Attitudes Research Topics: Exploring Perspectives and Insights

Attitudes Definition

Attitudes refer to our overall evaluations of people, groups, and objects in our social world. Reporting an attitude involves making a decision concerning liking versus disliking or favoring versus disfavoring an attitude object. Attitudes are important because they affect both the way we perceive the world and how we behave. Indeed, over 70 years ago, Gordon Allport asserted that the attitude concept is the most indispensable concept in social psychology. That statement remains equally valid today; the study of attitudes remains at the forefront of social psychological research and theory. Read more about Attitudes.

• Anticipatory Attitude Change
• Attitude-Behavior Consistency
• Attitude Change
• Attitude Formation
• Attitude Strength
• Balance Theory
• Beliefs
• Brainwashing
• Cognitive Consistency
• Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Dual Attitudes
• Effort Justification
• Elaboration Likelihood Model
• Forced Compliance Technique
• Forewarning
• Heuristic-Systematic Model of Persuasion
• Implicit Attitudes
• MODE Model
• Motivated Reasoning
• Polarization Processes
• Satisficing
• Theory of Planned Behavior
• Values

The Function of Attitudes

Considerable attention has been devoted to understanding the needs or functions that are fulfilled by attitudes. Almost 50 years ago, M. Brewster Smith and colleagues suggested that attitudes serve three primary functions: object-appraisal, social-adjustment, and externalization. Object-appraisal refers to the ability of attitudes to summarize the positive and negative attributes of objects. For example, attitudes can help people to approach things that are beneficial for them and avoid things that are harmful to them. Social-adjustment is fulfilled by attitudes that help people to identify with others whom they like and to dissociate from people whom they dislike. For example, individuals may buy a certain soft drink because it is endorsed by their favorite singer. Externalization is fulfilled by attitudes that defend the self against internal conflict. For example, bad golfers might develop an intense dislike for the game because their poor performance threatens their self-esteem.

Return to Social Psychology Topics list.