The term ‘attitude’ is widely used in everyday language to refer to one’s opinion about something, or the behaviour linked to it.
We develop attitudes towards anything we can interact with, ranging from people or social groups, animals, objects, situations or specific behaviors. Defined by Allport as a key concept in social psychology (1935, p.798), attitudes help us deal with everything around us and, ultimately, define us as individuals and social group members.
This essay will cover how attitudes can be and have been defined in time, how they are structured and in what ways they can be measured, with particular focus on the objectivity and reliability of different types of explicit and implicit methods of measurement. It is also argued that multidimensionality of attitudes (e.g. Diab, 1967; Rosenberg and Hovland, 1960) should be taken into account when measuring them, considering the qualitative differences of every attitude component. As attitudes are hypothetical constructs, which cannot be directly observed and can only be inferred (Allport, 1935), there has been much controversy about their definition. The U.S. psychologist Thurstone gave an early definition of attitude as ‘the affect for or against’ a psychologically significant object (1931, p. 261). This definition was later resumed and extended, in the context of the construction of attitude measurement scales, to the ‘degree of affect’ an individual can have towards an object, ranging from extremely negative to extremely positive (Edwards, 1957, p. 2). This unidimensional view of the attitude is also seen in Pratkanis and Greenwald’s sociocognitive model, which sees the attitude as the evaluation that a person makes about a relevant object, which is based on background knowledge (1989). Affect is a fundamental component of attitudes; however, the mere feeling cannot be considered the attitude as a whole (Rajvinder S., 2014). Allport (1935), added a second dimension to attitude structure: the state of ‘mental readiness’, which is physical (neural) and influences the way we label things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Three-component models have also been widely hypothesized; the ‘trichotomy of human experience’ (McGuire, 1989) which sees the attitude as a tripartite cluster of thought, feeling and action, dates back to the ancient Hellenic, Hindu and Zoroastrian philosophy. However, there is criticism focusing on the fact that this model implies a direct and strong link between attitudes and behavioural intentions, while evidence shows that this link is not always strong and direct - when present at all (Zanna and Rempel, 1988). In the 1960s, a very popular tripartite structure theory was introduced: the ABC (sometimes also referred to as CAB) model (Rosenberg and Hovland, 1960; Kretch, Crutchfield and Ballachey, 1962). According to this model, the attitude is made up of Cognitive, Affective and Behavioural components. The cognitive component includes the beliefs and thoughts associated with the object, including a background knowledge about said object which is stored in memory and can be retrieved when needed. The affective component refers to the feelings linked to the attitude object, ranging from spontaneous manifestations of emotion to a person’s higher values and moral-driven attitudes. The behavioural component suggests that …show more content…
This makes them considerably less likely to be affected by any intentional deception as the responses that are being assessed are out of the person’s control (Crosby et al., 1980; Fazio and Olson, 2003). Also, these methods may spot less accessible attitudes, which have been developed through experience but may not be easily recalled, and underlying attitudes of which a person may not even be fully aware (Asendorpf et al., …show more content…
The mere definition of an attitude has been object of debate, as well as the actual number of component it may have, mostly because an attitude in itself is not physically observable and can often be inconsistent with behaviour. The controversy on the conception of attitudes lead to controversy in the way they are measured. Recent research has underpinned the possibility of indirect attitude measurement, although these methods still do not provide perfectly reliable and consistent data, although IAT has proved to be superior to other methods.
Questionnaire-like methods are still largely used in research; evidence shows however that they cannot be considered a valid measure for the attitude as a whole.
It is therefore suggested that attitude measurement involving self-report measures should assess each attitude component separately, considering the qualitative differences of each and choosing different methods
We develop attitudes towards anything we can interact with, ranging from people or social groups, animals, objects, situations or specific behaviors. Defined by Allport as a key concept in social psychology (1935, p.798), attitudes help us deal with everything around us and, ultimately, define us as individuals and social group members.
This essay will cover how attitudes can be and have been defined in time, how they are structured and in what ways they can be measured, with particular focus on the objectivity and reliability of different types of explicit and implicit methods of measurement. It is also argued that multidimensionality of attitudes (e.g. Diab, 1967; Rosenberg and Hovland, 1960) should be taken into account when measuring them, considering the qualitative differences of every attitude component. As attitudes are hypothetical constructs, which cannot be directly observed and can only be inferred (Allport, 1935), there has been much controversy about their definition. The U.S. psychologist Thurstone gave an early definition of attitude as ‘the affect for or against’ a psychologically significant object (1931, p. 261). This definition was later resumed and extended, in the context of the construction of attitude measurement scales, to the ‘degree of affect’ an individual can have towards an object, ranging from extremely negative to extremely positive (Edwards, 1957, p. 2). This unidimensional view of the attitude is also seen in Pratkanis and Greenwald’s sociocognitive model, which sees the attitude as the evaluation that a person makes about a relevant object, which is based on background knowledge (1989). Affect is a fundamental component of attitudes; however, the mere feeling cannot be considered the attitude as a whole (Rajvinder S., 2014). Allport (1935), added a second dimension to attitude structure: the state of ‘mental readiness’, which is physical (neural) and influences the way we label things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Three-component models have also been widely hypothesized; the ‘trichotomy of human experience’ (McGuire, 1989) which sees the attitude as a tripartite cluster of thought, feeling and action, dates back to the ancient Hellenic, Hindu and Zoroastrian philosophy. However, there is criticism focusing on the fact that this model implies a direct and strong link between attitudes and behavioural intentions, while evidence shows that this link is not always strong and direct - when present at all (Zanna and Rempel, 1988). In the 1960s, a very popular tripartite structure theory was introduced: the ABC (sometimes also referred to as CAB) model (Rosenberg and Hovland, 1960; Kretch, Crutchfield and Ballachey, 1962). According to this model, the attitude is made up of Cognitive, Affective and Behavioural components. The cognitive component includes the beliefs and thoughts associated with the object, including a background knowledge about said object which is stored in memory and can be retrieved when needed. The affective component refers to the feelings linked to the attitude object, ranging from spontaneous manifestations of emotion to a person’s higher values and moral-driven attitudes. The behavioural component suggests that …show more content…
This makes them considerably less likely to be affected by any intentional deception as the responses that are being assessed are out of the person’s control (Crosby et al., 1980; Fazio and Olson, 2003). Also, these methods may spot less accessible attitudes, which have been developed through experience but may not be easily recalled, and underlying attitudes of which a person may not even be fully aware (Asendorpf et al., …show more content…
The mere definition of an attitude has been object of debate, as well as the actual number of component it may have, mostly because an attitude in itself is not physically observable and can often be inconsistent with behaviour. The controversy on the conception of attitudes lead to controversy in the way they are measured. Recent research has underpinned the possibility of indirect attitude measurement, although these methods still do not provide perfectly reliable and consistent data, although IAT has proved to be superior to other methods.
Questionnaire-like methods are still largely used in research; evidence shows however that they cannot be considered a valid measure for the attitude as a whole.
It is therefore suggested that attitude measurement involving self-report measures should assess each attitude component separately, considering the qualitative differences of each and choosing different methods