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Chapter 19

Attitudes, Culture, and Human

Relations

Attitudes and Beliefs

Learned tendency to respond to people, objects, or institutions in a positive or negative way

 Summarize your evaluation of objects

Belief Component: What a person believes about the object of an attitude

Emotional Component: Feelings towards the object of an attitude

Action Component: One’s actions towards various people, objects, or institutions

Attitude Formation

Direct Contact: Personal experience with the object of the attitude

Interaction with Others: Influence of discussions with people holding a particular attitude

Child Rearing: Effects of parental values, beliefs, and practices Group Membership: Social influences from belonging to certain groups

Mass Media: All media that reach large audiences (magazines, television)

Mean Worldview: Viewing the world and other people as dangerous and threatening

Attitude Measurement and

Change

Chance Conditioning: Condition that occurs by chance or coincidence

Social Distance Scale: Scale where the degree of a person’s willingness to have contact with a member of another group is measured

Attitude Scale: Statements on a scale expressing various possible views on an issue

Reference Group: Any group a person identifies with and uses as a standard for social comparison

Consumer Psychology

Applied field that focuses on how consumers

behave

Marketing Research: Public opinion polling

where people are asked to give personal

impressions of products, services, or

advertising

Brand Image: Mental picture consumers have

of a product, especially with regard to its

emotional meaning

Cognitive Dissonance (Festinger)

Contradicting or clashing thoughts, beliefs, attitudes, or perceptions cause discomfort  We need to have consistency in our thoughts, perceptions, and images of ourselves  Underlies attempts to convince ourselves we did the right thing Justification: Degree to which one’s actions are explained by rewards or other circumstances

Brainwashing

Brainwashing: Engineered or forced attitude

change requiring a captive audience

Generally three steps to brainwash someone:

 Unfreezing: Loosening of former values and convictions  Change: When the brainwashed person abandons former beliefs  Refreezing: Rewarding and solidifying new attitudes and beliefs

Cults

Group that professes great devotion to a person or people and follows that person/people almost without question.

 Leader’s personality is usually more important than the issues he/she preaches  Cult members usually victimized by the leader(s)  Will try to recruit potential converts at a time of need, especially when a sense of belonging is most attractive to potential converts  Look for college students and young adults

Prejudice

Negative emotional attitude held toward members of a specific social group

Racism: Racial prejudice that can be found in institutions (schools, etc.) and is enforced by existing social power structure

Sexism: Prejudice against men OR women, based solely on gender

Ageism: Prejudice based on age; somewhat common in the USA

Prejudice (cont.)

Discrimination: Unequal treatment of people

who should have the same rights as others

Personal Prejudice: When members of

another racial or ethnic group are perceived

as a threat to one’s own self-interests

Group Prejudice: Occurs when a person

conforms to group norms

Prejudiced Personality

Authoritarian Personality: Marked by rigidity,

inhibition, prejudice, and oversimplification

Ethnocentrism: Placing one’s group at the

center, usually by rejecting all other groups

Dogmatism: Unwarranted positiveness or

certainty in matters of belief or opinion

 Difficult for dogmatic people to change their beliefs

Intergroup Conflict

Social Stereotypes: Oversimplified

images of people who belong to a

particular social group

Symbolic Prejudice: Prejudice

expressed in a disguised fashion

 Prejudice is socially unacceptable but will still express prejudice in disguised form

Other Concepts Relating to

Prejudice (cont.)

Mutual Interdependence: When two or more people must depend on each other to meet each person’s goals

Jigsaw Classroom: Each student only gets a piece of information needed to complete a problem or prepare for a test. In order to succeed and get all pieces, students must all work together

Prejudicial stereotypes tend to be very irrational

Aggression

Any action carried out with the intention of harming another person

Ethologists believe that aggression is innate in all animals, including humans

 Ethologist: Studies natural behavior patterns of animals  Appears to be a relationship between aggression and hypoglycemia, allergy, and certain brain injuries and disorders  Certain brain areas can trigger or end aggressive behavior