Psychology Chapter 6 Attitude And Social Cognition

Attitudes are state of the mind, set of views or thoughts or ideas regarding some topic which have an evaluative feature (positive, negative or neutral). These are relatively stable predispositions.

Various components of an attitude are as follows:

(i) The thought component is referred to as the cognitive aspect of attitude.

(ii) The emotional component is known as the affective aspect.

(iii) The tendency to act is called the behavioural (conative) aspect. These three aspects have been referred to as the A-B-C (affective-behavioural-cognitive) components of attitude. Attitudes are themselves not a tendency to behave or act in certain ways. They are part of cognition, along with an emotional component which cannot be observed from outside.

By enlarge attitudes are learnt. They are formed on the basis of learning.

Formation of Attitudes: The term 'attitude formation' refers to the movement we make from having no attitude toward an object to having a positive or negative attitude. There are some factors which contribute to the formation of attitudes:
1. Learning: The attitudes are acquired through learning. Many of our views are acquired in situations in which we interact with others or merely observe their behaviour.

– Classical Conditioning/Learning by Association:

• A basic form of learning in which one stimulus, initially neutral, acquires the capacity to evoke reactions through repeated pairing with another stimulus.

• Player often develop a strong liking for the bat by which 'they made good runs. Many students start liking a subject if they like the teacher.

– Instrumental Conditioning/Learning Altitude by Reward and Punishment: A basic form of learning in which responses that lead to positive outcomes or that permit avoidance of negative outcomes are strengthened.

• It applies to the situations when people learn attitudes which are systematically rewarded by significant others, such as parents, teachers or friends.

– Observational Learning: A basic form of learning in which individuals acquire new forms of behaviour or through observing others.

• Children are keen observers and learn a whole lot of things from their parents and other family members.

• They learn many attitudes about other ethnic groups, neighbours and idealize simply by observing the behaviours of adults.

2. Learning through Exposure to Information:

• Many attitudes are learnt in a social context without physical presence of others. Print media, electronic media, biographies of self-actualized people facilitate attitude formations.

3. Learning Attitudes through Group or Cultural Norms:

• Norms are unwritten rules of behaviour. Gradually these norms may become part of our social cognition, in the form of attitudes. e.g., offering money, sweets, fruits and flowers in a place of worship is a normative behaviour in various religions. People imitate such behaviour shown by others as socially approved and develop positive attitude towards it.

The following factors provide the context for the learning of attitude through various processes:

(i) Family and School Environment: Parents and other family-members play a significant role in attitude formation. Learning of attitudes within the family and school usually takes place by association, through rewards and punishment and through modelling.

(ii) Reference Groups: Attitudes towards political, religious and social groups, occupations, national and other issues are often developed through reference groups. Reference groups indicate to an individual the norms regarding acceptable behaviour and ways of thinking. Various institutions, religion, culture and communities are form of reference groups.

(iii) Personal Experiences: Many attitudes are formed, not in the family environment or through reference groups, but through direct personal experiences which bring about a drastic change in our attitude towards people and our own life.

(iv) Media Related Influences: Technological advances have made audio-visual media and internet as very powerful sources for attitude formation. School textbooks also influence attitude formation. The media can be used to create consumerist attitude. The media can exert both good and bad influences on attitudes.

An individual's attitude may not always be exhibited through behaviour. Likewise one's actual behaviour may be contrary to one's attitude towards a particular topic. Psychologists have found that there would be consistency between attitude and behaviour when:

(i) The attitude is strong and occupies a central place in the attitude system.

(ii) The person is aware of his/her attitudes.

(iii) Person's behaviour is not being watched or evaluated by others.

(iv) Person thinks that the behaviour would have a positive consequences. Richard La Piere, an American social psychologist, conducted the following study. He asked a Chinese couple to travel across the United States, and stay in different hotels. Only once during these occasions they were refused service by one of the hotels. La Piere sent out questionnaires to managers of hotels and tourist homes in the same areas where the Chinese couple had travelled asking them if they would give accommodation to Chinese guest. A very large percentage said that they would not do so. This response showed a negative attitude towards the Chinese, which was inconsistent with the positive behaviour that was actually shown towards the travelling Chinese couple. Attitudes may not always predict actual pattern of one's behaviour.

• Social schemas (schemata) are mental structure.

• They function as a framework to process social information. These schemas lead to emergence of prototypes.

• Prototypes are concepts which have most of the defining features of a concept, class or family.

• These are best representatives of the population.

• Various stereotypes emerge from these schemas. In other words stereotypes are category-based schemas.

Prejudices are negative attitude.

• These are preconceived notions about others.

• Prejudices are baseless and false.

• It refers to biased attitude formed about an individual or a group of people.

• These are usually negative.

• It has three components, i.e., A-B-C-

(a) Affective (Emotional i.e dislike or hatred).

(b) Behavioural (i.e., discrimination).

(c) Cognitive (Believes, i.e., stereotypes).

Stereotypes are cognitive component of prejudice. It is strongly influenced by the processing of incoming social information.

• These are over-generalized beliefs. e.g., girls are talkative.

• Stereotypes are category based schemas.

• These may be positive or negative or neutral.

• Stereotype has no emotional blending.

• From stereotypes, prejudices may emerge very easily.

• Stereotypes are usually formed for the groups.

Prejudices can exist without being shown in the form of discrimination. Similarly, discrimination can be shown without prejudice.

• Wherever prejudice and discrimination exist, conflicts are very likely to arise between groups within the same society.

• We all witnessed many instances of discrimination, with and without prejudice, based on gender, religion, community, caste, physical handicap, and illnesses such as AIDS.

• Moreover, in many cases, discriminatory behaviour can be curbed by law. But, the cognitive and emotional components of prejudice are more difficult to change.

Impression formation is a process by which impression about others is converting into more or less induring cognitions or thoughts about them.

In short, impression formation is a process through which we draw quick conclusion/ inferences regarding others.

Factors facilitating Impression Formation:

• Nature of the phenomena (familiar or unfamiliar).

• Personality traits of the perceiver.

• Social schemas stored in the mind of perceiver.

• Situational factors.

The process of impression formation consists of the following three sub-processes:

• Selection: We take into account only some bits of information about the target person.

• Organization: the selected information is combined in a systematic way.

• Inference: We draw a conclusion about what kind of person the target is. Some specific qualities, that influence impression formation, are:

• The information presented first has a stronger effect than the information presented at the end. This is called the primacy effect.

• We have a tendency to think that a target person who has one set of positive qualities must also be having other specific positives that are associated with first set. This is known as halo effect. e.g., if we think that a person is 'tidy' then we are likely to think that this person must also be hard, working.

• Whatever information comes at the end may have a stronger influence on impression formation. This is known as the recency effect.

Actor observer phenomena refers to the tendency to attribute our own behaviour mainly to situational causes but the behaviour of others mainly to internal (dispositional) cause. A distinction is found between the attribution that a person makes for actorrole and observer-role.

Person makes attribution for his/her own positive and negative experiences, it is actor role and the attribution made for another person's positive and negative experience is observer-role.

For example, if we get good marks, we will attribute it to our own ability and hard work (actor-role, internal attribution for a positive experience). If we get bad marks, we will say we were unlucky or test was difficult (actor-role, external attribution for negative experience).

On the other hand, if our classmate gets good marks, we will attribute his/her success to good luck or easy test (observer-role, external attribution for positive experience). If same classmate gets bad marks, we are likely to feel that his/her failure was because of low ability or due to lack of effort (observer-role, internal attribution for a negative experience).

The reason for the difference between the actor and observer roles is that people want to have a nice image of themselves, as compared to others.

It is form of group influence.

• Social facilitation refers to a concept that performance on specific task is influenced by the mere presence of others.

• Norman Triplett observed that individuals show better performance in presence of others, than when they are performing the same task alone.

Better performance in presence of others is because the person experiences arousal, which makes the person react in a more intense manner.

The arousal is because the person feels he or she is being evaluated. Cottrell called this idea evaluation apprehension. The person will be praised if performance is good (reward); is criticised if performance is bad (punishment). We wish to get praise and avoid criticism, therefore we try to perform well and avoid criticism. As in case of complex task, the person may be afraid of making mistakes. And the fear of criticism or punishment is stronger.

If the others present are also performing same task, this is called a situation of co-action. When task is simple or a familiar one, performance is better under co-action than when the person is alone.

Task performing can be facilitated and improved or inhibited and worsened by the presence of others. If we are working together in a larger group, the less effort each member puts in. This phenomena is called social loafing, based on diffusion of responsibility.

Diffusion of responsibility can also be frequently seen in situations where people are expected to help.

Pro-social behaviour is any positively valued behaviour that does good to another person, is done without any pressure from outside and without any expectation of a reward or a return.

Humans are social beings. Most of their activities are organized with the help of others. We cannot live and grow unless there is support from others. We often engage in helping others. Such efforts are considered as pro-social behaviour. For any behaviour to be pro-social, it should fulfil the following conditions:

• There has to be an intention to benefit the other person. Any pro-social act, which one accomplishes by compulsion or as a requirement of a job, does not merit to be called 'pro-social'.

• The behaviour should be considered socially desirable by the other members of the society. Obviously, helping a thief in stealing is not a pro-social behaviour.

• If an act intended to benefit others is also expect to benefit the helper, it cannot be termed as 'pro-social'.

The intentions and the consequent positive behaviour are more important considerations of pro-social behaviour than the actual benefits.

The other term which are used interchangeably with pro-social behaviour is altruism. The literal meaning of altruism is 'doing things or acting for the interest of others without any ulterior motive.' It is a behaviour that reflects an unselfish concern for the welfare of others. All charitable, humanitarian, philanthropic activities, which people do without any self-interest, come under the category of altruism behaviour. Determinants of Pro-social Behaviour: The pro-social behaviour depends on many factors.

(i) Pro-social behaviour is based on an inborn, natural tendency in human beings to help other members of their own species.

(ii) Pro-social behaviour is influenced by learning through modelling and positive reinforcement in the family.

(iii) Cultural factors influence pro-social behaviour. Some cultures actively encourage people to help the needy and distressed. Individuals in cultures suffering from a shortage of resources may not show a high level of pro-social behaviour.

(iv) Pro-social behaviour is expressed when the situation activates certain 'social norms' that require helping others. Three norms have been mentioned in context of pro-social behavoiour:

(a) The norms of social responsibility. We should help anyone who needs help without considering any other factors.

(b) The norms of reciprocity. We should help persons who have helped us in the past.

(c) The norms of equity. We should help others whenever we find that it is fair to do so.

(v) Pro-social behaviour is affected by the expected reactions of the person who is being helped. For example, people might be unwilling to give money to a needy person because they feel that the person might feel insulted, or may become dependent.

(vi) Pro-social behaviour is more likely to be shown individuals who have a high level of empathy, that is, the capacity to feel the distress of the person who is to be helped. e.g., Mother Teresa.

Factors inhibiting Pro-social Behaviour:

(a) Diffusion of Responsibility: Pro-social behaviour may be reduced when the number of bystanders is more than one. On the other hand, if there is only one bystander, this person is more likely to take responsibility and actually help the victim. It happens because each person thinks that others will take the responsibility.

(b) Feeling State of the Individual: Person in a bad mood, being busy with one's own problems or feeling that the person to be helped is responsible for his/her problem, may not help others.

Since my friend eats junk food, it will have some reinforcing value to him/her. In order to bring about a change in his/her attitude towards food, following techniques could be used:

First of all what needs to be targeted is 'the way he/she thinks about junk food, i.e., the cognitive aspect of his/her positive attitude towards junk food. The modification in his/ her attitude can be achieved through using rational as well as emotional appeal and, if required, help of a dietician whose credibility in this area is very high will be of great use. Attitude changes may be brought about by:

1. Encouraging him/her to read about what is required for a healthy development. e.g., minerals etc. which are not found in junk food.

2. Showing him/her the negative consequences of eating junk food like obesity, other health-related problems by exposing him/her to real life examples.

3. Request people around him/her like family-members, elders and teachers whom he/she likes. If they provide a role model, i.e., not to consume junk food then he/ she will imitate their behaviour.

4. Giving his/her choice and space to decide what is right for him/her considering both the aspects of the food and asking him/her to focus and think about the future problems associated with his/her liking.

All these things can bring about cognitive dissonance which might ultimately bring about the attitude change.

Attitude is a set of mind, a set of views, or thoughts regarding some topics which have an evaluative feature.

Attitude system refers to combination of 'simple' if it contains only one or a few attitudes and 'complex' if it is made up of many attitudes, i.e., several 'member' attitudes. Each member attitude that belongs to attitude system has A-B-C components.

Values are attitudes or beliefs that contain a 'should' or 'ought' aspect, such as moral or ethical values e.g., one should be honest because honesty is the best policy. Values are formed when a particular belief or attitude becomes an inseparable part of the person's outlook on life. Consequently, values are difficult to change.

• Attitude provides a situation that makes easier for the person to decide how to respond or act in a new situation or problem.

• Attitudes strongly influence our social thoughts.

• They affect our behaviour.

Opinions are simply ways of thinking, and it does not matter much to the person that others agree or disagree with their views.

Beliefs refer to the cognitive component of attitude and form the ground on which attitudes stand, such as belief in God, or belief in democracy as a political ideology.

Values are attitudes or beliefs that contain a 'should' or 'ought' aspect such as moral and ethical values.

Values are formed when a particular belief or attitude becomes an inseparable part of the person's outlook on life.

Attitudes are learnt through one's own experience, and, through interaction with other people. There are specific conditions that lead to the formation of specific attitudes.

The concept of congnitive dissonance was proposed by Leon Festinger.

Cognitive dissonance is an unpleasant internal state that results when individuals notice inconsistency between two or more of their attitudes or between their behaviour.

Cognitive consistency means that two components, aspects or elements of the attitude system must be in the same direction.

The 'target' is the person whose attitude is to be changed. The 'source' is the person through whose influence the change is to take place.

Congruent change means change in the same direction as the existing attitude, i.e., a positive attitude may become more positive or a negative attitude may become more negative.

Incongruent change means attitude may change in a direction opposite to the existing attitude, i.e., a positive attitude become less positive or a negative attitude becomes less negative.

Discrimination is negative behaviour directed toward members of social groups who are the object of prejudice.

Schemas (schemata) are cognitive frameworks developed through experience that affect the processing of new social information.

Schemas that function in the form of categories are called prototypes. These are the entire set of features or qualities that help us to define an object completely. Prototypes are the best representative of the population.

When we meet people, we make inferences about their personal qualities. This is called impression formation.

Impression formation and attribution are influenced by the following:

(i) The nature of information available to the perceiver.

(ii) Social schemas in the perceiver (including stereotypes).

(iii) Personality characteristics of the perceiver.

(iv) Situational factors.

When the information presented first has a stronger effect than the information presented at the end, it is called the primacy effect. On the other hand, when information which comes at the end has a stronger influence, it is called recency effect.

People have a tendency to think that a target person who has one set of positive qualities must also be having specific positive qualities that are associated with the first set. This is known as halo effect.

Attribution is the process through which we seek to identify the causes of other's behaviour and so gain knowledge of their stable traits and dispositions.

Pro-social behaviour involves a helpful action that benefits other people without necessarily providing any direct benefits to the person performing the act, and may even involve a risk for the person who helps.

Fundamental attribution error is the overall tendency for people to give greater weightage to internal factors than to external factors.

• The thought that when others are present, one person alone will not be held responsible for doing, or not doing something; other members are also responsible and will therefore do the task.

• Each person thinks that it is not his/her responsibility alone to give help, and someone else may take the responsibility. This phenomenon is called diffusion of responsibility.

• Social cognition is the manner in which we gather, interpret, analyze, remember and use information about the social world.

• The study of social cognition deals with the mental processes by which we make sense of the world.

• Attitudes, impression formation and attributions are the three processes collectively called social cognition.

• It is activated by cognitive units called schemas (schemata).

Prejudice are learnt. Following are the probable causes for the development of prejudices:

1. Learning: Prejudices are learnt through associations, reward and punishment, modelling, child-rearing practices and social and cultural norms.

2. High Social Identity: Social identity refers to persons definitions of who he or she is. If the individual starts identifying with his community and develops proud for that gradually, he starts perceiving others as inferior which causes prejudices.

3. Scapegoating: It is aggression displaced toward a person or group that is the object of prejudice particularly the individual or the group belongs to weaker section.

4. Self-fulfilling Prophecy: Self-fulfilling prophecy refers to behaving in a way that confirms the prediction others make.

It is behaving according to once own expectation in such a way that this behaviour influences a situation and brings about what is expected.

5. Kernel of Truth: It is individual beliefs that if a particular opinion developed by so many people then there must be truth behind it because majority can't be wrong.

Prejudices may not be eliminated but can be reduced. The strategies for handling prejudices would be effective if they aim at:

• Minimising opportunities for learning prejudices.

• Changing negative attitudes.

• De-emphasising a narrow social identity based on the ingroup.

• Discouraging the tendency towards self-fulfilling prophecy among the victims of prejudice.

These goals can be accomplished through:

• Education and exposure for correcting stereotypes relative to specific target groups.

• Reducing strong ingroup bias.

• Increasing intergroup contact through—

— direct communication.

— removal of mistrust between the group.

— discovery of positive qualities in the out group. These strategies are successful only if:

• The two groups meet in a co-operative rather than competitive context.

• Close interactions between the groups help them to know each other better.

• Both the groups should not be different in power or status.

• Highlighting individual identity rather than group identity. It is promoting individual differences and giving more credit to the individuals achievement rather than his/her group identity.

The Four Features of attitude are:

(i) Valence (Positivity or Negativity): Valence of an attitude tells us whether the attitude is positive or negative toward the attitude object. It means attitudes are directional.

(ii) Extremeness: This indicates how positive or negative an individual is toward object.

(iii) Simplicity or Complexity: It refers to how many attitudes are there in the broader attitude.

Attitude is simple if it contains few attitudes and complex, if it is made up of many attitudes.

e.g. attitude towards student's tutor is simple and attitude towards his father is complex.

(iv) Centrality: It refers to the role of particular attitude that influences the other attitudes in the system, e.g., attitude towards education. Positive attitude towards education influences various other attitudes, e.g., attitude towards knowledge or attitude towards work.

Balance Theory of Attitude Change:

Balance theory of attitude change was proposed by Fritz Heider. It is a part of cognitive consistency theory. Cognitive consistency means that components, aspects or elements of the attitude or attitude system must be in the same direction to experience psychological comfort. If this does not happen, the person experiences psychological discomfort. This leads to some change in the attitude system to attain logical consistency. The Balance Theory of attitude change is based on the same principle. Balance theory can be explained with the help of relationship between three aspects or components of the attitude represented in a form of triangle.

For example, let s consider two people having a relationship and their attitude towards smoking.

According to Balance theory imbalance (leading to psychological discomfort) is found when:

1. All three sides of triangle are negative.

In the above example if Suresh and Vishal dislike each other (negative), and have negative attitude towards smoking (two other sides are also negative) then the very fact that they dislike each other will lead to negativity in the situation.

2. Two sides are positive and one side is negative:

In the above example, if Vishal and Suresh are very good friends. Suresh loves to smoke and Vishal hates to smoke. This implies two sides of the triangle are positive and one is negative. This will lead to an imbalance situation, i.e., two friends will have a conflict because they have opposite attitude towards smoking.

Imbalance state will lead to psychological discomfort. An attitude change will have to take place so as to attain balance state having psychological comfort. Balance is found when: 1. All three sides are positive.

In the above example, Suresh and Vishal are very good friends and both of them love smoking.

2. Two sides are negative and one side is positive.

In the above example, Suresh and Vishal are very good friends and both of them hold a negative attitude towards smoking.

The concept of cognitive dissonance was introduced by Leon Festinger and Carlsmith. This theory is based on cognitive inconsistency.

Cognitive dissonance: An unpleasant feeling which arise when two or more of our cognitions are inconsistent. The main causes of cognitive dissonance are as follows:

(a) When two attitudes are inconsistent in some way such as —'I like this person' and 'I don't like this person's political views'.

(b) When people say or do things they do not mean, or behave in ways that are inconsistent with their underlying attitudes, e.g., arguing the merits of vegetarianism then ordering a non-vegetarian burger at the local burger bar create inconsistency.

As an explanation of attitude change, cognitive dissonance theory argues that doing things that are inconsistent with our attitudes may cause us to change those attitudes to overcome the negative feelings of dissonance.

According to cognitive dissonance theory attitudinal changes occur in two stages, i.e., stage-I and stage-II.

e.g., Cognition I : Smoking is injurious for health because it causes cancer. Cognition II: smoke tobacco.

To attain consonance one of these ideas will have to be changed.

The theory was proposed by S.M. Mohsin.

• According to him, attitude change takes place in two steps. In the first step, the target of change identifies with the source. It involves two people, i.e., target and the source.

• Target is the person whose attitude is to be changed.

• Source is the person who assists the target for attitudinal change.

Step-1: Identification: Source must have +ve attitude and love towards the target and target must have trust and respect for the source.

Step-2: Source first of all himself/herself shows an attitudinal change by changing his/ her own attitude towards the issue.

Most of the psychologists agree upon the following major factors that influence attitudinal change:

(i) Characteristics of the Existing Attitude:

• Positive attitudes are easier to changes than negative attitudes.

• Extreme attitudes and central attitudes are more difficult to change than the less, extreme and peripheral attitudes. Simple attitudes are easier to change than multiple attitudes are.

• An attitude change may be congruent if the change is taking place in the same direction as the existing attitude. On the other hand, an attitude change may be incongruent and it may changing in the opposite direction to the existing attitude. It has been found that, in general, congruent changes are easier to bring about modification than presented the incongruent change in attitudes.

• Researches have found that sometimes fear works well in convincing people but if a massage generates too much fear, it turns off the receiver and has little persuasive effect.

(ii) Source Characteristics: Source credibility and attractiveness are two features that affect attitudes change. Attitudes are more likely to change when the message comes from highly credible source rather than from a low credible source. e.g., car sales may increase if they are publicized by automobile experts.

(iii) Message Characteristics: The message is the information that is presented in order to bring about an attitude change. Whether the message contains a rational or an emotional appeal for example makes a difference. The motive of message also determines possibility of change, e.g., drinking milk may be said to make person healthy.

Finally, the mode of spreading the message plays a significant role. Face-to-face transmission of the message is usually more effective than indirect transmission as for instance, through letters and pamphlets or even through mass media. These days transmission through visual media such as television and the internet are similar to face-to-face interaction, but not a substitute for the later.

(iv) Target Characteristics:

• Qualities of the target, such as persuasibility, strong prejudices, self-esteem and intelligence influence the likelihood of attitude change.

• Open and flexible personality change more easily.

• People with strong prejudices are less prone to any attitude change.

• Persons having low self-esteem do not have sufficient confidence in themselves, change their attitudes more easily than those who are high on self-esteem.

• Highly intelligent people may change their attitudes less easily than those with low intelligence. However, sometimes more intelligent persons change their attitudes more willingly, because they base their attitudes on more information and thinking.

Causal Attribution:

• Attribution is a systematic process of assigning cause to a person's behaviour.

• It is the process of thinking and perceiving the causes of your own or others success and failure is an example of causal attribution.

• We normally tend to believe that nothing happens in this world without a cause. There is always a cause of everything in the world.

Fritz Heider, who is credited as the 'founder of attribution theory', suggested that human beings function as naive scientists. Heider categorized all causes into two categories—internal and external.

• Internal Causes: It includes something within the person. e.g., intelligence, aptitude or hot temper.

• External Causes: These causes include anything outside the person. e.g., fate, resources.

Research work has shown that people attribute their success more to internal factors and failure more to external factors than vice-versa. Weiner added another dimension to causal attribution.

• Stability: It refers to whether the cause is stable—it does not change over a long period (memory, family), or is instability—it may change over a short period of time (interest, luck).

Ability is both internal and stable; effort is internal and unstable; chance is both external and unstable. Weiner suggested that when you attribute your success to internal factors, you have a sense of pride. Also attributing success to stable factors gives you high expectations of success in future.
Fundamental Attribution Error: In making attributions, there is an overall tendency to attribute internal causes more than external causes or situational factors for behaviours. This is called fundamental attribution error. This tendency varies from culture to culture. For examples, Indians tend to give more credit to external factors.

• Actor-Observer Effect: A distinction is also found between the attribution that a person makes for ones own positive or negative experiences (Actor Role) or for the positive or negative experiences of others (Observer Role).

For instance one of your classmates fell and got injured. You must have thought that he might be walking carelessly and attribute the responsibility for injury to him. Now the same thing happens to you. You would put the blame on the condition of the road or other factor. The tendency to blame external factors for our own behaviour and internal factors for others behaviour is known as fundamental attributional error. When you hear that one of your relatives met an accident, a general tendency is to blame the injured person. People blame the person because it is assuring for them. If they are more vigilant, they will not meet such an accident. The blame is often placed on the people who are the sufferer. Even in the case of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, cyclones, floods, there is a pervasive belief that it is because of the sins, which people have committed. This phenomenon is known the blaming the victim.

Prototype

Ecology

The following factors provide the context for the learning of attitude through various processes:

(i) Family and School Environment: Parents and other family members play a significant role in attitude formation. Learning of attitudes within the family and school usually takes place by association, through rewards and punishment and through modelling.

(ii) Reference Groups: Attitudes towards political, religious and social groups, occupations, national and other issues are often developed through reference groups. Reference groups indicate to an individual the norms regarding acceptable behaviour and ways of thinking. Various institutions, religion, culture and communities are a form of reference groups.

(iii) Personal Experiences: Many attitudes are formed, not in the family environment or through reference groups, but through direct personal experiences which bring about a drastic change in our attitude towards people and our own life.

(iv) Media Related Influences: Technological advances have made audio-visual media and internet as very powerful sources for attitude formation. School textbooks also influence attitude formation. The media can be used to create consumerist attitude. The media can exert both good and bad influences on attitudes.

Four competencies of intelligence in Indian tradition are:

1. Cognitive capacity: sensitivity to context, understanding, discrimination, problem-solving and effective communication.
2. Social competence (respect for social, commitment to elders, they young and the needy, concern about others, recognising others Perspective.
3. Emotional competence: Emotional intelligence is a set of skills that underlie accurate appraisal, expression and regulation of emotions. It is the feeling side of intelligence. Some psychologists believe that the source of their difficulty may be a lack of emotional intelligence. This concept was first introduced by Shalvey and Mayer who 'considered emotional intelligence as the ability to monitor one's own and other's emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use the formation to guide one's thinking and actions.' Emotional Quotient (IQ) is' used to express emotional intelligence in the same way as IQ is used to express intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is receiving increasing attention of educators for dealing with students who are affected by stresses and challenges of the outside world. They encourage cooperative behaviour and reduce their antisocial activities.

4. Entrepreneurial competence: commitment, persistence, patience, hardwork, vigilance and goal-directed behaviours.

Pro-social behaviour means, doing good to others or being helpful. It involves working for others without any self-interest. Some instances of pro-social behaviour are cooperating with others, sharing things, showing sympathy and doing favours to others.
Pro-social behaviour has the following characteristics-
1. Aim to benefit or do good to other persons or another person.
2. Doing good for others without expecting anything in return.
Factors influencing Pro-social behaviour:
1. Pro-social behaviour is influenced by learning. Individuals who are brought up in a family environment that sets examples of helping others emphasises helping as a value, and praises helpfulness and showing more pro-social behaviour than individuals who are brought up in a family environment devoid of these features.
2. Pro-social behaviour is based on an inborn, natural tendency in human beings to help others members of their own species. This inborn tendency facilitates survival of the species.

Social loafing – is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task i.e. one in which outputs are pooled with those of other group members. Social loafing give enhancement to group members to become relaxed and become free riders.

For example, a group of male students are made to march to know how much noise people make in a social setting. The size of the group varied. The result of the study shows that although the total amount of noise went up as the size immersed, the amount of noise produced by each student dropped. The reason for such social loafing are:

Example – Tug of war
Experiment – clapping
The following are the ways to reduce social loafing:
a) Making the efforts to each person discernible.
b) Making people feel that their individual contribution is important.

Compliance refers to behaving in a particular way in response to a request made by someone. For example salesperson.

Characteristics of pro-social behaviour:

1. It must aim to benefit or do good to another person or other persons.
2. It must be done without expecting anything in returns.
3. It must be done willingly by the person and not because of any pressure.
4. It Involves some difficulty or ‘cost’ to the persons giving help.

Aptitude is a combination of characteristics that indicate an individual's capacity to acquire some specific knowledge or skill after training.
Difference between Aptitude and interest:
Interest: Interest is a preference for a particular activity. For example, a person can have a strong interest in Social Science.
Aptitude: Aptitude is an individual's capacity to acquire some specific knowledge or skill after training. For example, a person with high mathematical Aptitude will be a successful scientist or engineer.

The following factors influence attitude change:
1.Characteristics of the existing attitude: Valence (positivity or negativity),extremeness, simpluity or complexity and centrality or significance of the attitude determine attiude change. A positive attitude is easier to change than negative ones. Similarly, extreme and central attitudes are more difficult to change than the less extreme, peripheral attitudes and simple attitudes can be modified more easily than multiple ones.

2. Source characterisitcs: Source credibility and attractiveness are important determinants of attitude change. Attiudes can be modified when the message emantes from a credible source. For example products such as cars sell better when they are publicised by eminent public features.
3. Message charateristics: Attitudes can be easily modified when the amount of information given about a topic is optimum, neither too much or nor too little. Also, messages that are rational and carry an emotional appeal are more likely to usher attitude change.

Determinants of cooperation and competition -
(i) Reward Structure
(ii) Interpersonal Communication
(iii)Reciprocity
(i) Reward Structure: Psychologists believe that whether people will cooperate or compete will depend on the reward structure. The co-operative reward structure is one in which there is promotive interdependence. Each is beneficiary of the reward and reward is possible only if all contribute. A competitive reward structure is one in which one can get a reward only if others do not get it.
(ii) Interpersonal Communication: When there is good interpersonal communication, then cooperation is the likely consequence. Communication facilitates interaction and discussion. As a result, group members can convince each other and learn about each other.
(iii) Reciprocity: Reciprocity means that people feel obliged to return what they get. Initial Cooperation may encourage more cooperation. Competition may provoke more competition. If someone helps, you feel like helping that person. On the other hand, if someone refuses to help you when you need help, you would not like to help that person also.

Social cognition refers to all those psychological processes that deal with the gathering and processing of information relating to social objects. These include all the processes that help in understanding, explaining and interpreting social behavior.

The processing of information relating to social objects particularly individuals, groups, people relationships, social issues etc is different because people as social objects may themselves change as the cognitive process takes place.

For example,a teacher who observed a student in the school and the mother who observes the same student at home may draw different conclusions about him /her.

1. Attitude, impression formation and attribution collectively called social cognition.
2. In social cognition category based schemas that are related to groups of people are called stereotypes.
3. Social cognition is guided by mental units called schemas.

The conditions that lead the learning of attitudes are:

Learning attitudes by association: A positive association between two factors or set of people can help in learning of attitude. For example; students take a liking to a particular subject because of the teacher concerned. This is because the students are able to identify with many of the qualities of such a teacher. These qualities transcend the subject such a teacher teaches and are important to the students liking that subject.

Learning attitudes by being rewarded or punished: An individual develops a particular attitude. if she is praised for it. For example, a student who is good at sports and is called the NUMBERO UNO of sports then she develops a positive attitude towards sports and health and fitness. On similar lines, if a child is taken ill repeatedly on eating junk food, then she develops a negative attitude towards junk food and a positive attitude towards eating healthy food.

vicarious

Attitude is a state of the mind, a set of views,or thoughts, regarding some topic (called the ‘attitude object’), which have an evaluative feature.

Factors that lead to formation of attitudes:
1. Family and school environment
2. Reference groups
3. Personal experiences
4. Learning through exposure to information: Media related influence.

Process of attitude change: Taking dowry as an attitude topic (A). Suppose a person B has a positive attitude towards dowry (B-A Positive). B is planning to get his son married to the daughter to some person (who has a negative attitude towards dowry (C-A negative). The nature of the B-C attitude is the subject of study. 

If C has a positive attitude towards B, the situation would be unbalanced. B-A is positive, B-C is positive but C-A is negative.

One of the three attitudes then has  to change this attitude change can take place in B-A relationship (B starts to dislike dowry) or in the C-A relationship (C starts to like dowry) us in the C-B relationship (C starts to dislike B).

‘social cognition’ refers to all those psychological processes that deal with the gathering and processing of information related to social objects.

A schema is defined as a mental structure that provides a framework, set of rules or
guidelines for processing information about any object.

Schemas (or ‘schemata’) are the basic units stored in our memory, and function as shorthand ways of processing information, thus reducing the time and mental effort required in cognition.

Most of the schemas are in the form of categories or classes. Schemas that function in the form of categories are called prototypes, which are the entire set of features or qualities that help us to define an object completely. In social cognition,category-based schemas that are related to groups of people are called stereotypes.

For example if one has to define a group which is unknown to oneself t hen one would make generalisations about the group and attach one's likes and dislikes to it. On the other hand if more positive things are heard about the same group then one's social schemas about the group will be wore positive. Similarly if one hears wore negative things about the same group one would form a negative stereotype about it.

The inferences drawn about the group are not logical but based on our schemas. The schemas in the form of stereotypes are a means for the growth of prejudice and bias against a specific group.

C.

Social desirability

Schemas

Prejudices may not be eliminated but can be reduced. The strategies for handling prejudices would be effective if they aim at:

1. Minimising opportunities for learning prejudices.
2. Changing negative attitudes.
3. De-emphasising a narrow social identity based on the ingroup.
4. Discouraging the tendency towards self-fulfilling prophecy among the victims of prejudice.

These goals can be accomplished through:

1. Education and exposure for correcting stereotypes relative to specific target groups.
2. Reducing strong in-group bias.
3. Increasing intergroup contact through—

— direct communication.

— removal of mistrust between the group.

— the discovery of positive qualities in the out-group. These strategies are successful only if:

• The two groups meet in a co-operative rather than competitive context.
• Close interactions between the groups help them to know each other better.
• Both the groups should not be different in power or status.
• Highlighting individual identity rather than group identity. It is promoting individual differences and giving more credit to the individual's achievement rather than his/her group identity.

Social loafing is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task i.e. one in which outputs are pooled with those of other group members. Social loafing give enhancement to group members to become relaxed and become free riders.

For example, a group of male students are made to march to know how much noise people make in a social setting. The size of the group varied. The result of the study shows that although the total amount of noise went up as the size immersed, the amount of noise produced by each student dropped. The reason for such social loafing are:

Example – Tug of war
Experiment – clapping

The following are the ways to reduce social loafing:

1. Making the efforts to each person discernible.
2. Making people feel that their individual contribution is important.

Culture-fair tests: These tests are culturally appropriate, i.e., one does not differentiate between individuals belonging to different cultures. These test analyse experiences common to all cultures or tests which do not require the use of language. This includes non- verbal tests and performance tests.

Culture biased tests: These tests show a bias to the culture in which they are developed. Therefore, educated middle class while people perform better at tests developed in America and Europe as compared to their counterparts in Asia and Africa.

It is a systematic process of assigning causes to a person's behaviour.

(i) Fundamental attribution error: An overall tendency for people to give greater weightage to internal factors than to external factors is called fundamental attribution error. This tendency is stronger in some cultures than it is in others. For example, Indians tend to make more external(situational attributions than Americans do.

(ii) In general, people attribute success to internal factors, such as their ability hard work they attribute failure to external factors, such as bad luck, the difficulty of the task, and so on.

Pro-social behaviour is very similar to ‘altruism’, which means doing something for or thinking about the welfare of others without any self-interest.

Factors Influencing Pro-social Behaviour
Pro-social behaviour is based on an inborn, natural tendency in human beings to help other members of their own species. This inborn tendency facilitates survival of the species.

Pro-social behaviour is influenced by learning. Individuals who are brought up in a family environment that sets examples of helping others, emphasises helping as a value, and praises helpfulness, and showing more pro-social behaviour than individuals who are brought up in a family environment
devoid of these features.

Cultural factors influence pro-social behaviour. Some cultures actively encourage people to help the needy and distressed. In cultures that encourage independence, individuals will show less pro-social behaviour, because people are expected to take care of themselves, and not depend on help from others. Individuals in cultures suffering from a shortage of resources may not show a high level of pro-social behaviour.

B.

Deprivation

The process of impression formation consists of the following three sub-processes :

1. Selection: we take into account only some bits of information about the target person.
2. Organisation: the selected information is combined in a systematic way.
3. Inference: we draw a conclusion about what kind of person the target is.

Some specific qualities influence impression formation more than other traits do.

Factors affecting the kind of impression formation

1. Primacy effect:(First impressions are the lasting impressions).First has a stronger effect than the information presented at the end. This is called the primacy effect.
2. Recency effect: if the perceiver pays attention to all the information, and not merely to the first information, whatever information comes at the end may have a stronger influence. This is known as the recency effect.
3. Halo effect: We have a tendency to think that a target person who has one set of positive qualities must also be having other specific positive qualities that are associated with the first set. This is known as the halo effect. For example, if we are told that a person is ‘tidy’ and ‘punctual’, we are likely to think that this person must also be ‘hard-working’.

Prejudices are examples of attitudes towards a particular group. Prejudices are a negative attitude.

• These are preconceived notions about others.
• Prejudices are baseless and false.
• It refers to biased attitude formed about an individual or a group of people.
• These are usually negative.
• It has three components, i.e., A-B-C

(a) Affective (Emotional i.e dislike or hatred).

(b) Behavioural (i.e., discrimination).

(c) Cognitive (Believes, i.e., stereotypes).

Attribution: It is a systematic process of assigning causes to a person's behaviour.

Fundamental attribution error: An overall tendency for people to give greater weightage to internal factors than to external factors is called fundamental attribution error.

Examples:

1. The Indians tend to make more external (situational) attribution than American do.
2. In general, people attribute success to internal factors, such as their ability or hard work.

They attribute failure to external factors such as bad luck, the difficulty of the task and so on.