Attitude

Gal Harpaz, The Open University of Israel
doctorharpaz@gmail.com

Elena Negrea-Busuioc, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Romania
elena.negrea@comunicare.ro

Anna Bączkowska, University of Gdansk, Poland
anna.baczkowska@ug.edu.pl

Allport defined attitude as a mental and neural state of readiness, organised through experience, and exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related. In subsequent decades, the attitude concept has been narrowed down and was largely reduced to its evaluative component. Eagly and Chaiken defined attitudes as a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor. Vaughan & Hogg defined attitude as the organisation of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events, or symbols. Nowadays, attitude is defined as a relatively enduring and general evaluation of an object, person, group, issue, or concept on a dimension ranging from negative to positive. Attitudes provide summary evaluations of target objects and are often assumed to be derived from specific beliefs, emotions, and past behaviors associated with those objects.

According to the Appraisal Theory by Martin and White, attitude is concerned with our feelings, judgements, and evaluation of aspects of the world in which we live. Attitude can be further divided into affect, judgement, and appreciation. Affect refers to emotional responses, judgement to evaluations of behaviors , and appreciation to the quality of processes and products (the aesthetics). Attitude is a subtype of evaluative language that conveys a positive or negative assessment of people, events, situations, actions, etc. Attitudes can be conveyed explicitly or implicitly. Sometimes, utterances can be classified as attitudinal if they invite readers to position themselves positively or negatively towards what is predicated.

Keywords: influence, evaluation, judgement, beliefs.

Related Entries: Belief, Cognitive Dissonance, Judgement (1), Judgement (2)

References:
Allport, G. W., Clark, K., & Pettigrew, T. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Addison-Wesley
Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Vaughan, G., & Hogg, M. A. (2005). Introduction to social psychology (4th ed.). Pearson Education Australia.
Martin, J. R. & White, P. R. R. (2003). The language of evaluation. Palgrave.