Attitudes and Behaviors

The attitude along with other factors will affect the way they will think and behave. According to the plannedbehavior theory, if we want to predict both intent to behave and actual behavior, we need to know threethings: (1) attitude toward that specific behavior, (2) subjective norms related to that behavior, and (3) perceived behavioral control (Ajzen,1991).Cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable because it indicates an inconsistency in what people think or feel and do. (Feenstra, J.  2013).   If a person has a negative attitude about an individual group the first perception can also be negative. But attitudes and actions can be change through a positive experience. Feenstra, J.  (2013) explains, “Self perception theoryexplains how we might form or enhance particular attitudes, while cognitive dissonance theory explains how our attitudes change.” Implicit attitudes are automatic   unconscious reactions and explicit is conscious controlled attitude.

The category I chose race my results suggest I have a strong automatic preference for African Americans over European Americans. I was surprised by the results I have always considered myself to be neutral when it comes to race. When I think about the results they could be accurate, my overall environment has been mostly spent with Africans Americans. This test was interesting and eye opening into the way I think without knowing.

 Feenstra, J.  (2013).  Social psychology (2nd ed.).  Bridgepoint Education, Inc.  (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/). 

Feenstra, J.  (2013) defines attribution, “an explanation of the behavior of others or one's own behavior.” Attribution is something every person does every day without being aware. For example, my car has a flat tire. If I believe the tire is flat because of my ignorance about car maintenance, I am  making an internal attribution. If I believe that the tire is flat because the tire is old, I am  making an external attribution. Internal attribution infer that an event or a person’s behavior is due to personal factors such as traits, abilities, or feelings. External attribution infer that a person’s behavior is due to situational factors. Fundemental attribution error tends to attribute other peoples behaviors to internal traits. The optimistic explanatory style is a person who makes internal, stable, and global attributes for positive things and specific attribution for negative things. Pessimistic explanatory style is the opposite pattern.  ( Feenstra, J.  2013).

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