Attitude and Social Cognition
Attitude and Social Cognition
This domain tests how people evaluate objects and make sense of social information. Expect attitude components and change, persuasion, cognitive dissonance, schemas, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination, attribution and impression formation.
Core rules
- An attitude is an evaluative tendency with cognitive, affective and behavioural components; it is not the same as behaviour.
- Attitudes form through direct experience, learning, reference groups and media; persuasion depends on source credibility, message framing and audience characteristics.
- Cognitive dissonance arises when cognitions conflict; people reduce it by changing a cognition, adding supporting beliefs, or changing behaviour.
- Social cognition uses schemas to organise information; stereotypes are generalised beliefs about groups, prejudice is negative evaluation, and discrimination is unequal treatment.
- Attribution explains behaviour as internal or external; the fundamental attribution error overestimates disposition and underestimates situation.
- Impressions are shaped by primacy, recency, central traits and expectations.
Worked example
A smoker knows smoking harms health, enjoys smoking and continues. The conflict is cognitive dissonance. To reduce it, the person might change the cognition ('the evidence is exaggerated'), add a consonant belief ('I exercise, so I am safe'), or change behaviour (quit). Reasoning requires identifying the conflicting cognitions and the direction of the adjustment, not merely calling the person hypocritical.
Traps that cost marks
- Using stereotype, prejudice and discrimination interchangeably.
- Assuming attitudes always predict behaviour; specificity and social norms matter.
- Reversing the fundamental attribution error.
- Treating prejudice as only explicit; implicit bias also exists.