The behavior of attitudes.

Abstract

There is no question that the subject of attitude and attitude measurements is important in sociology and social psychology. Social scientists continue to discuss the nature of attitudes in articles like this, to conduct experiments which show that behavior is affected by attitude, and to measure attitudes for theoretical or practical purposes. The problem of what an attitude is and how it functions, nevertheless, persists andas many writers on attitudes likewise point out in their introductory paragraph-little explicit agreement is apparent in the published literature.The purpose of this paper is not to criticize other definitions or usages of the term but systematically, if partially, to relate the concept of attitude to what is known as behavior theory (17). 1 Almost all writers, no matter what their bias, agree that attitudes are learned. If this is so, then the learning, retention, and decline of an attitude are no different from the learning of a skill, a piece of prose, or a set of nonsense syllables; and they must also involve the problems of perception and motivation.Immediately it is necessary to raise and answer the question as to why a simple, commonsense, ubiquitous concept like attitude should be translated into semi-technical jargon. There are at least two answers to the question. The first and less important answer involves scientific methodology: it is 1 The writer is deeply grateful especially to Neal E. Miller as well as to Irvin L. Child, John Dollard, and Mark A. May for their constructive criticisms He has promiscuously and deliberately borrowed some of their ideas and, as an insignificant token of his gratitude, herewith absolves them of any responsibility for the final product.

Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes.

“…The authoritarian personality concept (Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950) extended the psychoanalytic approach to include social phenomena of prejudice and stereotyping. At a time when the influence of psychoanalytic theory in academic psychology was declining, its conceptions of unconscious phenomena that related to implicit social cognition were being imported into behavior theory (Dollard & Miller, 1950;Doob, 1947;Osgood, 1957). The New Look in Perception of the 1950s focused on several phenomena that are interpretable as implicit social cognition.…”

“…Standing starkly in the above list as suggesting unconscious operation is Doob's (1947) definition, which labels attitude as an "implicit, drive-producing response." In spite of Doob's association with a behaviorist theory (Hull, 1943) that had no use for conceptions of either conscious or unconscious cognition, it is clear that Doob did conceive attitude as operating unconsciously (May & Doob, 1937, p. 13).…”

“…2 Relation to stimulus-response theory. To those familiar with behavior theory of 30-50 years ago, the debt of this definition both to Doob's (1947) analysis of attitude as an implicit response and to subsequent mediationist stimulus-response theories will be obvious. The earliest mediationist stimulus-response formulations (mature statements of which appear in Hull, 1952;Spence, 1956) had proposed the existence of covert stimulus-producing responses (called "fractional anticipatory goal responses") as a means of explaining findings achieved within Tolman's (e.g., 1959) cognitive approach to learning theory.…”

Impact of Mobile advertising on consumer attitudes in Algeria: case study of Ooredoo

“…Attitude is a key factor in the study of consumer behavior because it is one of the main elements that influence consumer behavior as well as purchase intention. Since the 20s, researchers have been interested in the concept of attitude that was thought off as the basis of all behavior (Allport, 1935;Campbell, 1963;Doob, 1947). Allport (1935) defines it as "a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive and dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related".…”

An examination of the effects of personality and job satisfaction on multiple non-workrole organizational behaviors

“…That is, correspondence between measures of general attitudes and general behaviors. This is a basic idea firom attimde theory that was originally offered by Thurstone (1931) and reiterated by Doob (1947) several years later. By focusing exclusively on specific attitudes and specific behaviors, the tenet of correspondence was not being fully utilized.…”