Attitudes Key Words Flashcards
(42 cards)
Attitude
A relatively enduring organisation of beliefs, feelings and behavioural tendencies towards socially significant objects groups or symbols - OR - A general feeling of evaluation about some person, object or issue
One component attitude model
An attitude consists of affect towards or evaluation of the object
Two component attitude model
An attitude consists of a mental readiness to act and guides evaluative responses
Three component attitude model
An attitude consists of cognitive, affective and behavioural components.
Schema
Cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus, including its attributes and the relations among those attributes
Stereotype
Widely shared and simplified evaluative image of a social group and its members
Cognitive consistency theories
A group of attitude theories stressing that people try to maintain internal consistency, order and agreement among their various cognitions
Cognition
The knowledge, beliefs, thoughts and ideas that people have about themselves and their environment.
May also refer to mental processes through which knowledge is acquired
Balance theory
People prefer attitudes that are inconsistent with each other those that are inconsistent.
People try to maintain consistency in attitudes to and relationships with other people and elements of their environment
Sociocognitive model
Attitude theory highlighting an evaluative component.
Knowledge of an object is represented in memory along with a summary of how to appraise it
Information processing
The evaluation of information, in relation to attitudes, the means by which people acquire knowledge and form and change attitudes
Information integration theory
The idea that a person’s attitude can be estimated by averaging across the positive and negative ratings of an object
Cognitive algebra
Approach to the study of impression formation that focuses on how people combine attitudes that have valence into an overall positive or ngativ impression
Cognitive algebra
Approach to the study of impression formation that focuses on how people combine attitudes that have valence into an overall positive or negative impression
Multiple-act criterion
Term for a general behaviour index based on an average or combination of several specific behaviours
Theory of planned behaviour
Modification of the theory of reasoned action.
Suggests that predicting a behaviour from an attitude measure is improved if people believe they have control over that behaviour
Protection motivation theory
Adopting a healthy behaviour requires cognitive balancing between the perceived threat of illness and one’s capacity to cope with the health regimen
Automatic activation
Attitudes that have a strong evaluative link to situational cues are more likely to come automatically to mind from memory
Moderator variable
A variable that qualifies an otherwise simple hypothesis with a view of improving its predictive power
Attitude formation
The process of forming our attitudes, mainly from our own experiences, influences of others and our emotional reactions
Mere exposure effect
Repeated exposure than an object results in greater attraction to the object
Evaluative conditioning
A stimulus will become more or less liked when its consistently paired with stimuli that are either positive or negative
Spreading attiude effect
A liked or disliked person or object may affect not only the evaluation of a second person directly associated but also others merely associated with the second person
Modelling
Tendency for a person to reproduce the actions, attitudes and emotional responses exhibited by real life or symbolic model
