Attitude and Social Cognition
An attitude is an evaluation of an object, person, or issue, with affective, behavioural, and cognitive components (ABC). This domain tests attitude formation and change, social thinking, prejudice, and prosocial behaviour.
Attitudes and change
Attitudes form through direct experience, conditioning, observational learning, and social comparison. They change through persuasion (source credibility, message framing, audience involvement), cognitive dissonance (Festinger), and the elaboration likelihood model (central versus peripheral routes).
Social cognition
Schemas organise social information; heuristics (availability, representativeness) simplify judgement. Attribution explains behaviour as internal or external; the fundamental attribution error overweights disposition, and the self-serving bias favours the self.
Prejudice and prosocial behaviour
Stereotype is cognitive, prejudice affective, and discrimination behavioural. Causes include social learning, realistic conflict, scapegoating, and in-group/out-group bias. Prosocial behaviour is helping; the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility reduce helping when others are present (Darley and Latané).
Worked example
In a crowded street, a person collapses and no one helps. The likely mechanism is diffusion of responsibility: each bystander assumes someone else will act. A clear instruction such as “You in the blue shirt, call an ambulance” reduces this ambiguity.
Traps
Attitudes do not always predict behaviour; prejudice is not the same as discrimination; helping is not purely altruistic.