Module II: Social Cognition and Attitude

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Social cognition refers to the ways in which individuals interpret, analyze, remember, and
use information about the social world. Social cognition studies the ways in which social
information is processed by people, particularly encoding, storage, retrieval, and application
to social situations. For example, if we want to buy a new mobile in a buy-back offer, then we
neither meticulously mathematically calculate the exact price of the old and new mobile nor
do we do any probability calculations to maximise our profits. We simply have a rough
estimate of the prices and accept bargains more or less around that price. We can understand a
few interesting things about our mind from this example. (a) One, we have frameworks
developed from the past experience (often called as ‘schema’) regarding selling and buying
and we propose a lower price to buy and a higher price to sell than our expectations. (b) Two,
the mental processes we carry out are faster, automatic and very quick. (c) Third, at the same
time these mental frameworks are prone to systematic errors and biases in decisions we
make.
Social cognition refers to the ways in which individuals interpret, analyze, remember, and
use information about the social world.
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SCHEMAS: MENTAL FRAMEWORK FOR ORGANIZING AND USING SOCIAL
INFORMATION ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Schemas are mental frameworks centering on specific themes that help us to organize social
information.​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Fiske and Taylor (1991) had classified schema into four major types —self-schema, person
schema, role schema and event schema. All these four types of schema serve vital functions
in processing, organising and using social information. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
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Self-schemas: Self-schemas are defined as cognitive generalisations about the self based
upon the experiences of the past. In fact, self-schemas are the structures that tend to organise
our conception of our own characteristics (Markus, 1977). Self-schemas form the cognitive
component of the self-concept and are organised around the specific traits or features, which
we generally think of as most central to our self-image. For example, if a person thinks about
the self as being independent (opposed to dependent one), he may see himself as assertive
and individualistic. If he behaves consistently with this self-schema, he may refuse to take
money from parents, refuse to ask others to help him and will try to lead a discussion, etc.
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Person schemas: Person schemas are the mental structures, which represent knowledge
about the traits of specific personalities (such as Ms. Indira Gandhi, Dr. Rajendra Prasad,
President Bill Clinton, etc.) or the types of individuals (such as introvert, psychopath,
manic-depressive, extrovert, etc.). Person schema organises the person’s conception of
others’ personalities and enables him to develop expectations about others’ behaviour.

Role schemas: Role schemas are defined in terms of various attributes and behaviours, which
are typical of the persons who occupy a particular role in the society. In other words, role
schemas indicate which behaviours and attributes are typical of persons occupying a
particular position or role in the group. These roles can be either achieved or ascribed.
Achieved roles are acquired through effort and training. Examples are various occupational
roles such as those of a bank manager, a team captain, a nurse, etc. Ascribed roles refer to
those over which we have no control. Examples are age, gender, race, caste, etc. In our
society, the role of a female is different from the role of a male. Role schemas are often
considered as stereotypes, especially when considered in relation to ascribed roles of gender
and race (Fiske and Taylor, 1991).
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Event schemas: Event schemas are defined as the mental frameworks which relate to some
specific events or situations. In other words, event schemas are the schemas regarding
important recurring events of our society (Hue and Erickson, 1991). Event schemas are
scripts, which indicate what is expected to happen in a given situation (Abelson, 1981). These
scripts or event schemas help us in anticipating how to behave in the given situation. In our
society, we have event schemas for weddings, birthday parties, funerals and eating at
restaurants. For example, event schema for weddings helps us in deciding what type of dress
we should put on, how we should interact with groom and bridegroom, what and how we
should eat, etc.​​ ​ ​ ​
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The Impact of Schemas on Social Cognition: Attention, Encoding, and Retrieval
Schemas influence social cognition by acting upon three basic cognitive processes. They are
attention, encoding and retrieval. Attention is the cognitive process of focusing on specific
information while ignoring other things. Encoding is storing this information in memory.
Retrieval refers to the processes of recalling the information stored in memory and using it.
Attention: Schemas work as a mechanism that helps individuals to focus attention on
specific aspects of the environment. The stimulus that is coherent with schemas is more
easily noticed than the stimulus that is not fitting with the schemas one holds (unless the
information has high strength of attracting information). E.g., while watching a cricket match
we quickly notice happenings on the ground as compared to the noise in the stadium.
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Encoding: Information that is consistent with schemas is more likely to be saved in the
long-term memory than the one that is less relevant. We easily remember the instances when
people have agreed with us rather than when they have disagreed. In contrast, we also
remember some instances, which do not at all fit in the schemas. For example, if you go to
the government office and your work is done in five minutes, most probably you will not
forget the instance, because it was contradictory to your expectations.
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Retrieval: The relationship between schemas and retrieval is a complex issue. Some
researchers have shown that information that is consistent with schemas is better retrieved.
Others have shown that the information inconsistent with the schemas are more easily stored
and retrieved.
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Priming: We have a large number of schemas. Out of them a specific schema is used for
interpreting social information. Priming is one of the mechanisms that influence the selection
of schema. Priming refers to the events or stimulus that increases the availability of the
specific type of information in the memory or consciousness as compared to other types of
information. Usually stronger schemas are used for processing. But priming can also have an
impact on the activation of certain schemas. For example, you had a fight with your boss
when you came out of the office. While walking on the road, somebody bangs you, and
before he says anything you get extremely angry with him. This is because you have a
schema of aggressively interpreting social information that is activated. Studies on the
effectiveness of priming have suggested that the effect of priming lasts for years together.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
HEURISTICS: REDUCING EFFORTS IN SOCIAL COGNITION
Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman have carried out a series of experiments to demonstrate
that human beings use mental short-cuts to make sense of the world under conditions of
uncertainty. They proved that individuals do not think rationally while making judgments.
They make systematic errors and biases in their inferences. They argued that human beings
use heuristics because they cannot manage information. This is known as information
overload. The human cognitive system can process a limited amount of information at a
given point of time. When the information is more than it could be processed, we fail to
process all information. This is called information overload.

We use smart tactics under conditions of information overload and manage this information.
These tactics are known as heuristics. Heuristics are simple rules of thumb or mental
shortcuts that help us to make complex decisions and draw inferences in a speedy and
efficient way. They reduce our mental efforts. Tversky and Kahneman have demonstrated the
use of three heuristics. ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
They are :​
1. Representativeness Heuristics,​
2. Availability Heuristics,and​
3. Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristics.
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Heuristics may help us in making correct judgments. But Tversky and Kahneman have
viewed them as potential sources of errors in our thinking. Kahneman was awarded the Nobel
Prize in Economics in 1992 for this work (Tversky died on 2 June 1996 and Nobel is not
given posthumously).

Representativeness heuristic: In representativeness heuristic, a judgement is made about a

person, event or object based on how similar or representative it is thought to be of a category
or prototype. In other words, in this heuristics, we take a few characteristics or attributes that
we know about a person, event or object and select a schema that matches those
characteristics (Dawes, 1998). The representative heuristic, thus, helps us in deciding if a
particular person or event is an example of a particular schema.
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Availability heuristic: Availability heuristic refers to a strategy in which a person makes
judgement about the social world on the basis of how easily specific kinds of information are
available or can be brought to mind. In other words, when we are to judge the likelihood of
an event, we are more likely to base our judgement on the availability of relevant
information. For example, a person might rate divorce rate higher than what it is in reality if
his social network, which includes his family and friend circle, has frequently witnessed
divorce.
Anchoring and adjustment heuristic: When people try to form judgement from the
ambiguous information, they often reduce their ambiguity by starting with a reference point
called anchor and then making an adjustment with it. Let us take an example. Suppose a
person is asked to make an estimate of how many people attended the National Book Fair
held at New Delhi last month. The person has no idea about this, but he has heard that a very
large number of people used to visit the book fair. He has come to know that about 3 lakh
people visited such a book fair held in Lucknow five months back. Assuming that a very
large number of people visited the National Book Fair, he may guess that about 5 lakh people
might have attended this fair. In this example, the person has no information about the
specific event in question, but he is using the information about a similar event as a reference
point or anchor to which he adjusts reference information to arrive at a certain conclusion.
Social judgements are no exception because the information about the social situation
is also vague most of the time. Anchors can be of great help when people try to derive
meaning from ambiguous information and behaviour.
POTENTIAL SOURCES OF ERRORS IN SOCIAL COGNITION
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Human beings reason thoughtfully on most of the social occasions, does not guarantee us
rationality of thinking. This means that though we try to be correct in our thought process, we
are likely to make errors in our social judgments. We shall explore some errors in cognition.
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Negativity Bias: Take the following example: Niranjan is a bright, helpful, social, jealous,
and friendly person. Which adjective has attracted your attention the most. Perhaps,
jealous...right...! This happens because of our tendency called negativity bias. The tendency
of human beings to pay more attention to negative information than positive information is
called as negativity bias. Social psychologists have recognized this tendency of human beings
for a long time.
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Negativity bias refers to the tendency to show greater sensitivity to negative information than
positive information.
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We pay more attention to any negative event, characteristics, etc., of social situations. This is
seen in a variety of social situations. Such a tendency has a strong evolutionary relevance.
Negative information reflects potentially dangerous aspects of the situation which may cause
threat to the survival of the individual. Hence, one needs to be sensitive to such information.
Human beings detect negative emotions more quickly than positive emotions. This does not
mean that we are always negative in our attention. Indeed we also pay attention to positive
information, and negativity bias gets eliminated under positive priming conditions.

The Optimistic Bias: We also have an exactly opposite bias called ‘optimistic bias’. The
optimistic bias refers to the tendency to expect the overall outcomes as positive. Generally,
most people believe that they are more likely to experience positive events than others.

The optimistic bias refers to the tendency to expect the overall outcomes as positive.
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The effect of optimistic bias is seen on many of our actions and behaviors. Two examples are
overconfidence barriers and planning fallacy.
Overconfidence barrier refers to the tendency to be more confident about the accuracy of our
judgments than sensible.
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We believe that we are more likely to be successful in studies, relations, marriage, jobs, and
live a longer life than what seems reasonable. This bias is called an overconfidence barrier.
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Another result of the optimism is planning fallacy. Planning fallacy is a tendency to make
optimistic bias regarding the time estimations for a given task. We tend to believe that we will
finish a task much earlier than what it would actually take. Think of your time-tables for
examination studies. We typically never finish our studies in the planned time. Because we
tend to be unrealistically optimistic in our estimations of time.
​ ​ ​ ​
Planning fallacy is a tendency to believe that we can do more work in a given period of time
than actually or realistically is possible.
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The planning fallacy occurs because we tend to ignore how much time a particular task has
taken in the past. We tend to focus on the future and make a narrative account. Even when we
focus on the past we believe that we took more time because of external factors outside our
control which may not affect us now. So if we pay careful attention to potential obstacles,
then we can correctly estimate the time required and avoid the planning fallacy.
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Counterfactual Thinking:
Suppose your friend applies for a specific college and fails to get admission because of less
merit. You quickly think that ‘he should have studied more’. If you know that somebody met
with an accident and you think ‘what if he wouldn’t have started at that time. This is typically
known as counterfactual thinking. Counterfactual thinking is thinking about a past that did
not happen. It is a tendency to imagine other outcomes in the situation than the ones that have
occurred. Counterfactual thinking is not just limited to the negative events. It is a wide range
of automatic thinking that influences our social cognition.
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Counterfactual thinking is thinking about a past that did not happen. It is a tendency to
imagine other outcomes in the situation than the ones that have occurred.
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Often, regret can be confused with counterfactual thinking. Regret is an emotion whereas
counterfactual thinking is thought.
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Thought Suppression: Human beings can manage to keep some thought out of their
consciousness. This is called thought suppression. If certain thoughts are disturbing, we can
stay mentally healthy by keeping them out of mind. As its name implies, thought suppression
means active efforts to prevent certain thoughts from entering into consciousness. Thus, in
thought suppression, the person really avoids thinking about things or events he does not
want to think about.
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Magical Thinking:
Suppose your friend offers you chocolates that have the shape of insect, or cockroach. Will
you eat that chocolate..? Most probably not. If you think rationally, the shape of the chocolate
does not decide the contents. But still you will not, this is because of magical thinking.
Magical thinking involves assumptions that do not hold under rational scrutiny, but still
individuals believe in them. One of the examples of it is, if two things resemble in external
appearance, then they share similar fundamental properties. The plastic or rubber model of
snakes or lizards can also create panic among the people. Magical thinking involves
assumption that does not hold under rational scrutiny
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IMPRESSION FORMATION AND IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

Impression formation and impression management are interrelated topics having considerable
practical significance in our everyday life. We very quickly form impressions of people
whom we meet. We also make attempts to create favourable impressions on others, so as to
gain considerable advantage from them, such as an interview, assignment, getting our work
done, etc. We also attempt to influence how others would perceive us and form impressions
about us.
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Impression Formation: Impression formation deals with the processes involved in the
formation of impressions about others. Impression Formation is the process through which
we develop our beliefs and evaluations of other people. It refers to the process through which
we combine diverse information about other persons into a united impression of them.
Forming impressions about others is an elaborate cognitive process. The initial or first
impressions about others are very important. It is rightly said that the “First impression is the
last impression”. The initial impressions we make on others will generally shape the course
of our future relations with them in important ways. Once an impression is formed, it is
generally resistant to change. Thus, it is necessary to be careful on first dates, interviews and
other situations in which we will meet others for the first time. A large number of research
studies have shown that first impressions do seem to exert a lasting effect on both social
thought and social behaviour (Anderson 1981, Wyer et al, 1994).
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Impression Management: It is also called self-presentation. It deals with the various
methods and efforts that individuals use to produce a favorable impression about
himself/herself on others. We often attempt to influence others by projecting ourselves in
ways which will present us in a favorable light. We often behave, act, dress and express
ourselves in ways that produce favorable impressions on others. Impression Management is a
skillful activity. Research on impression management has shown that people who can
perform impression management successfully are often successful in many situations as they
help others to form positive and good impressions about themselves.
​ ​ ​ ​
RESEARCH BY SOLOMON ASH ON CENTRAL AND PERIPHERAL TRAITS IN
IMPRESSION FORMATION
Solomon Asch (1946) did pioneering studies in the areas of Impression formation. He was
heavily influenced by the work of Gestalt Psychologists, who believed that “the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts” . Like Gestalt Psychologists, Solomon Asch held the view
that we do not form impressions simply by adding together all of the traits we observe in
other persons. Rather, we perceive these traits in relation to one another, so that the traits
cease to exist individually and become, instead, part of an integrated, dynamic whole. Asch
studied impression formation by using a simple method. He gave individuals lists of traits
supposedly possessed by a stranger, and then asked them to indicate their impression of this
person by checking the traits on a long list that they felt fit with their impression of the
stranger.
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In one of his study participants were given the following two lists.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
●​ Intelligent - skilful – industrious - warm – determined – practical - cautious.​
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
●​ Intelligent – skilful - industrious - cold - determined – practical - cautious.

The above lists differed only with respect to two words: warm and cold. Thus, if people form
impressions merely by adding together individual traits, the impression formed by persons
exposed to these lists would not differ very much. The results of his study revealed that
persons who read the list containing “warm” were much more likely to view the stranger as
generous, happy, good natured, sociable, popular, and altruistic than were people who read
the list containing “cold.” ​

According to Asch, the words “warm” and “cold” described central traits -- ones that
strongly shaped overall impressions of the stranger and coloured the other adjectives in the
lists. Asch obtained additional support for this view by substituting the words “polite” and
“blunt” for “warm” and “cold.” When he did this, the effects on participant’s impressions of
the stranger were far weaker; “polite” and “blunt”, it appeared, were not central words with a
strong impact on first impressions. Thus, Central traits have a stronger impact on our
impressions than Peripheral Traits.​
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Impression formation is a cognitive process in which we combine available information about
others into a weighted average in which each piece of information about another person is
weighted in terms of its relative importance. The various factors that influence the relative
weight age are as follows.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
1. The Sources of Input: The information from sources we trust or admire is weighted more
heavily than information from sources we distrust (Rosenbaum and Levin, 1969).
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
2. Positive and Negative Nature of Information: We tend to weigh negative information
about others more heavily than positive information.
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3. Unusual or Extreme Behaviour: The information that describes behaviour or traits that
are unusual or extreme are more valued and weighted.

4. Primacy Effect: Information received first tends to be weighted more heavily than
information received later.
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Impression Management is also called self-presentation. It can be defined as our efforts to

produce favorable impressions on others. Impression Management is a skillful activity.
Research studies (Schlenker 1980, Wayne and Liden, 1995) have demonstrated that people
who can perform impression management successfully often gain important advantages in
many situations such as getting their work done, job promotions, increased popularity ratings,
etc.
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Impression Management- Some Basic Tactics:
The two broad tactics of impression management are as follows:

Self-enhancement: It can be defined as efforts to boost our own self-image. There are many
tactics of self-enhancement. One important tactic of self-enhancement is to improve our
appearance. This can done in following ways:
1.​ Changes in dress
2.​ Personal grooming (use of cosmetics, hairstyle, use of perfume).
3.​ Use of various props (such as eye glasses).
 4.​ Judicious use of nonverbal cues. ​
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Some additional tactics of self-enhancement includes:
i) Efforts to describe one in positive terms,
ii) Explaining how they overcame difficult obstacles, and
iii) How they faced certain challenges, which are not common, etc.​
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Research studies indicate that all the above techniques work under some or other conditions.
Brief summaries of some research studies using self-enhancement as an impression
management technique are as follows: ​
i) Women who dress in a professional manner (business suit or dress, subdued jewellery) are
often evaluated more favourably for management positions than women who dress in a more
traditionally feminine manner (Forsythe, Drake, and Cox, 1985).
ii) It has also been found that eyeglasses encourage the impression of intelligence, while long
hair for women or beards for men tend to reduce such impressions (Terry and Krantz, 1993).
iii) Wearing perfume or cologne can enhance first impression provided this particular
grooming aid is not overdone (Baron, 1983).
​
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Other-enhancement: It refers to efforts on our part to make the target person feel good in
our presence. There are many ways in which we can enhance other’s self esteem. Some of
these are as follows:
1.​ Flattery – heaping praise on the target person even if they don’t deserve it.
2.​ Expressing agreement with their views.
3.​ Showing a high degree of interest in them.
4.​ Doing small favours for them.
5.​ Expressing liking for them, either verbally or non verbally (Wayne and Ferris, 1990).

A large body of research evidence suggests that efforts to engage in impression management
are highly useful. It has been found that impression management can influence important
judgments based on the impression of others. ​
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Research studies by Wayne and Linden (1995) have demonstrated that impression
management is a useful tactic during the first six weeks on the job. They found that the
greater the extent to which the new employees engaged in other-enhancement
(supervisor-focused) tactics of impression management, the more their supervisors viewed
them as similar to themselves. Further, the more the employees engaged in self-enhancement
tactics, the more their supervisors liked them. Most important, increased liking and feeling of
similarity were strong predictors of performance ratings; the more supervisors liked their
subordinates and felt similar to them, the higher they rated their performance.
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These findings and those of many other studies (e.g., Wayne and Kacmar, 1991; Paulhus,
Bruce, and Trapnell, 1995) indicate that impression management tactics often do succeed in
enhancing the appeal of persons who use them.
 Attribution
Attribution refers to the thought processes we employ in explaining the behavior of other
people and our own as well. Attribution implies an explanation for the cause of an event or
behavior. Attribution theory explains how individuals pinpoint the causes of their own
behavior or that of others. We are preoccupied with seeking, constructing and testing
explanations of our experiences and to render it orderly, meaningful and predictable for
adaptive action.
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Fritz Heider is considered the father of attribution theory. He believed that people are like
amateur scientists, trying to understand other people’s behavior by piecing together
information until they arrive at a reasonable cause.
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He proposed a simple dichotomy for people’s explanations: internal attributions, in which
people infer that a person is behaving a certain way because of something about that person
(e.g., a trait or attitude) versus external attributions, in which people infer that a person is
behaving in a certain way because of the situation that he or she is in. Heider also noted that
people seem to prefer internal attributions.

The term attribution refers to the process through which the observer infers the causes of
another’s behaviour (Delameter and Myers, 2009). More formally, attribution means our
efforts to understand the causes of others’ behaviour, and on some occasions, the causes of
our own behaviour as well (Baron, Byrne and Branscombe, 2006). Generally, in attribution, a
person observes another’s behaviour and goes backward to locate its causes in terms of
intentions, abilities, traits, motives and situational pressures. When the observer attributes
others’ behaviour in terms of the internal state of the person who did it, it is called
dispositional attribution. On the other hand, when the observer attributes others’ behaviour in
terms of a person's situation or environment, it is called situational attribution. Let us take an
example. Suppose an observer comes to know that his friend is still unemployed. The
observer might judge that his friend is unemployed because he is lazy, irresponsible and lacks
proper aptitude and abilities. This is an example of dispositional attribution. On the other
hand, he might judge that his friend is unemployed because there are fewer employment
opportunities in his line of work as well as due to the depressed economy of the country. This
is an example of situational attribution. Likewise, a teacher in the class may wonder whether
a child’s poor academic performance is due to lack of motivation and ability (a dispositional
attribution) or due to physical and social situations (a situational attribution).
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
THEORIES OF ATTRIBUTION
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Jones and Davis’ correspondent inference attribution theory
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Jones and Davis (1965) modified the original formulation of the attribution process and
focused on the consequences of the behaviour on which attributions are made. The
correspondent inference model of Jones and Davis attempts to discover conditions under
which an individual’s behaviour corresponds to their dispositions such as personality traits,
intention, attitude, temperament, etc. This model attempts to account for how behaviour
corresponds to the enduring and stable aspects of personality. These types of attributions
serve the functions of reducing uncertainty and enhancing the predictions to be done about
future behaviour.
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Jones and McGills (1976) had pointed out that we generally utilise five types of information
when making correspondent inference—free choice, non-common effects, social desirability.
Of these five types of information, two types of information have received the greatest
attention, that is, uncommon or non-common effects of behaviour and social desirability. Let
us take an example to illustrate these two factors. Suppose Priya wants to pursue postgraduate
study in Sociology and for this purpose, she targets three universities—X, Y and Z. Related
to each of these three universities, she focused on five factors—academic status, location of
the campus, distance from home, security for women students and sports facilities. She makes
enquiries and obtains the information, as summarised in Table 5.2.
All these three universities are common with respect to four factors. However, with respect to
a factor, that is, the location of the campus, they differ—university X is located in a small
town, university Y is located in an isolated village and university Z is located in a large city.
The non- common effect with choosing these three universities is that university Y is located
in an isolated village. By contrast, if she chooses to go to university Z, here the non-common
effect is its location in a larger city. Suppose further that university Z is not socially desirable,
that is, not popular because very few students want to go to that university. In such a
situation, it can be attributed that Priya possesses the trait of gregariousness. If every student
wants to go to university Z, nothing can be said about Priya. From this example, it is obvious
that correspondent inference is made when a behaviour has few non- common effects and is
low in social desirability. Thus, the theory argues that the uncommon effects of an action
permit inferences about behavioural dispositions. It also shows that a correspondent inference
between behaviour and personality as dictated by Jones and Davis requires deliberation and
thought about numerous social and personal information.
In a nutshell, it can be said that Jones and Davis (1965) emphasised the importance of
uncommon behaviour and their unique effects.
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Noncommon effects: Effects produced by a particular cause that could not be produced by
any other apparent cause.
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Kelley’s model of causal attribution
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Kelley (1967, 1972) proposed a system of attributing behaviour done by others. In many
everyday social situations, we make attribution about the cause of behaviour based on no
more than a single observation of the person. To make such an attribution, we generally rely
on our existing knowledge or schema of how people behave in general. You observe that a
stranger on the railway platform has suddenly collapsed. Since you do not know about the
stranger, you cannot think back as to how he behaved in the past. Therefore, for making
attribution, you will rely on your existing knowledge or schema of how people behave in
general. As such you infer that the stranger might have collapsed due to excessive alcohol
consumption or there may be a heart attack. This shows that making attribution based on a
single act or behaviour of the target person requires heavy dependence on the stereotypes,
implicit personality theory or cultural or societal norms, etc.
The Co-variation Theory assumes that people make causal attributions in a rational, logical
fashion, like detectives, drawing inferences from clues and observed behaviours. By
discovering co- variation in people's behaviour you are able to reach a judgment about what
caused their behaviour.

The covariation model of Kelley (1967) focuses on how people decide whether to make an
internal or an external attribution and on instances where there are multiple observations of
behavior. It explains the attribution process as a search for information about what a
particular behavior is correlated (covaries) with: When behaviour is correlated with the
Situation it is called external attribution. When behavior is correlated with the person it
amounts to internal attribution The theory views people as naive scientists who analyze the
world in a rational manner.

According to Kelly, in order to form an attribution about what caused a person’s behavior, we
note the pattern between the presence (or absence) of possible causal factors and whether or
not the behavior occurs. The most fundamental observation we make about a person's
behavior is whether it is due to internal or external causes (Is the behavior determined by the
person's own characteristics or by the situation in which it occurs?). The possible causal
factors we focus on are (1) consensus information, or information about the extent to which
other people behave the same way towards the same stimulus as the actor does; (2)
distinctiveness information, or information about the extent to which one particular actor
behaves in the same way to different stimuli i.e., is concerned with whether the behavior
occurs in other, similar situations; and (3) consistency refers to whether the behavior occurs
repeatedly;. When these three sources of information combine into one of distinct patterns, a
clear attribution can be made.
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Let us take an example. Suppose Sita got angry with Ranjeeta and slapped her face at a party.
In this example, the observer may think that Sita slapped Ranjeeta probably because Sita, by
nature, is cruel and aggressive (something lies with the actor itself), or it had been caused
because Ranjeeta might have done very insulting and derogatory behaviour (something about
the target person) or it might be caused by the situation (something happened at the party).
But one basic question that arises here is—how do we know which explanation is appropriate
and correct? According to Kelley, in order to arrive at a correct answer, we consider three
kinds of information as under:
1.​ Consensus: It refers to the degree to which other people react similarly in the same
situation. For example, suppose Rajesh behaves aggressively towards Shyam. In this
example, high consensus will be that most of the other people behave in an aggressive
way towards Shyam and low consensus will be that other people do not behave in an
aggressive way towards Shyam.
2.​ Distinctiveness: It indicates the extent to which the same behaviour occurs in relation
to the other people or stimuli. For example, if Rajesh only gets angry at Shyam and
does not get angry with anyone else, the behaviour is considered to have high
distinctiveness. But if Rajesh frequently gets angry with Shyam as well as with others,
the behaviour is said to have low distinctiveness.
3.​ Consistency: It indicates the extent to which the actor behaves the same way in other
situations. If Rajesh often gets angry with Shyam, the behaviour is said to have high
consistency. On the other hand, if Rajesh rarely gets angry with Shyam, the behaviour
is said to have low consistency.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
By using these three kinds of information, Kelley suggested that we make attributions either
to the dispositional factors (something about the actor or person), or to the situational factor
(something about the target person or the circumstances). Kelley’s model is called covariation
model because the attribution of a person or situation depends on how three types of
information covary to produce an overall judgement. In general, when consensus and
distinctiveness are low and consistency is high, we tend to make dispositional attribution. But
when consensus, consistency and distinctiveness are all high, we tend to make attributions to
the external, situational factors. Table 5.3 shows the details when an internal (person or
actor), external (situation) or circumstance attribution will be made. A circumstance
attribution is one, where there are a combination of special factors that are operating at that
time only. ​ ​
​ ​
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Consensus: The extent to which other people react to some stimulus or even in the same
manner as the person we are considering.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Consistency: The extent to which an individual responds to a given stimulus or situation in
the same way on different occasions (i.e., across time).
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Distinctiveness: The extent to which an individual responds in the same manner to different
stimuli or events.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
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 Attitudes

Attitudes are dynamic phenomena that interact with all other elements of an organism. The
concept of attitude originated in the United States. Allport described it as probably the most
distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary American Social Psychology. In their
study of the Polish Peasant, Thomas and Znaniecki used the term attitude extensively. Often
the term attitude is identified with prejudices, biases, states of readiness, beliefs or ideas with
an emotional tinge.

Attitudes exercise a great influence on life and behaviour. Attitudes indicate the direction and
intensity of response of the person to stimuli. They reveal the drives which lead to some form
of behaviour. It is a clear fact that every individual has a vast array of attitudes: e.g., Attitudes
towards health, children, food, clothes, God, pets, etc.
​ ​ ​ ​
In fact, attitudes are the evaluations of objects, issues or persons. In other words, attitude is
cognitive representation that summarises our evaluation of an attitude object (Smith and
Mackie, 2007). Attitude objects may be the self, other people, things, actions or ideas.

THE ABCS OF ATTITUDE

Favourable or unfavourable evaluations towards something that define a person’s attitude can
be exhibited in beliefs, feelings, or inclinations to act. This is known as the multidimensional
or tricomponent view of attitudes (e.g., Breckler, 1984; Katz & Stotland, 1959). These three
components represent the basic building blocks of attitudes. Consider for example, my
attitude towards swimming. Because I believe that it is an excellent form of exercise, I feel a
liking towards it, and therefore intend to swim every day (at least in summers!). These
dimensions are known as the ABCs of attitudes: affect (feelings), behaviour (tendency to act),
and cognition (thoughts).
Affect
Affect refers to feelings or emotions that are evoked by a particular person, item, or event —
the attitude object, or the focus of our attitude, for e.g. fear, sympathy, hate, like, pleasure.
You may feel positively or negatively about your boss, the painting in your office lobby, or
the fact that your company just bagged a big contract (it may mean a bigger bonus; it may
also mean strict deadlines and hard work!). Obviously, such feelings can vary in intensity. For
example, I may very strongly like classical music, but have only a casual dislike of carrots.
Such feelings form from our experiences (or observing experiences) and serve to guide our
future behaviour. I may be more inclined to go to a musical concert by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi;
and may be less inclined to avoid carrots. Much of attitude research has emphasized the
importance of affective or emotional components. Emotion works hand-in-hand with the
cognitive process, or the way we think about an issue or situation. Emotional appeals are
commonly found in advertising, health campaigns and political messages. Any discrete
emotion can be used in a persuasive appeal; this may include jealousy, disgust, indignation,
fear, humour, and anger. For e.g. a pack of cigarettes now contains a picture of black lungs
along with a message that says ‘Smoking Kills: Tobacco causes cancer’ designed to arouse
fear.

Cognition
Attitudes involve more than just feeling— they also involve knowledge— what you believe
to be the case about an attitude object. For e.g. you might believe that studying psychology
will help you understand other people better and equip you to deal with them. Whether it is
completely accurate or completely false (quite true in this case), this belief comprises the
cognitive component of your attitude towards psychology. When you form your opinion or
judgment on the basis of available information and decide whether you have a favourable or
unfavourable opinion on that, it is the cognitive part of an attitude we are talking about. The
term cognition literally means ‘to know’, ‘to conceptualize’, or ‘to recognize’. Hence the
cognitive component of attitude is the storage component where we organise information
about an attitude object. It comprises our thoughts, beliefs, opinions, and ideas about the
attitudinal object. As we saw in the last unit, beliefs are cognitions about the probability that
an object or event is associated with a given attribute (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). When a
human being is the object of an attitude, the cognitive component is frequently a stereotype,
for e.g. ‘Punjabis are fun loving’.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
It is suggested that the congruence between affective and cognitive components may
influence the intention to behave. For e.g. whether someone actually uses a condom may
depend upon the congruence between his feeling about it (pleasure versus displeasure) and
his belief that using a condom will prevent him from AIDS.

Behaviour
As just mentioned, the things you believe about something (for e.g. ‘my boss is corrupt and is
misusing company funds’) and the way you feel about it (e.g. ‘I can’t stand working for him’)
may have some effect on the way you are predisposed to behave (e.g. ‘I’m going to quit my
present job’). Thus, attitudes have a behavioural component— a tendency or a predisposition
to act in a certain manner. Note that behaviour is different from a behavioural tendency. It
may seem logical to assume that if we have a negative attitude towards a particular object—
your boss in the above example— it is likely to be translated into a particular type of
behaviour, such as avoidance of your boss and even looking for an alternative job. However,
such behavioural tendencies may not actually be predictive of your actual behaviour.
Behaviours are typically defined as overt actions of an individual. For e.g. although you may
be interested in taking a new job, you might not actually take it if a better one (with higher or
at least similar salary and designation) is not available.

It is thus important to note that your intention to behave in a certain way may or may not
translate into how you actually behave. It is more reasonable to assume that one’s behavioural
intention, the verbal indication or typical behavioural tendency of an individual, rather than
actual behaviour is more likely to be in tune with his affective and cognitive components.
Consider this: You may believe that smoking is injurious to health; you may fear that you
may get cancer; yet you may continue to smoke. At the same time you may have an intention
to quit smoking. Hence, your behaviour towards an attitude object may not be in line with
how you feel about it (affect) and what you know about it (cognition).

Though most attitudes have all three components, they can be more strongly rooted in either
the cognitive or the affective component. It is also possible that all three aspects are not
always present in an attitude. Research indicates that not all three of these components need
to be in place for an attitude to exist (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). For e.g. you could develop a
positive attitude towards a product that you see on television (say a sauna belt) without
developing any beliefs about it (you may lack knowledge about it and hence don’t know if it
will really work) or ever engaging in any purchase behaviour.

In fact, research has demonstrated that we can develop a positive attitude towards a product
simply by repeatedly being exposed to it. This is known as the mere exposure effect (Zajonc,
1968), the tendency to develop more positive feelings towards objects and individuals, the
more we are exposed to them. We seem to naturally develop a liking for those things that are
repeatedly presented to us, be it a stranger in a neighbourhood or our own face! Don’t you
start liking a song and maybe even humming it after hearing it many times on the radio?

FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDES
The functional utility of attitudes was pointed out by Allport (1935) in his classic discussion
of attitudes. According to him, attitude was social psychology’s most indispensable concept.
He stated, “Without guiding attitudes the individual is confused and baffled…Attitudes
determine for each individual what he will see and hear, what he will think and what he will
do…they ‘engender meaning upon the world’; they draw lines about and segregate an
otherwise chaotic environment; they are our methods for finding our way about in an
ambiguous universe” (Allport, 1935, p. 806).

One of the fundamental assumptions of functional theory is that we often hold or express our
attitudes and preferences in order to communicate something about ourselves to other people.
This implies that attitudes towards specific issues, products, or ideas serve to convey broader
information about us to those who are interested. For e.g. Smith et al. (1956) said, “Attitudes
aid us in classifying for action the objects of the environment, and they make appropriate
response tendencies available for coping with these objects” (p. 41). Katz (1960) takes the
view that attitudes are determined by the functions they serve for us. People hold given
attitudes because these attitudes help them achieve their basic goals.

Katz distinguishes four types of psychological functions that attitudes meet.

Utilitarian Function (also Called Instrumental Function)

We develop certain attitudes towards objects that aid or reward us. We want to maximize
rewards and minimize penalties. Katz says we develop positive attitudes towards those
objects that are associated with rewards and develop negative attitudes toward those that are
associated with punishment.
For e.g. if you are a graduate looking for a job, if you belong to a minority community (say
Other Backward Classes) which has job reservations, you will favour the political party that
introduced such reservations. On the other hand, if you belong to the majority, you might
develop a negative attitude towards the same party because it ‘took away some jobs from the
general quota and reserved them for OBCs’. We are more likely to change our attitudes if
doing so allows us to fulfill our goals or avoid undesirable consequences. If you think this
function seems close to instrumental conditioning, you are right. It does come from a
behaviourist perspective.​ ​ ​
​ ​ ​
Knowledge Function
We all have a need to attain some degree of meaningful, stable, clear, and organised view of
the world (just as most of us have a need to maintain an organised cupboard!) Attitudes
satisfy this knowledge function by providing a frame of reference for organizing our world so
that it makes sense. Using such a cognitive perspective, attitudes serve as schemas that help
us in organizing and interpreting social information. For e.g. people who hold traditional
gender stereotypes (such as ‘a woman’s place is in the home’) will have greater satisfaction
with the current status of women at work and will explain the low number of women in high
positions in office (glass ceiling effect) with traditional gender explanations. Via such
attitudes as stereotypes, we can bring order and clarity to the complexities of human life
(even if misplaced!)

Ego-Defensive Function
Some attitudes serve to protect us from acknowledging basic truths about ourselves or the
harsh realities of life. These can help a person cope with emotional conflicts and protect
self-esteem. As you would’ve noticed, this comes from a psychoanalytic perspective, and
assumes that attitudes serve as defense mechanisms. For example, a new mother might feel
bad about herself after experiencing a sudden urge to hit her crying child, and to defend
against this threat to self-esteem, she might develop a positive attitude toward spoiling the
child. The rationalisation might be, ‘of course I don’t want her to get spoiled by giving in to
her whims every time.’
​ ​
Value-Expressive Function
Value-expressive attitudes show who we are, and what we stand for. Hence they serve to
demonstrate one’s self-image to others and to express our basic values. This function comes
from a humanistic perspective. It seems logical to assume that only important and strongly
self-related (central) attitudes should serve the value-expressive function. For e.g. you may
have a negative attitude towards homosexuals because your religion considers homosexuality
to be immoral (although I personally don’t think any religion degrades homosexuality). The
fact that you may never have had a bad experience with anyone who was homosexual is
irrelevant. Your negative attitude satisfies your value-expressive function, allowing you to
express an important value associated with a religious group with which you strongly
identify. By extension, if you don’t strongly identify with your religious group, your negative
attitude towards homosexuals will not have much effect on your self-esteem

FORMATION OF ATTITUDES
Right from our birth onwards, we are exposed to a wide variety of stimuli, both directly and
indirectly, which lead to our acquiring particular attitudes towards the attitudinal object. It is
believed that attitudes are by and large acquired as a result of various life experiences,
although a small but growing body of evidence indicates that attitudes may be influenced by
genetic factors, too. ​

Direct experience informs us about the attributes of an object and helps to shape beliefs that
influence how much we like or dislike it. According to Stuart Oskamp (1977), even a mildly
traumatic experience can trigger a negative attitude and make some beliefs more salient. If
your first visit to the dentist is painful, you may conclude that dentists hurt rather than help
you, despite their friendly smile.

Simply experiencing something several times can affect how we evaluate it – the mere
exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968). The first time you hear a new song, you may find you
neither strongly like nor dislike it, but with repetition your response in either direction will
probably strengthen. However, the effect of continued expo- sure diminishes. For example, an
increased liking for people based on their photos levels off after about ten repetitions
(Bornstein, 1989). Mere exposure has the most impact when we lack information about an
issue. Sitting members of a government or an opposition party, for example, usually have an
advantage over other candidates in an election simply because their names are more familiar.
Mere exposure effect: Repeated exposure to an object results in greater attraction to that
object.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Classical Conditioning
Learning based on association: Most social psychologists today agree that the process of
social learning or socialisation plays an important role in the formation of attitude. One
process of social learning is classical conditioning learning, which is based on association of
stimulus and responses. As we know, in classical conditions, the stimulus gradually elicits a
response through repeated association with other stimuli.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Early studies have demonstrated that when initially neutral words are paired with stimulus
like electric shock that elicits a strong negative response from the person, the neutral words
soon come to elicit the negative response on its own, providing evidence for the formation of
an unfavourable attitude (Staats et al., 1962). The use of classical conditions in developing
attitudes may be illustrated from some common experiences of life. If a child in the
classroom frequently finds that the teacher calls his one of the class fellows as ‘lazy’, ‘dirty’,
‘stupid’, etc., indicating an unfavourable attitude of the teacher, he also develops a similar
negative attitude towards that fellow. Initially, the child was neutral towards his fellow.
Several experiments have shown that classical conditioning can produce an unfavourable
attitude towards groups (Lohr and Staats, 1973; Staats and Staats, 1958).

Instrumental Conditioning
Learning based on consequences: Another way in which social attitudes are acquired is
through instrumental conditioning in which learning is based upon direct experience with the
attitude object. If a person experiences rewards from an attitude object, he develops a
favourable attitude. On the other hand, if the person experiences punishment after interacting
with an attitude object, he may develop a negative or unfavourable attitude towards the
attitude object. By rewarding children with smiles or approval, parents play an active role in
shaping the attitudes of their children. It is because of this reason the attitudes of most of the
children towards religions, social and caste issues are found very similar to their parents
(Sinclair, Dunn and Lowrey, 2005).
However, only a small portion of our attitudes are based on direct experiences. We have
attitudes towards many political and filmy personalities to whom we have never met.
Likewise, we develop attitudes towards members of certain religious groups, although we
have never been in direct contact with the members of those groups. In fact, such types of
attitudes are learnt through the interaction with third parties and in developing such attitudes,
instrumental conditioning definitely plays a significant role.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Observational Learning
Learning based on illustrations: Observational learning also plays an important role in
developing an attitude. In fact, observational learning or modelling is a social learning theory
(Bandura, 1973) and in this approach, attitudes are learnt through observing the behaviour of
significant others, and crucially, how a particular behaviour is rewarded or punished. Many
children develop attitudes by what they observe their parents or significant others are doing.
Children learn to smoke by observing that his seniors or parents do so. Even when children
are asked not to do what they (parents) are doing, they do it and develop a similar attitude.
​ ​ ​ ​ ​
Besides, children as well as adults are exposed to mass media, especially television, films,
magazines, newspapers and so on. These media provide an ample opportunity for
observational learning because they present interpretative packages or frames about an object
that tend to influence the attitudes of viewers or readers. By portraying actors and events in
certain ways, TV serials, newspapers, and magazines can produce a certain type of image of
any social group as being volatile, dangerous and highly unreasonable, which in turn, can
produce negative attitudes. The opposite may also be true, that is, by presenting a positive
image of social groups these media can be instrumental in shaping positive attitudes of the
people. Gunther (1995) observed that when the person views violent actions or pornographic
materials through media, he thinks it is the other people who will be affected most through
such actions or materials and they will not be affected by these things. This has been termed
as a third-party effect of media exposure, where, in fact, impact on others’ attitudes and
behaviours is overestimated and the impact on self is underestimated.

Genetic Factors
Some research (Waller et al., 1990; Keller et al., 1992) indicates that our attitudes, at least a
tendency to develop certain views about various topics or issues, are inherited. For instance,
Arvey et al. (1989) studied the level of job satisfaction of 34 sets of identical twins separated
from each other at an early age, and found that approximately 30% of job satisfaction appears
to be explainable by genetic factors. Tesser (1993) has argued that hereditary variables may
affect attitudes— but believes that they may do so indirectly. Additional research suggests
that genetic factors play a stronger role in shaping some attitudes than others. For e.g.,
attitudes involving gut-level preferences (say a preference for a certain kind of food) may be
more strongly influenced by genetic factors than attitudes that are more cognitive in nature
(say attitudes towards environment conservation)​
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