Which of these individuals is demonstrating a belief, as opposed to an attitude or a value

In psychology, an attitude refers to a set of emotions, beliefs, and behaviors toward a particular object, person, thing, or event. Attitudes are often the result of experience or upbringing, and they can have a powerful influence over behavior. While attitudes are enduring, they can also change.

Illustration by JR Bee, Verywell 

What's your opinion on the death penalty? Which political party does a better job of running the country? Should prayer be allowed in schools? Should violence on television be regulated?

Chances are that you probably have fairly strong opinions on these and similar questions. You've developed attitudes about such issues, and these attitudes influence your beliefs as well as your behavior. Attitudes are an important topic of study within the field of social psychology. But what exactly is an attitude? How does it develop? 

Psychologists define attitudes as a learned tendency to evaluate things in a certain way. This can include evaluations of people, issues, objects, or events. Such evaluations are often positive or negative, but they can also be uncertain at times.

For example, you might have mixed feelings about a particular person or issue. Researchers also suggest that there are several different components that make up attitudes. The components of attitudes are sometimes referred to as CAB or the ABC's of attitude.

  • Cognitive Component: Your thoughts and beliefs about the subject
  • Affective Component: How the object, person, issue, or event makes you feel
  • Behavioral Component: How attitude influences your behavior

Attitudes can also be explicit and implicit. Explicit attitudes are those that we are consciously aware of and that clearly influence our behaviors and beliefs. Implicit attitudes are unconscious but still have an effect on our beliefs and behaviors.

There are a number of factors that can influence how and why attitudes form. Here is a closer look at how attitudes form.

Attitudes form directly as a result of experience. They may emerge due to direct personal experience, or they may result from observation.

Social roles and social norms can have a strong influence on attitudes. Social roles relate to how people are expected to behave in a particular role or context. Social norms involve society's rules for what behaviors are considered appropriate.

Attitudes can be learned in a variety of ways. Consider how advertisers use classical conditioning to influence your attitude toward a particular product. In a television commercial, you see young, beautiful people having fun on a tropical beach while enjoying a sports drink. This attractive and appealing imagery causes you to develop a positive association with this particular beverage.

Operant conditioning can also be used to influence how attitudes develop. Imagine a young man who has just started smoking. Whenever he lights up a cigarette, people complain, chastise him, and ask him to leave their vicinity. This negative feedback from those around him eventually causes him to develop an unfavorable opinion of smoking and he decides to give up the habit.

Finally, people also learn attitudes by observing people around them. When someone you admire greatly espouses a particular attitude, you are more likely to develop the same beliefs. For example, children spend a great deal of time observing the attitudes of their parents and usually begin to demonstrate similar outlooks.

We tend to assume that people behave according to their attitudes. However, social psychologists have found that attitudes and actual behavior are not always perfectly aligned.

After all, plenty of people support a particular candidate or political party and yet fail to go out and vote. People also are more likely to behave according to their attitudes under certain conditions.

  • Are an expert on the subject
  • Expect a favorable outcome
  • Experience something personally
  • Stand to win or lose something due to the issue
  • Are repeatedly expressed attitudes

In some cases, people may actually alter their attitudes in order to better align them with their behavior. Cognitive dissonance is a phenomenon in which a person experiences psychological distress due to conflicting thoughts or beliefs. In order to reduce this tension, people may change their attitudes to reflect their other beliefs or actual behaviors.

Imagine the following situation: You've always placed a high value on financial security, but you start dating someone who is very financially unstable. In order to reduce the tension caused by the conflicting beliefs and behavior, you have two options.

You can end the relationship and seek out a partner who is more financially secure, or you can de-emphasize fiscal stability importance.

In order to minimize the dissonance between your conflicting attitude and behavior, you either have to change the attitude or change your actions.

While attitudes can have a powerful effect on behavior, they are not set in stone. The same influences that lead to attitude formation can also create attitude change.

Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning can be used to bring about attitude change. Classical conditioning can be used to create positive emotional reactions to an object, person, or event by associating positive feelings with the target object.

Operant conditioning can be used to strengthen desirable attitudes and weaken undesirable ones. People can also change their attitudes after observing the behavior of others.

This theory of persuasion suggests that people can alter their attitudes in two ways. First, they can be motivated to listen and think about the message, thus leading to an attitude shift.

Or, they might be influenced by the characteristics of the speaker, leading to a temporary or surface shift in attitude. Messages that are thought-provoking and that appeal to logic are more likely to lead to permanent changes in attitudes.

As mentioned earlier, people can also change their attitudes when they have conflicting beliefs about a topic. In order to reduce the tension created by these incompatible beliefs, people often shift their attitudes.

The diagram below illustrates the influences on us that result in our behaviour and whether that resulting behaviour is ethical. The diagram first outlines the sources of our beliefs. It then shows the relationship between the beliefs and values to our attitudes and our resulting behaviour.

Which of these individuals is demonstrating a belief, as opposed to an attitude or a value
 

What is a belief?

A belief is an idea that a person holds as being true.

A person can base a belief upon certainties (e.g. mathematical principles), probabilities or matters of faith.

A belief can come from different sources, including:

  • a person’s own experiences or experiments
  • the acceptance of cultural and societal norms (e.g. religion)
  • what other people say (e.g.education or mentoring).

A potential belief sits with the person until they accept it as truth, and adopt it as part of their individual belief system.

Each person evaluates and seeks sound reasons or evidence for these potential beliefs in their own way.

Once a person accepts a belief as a truth they are willing to defend, it can be said to form part of their belief system.

What is a personal value?

Values are stable long-lasting beliefs about what is important to a person. They become standards by which people order their lives and make their choices.

A belief will develop into a value when the person’s commitment to it grows and they see it as being important.

It is possible to categorise beliefs into different types of values – examples include values that relate to happiness, wealth, career success or family. 

A person must be able to articulate their values in order to make clear, rational, responsible and consistent decisions.

What is an attitude?

Attitudes are the mental dispositions people have towards others and the current circumstances before making decisions that result in behaviour. People primarily form their attitudes from underlying values and beliefs.

However, factors which may not have been internalised as beliefs and values can still influence a person’s attitudes at the point of decision-making. Typical influences include the desire to please, political correctness, convenience, peer pressure, and psychological stressors.