negative), and enduring and dispositional.Because attitudes are dispositions, social perceivers as well as psychologists must infer attitudes. One problem of inference is the unreliability of single indicators (e.g., self-report, GSR, facial expression). This is why scientists and laypeople alike should always use multiple indicators when inferring attitudes.Because attitudes are enduring and dispositional, they must be stored somewhere, and the specific indicators of the attitude must be caused by something.
The schema model of attitudes tries to describe that "something." An attitude is thought of as a schema--that is, a network of representations (similar to a memory trace, but more complex). A schema thus integrates all components of attitudes because it represents (and can cause) beliefs, emotions, physiological reactions, behavioral tendencies, etc. The network can be "activated" through any one aspect (e.g., seeing the attitude object) and in turn activated the other aspects (e.g., the emotion, beliefs about the object, a tendency to approach the object). The schema model is also compatible with several possible neurological instantiations of networks (e.g., molecular, neuronal, holistic) and thus makes it plausible that attitudes actually exist somewhere in the brain.
The most direct way to change somebody is influence. Change behavior, right? Behavior is the real deal, the main point, the focus, so why diddle around with things like attitude. Well, a lot of the time, you don't have control over other people's actual behavior. People do have free choice and pretty much do as they please. And we can't make them do what we want by merely stomping our foot or asking pretty please with sugar on top.Furthermore, there might be times when we do have very direct control over someone's behavior ("I watching you!"), but the influence lasts only as long as we maintain that control.......
