The concept of social setting (attitude).
TOPIC 6. SOCIAL ATTITUDE
Questions:
1. The concept of social attitude.
2. Functions, structure and types of social attitudes.
3. Hierarchy of social attitudes.
4. Features of the formation and change of social attitudes.
The importance of the category “social attitude” for social psychology is associated with the desire for a universal explanation of everything social behavior of a person: how he perceives the reality around him, why he acts one way or another in specific situations, what motive he is guided by when choosing a method of action, why one motive and not another, etc. In other words, social attitude is associated with a number of mental properties and processes, such as perception and assessment of the situation, motivation, decision making and behavior.
IN English language social attitude corresponds to the concept "attitude", And introduced it into scientific use in 1918-1920. W. Thomas and F. Znaniecki. They also gave the first and one of the most successful definitions of attitude: “Attitude is a state of consciousness that regulates attitude and human behavior in connection with a certain object in certain conditions, and the psychological experience of it social value, the meaning of the object." Social objects are understood in this case in the broadest sense: they can be institutions of society and the state, phenomena, events, norms, groups, individuals, etc.
Highlighted here the most important signs of attitude , or social attitude, namely:
The social nature of objects with which a person’s attitude and behavior are connected,
Awareness of these relationships and behavior,
Their emotional component
The regulatory role of social attitudes.
Speaking of social attitudes, it should be distinguished from simple installation , which is devoid of sociality, awareness and emotionality and reflects primarily the psychophysiological readiness of the individual for certain actions. Attitude and social attitude very often turn out to be inextricably intertwined components of one situation and one action. The simplest case: an athlete at the start of a race in a competition. His social attitude is to achieve some result, his simple attitude is the psychophysiological readiness of the body for effort and tension at a level accessible to it. It is not difficult to see how closely interconnected and interdependent the social attitude and the simple attitude are here.
In modern social psychology, the definition of social attitude that was given is more often used G. Allport(1924): “A social attitude is a state of psychological readiness of an individual to behave in a certain way in relation to an object, determined by his past experience.”
Highlight four functions attitudes:
1) instrumental(adaptive, utilitarian, adaptive) – expresses adaptive tendencies of human behavior, helps to increase rewards and reduce losses. Attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals. In addition, social attitude helps a person evaluate how other people feel about a social object. Supporting certain social attitudes enables a person to gain approval and be accepted by others, since they are more likely to be attracted to someone who has attitudes similar to their own. Thus, an attitude can contribute to a person’s identification with a group (allows him to interact with people, accepting their attitudes) or leads him to oppose himself to the group (in case of disagreement with the social attitudes of other group members).
2) knowledge function– attitude gives simplified instructions regarding the method of behavior in relation to a specific object;
3) expression function(function of value, self-regulation) – attitudes give a person the opportunity to express what is important to him and organize his behavior accordingly. By carrying out certain actions in accordance with his attitudes, the individual realizes himself in relation to social objects. This function helps a person to define himself and understand what he is.
4) protection function– social attitude contributes to the decision internal conflicts personality, protects people from unpleasant information about themselves or about social objects that are significant to them. People often act and think in ways to protect themselves from unpleasant information. So, for example, in order to increase his own importance or the importance of his group, a person often resorts to forming a negative attitude towards members of an outgroup (a group of people in relation to which the individual does not feel a sense of identity or belonging; members of such a group are seen by the individual as “not us" or "strangers").
The attitude is able to perform all these functions because it has a complex structure.
In 1942 M. Smith was determined three-component structure attitude, which highlights:
a) cognitive (cognitive) component– found in the form of opinions, statements regarding the installation object; knowledge about the properties, purpose, methods of handling an object;
b) affective (emotional) component– attitude towards an object, expressed in the language of direct experiences and feelings that it evokes; evaluations “like” - “dislike” or ambivalent attitude;
c) behavioral (conative) component– the individual’s readiness to carry out specific activities (behavior) with an object.
The following stand out: kinds social attitudes:
1. Private (partial) installation- arises when an individual in his personal experience deals with a separate object.
2. Generalized (generalized) installation– installation on a set of homogeneous objects.
3. Situational attitude– the willingness to behave in a certain way in relation to the same object in different ways in different situations.
4. Perceptual attitude– willingness to see what a person wants to see.
5. Depending on the modality, settings are divided into:
Positive or positive
Negative or negative
Neutral,
Ambivalent (ready to behave both positively and negatively).
3. Personality and social attitudes.
Personality is a set of socially significant qualities formed through interaction with other people. In sociology, the concept of personality means a stable system of socially significant traits that determine the biosocial nature of a person and characterize the individual as a member of a particular community; it shows the transitions from individual to social and from social structure To interpersonal relationships and individual behavior.
Sociological approaches consist in examining the problem of personality from different points of view, in particular, how human socialization occurs under the influence of society. Sociological concepts of personality unite a number of different theories that recognize the human personality as a specific formation, directly derived from certain social factors.
A social setting (attitude) is a certain state of consciousness, based on previous experience, that regulates a person’s attitude and behavior. The concept was proposed in 1918 by Thomas and Znaniecki. The concept of attitude has been defined as “an individual’s psychological experience of value, meaning, meaning social object", or as "the state of consciousness of an individual regarding some social value."
Attitude functions:
Adaptive (utilitarian, adaptive)– the attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals.
Knowledge function– attitude gives simplified instructions regarding the method of behavior in relation to a specific object.
Function of expression (values, self-regulation)– attitude acts as a means of freeing the subject from internal tension and expressing oneself as an individual.
Protection function– Attitude contributes to the resolution of internal conflicts of the Personality.
Signs of a social attitude:
1) social character objects with which a person’s attitude and behavior are connected;
2) awareness of these relationships and behavior;
3) the emotional component of these relationships and behavior;
4) the regulatory role of social attitudes.
Structure of social attitude:
1) cognitive, containing knowledge, an idea of a social object;
2) affective, reflecting the emotional-evaluative attitude towards the object;
3) behavioral, expressing the potential readiness of the individual to implement certain behavior in relation to the object.
Setting levels:
1) simply settings that regulate behavior at the simplest, mainly everyday level;
2) social attitudes;
3) basic social attitudes, reflecting the individual’s attitude to his main spheres of life (profession, social activities, hobbies, etc.);
4) instrumental function (incorporating the individual into the system of norms and values of a given social environment.
Changing attitudes aims to add knowledge, change attitudes, views. Attitudes are more successfully changed through a change in attitude, which can be achieved through suggestion, persuasion of parents, authority figures, and the media.
Social attitude is a state of psychological readiness of an individual to behave in a certain way, based on past social experience and regulating the social behavior of the individual. (Allport). In Western social psychology, the term “attitude” is used to denote social attitudes.
Social attitude has 3 components:
1. Cognitive, involving rational activity;
2. Affective (emotional assessment of the object, manifestation of feelings of sympathy or antipathy);
3. Conative (behavioral) involves consistent behavior in relation to an object.
1. Instrumental (adaptive, utilitarian) function: expresses adaptive tendencies of human behavior, helps to increase rewards and reduce losses. Attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals. In addition, social attitude helps a person evaluate how other people feel about a social object. Supporting certain social attitudes enables a person to gain approval and be accepted by others, since they are more likely to be attracted to someone who has attitudes similar to their own. Thus, an attitude can contribute to a person’s identification with a group (allows him to interact with people, accepting their attitudes) or leads him to oppose himself to the group (in case of disagreement with the social attitudes of other group members).
2. Self-protective function: a social attitude helps resolve internal conflicts of the individual, protects people from unpleasant information about themselves or about social objects that are significant to them. People often act and think in ways to protect themselves from unpleasant information. For example, in order to increase his own importance or the importance of his group, a person often resorts to forming a negative attitude towards members of the outgroup.
3. Function of expressing values(self-realization function): attitudes give a person the opportunity to express what is important to him and organize his behavior accordingly. By carrying out certain actions in accordance with his attitudes, the individual realizes himself in relation to social objects. This function helps a person to define himself and understand what he is.
4. Knowledge organization function: based on a person’s desire to meaningfully organize the world around him. With the help of attitude, it is possible to evaluate what comes from outside world information and correlating it with a person’s existing motives, goals, values and interests. The installation simplifies the task of learning new information. By performing this function, attitude is included in the process of social cognition.
Types of social attitudes:
1. Social attitude towards an object – the individual’s readiness to behave in a specific way.
2. Situational attitude - the willingness to behave in a certain way in relation to the same object differently in different situations.
3. Perceptual attitude - readiness to see what a person wants to see.
4. Partial or particular attitudes and general or generalized attitudes.
An attitude toward an object is always a private attitude; a perceptual attitude becomes general when a large number of objects become objects of social attitudes. The process from particular to general proceeds as it increases.
A person, being a subject of communication in a group, occupying a certain position in the social environment, shows an evaluative, selective attitude towards the people that surround him.
She compares, evaluates, compares and selects individuals for interaction and communication, taking into account the capabilities of a particular group, her own needs, interests, attitudes, experience, which together constitute a specific situation of a person’s life, appearing as a socio-psychological stereotype of her behavior.
The essence of a social attitude
Features of an individual's response to environment and the situations in which he finds himself are associated with the action of phenomena that are denoted by the concepts of “attitude,” “attitude,” “social attitude,” and so on.
The personality’s attitude indicates its readiness to act in a certain way, which determines the speed of its response to the situation and some illusions of perception.
Attitude is a holistic state of the individual, a readiness developed on the basis of experience to firmly respond to perceived objects or situations, selective activity aimed at satisfying a need.
Traditionally, attitude is viewed as readiness for a certain activity. This readiness is determined by the interaction of a specific need with the situation, its pleasure. Accordingly, attitudes are divided into actual (undifferentiated) and fixed (differentiated, produced as a result of repeated exposure to the situation, that is, based on experience).
An important form of attitude is social attitude.
Attitude (English attitude - attitude, attitude) - the internal state of a person’s readiness for action, precedes behavior.
Attitude is formed on the basis of preliminary socio-psychological experience, unfolds at conscious and unconscious levels and regulates (directs, controls) the behavior of the individual. Vel predetermines stable, consistent, purposeful behavior in situations that change, and also frees the subject from the need to make decisions and voluntarily control behavior in standard situations; it can be a factor that causes inertia in action and inhibits adaptation to new situations that require changes in the behavior program .
American sociologists William Isaac Thomas and Florian-Witold Znaniecki turned to the study of this problem in 1918, who considered attitude as a phenomenon of social psychology. They interpreted the social attitude as a certain mental condition an individual's experience of the value, meaning, or meaning of a social object. The content of such an experience is predetermined by external, that is, localized in society, objects.
Social attitude - determined by past experience psychological readiness the individual to certain behavior in relation to specific objects, to the development of his subjective orientations as a member of a group (society) regarding social values, objects, and the like.
Such orientations determine socially acceptable ways of behavior of an individual. Social attitude is an element of the personality structure and at the same time an element of the social structure. From the point of view of social psychology, it is a factor capable of overcoming the dualism of the social and the individual, considering socio-psychological reality in its integrity.
Its most important functions are anticipatory and regulatory (readiness for action, a prerequisite for action).
According to G. Allport, an attitude is an individual’s psycho-nervous readiness to react to all objects and situations with which he is associated. Producing a directing and dynamic influence on behavior, it is always dependent on past experience. Allport's idea of a social attitude as an individual formation differs significantly from V.-A.'s interpretation of it. Thomas and F.-W. Znnetsky, who considered this phenomenon close to collective ideas.
Important signs of an attitude are the intensity of affect (positive or negative) - the attitude towards the psychological object, its latency, accessibility for direct observation. It is measured on the basis of verbal self-reports of respondents, which are a generalized assessment of the individual’s own feeling of inclination or disinclination towards a specific object. So, attitude is a measure of the sensation caused by a specific object ("for" or "against"). The scales of attitudes of the American psychologist Louis Thurstone (1887-1955) were built on this principle, which is a bipolar continuum (set) with poles: “very good” - “very bad”, “completely agree” - “disagree” and the like.
The structure of the attitude is formed by cognitive (cognitive), affective (emotional) and conative (behavioral) components (Fig. 5). This gives grounds to consider a social attitude simultaneously as the subject’s knowledge about an object and as an emotional assessment and program of action regarding a specific object. Many scientists see a contradiction between affective and its other components - cognitive and behavioral, arguing that the cognitive component (knowledge about an object) includes a certain assessment of the object as useful
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or harmful, good or bad, and conative - includes an assessment of the action in relation to the subject of the attitude. IN real life It is very difficult to separate the cognitive and conative components from the affective one.
This contradiction was clarified during the study of the so-called “G. Lapierre paradox” - the problem of the relationship between attitudes and real behavior, which proved the groundlessness of statements about their coincidence.
In the second half of the 20th century. individual psychological and socio-psychological lines emerged in the understanding of social attitudes. Within the framework of the first, behavioral and cognitive studies are developed, the second is associated primarily with the interactionist orientation and is focused on the study of socio-psychological mechanisms and factors regulating the process of emergence and change in the social attitudes of the individual.
The understanding of social attitudes by interactionist psychologists was influenced by the position of the American psychologist George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) on the symbolic mediation of interaction between a person and the world around him. In accordance with it, an individual who has symbolic means at his disposal (primarily language), explains external influences for himself and then interacts with the situation in its symbolically-interpreted quality. Accordingly, social attitudes are considered as certain mental formations that arise on the basis of assimilation of the attitudes of others, reference groups and individuals. Structurally, they are elements of a person’s “I-concept”, defined definitions of socially desirable behavior. This gives grounds to interpret them as a conscious type of behavior fixed in a symbolic form, which is given an advantage. The basis of social attitudes is the consent of the subject to consider certain objects and situations through the prism of social norms and values.
Other approaches interpreted a social attitude as a stable system of views and ideas associated with the individual’s need to maintain or break relationships with other people. its stability is ensured either by external control, which manifests itself in the need to obey others, or by the process of identification with the environment, or by its important personal meaning for the individual. This understanding only partially took into account the social, since the analysis of the attitude unfolded not from society, but from the individual. In addition, the emphasis on the cognitive component of the attitude structure leaves out of sight its objective aspect - value (value attitude). This fundamentally contradicts the statement of V.-A. Thomas and F.-W. Znavetsky about value as an objective aspect of an attitude, respectively, about the attitude itself as an individual (subjective) aspect of value.
Of all the components of an attitude, the leading role in the regulatory function is played by the value (emotional, subjective) component, which permeates the cognitive and behavioral components. The concept of " social position personality", which unites these components. Value orientation is the basis for the emergence of a position, as a component of the personality structure, it forms a certain axis of consciousness around which a person’s thoughts and feelings revolve, and taking into account which many life issues are resolved. The property of value orientation to be an attitude (system attitudes) is implemented at the level of the individual’s position, when the value approach is perceived as attitudinal, and the constituent approach as value-based. In this sense, the position is a system of value orientations and attitudes that reflect the active selective relationships of the individual.
Even more integral than the attitude, the equivalent of the dynamic structure of the personality is the mental disposition of the individual, which includes objectively oriented and nonobjective mental states. Like value orientation, it precedes the emergence of a position. The condition for the emergence of a person’s position and its evaluative attitude and a certain mental state (mood), which provides positions of different emotional tones - from deep pessimism, depression to life-affirming optimism and enthusiasm.
The constituent-positional, dispositional approach to personality structure interprets disposition as a complex of inclinations, readiness for a certain perception of the conditions of activity and for a certain behavior in these conditions (V. Yadov). In this understanding, it is very close to the concept of “installation”. According to this concept, personality disposition is hierarchical organized system with several levels (Fig. 6):
Elementary fixed attitudes without modality (experiences for or against) and cognitive components;
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Social fixed attitudes (attitudes);
Basic social attitudes, or the general orientation of an individual’s interests towards a specific area of social activity;
A system of orientations towards the goals of life and the means of achieving these goals.
This hierarchical system is the result of previous experience and influence social conditions. In it, the highest levels carry out general self-regulation of behavior, the lower ones are relatively independent, they ensure the adaptation of the individual to changing conditions. The dispositional concept is an attempt to establish the relationship between dispositions, needs and situations, which also form hierarchical systems.
Depending on what objective factor of activity the attitude is directed at, three levels of behavior regulation are distinguished: semantic, target and operational attitudes. Semantic attitudes contain informational (a person’s worldview), emotional (likes, dislikes in relation to another object), and regulatory (readiness to act) components. They help to perceive the system of norms and values in the group, maintain the integrity of the individual’s behavior in situations of conflict, determine the individual’s line of behavior, and the like. Target attitudes are determined by goals and determine the sustainability of a certain human action. In the process of solving specific problems based on taking into account the conditions of the situation and predicting their development, operational attitudes appear that manifest themselves in stereotypical thinking, conformal behavior of the individual, and the like.
Consequently, a social attitude is a stable, fixed, rigid (inflexible) formation of a person, which stabilizes the direction of his activity, behavior, ideas about himself and the world. According to some statements, they form the structure of the personality, according to others, they only occupy specific place among the qualitative levels of the personal hierarchy.
Formation social attitudes Personality answers the question: how is the acquired social experience refracted by the Personality and specifically manifests itself in its actions and actions?
The concept that to a certain extent explains the choice of motive is the concept of social attitude.
There is a concept of installation and attitude - social attitude.
The attitude is considered generally psychologically - the readiness of consciousness for a certain reaction, an unconscious phenomenon (Uznadze).
Attitude in the twentieth century (1918) proposed Thomas And Znaniecki. A person’s psychological experience of values, meaning, meaning of social objects. The ability to make a general assessment of the world around us.
The tradition of studying social attitudes has developed in Western social psychology and sociology. In Western social psychology, the term “attitude” is used to denote social attitudes.
Concept of attitude was defined as " an individual’s psychological experience of the value, significance, meaning of a social object", or how " state of consciousness of an individual regarding some social value».
Attitude understood by everyone as:
A certain state of consciousness and NS;
Expressing readiness to react;
Organized;
Based on previous experience;
Having a guiding and dynamic influence on behavior.
Thus, the dependence of attitude on previous experience and its important regulatory role in behavior were established.
Attitude functions:
Adaptive(utilitarian, adaptive) – the attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals.
Knowledge function– attitude gives simplified instructions regarding the method of behavior in relation to a specific object.
Expression function(values, self-regulation) – attitude acts as a means of freeing the subject from internal tension and expressing oneself as an individual.
Protection function– the attitude contributes to the resolution of internal conflicts of the Personality.
Through the assimilation of attitudes occurs socialization.
Highlight:
Basic– belief system (core of Personality). Formed in childhood, systematized in adolescence, and ends at 20–30 years, and then does not change and performs a regulatory function.
Peripheral– situational, can change depending on the social situation.
Installation system is a system basic And peripheral installations. It is individual for each person.
In 1942 M. Smith was determined three-component installation structure:
Cognitive component– awareness of the object of the social attitude (what the attitude is aimed at).
Emotional. component(affective) – assessment of the object of the attitude at the level of sympathy and antipathy.
Behavioral component– sequence of behavior in relation to the installation object.
If these components are coordinated with each other, then the installation will perform a regulatory function.
And in case of mismatch of the installation system, a person behaves differently, the installation will not perform a regulatory function.
Types of social attitudes:
1. Social attitude towards an object – the individual’s readiness to behave in a specific way. 2. Situational attitude - the willingness to behave in a certain way in relation to the same object differently in different situations. 3. Perceptual attitude - readiness to see what a person wants to see.4. Partial or particular attitudes and general or generalized attitudes. An attitude toward an object is always a private attitude; a perceptual attitude becomes general when a large number of objects become objects of social attitudes. The process from particular to general proceeds as it increases. Types of attitudes according to their modality: 1. positive or positive,
2.negative or negative,
3.neutral,
4.ambivalent social attitudes (ready to behave both positively and negatively) – marital relationships, managerial relationships.
One of the main problems that arises when studying social attitudes is the problem of changing them. Ordinary observations show that any of the dispositions possessed by a particular subject can change. The degree of their changeability and mobility depends, naturally, on the level of a particular disposition: the more complex the social object in relation to which a person has a certain disposition, the more stable it is. If we take the attitudes as relatively low (compared to value orientations, for example) the level of dispositions, then it becomes clear that the problem of changing them is especially relevant. Even if social psychology learns to recognize in which case a person will demonstrate a discrepancy between attitude and real behavior, and in which - not, the forecast of this real behavior will also depend on whether the attitude towards one or another changes or not during the period of time of interest to us. an object. If the attitude changes, behavior cannot be predicted until the direction in which the attitude change will occur is known. The study of factors that determine changes in social attitudes turns into a fundamentally important task for social psychology (Magun, 1983).
Many different models have been put forward to explain the process of changing social attitudes. These explanatory models are constructed in accordance with the principles that are applied in a particular study. Since most studies of attitudes are carried out in line with two main theoretical orientations - behaviorist and cognitivist, explanations based on the principles of these two directions have become most widespread.
In behaviorist-oriented social psychology (the study of social attitudes by K. Hovland), the principle of learning is used as an explanatory principle for understanding the fact of changes in attitudes: a person’s attitudes change depending on how the reinforcement of a particular social attitude is organized. By changing the system of rewards and punishments, you can influence the nature of the social setting and change it.
However, if the attitude is formed on the basis of the previous life experience, social in its content, then change is also possible only if<включения> social factors. Reinforcement in the behaviorist tradition is not associated with these types of factors. The subordination of the social attitude itself is more high levels dispositions once again substantiates the need, when studying the problem of changing attitude, to turn to the entire system of social factors, and not just to the immediate<подкреплению>.
In the cognitivist tradition, an explanation for changes in social attitudes is given in terms of the so-called correspondence theories: F. Heider, T. Newcomb, L. Festinger, C. Osgood, P. Tannenbaum (Andreeva, Bogomolova, Petrovskaya, 1978). This means that a change in attitude always occurs when a discrepancy arises in the individual’s cognitive structure, for example, when a negative attitude on any object and a positive attitude towards a person who gives this object a positive characteristic. Inconsistencies can arise for various other reasons. It is important that the stimulus for changing attitude is the individual’s need to restore cognitive compliance, i.e. orderly,<однозначного>perception of the outside world. When such an explanatory model is adopted, all social determinants of changes in social attitudes are eliminated, so key questions again remain unresolved.
In order to find an adequate approach to the problem of changing social attitudes, it is necessary to very clearly imagine the specific socio-psychological content of this concept, which lies in the fact that this phenomenon due to<как фактом его функционирования в социальной системе, так и свойством регуляции поведения человека как существа, способного к активной, сознательной, преобразующей производственной деятельности, включенного в сложное переплетение связей с другими людьми>(Shikhirev, 1976. P. 282). Therefore, in contrast to the sociological description of changes in social attitudes, it is not enough to identify only the totality social change, preceding and explaining changes in attitudes. At the same time, in contrast to the general psychological approach, it is also not enough to analyze only changed conditions<встречи>needs with the situation of its satisfaction.
Changes in social attitudes should be analyzed both from the point of view of the content of objective social changes affecting a given level of dispositions, and from the point of view of changes active position personalities caused not just<в ответ>on the situation, but due to circumstances generated by the development of the personality itself. The stated requirements of the analysis can be fulfilled under one condition: when considering the installation in the context of the activity. If a social attitude arises in certain area human activity, then you can understand its change by analyzing changes in the activity itself. Among them, in this case, the most important is the change in the relationship between the motive and the purpose of the activity, because only in this case does the personal meaning of the activity change for the subject, and therefore the social attitude (Asmolov, 1979). This approach allows us to build a forecast of changes in social attitudes in accordance with the change in the ratio of the motive and purpose of the activity, the nature of the goal-setting process.
This perspective requires solving a whole series of issues related to the problem of social attitudes interpreted in the context of activity. Only the solution of the entire set of these problems, a combination of sociological and general psychological approaches, will allow us to answer the question posed at the beginning of the chapter: what is the role of social attitudes in the choice of motive for behavior.
38. Stages of formation of social attitudes according to J. Godefroy:
1) up to 12 years of age, the attitudes developing during this period correspond to the parent models;
2) from 12 to 20 years of age, attitudes take on a more specific form, which is associated with the assimilation social roles;
3) from 20 to 30 years - the crystallization of social attitudes occurs, the formation on their basis of a system of beliefs, which is a very stable mental new formation;
4) from 30 years - installations are characterized by significant stability, fixity, and are difficult to change.
Changing attitudes aims to add knowledge, change attitudes, views. It depends on the novelty of the information, the individual characteristics of the subject, the order in which information is received and the system of attitudes that the subject already has. Attitudes are more successfully changed through a change in attitude, which can be achieved through suggestion, persuasion of parents, authority figures, and the media.
Cognitive scientists believe that changes in attitudes are influenced by the appearance of inconsistencies in an individual’s cognitive structure. Behaviorists are of the opinion that changes in attitudes depend on reinforcement.
Social attitude is a person's predisposition to perceive something in a certain way and act in one way or another. An attitude encourages a person to perform a certain activity. If the process of socialization explains how a person assimilates social experience and at the same time actively reproduces it, then the formation of a person’s social attitudes answers the question: how the learned social experience is refracted by the person and specifically manifests itself in his actions and actions.
D. Uznadze defined the attitude as a holistic dynamic state of readiness for a certain activity. This state is determined by the factors of the subject’s needs and the corresponding objective situation. The attitude towards behavior to satisfy a given need and in a given situation can be reinforced if the situation is repeated. D. Uznadze believed that attitudes underlie a person’s selective activity, and therefore are an indicator possible directions activities. Knowing a person's social attitudes, one can predict his actions.
At the everyday level, the concept of social attitude is used in a meaning close to the concept of “attitude”. V. N. Myasishchev in his concept of human relations notes that a relationship is understood “as a system of temporary connections of a person as a personality-subject with all of reality or with its individual aspects,” the relationship determines the direction of the individual’s future behavior. L. I. Bozhovich in the study of personality formation in childhood established that orientation develops as the internal position of the individual in relation to the social environment, to individual objects of the social environment. Although these positions may be different in relation to diverse situations and objects, they can capture some general trend, which dominates, as a result it is possible to predict the behavior of an individual in previously unknown situations in relation to previously unknown objects. Personality orientation is a predisposition to act in a certain way, covering the entire sphere of its life activity. The concept of “personality orientation” appears to be of the same order with the concept of social attitude. In activity theory, a social attitude is interpreted as a personal meaning “generated by the relationship between motive and goal” (A. G. Asmolov, A. B. Kovalchuk).
In Western social psychology, the term is used to denote social attitudes "attitude". For the first time in 1918 W. Thomas And F. Znaniecki introduced the concept of attitude into socio-psychological terminology, which was defined as " an individual’s psychological experience of the value, meaning, meaning of a social object,” or as a state of consciousness of an individual, a regulating attitude and normative (exemplary) behavior of a person in relation to a certain social object, which causes a person’s psychological experience of social value, the meaning of this social object. Individuals, groups, social norms, social phenomena, organizations, social institutions(law, economics, marriage, politics), countries, etc. Attitude was understood as a certain state of consciousness and nervous system, expressing readiness to react, organized on the basis of previous experience, exerting a guiding and dynamic influence on behavior. Thus, the dependence of attitude on previous experience and its important regulatory role in behavior were established. Attitudes represent a latent (hidden) attitude towards social situations and objects, characterized by modality (therefore they can be judged by a set of statements). Four were identified attitude functions.
- 1) adaptive(utilitarian, adaptive) – the attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals;
- 2) knowledge function– attitude gives simplified instructions regarding the method of behavior in relation to a specific object;
- 3) expression function (function of value, self-regulation)– attitude acts as a means of freeing the subject from internal tension, expressing oneself as an individual;
- 4) protection function– attitude contributes to the resolution of internal conflicts of the individual.
In 1942 M. Smith a three-component structure of the attitude was defined, which distinguishes:
- – cognitive component(awareness of the object of social installation);
- – affective component(emotional assessment of an object, a feeling of sympathy or antipathy towards it);
- – behavioral (conative) component(habitual behavior towards the object).
Social attitude was defined as awareness, assessment, readiness to act. Settings are formed:
- a) under the influence of other people (parents, media) and “crystallize” between the ages of 20 and 30, and then change with difficulty;
- b) based on personal experience in repeated situations.
Settings – these are beliefs or feelings that can influence our reactions. If we are convinced that a certain person threatens us, we can feel towards him dislike and therefore act unfriendly. But dozens of studies conducted in the 1960s showed that what people think and feel often has very little to do with their actual behavior. In particular, it was found that students’ attitude towards cheat sheets is very weakly related to how often they use them. Experiments R. Lapiera showed that attitudes (a person’s attitude towards some object) may not coincide or contradict a person’s actual behavior. M. Rokeach expressed the idea that a person has two attitudes simultaneously: towards the object and towards the situation. Either one or another attitude can “turn on”. In different situations, either the cognitive or the affective components of the attitude may manifest themselves, and the result of human behavior will therefore be different (D. Katz And E. Stotland). Subsequent studies in the 1970s and 80s found that our settings really influence our actions under the following conditions: When other influences, external influences our words and actions are minimal when attitude is specifically related to specific actions and When it becomes potentially active because it is brought to our consciousness. In such cases we we will hold fast to what we believe in.
The attitude regulates activity at three hierarchical levels: semantic, target and operational. At the semantic level, attitudes determine the individual’s attitude towards objects that have personal significance for a person. Goals determine the relatively stable nature of the activity and are associated with specific actions and a person’s desire to complete the work he has started. If the action is interrupted, then the motivational tension still remains, providing the person with the appropriate readiness to continue it. The effect of unfinished action was discovered by K. Levin and thoroughly studied by V. Zeigarnik. At the operational level, an attitude determines decision-making in a specific situation, promotes the perception and interpretation of circumstances based on past experience of a person’s behavior in a similar situation and predicting the possibilities of adequate and effective behavior.
