Before a person acts, they usually already have a leaning. For or against. Comfortable or uneasy. Psychologists call this leaning an attitude. This article looks at what an attitude is made of. It also looks at why attitude doesn’t always predict what someone does next.
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Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude · Ethics0044
The ABC Model
Affective: how you feel about something
Behavioural: how you tend to act toward it
Cognitive: what you believe or think about it
Katz’s Four Functions
Knowledge: organises a complex world into categories
Utilitarian, ego-defensive, and value-expressive functions
Classic Studies
LaPiere (1930s): stated attitude vs. actual behaviour gap
Asch (1950s): conformity under group pressure
Milgram (1960s): obedience to an authority figure
Persuasion Routes
Central route: strong, logical arguments and evidence
Peripheral route: surface cues, less real thought
Must Know
- An attitude is a learned tendency. It makes us evaluate a person, object, or idea as favourable or unfavourable. Attitudes are fairly stable. But they can change with new experience or information.
- Psychologists say attitudes have three parts. This is called the ABC model. The Affective part is how you feel about something. The Behavioural part is how you tend to act toward it. The Cognitive part is what you believe or think about it.
- These three parts usually line up. But not always. A person can believe smoking is harmful. That’s the cognitive part. They can feel anxious about it. That’s the affective part. Yet they might still smoke. That’s the behaviour. This shows attitude is not one simple thing.
- Moral attitudes are evaluations tied to right and wrong. An attitude toward honesty is a moral attitude. Political attitudes are evaluations tied to power, government, and policy. An attitude toward a party or a reform is a political attitude. The two often overlap. But they are not the same.
Good to Know
- Psychologist Daniel Katz described four functions that attitudes serve. The knowledge function helps us organise a complex world into simple categories. The utilitarian function helps us get rewards and avoid punishment. The ego-defensive function protects our self-esteem from uncomfortable truths. The value-expressive function lets us show our core identity and values to others.
- A classic finding in social psychology is that attitude does not always predict behaviour well. In a famous 1930s study, researcher Richard LaPiere travelled with a Chinese couple to many hotels and restaurants. Nearly all of them served the couple. But most of the same places later said, on a written survey, that they would refuse Chinese guests. This was an early, stark demonstration of the gap between stated attitude and actual behaviour.
- Social influence is when other people, real or imagined, change a person’s attitudes or behaviour. This includes conformity (matching group behaviour), compliance (going along with a direct request), and obedience (following an order from an authority figure).
- Persuasion is a deliberate attempt to change someone’s attitude through communication. There are two well-known routes. The central route uses strong, logical arguments and evidence. The peripheral route uses surface cues instead, like an attractive speaker or a catchy slogan. The peripheral route involves less real thought.
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Great to Know
- Solomon Asch ran famous conformity experiments in the 1950s. People often gave an obviously wrong answer to a simple visual test. They did this purely to match a group of others giving the same wrong answer. It was a striking demonstration of social pressure. It showed how strongly a group can shape what a person is willing to say, even against clear evidence right in front of them.
- Stanley Milgram ran controversial obedience experiments in the 1960s. Most ordinary participants were willing to give what they believed were dangerous electric shocks to another person. They did this simply because an authority figure in a lab coat told them to continue. The result is widely cited today. It shows how ordinary people can be led into unethical action under authority pressure.
- Understanding attitude and social influence has a direct practical use for civil servants. Recognising groupthink, already covered on this site, is one example. Noticing unconscious bias is another. So is noticing when you’re swayed by a weak but appealing argument from a powerful stakeholder — peripheral-route persuasion, not real logic. All of this can help an official notice when their own judgment is shifting for the wrong reasons.
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