Measurement of Attitudes | Social Psychology

How people feel, or what they believe, is their attitude. But it is difficult to describe and measure attitude. Researchers must depend upon what people say are their beliefs and feelings. Through the use of questions or by getting people's expressed reaction to statements. A sample of their opinions is obtained. From this statement of opinion, one may infer or estimate their attitude- what they really believe.

However, inferring attitude from expressed opinion has many limitations. People may conceal their attitudes and express socially acceptable opinions. They may not really know how they feel about a social issue. People may be unaware of their attitude about a situation and may be unable to predict their reaction or behavior.

Even behavior itself is not always a true indication of attitude. When politicians kiss babies, their behavior may not be a true expression of affection toward infants.

Though there are several procedures for eliciting opinions and attitudes, the most widely use  are Likert method, Thurstone technique and semantic-differential scale.

LIKERT SCALE 

We want to know not only how each person feels about an object but also how each respondent's attitude compares with the attitudes of others. The Likerts scale, a technique based on summated ratings, provides such information (Likert, 1932).

The Likert scale consists of a series of statements about the object of interest. The statements may be positive or negative. The statements may be positive or negative. The respondent indicates how much he or she agrees with each statement. For example:

1) I think people should wait until they are married to have sex.
• Strongly agree ( +2)
• Agree (+1)
• Undecided (0)
• Disagree ( -1)
• Strongly disagree ( -2)

2) I think having sex before marriage strengthens the Inarriage.
• Strongly agree (-2)
• Agree (-1)
• Undecided (0)
• Disagree ( + 1)
• Strongly Disagree( +2)

Thus each item in the test is rating device designed to reveal both the direction of the individual's stand on the issue and the intensity with which he holds it. On this scale the higher value indicates a pro stand and the low values indicate an anti stand. These score values are assigned by the investigator. For instance, if you strongly agree with the above mentioned item 1(+2) and strongly disagree with the item 2 (+2). The score would be +4, indicating strong opposition to premarital intercourse. If your friend strongly disagrees with the statement that people should wait until they marry (-2) and might also disagree that premarital sex strengthens a marriage (+ 1). The resulting score of -1 indicates a slightly positive view of premarital intercourse.

An overall test score ts obtained by finding the sum of the numerical scores for the alternatives an individual checks on the various items. This overall individual" score can be interpreted only in relation to the distribution of scores made by other persons.

Construction of a Likert scale : 

When a researcher wants to measure the attitudes of the people towards the women's reservation bill using the Likert scale, the following steps will be involved in the construction of the scale:
• The statements to be included in the test are chosen from a large number of current periodicals , books and some other tests and are formulated on the basis of empirical observation of different view points on the issue in question.

• Items should be clear-cut and unambiguous regarding the issue and should represent definite favorable or unfavorable stands.
• Preferably, an equal number of pro and con statements have to be included.
• Statements for any one scale should pertain to only a single issue but should not include statements on which all persons in a population will agree or disagree.
• All items are statements pertaining to desirable or undesirable behavior or courses of action and are not statements of fact.

Final statements are selected after the preliminary test has been administered to a large number of subjects. The results of this preliminary testing are analysed to pull out the items which do not differentiate between subjects who have high and low total scores on the test and are not highly correlated with total test scores.

Likert scales are advantageous as they can be devised for a large number of issues other than social distance. The total score represents a sum of values assigned so that alternatives on one side of the issue (eg-pro) carry relatively more weight than alternatives on the other side ( eg-con).

THURSTONE SCALE 

Another method of attitude assessment is known as the Method of equal appearing intervals. Following the procedures devised by Thurstone, many scales have come in to use to measure the attitudes of the individual towards various issues like war, privatization, crime etc.

A number of statements ranging from the most favorable to the most unfavorable stand on the issue are presented to the subjects on a form. The scale values of the statements are established before hand These scale values range from 0.0 (which represents one extreme) to 11 (which represents the opposite extreme). The statements are presented in the mixed order to avoid directional set.

Before the statements , there are certain instructions which include, "put a check mark if you agree with the statement". The stand of the individual on the issue is taken to be average of all the scale values for the statements with which he agrees.

Construction of the Thurstone scale : 

Out of several hundred statements expressing an opinion on the issue, brief and relevant ones would be retained and edited in accordance with clearly stated criteria. The relevant statements cover a wide range of pro to con gradations on the issue. The statements would be mimeographed on small slips with a code number on each. Then, judges would be asked to sort them in to 11 piles. The statements expressing highest appreciation of the issue were to be put in the first pile (designated as A) and those expressing the strongest depreciation of the issue in the 11th pile( designated as K) other statements are to be sorted in the appropriate piles in between. The 6th pile (F) was to contain statements that expressed a neutral stand towards the issue.

The sorting by any judge who put 30 or more of the 130 statements into any one of the 11 piles was excluded from computation. The sorting of the each statement were then tabulated in the form of cumulative frequencies. The cumulative frequency, scale value and Q of a particular statement can be tabulated as :

The scale value: Q A B F k piles.

The scale value of a statement is the mid point of the cumulative frequency, i.e, half of the sorting lie above it and half below it.

In addition to securing statements representing different scale values, two major criteria used for inclusion in the final scale are -the criterion of ambiguity and the criterion of irrelevance.

"The criterion of Ambiguity" concerns the relative spread of judgments made over so many categories (piles). If the judges spread their placements of a statement over a wide range covering practically all of the categories, that statement was considered ambiguous and undifferentiated. Such statements were excluded from the final list. The measure used for this criterion was Q. Statements with large Q values were discarded and those with small Q values were retained for consideration.

"The criterion of irrelevance" concerns with the consistency of endorsement by individuals. To check the consistency, the 130 original statements would be given to each subject with the instructions to check the items with which he agreed.

The main assumption in the construction of a Thurston type scale is that, when the individuals are faced with the task of sorting a large number of statements ranging from very favorable through neutral to unfavorable, they will be able to sort them in to a number of equal-appearing categories unaffected by their own attitudes on the issue.

SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL SCALE 

The semantic differential scale (Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum, 1957) is a technique for measuring connotative meaning of an object (i.e, a set of psychological meaning that vary from one respondent from another). For instance, one person may have had very positive experiences with the sexual intercourse, whereas another person's experience would have been frustrating.

An investigator presents the respondents with a series of bipolar adjective scales. Each of these is a scale whose ends are two adjectives having opposite meanings. The respondent rates the attitude object on each scale . After the data are collected , the researcher can analyze them by various statistical techniques. Analyses of such ratings frequently identify three aspects of connotative meaning : Evaluation, potency and activity.

Evaluation is measured by adjective pairs such as good-bad and positive-negative, potency is measured by weak~strong and light and heavy, and activity, by fast-slow and exciting-boring.
Example of semantic differential scale.

The semantic differential scale consists of a number of dimensions on which the respondent rates the attitude object.

Rate how you feel about premarital sexual intercourse on each of the following dimensions.

In the above example , two bipolar scales measure each of the three dimensions. Scores are assigned to each scale from +3 to -3, they are then summed across scales of each type to arrive at evaluation , potency and activity scores. In the above example, scores on each dimension could range from -6 (bad, weak and slow) to +6(good, strong, and fast).

One advantage of the semantic differential technique is that researchers can compare an individual's attitudes on three dimensions, allowing more complex differentiation among persons. Another advantage is that because the meaning it measures is connative, it can.be used with any object, from a specific person to an entire Nation, but a major disadvantage of this technique is that it requires more time to administer and to score.

SUMMARY 

The measurement of attitudes had been affected by a development which occurred outside of academic and scientific circles. This was the appearance of the "public opinion" polls on surveys which were used in attempting to tap attitudes of groups. Likert developed procedures for constructing attitude tests which were applicable to a wide variety of issues without some of the more difficult assumptions and procedures of the Thurstone technique. Thurstone proposed a technique for devising scales to measure attitudes on a variety of issues through the method of"equal appearing intervals". The third method of attitude assessment was developed by Osgood and Tennenbaum in which the respondent indicates an attitude or opinion between the two extreme choices. This method provides the individual with a seven-point scale with two adjectives at either end of the scale such as god-bad, healthy-unhealthy etc; the respondent is asked to rate a group, individual or object on each of this bipolar scales. 

Cognitive Theory of Attitude Change

If our beliefs and behavior were always consistent, all of our cognition would be in harmony. But this is not practical. Every adult knows that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, yet they continue to smoke. Most of us over indulge in a favorite food (Pizza, chocolate) although we know it is not healthy to do. The question that arise is, how is it, that people can hold inconsistent cognition?
One reason is many of our cognition never come into contact with each other. Some of our behavior is mindless. Because we do not think about our actions, we are unaware that they are inconsistent with our beliefs (Triandis, 1980). For instance, the cigarette smoker often lights up without consciously thinking about the act. Another reason is, though two attitudes are inconsistent, each may be related to several other consonant attitudes. To change one, would create new inconsistencies. So, people tolerate some inconsistency to avoid others. But when the inconsistency is too high to tolerate, people attempt to change their inconsistent acts or behaviors.

COGNITIVE-CONSISTENCIES THEORIES 

A cognition is an individuals' perceptions of personal attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Robert perceives himself as someone who believes in god and follows gods teachings. These two cognition go together. Many of his attitudes are consistent with what he perceives as gods teachings. For example: he has negative attitude towards "adultery'', murder and pre-marital sex. Thus, Robert's behavior is consistent with his attitudes.

Consistency among a person's cognition is wide spread. If you have liberal political values, You favor assistance programs for the poor. The observation that most people's cognition are consistent with one another implies that individuals are motivated to maintain that consistency. These consistency theories hypothesize that if in consistency develops between cognitive elements, people are motivated to restore harmony between elements. The three important cognitive-consistency theories are:

~ Balance Theory
~ Congruity Theory
~ Cognitive-Dissonance Theory

BALANCE THEORY 

One important consistence theory is balance theory, which was formulated by Heider (1958) and elaborated by Rosenberg and Abelson (1960). Consider the following statement: I am going to vote for Mr. Smith, he is in favor of reducing taxes. Balance theory is concerned with cognitive systems. This system contains three elements -the speaker, P, another person (candidate Mr. Smith), 0, and an impersonal object (taxes), X.

According to balance theory, two types of relationship may exist between elements. Sentiment relations refer to sentiments or evaluations directed towards objects and people. A sentiment may be either positive (liking, endorsing) or negative( disliking, opposing), symbolized as + or- . Unit relations refer to the extent of perceived association between elements. For example, a positive unit relation may result from ownership , a social relationship (such as friendship or marriage )or causality. A negative relation indicates dissociation, like that between ex -spouses or members of groups with opposing interests. A null relation exists when there is no association between elements.

BALANCED SYSTEM

Balanced system can be depicted as a triangle. (see figure 5.l(a)). Balanced theory concerned with the elements and their interrelations from P's viewpoint.

In this example, the speaker favors reduced taxes, perceives Mr. Smith as favoring reduced taxes intends to vote for Mr. Smith. This system is balanced. A balanced state is one in which all three sentiment relations are positive or in which one is positive and other two are negative.

Another example is, you oppose prostitution as a legalized profession and political candidate Mr. Balu favors legalizing the prostitution. Then, your cognition would be balanced if you disliked Mr. Balu (see figure 5.l(b ))

IMBALANCED SYSTEM 

According to balanced theory, an imbalanced state is one in which two of the relationships between elements are positive and one is negative or in which all three are negative. Figures 5.2 , a & b contains imbalanced relations. In the figure 5.2(a), your friend, whom you like, dislikes the way you dress . This is an imbalanced state. "when no balanced state exists, then forces towards this state exists, then forces towards this state will arise" (Heider, 1946). This principle predicts that you will start disliking your friend, you will start disliking your clothes, or you will try to get your friend to like your clothes, if one of these three changes occurs, the system will be tn a state of balance. Consider the figure 5.2(b). Someone whom you dislike hates. the IAS, which you also dislike. By analogy with the maxim. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," you should like the IAS, but you don't with no positive bond anywhere in the three relations, attitude change simply cannot be predicted by Heider's system.

All balanced triads have zero or two minus signs, a quick way to determine whether a triad is balanced is to multiply its three signs. A positive product signifies balance, a negative product imbalance.

CRITICISM OF THE THEORY: 

One problem with this theory is that all bonds are treated as if they were equally important and therefore equally susceptible to change in order to restore balance. However, in most triads, the bonds are not equally strong. For example, if a husband and wife disagreed over what vegetable to cook for dinner, a divorce would not be the probable outcome. Their feelings about "what vegetables to cook" are less strong than their feelings about each other. Balance theory makes no statement regarding the durability, importance or magnitude of the bonds.

Another problem is, it is difficult to know exactly what constitutes balance. Sometimes, one's opinion of another person or an object has both positive and negative aspects. If the P-0 bond is ambivalent, is there balance? The Jack of a clear definition of the homeostatic state is a most serious problem in cognitive consistency theory.

CONGRUITY THEORY 

The consistency theory proposed by Osgood and Tannenbaum ( 1955) is congruity theory which deals with attitude change caused by communication. This theory is cognitively more parsimonious to evaluate related concepts in a similar manner. If person B advocates policy X, it is easier for me to have the same opinion of B and X than to have  the same opinions of them. Then, my evaluations of B and X will tend to migrate towards each other. This is the principle of the theory.

Suppose the subject is shown a press release indicating that liberal politician (+ 3) supports very severe punishment (-1). This situation is "incongruous ". Congruity is achieved by movement of the subject's evaluations of the politician and the nature of punishment toward each other.
The most important principle of this theory is that the less polar item moves more. The item closer to the neutral point moves farther towards the polar item then the polar item moves towards the neutral item for instance, liberal person would evaluate the liberal politician less favorably and severe punishment more favorably. A counter intuitive predication is made when a highly polar source supports a less polar item of the same sign. For example, if your best friend (+3) says she likes classical music(+ 1), congruity theory would predict that you would like classical music more and your friend a little less.

Osgood and Tannenbaum have added correction factors to increase the accuracy of the predictions. One is a correction for "incredulity". Suppose you were to read that the government (+ 3) is in favor of double the income tax (-3), you may doubt whether the government has said that, since no politician interested in reelection would dare to do such a thing. So, you would not lower your opinion of the government. The wider the disparity between the source and the opinion attributed to that source, the greater the chance for incredulity. The wider the disparity, the greater the "incredulity correction, which lowers the amount of opinion change predicted by the original equation.
Despite, the modifications made to this theory, it has not received a great deal of attention.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY 

Another major consistency theory is the cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance results when a person maintains two inconsistent cognition. Cognitive dissonance is an aversive state and like hunger or thirst it must be reduced. When a person experiences cognitive dissonance, he or she is motivated to reduce it, thereby returning to a state of cognitive consonance. Festinger, the proponent of this theory states that dissonance has that same energizing properties as other motives, such as hunger or frustration.

The concept of dissonance can be classified from this example: suppose you realize that you are a heavy smoker and you are also aware that smoking has been shown to cause cancer, these thoughts are dissonant. The theory says that dissonance must be reduced by one of the following methods-modifying one or both of the cognition, changing the perceived importance of one cognition, adding cognition or denying that the two cognition are related to each other. (see figure 5.3).

SOURCES OF DISSONANCE

There are certain situations in which dissonance commonly occurs-after a decision, when one acts in a way that is inconsistent with his beliefs, exposure to information and social support.

 Post Decisional Dissonance: 

Whenever a decision is made, the negative aspects of the chosen alternative and the positive aspects of the rejected alternative are sources of dissonance. Dissonance can be reduced by increasing the attractiveness of the chosen alternative and decreasing the attractiveness of the rejected one. This can be illustrated from the following examples. Andrea, a student was offered two part-time jobs -working in the library with flexible working hours and a cashier's job in a restaurant but she has to work on Friday and Saturday nights. Both the jobs are located near the campus. The advantage of working in the library in flexible hours an easier work and that of the cashier's job is more pay and the opportunity to meet people. Andrea chose the restaurant job but is experiencing dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is a state of psychological tension induced by dissonant relationships between cognitive elements. In the above example, although cognition are consistent with her decision, two other dissonant cognition are creating psychological tension. The magnitude of dissonance experienced depends on the proportion of elements that are dissonant with a person's decision. In Andrea's case, there are three consonant and only two dissonant cognition, so she will experience moderate dissonance.

The magnitude is also influenced by the importance of the elements. she will experience less dissonance if it is not important that she has to work every Friday and Saturday, more dissonance if an active social life on weekends is important to her.

Dissonance is an uncomfortable state and to reduce this dissonance, the theory predicts that Andrea  will change her attitudes. She can either change the cognitive elements or change the importance associated with the elements. Since she chose the job and made a commitment to work weekend nights, Andrea can change importance of a cognition. She can emphasis the importance of one ·of the consonant cognition and deemphasis one of the dissonant cognition. Although she would prefer to be able to go out on weekends, this is less important as the cashier's job will allow her to meet people.

Counter Attitudinal Behavior : 

Another source from which dissonance occurs is, when a person behaves in a way that he is inconsistent with his attitudes. Such situations may involve forced compliance, i.e pressures on a person to comply with a request to engage in counter attitudinal behavior. For instance, subjects were asked to perform a boring task. On finishing the task, a subject was told that the experimenter who would normally tell the next subject was absent. The subject was asked whether he would kindly do it. Half the subjects were offered $50 to tell the next subject that the task was fun, half were offered $100. You have been bored and now you are telling the fellow student, the task is of fun. These are dissonant cognition. However, if offered $1000, you should experience little dissonance. Festinger called the Rs. 100 subjects the "forced compliance group". The cash "forces", the subject to comply with the experimenters request. On the other hand, those who were offered $50 experienced more dissonance because they did not have the justification for lying provided by large amount money. These subjects could not deny they lied, so they reduced dissonance by changing their attitude; for example by increasing their liking for the task and the experiment.

Thus, subjects in the high incentive ($100) condition experienced little dissonance and rated the task and experiment negatively, where as those in the low-incentive (Rs. 50) condition experienced more dissonance and rated the task and experiment positively.

Exposure to Information : 

If one is in.a state of dissonance because one has been told something discrepant with one's own opinion, one can reduce the dissonance by seeking out new consonant information and avoiding new dissonant information. However, if one is experiencing a very large amount of dissonance, it is easier to seek out the small amount of additional dissonant information needed to change his mind than to accumulate the large amount of consonant information.

Social Support: 

Festinger emphasized that a person would make efforts to strengthen his consonant cognition and reduce dissonant ones by seeking social support. If other persons holding the same opinion can be cited, one's own opinion seems more sensible. If persons holding the opposing opinion can be discredited, there dissonant ideas can be disregarded.

Criticism : 

The theory of cognitive dissonance has been criticized heavily. The major criticism is that no one can be sure when two cognition are dissonant with each other. Another problem is, it is difficult to predict which method a person will adopt in order to reduce dissonance.

SUMMARY 

The theme of consistency theories is that when a person's cognition are in a conflicting or inconsistent relation with one another, the person is motivated to reduce that conflict. The important cognitive consistency theories are balance theory, congruity theory and cognitive-dissonance theory.

Heider's balance theory, often called "the p-o-x theory", provides a helpful analysis of our attitudes toward communicators and their communicants. The consistency theory proposed by Osgood and Tannenbaum deals with attitude change caused by communication. The basic principle of dissonance theory is that cognitive dissonance results when a person maintains two inconsistent cognition. This dissonance can be reduced by changing one's action, seeking support for one's cognition, or rejecting as unimportant or immaterial any dissonant cognition. 

Attitudes | Nature, Components, and Functions of Attitudes in Social Psychology

"Ed Sheeran's music is great!"
"I like my job."
"Government spending causes inflation."

Each of these statements represents an attitude, a predisposition to respond to a particular object in a generally favorable or unfavorable way (Ajzen, 1982). A person's attitudes influence the way in which he or she perceives and responds to the world (Allport, 1935,Thomas, 1918).
Attitudes influence attention : The person who likes Ed Sheeran's music is more likely to notice news related to his activities.
Attitudes influence behavior: The young man who opposes the reservation bill is more likely to participate in a demonstration against the reservation bill.

Because attitudes are an important influence on people, they occupy a central place in social psychology. Attitudes do not exist in isolation. The person who believes that government spending causes inflation has a whole set of beliefs about the role of government in the economy and this attitude about spending is related to those other beliefs. If attitudes influence behavior, the behavior of the people can be changed by changing their attitudes.

THE NATURE OF ATTITUDES 

An attitude exists in a person's mind. It is a mental state. Attitudes refer to our evaluation of any aspect of the social world. These evaluation's can be favorable or unfavorable reactions to issues, ideas, persons social group objects or any other element of the social world.

THE COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDE 

The ABC Model suggests that an attitude has three components: affect, behavior and cognition (Rajecki, 1989). Consider the following statement "I am in favor of legalized abortion."This attitude has all the three components, i.e. affect or evaluative component, a behavioral predisposition and cognition or beliefs.

AFFECT

An attitude has an affect (or evaluative) component which encompasses our positive or negative emotions about an object, an event, a person or an issue." My physics class is really boring" indicates that the course arouses a mildly unpleasant emotion in the speaker. Stronger negative emotions include dislike or hatred. The evaluation may also be positive." I like classic music" or the food is terrific!" The affect or evaluative component has both a direction (either positive or negative) and an intensity ranging from very weak to very strong.

BEHAVIOR 

An attitude involves a predisposition to respond or a behavioral tendency toward the object."Its boring" implies a tendency to avoid the class."I like my job " suggests an intention to go to work. Persons having a specific attitude are inclined to behave in certain ways towards an object.

COGNITION 

An attitude includes an object label rules for applying the label and a set of cognition or knowledge structure associated with that label. The person who doesn't like his physics class perceives it as involving certain content, taught by a particular person.

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE COMPONENTS: 

Cognitive, evaluative and behavioral components are distinct, although they have the same object, but they are related at the same time.

The degree of consistency between components is related to other characteristics of the attitude. Greater consistency between the cognitive and affective components is associated with greater attitude stability and resistance to persuasion. Greater consistency is also associated with a stronger relationship between attitudes and behavior.

THE FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDES 

We acquire attitudes through learning and we retain them for months or years as they serve important functions for us (Katz,1960). One way of measuring the functions of an attitude is to have people write essays about an attitude object and analyze the essays for themes or patterns. Each attitude serves at least one of the three functions.

• Heuristic or Instrumental function
We develop favorable attitudes towards objects that reward us and unfavorable attitudes towards objects that thwart or punish us. Once they are developed, attitudes provide a simple and efficient means of evaluating objects. When people learn that fast foods like pizzas, burgers and fries contain higher levels of fats, which Increase the blood cholesterol levels, people who are health conscious develop an unfavorable attitude towards the fast foods.

• Schematic or Knowledge function
Attitudes provide us with a meaningful environment and guide behavior. Since the world is too complex to understand people, objects, and events are grouped into categories or scheme and we developed simplified attitudes. that allow us to treat individuals as members of a category, Our attitudes about that category (object) provide us with meaning, with a basis for making inferences about the person. The belief of Americans that Indians are occupying pivotal positions in their country at the cost of their opportunities leads some of the Americans to be more cautious in their dealings with Indians. Reacting to every member of the group in the same way is more efficient, than trying to learn about each as an individual.

• Attitudes define the self and maintain self worth -Some attitudes express the individual's basic values and reinforce self-image. Many conservatives in our society have negative attitudes towards widow remarriages, inter caste marriages and equal rights for women. A person whose self-concept includes conservatism may adopt these attitudes because they express that self-image. The attitude "movement of planets and stars have an impact on human life" is widespread among the members of the Astrological community. Holding this. attitude is a prerequisite to acceptance by other group members and a symbol of loyalty to the group.

Some attitudes protect the person from recognizing certain thoughts or feelings that threaten his self-image or adjustment. For instance, a child may have feelings, which he cannot accept such as hostility towards his father. If he recognized this hostility he would feel guilty so instead of accepting that he hates his father, he may direct anger and hatred toward member of a minority group or authority figures such as police officers or teachers.

ATTITUDE FORMATION 

People do not enter the world holding well-defined attitudes toward any peculiar person or object but anyone who has seen an infant smile at her parents knows that at least certain attitudes develop quickly. The principles which govern how attitudes are acquired and developed in the children continue to operate throughout life.

"Women are conservative.".
"Asians are good at maths."
"Nuclear power plants are dangerous."

These attitudes may be formed through associations of stimuli and responses  (classical conditioning), through reinforcement (instrumental conditioning),or by observing others ( observational learning)

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING : 

We acquire attitudes and prejudice toward a particular group through classical 'conditioning, in which a neutral stimulus gradually acquires the ability to.elicit a response through repeated association with other stimuli that elicit that response. Children learn at an early age that "lazy" "dirty" "stupid" and many other characteristics are undesirable. If they hear their parents refer to members of a particular group as lazy or stupid children associate the group name with the negative reactions initially elicited by these terms. Several experiments have shown that classical conditioning can produce negative attitudes toward groups.

INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING : 

We acquire an attitude toward our classes and jobs through instrumental conditioning i.e., learning based on direct experience with the object. If we experience rewards related to some object, our attitude will be favorable. For instance if our work provides us with good pay, a sense of accomplishment and compliments from coworkers, our attitude toward job will be positive. On the other hand if we associate negative emotions or unpleasant outcomes with the job we will dislike it.
Most of our attitudes are based not on direct contact with the object. We have attitudes about many political figures and toward members of certain religious or caste groups, although we have never met the members of these groups. Attitudes of this type are learned through our interaction with parents as part of the socialization process. Research shows that child's attitudes toward male female relations (gender roles), divorce and politics are similar to those held by their parents (Dunham, 1986). This influence also involves instrumental learning  -parents reward their children for adopting the similar attitudes.

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING : 

Another process through which attitudes are formed is observational learning in which individuals acquire new forms of behavior or thought through observing others. For example children learn many things through observation including attitudes their parents may not want the children to acquire such as positive views of smoking. Both children and adults acquire attitudes even through exposure to the mass media especially television, magazines and films. The attitude that "Nuclear power plants are dangerous" may result from exposure to TV news and magazines.

SOCIAL COMPARISON : 

Attitudes are also acquired through the mechanism of social comparison. It is a process through which we compare ourselves to others in order to determine whether our view of social reality is or is not correct. If our views agree with those of others to a great extent we conclude that our ideas and attitudes are accurate. Sometimes, the process of social comparison may contribute to the formation of new attitudes.

GENETIC FACTORS : 

Genetic factors not only influence our height, eye color and other physical traits but there is growing evidence, which indicates that genetic factors also influence our attitudes. The evidence for the role of genetic factors in attitudes involves comparisons between identical and non identical twins. The attitudes of identical twins separated very early in life correlate more highly than those of unrelated persons or even those of non identical twins. This finding provides evidence for the view that attitudes are influenced by genetic factors, at least to some extent. The results also suggest that genetic factors play a stronger role in shaping some attitudes that -others i.e, some attitudes are more heritable than others. Attitudes involving gut level preferences (e.g.-a preference for certain kind of music) may be strongly influenced by genetic factors than attitudes that are more cognitive in nature (eg, attitudes about abstract principles or about situations and objects with which individuals had little direct experience). Attitudes that are highly heritable maybe more difficult to change than ones that are not and that highly heritable attitudes may exert stronger effects on behavior.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR 

When attitudes influence, behavior, depend on moderators-which arc the factors that influence the extent to which attitudes affect behavior. Two important moderators are aspects of the situation and aspects of attitudes themselves.

ASPECTS OF THE SITUATION : 

In many contexts, situational constraints moderate the relationship between attitudes and behavior. They prevent attitudes from being expressed in overt behavior. For instance, when you are in a restaurant eating with a group of friends and when the food arrives you noticed that it is_not what you ordered or it is cold. But when you are asked, "how is the food"? You may answer "fine." In this situation, you did not express your true reactions and your behavior did not reflect your underlying attitudes. The reason for your reluctance to complain about food is simply because you have to wait until the mistake is corrected or you have to watch your friends eat while you have no food.

ASPECTS OF ATTITUDES : 

The attitudes and behavior is strongly determined by several aspects of attitudes.

ATTITUDE ORIGIN 

Evidence indicates that attitudes formed on the basis of direct experience often exert stronger effects on behavior than ones formed indirectly, through hear say.

ATTITUDE STRENGTH

The stronger the attitudes the greater their impact on behavior. The term strength refers to several components the extremity or intensity of an attitude (how strong is the emotions' reaction provided by the attitude object), its importance (the extent to which an individual cares deeply about and is personally affected by the attitude), know ledge (how much an individual knows about the attitude objects) an individual knows about the attitude object), and accessibility (how easily the attitude comes to mind in various situations).

ATTITUDE SPECIFICITY 

It refers to the extent to which attitudes are focused on specific objects, eg, you may have a general attitude toward religion (e.g. you believe that it is important for every one to have religious convictions) and you may also have specific attitudes about various aspects of religion like, about the importance of attending or practicing religious rituals. Research findings indicate that the attitude behavior link is stronger when attitudes and behavior are measured at the same level of specificity.
The existing evidence suggests that attitudes affect behavior and this depends on factors like situational constrains and several aspects of attitudes themselves.

SUMMARY 

Attitudes are evaluations of aspects of the social world. Every attitude has three components-cognition, evaluation and a behavioral predisposition toward some objects. We learn attitudes through reinforcement, through repeated associations of stimuli and responses and by observing others. Attitudes are also formed on the basis of social comparison. Studies conducted with identical twins suggest that attitudes may also be influenced by genetic factors. Attitudes are useful they may serve instrumental as knowledge functions and they define and maintain self. Several factors serve as moderators of the link between attitudes and behavior, affecting the strength of this relationship. These moderators are situational constraints and several aspects of attitudes.