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, and why it doesn’t always predict what someone does next.
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1. What an Attitude Is
- Definition An attitude is a learned tendency. It makes us evaluate a person, object, or idea as favourable or unfavourable.
- Why Attitudes are fairly stable, but they can change with new experience or information.
2. The ABC Model: Affect, Behaviour, Cognition
- Mechanism Psychologists say attitudes have three parts, 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.
- Instead These three parts usually line up, but not always. A person can believe smoking is harmful, the cognitive part, and feel anxious about it, the affective part, yet still smoke, the behaviour. This shows attitude is not one simple thing.
3. Moral Attitudes vs. Political Attitudes
- Moral Attitude Moral attitudes are evaluations tied to right and wrong, like an attitude toward honesty.
- Political Attitude Political attitudes are evaluations tied to power, government, and policy, like an attitude toward a party or a reform. The two often overlap, but they aren’t the same.
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4. Katz’s Four Functions of Attitude
- SourcePsychologist Daniel Katz laid out this theory in a 1960 paper, “The Functional Approach to the Study of Attitudes.” His core claim: attitudes aren’t random. Each one does real psychological work.
- Knowledge functionThis function organises a complex world into simple categories, so we don’t have to reason from scratch every time. A quick, if crude, stereotype about “reliable” versus “unreliable” brands is this function at work.
- Utilitarian functionThis function helps us get rewards and avoid punishment. A student who studies hard mainly to avoid failing a course is expressing this function, not a love of the subject.
- Ego-defensive functionThis function protects our self-esteem, often by shifting blame outward. Someone who insists “the exam was unfair” after doing poorly is protecting their own self-image, not necessarily describing the exam accurately.
- Value-expressive functionThis function lets us show our core identity to others. Wearing a badge or pin for a cause you believe in is a value-expressive attitude on open display.
5. LaPiere’s Study: Attitude Doesn’t Always Predict Behaviour
- Case A classic finding in social psychology is that attitude doesn’t always predict behaviour well. In a famous 1930s study, researcher Richard LaPiere travelled with a Chinese couple to many hotels and restaurants.
- Result 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.
6. Social Influence: Conformity, Compliance, Obedience
- Social Influence Social influence is when other people, real or imagined, change a person’s attitudes or behaviour.
- Types This includes conformity, matching group behaviour, compliance, going along with a direct request, and obedience, following an order from an authority figure.
7. Persuasion: Central and Peripheral Routes
- Mechanism Persuasion is a deliberate attempt to change someone’s attitude through communication. The central route uses strong, logical arguments and evidence.
- Instead The peripheral route uses surface cues instead, like an attractive speaker or a catchy slogan, and involves less real thought.
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8. Asch’s Conformity Experiments
- Experiment Solomon Asch ran famous conformity experiments in the 1950s. People often gave an obviously wrong answer to a simple visual test, purely to match a group of others giving the same wrong answer.
- Result It showed how strongly a group can shape what a person is willing to say, even against clear evidence in front of them.
9. Milgram’s Obedience Experiments
- Experiment 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, simply because an authority figure in a lab coat told them to continue.
- Why The result is widely cited today. It shows how ordinary people can be led into unethical action under authority pressure.
10. Why This Matters for Civil Servants
- Application Understanding attitude and social influence has a direct practical use for civil servants. Recognising groupthink, already covered on this site, is one example.
- Takeaway So is noticing when you’re swayed by a weak but appealing argument from a powerful stakeholder, peripheral-route persuasion, not real logic.
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