PSY 530 Module 3 DQ 2

PSY 530 Module 3 DQ 2

Discuss and provide research evidence for five reasons why attitudes sometimes fail to predict behavior.

Answer:

Attitudes – cognitive representations of our evaluation of ourselves, other people, things, actions, events, ideas – and attitude change have been a central concern in social psychology since the discipline began.

Although attitudes typically predict behavior, this is not always the case. Some attitudes have tremendous influence over our lives, whereas others are largely inconsequential. For example, consider two people’s attitudes toward environmental protection. The two people both may think that protecting the environment is a good thing—they both may hold positive attitudes toward environmentalism—but the strength of those attitudes may be quite different. One person’s attitude may lead her to vote only for pro-environment candidates, drive a fuel-efficient car, and donate money to pro-environment organizations. On the other hand, the other person’s attitude may have very little impact. He will occasionally recycle and has on occasion voted for pro-environment candidates. Why would two people who hold equivalent attitudes act so differently? (Encyclopedia of Applied Science)

” Simply put, attitudes are evalua-tions of people, objects, or ideas (Ajzen & Fishbein, 2005; Banaji & Heiphetz, 2010; Bohner & Dickel, 2011; Eagly & Chaiken, 2007; Petty et al., 2005)

Attitudes sometimes fail to predict behavior for many reasons such as social influence,

Such as Allport’s (1929) notion that “an attitude is a disposition to act,” (p. 221) or the tripartite definition of attitude as containing cognitive, affective and behavioral components (Rosenberg & Hovland, 1960).