Social Psychology: Attitudes and Persuasion

Social Psychology: Attitudes and Persuasion Someones attitude is their perception of objects of thought, these are things such as social issues, products, and the people around them(1). There are three parts to your attitude, the cognitive, affective, and behavioral parts (1). Your cognitive componet is your beliefs about certian objects(1). The affective part is your emotional feelings that are caused be the objects, and the behavioral part is the way you act toward that object (1). It is common for different attitudes on social issues to fit together, even if you think that logically they shouldnt (3). Attitudes arent set in stone, they can be changed, this change is usually done with some type of persuasion. Persuasion can come from ads on television that try to make you feel a certian way towards a product, or in could come from the people around you in trying to get you to act in a certian way (1). It is eaiser to have you attitude changed if you dont have a strong prior belief on the issue your dealing with. Persuasion also works best when you know and trust the person trying to persuade you, and they show a great deal of likability (1). Attitude can influence behavior, although the correlation of that is only .38 (1). The stronger attitude you have twoard something, the more likely it is that your behavion will agree with it (1). It is also true that if you have based your attitude on an expirence rather than just learning about an occurance, the bigger chance there is that your behavior will reflect your attitude (3). Even if someone has a certian attitude towards something, behavior often deoends on the situation your in and the ways in which your expected to act witht he people your around. This leads to what we say, and what we do becoming two completly different things (2). Different people use defferent methods but there are certiantly ways to change your attitudes and behavior. When the people around you have certian beliefs, observational