Attitude and Social Cognition
This domain covers how attitudes form and change, how we judge other people, and where prejudice comes from. Questions often ask you to label a bias in a short scenario.
Attitude
An attitude is an evaluation of a person, object or issue with affective, behavioural and cognitive components. Attitudes form through conditioning, observational learning, group membership and direct experience, and they guide behaviour - though the link weakens under strong situational pressure.
Attitude change
Persuasion depends on the source (credibility, attractiveness), the message (fear appeal, one- versus two-sided argument) and the audience. Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory: holding two inconsistent cognitions produces discomfort, reduced by changing the attitude, changing the behaviour or adding consonant cognitions. In forced-compliance studies, small rewards produced larger attitude change.
Social cognition
Schemas organise social knowledge. Impression formation is affected by primacy and recency effects, the halo effect and stereotypes. Attribution is internal (dispositional) or external (situational). The fundamental attribution error over-weights disposition when explaining others; the actor-observer bias applies it to others but not the self; the self-serving bias credits success to the self and failure to circumstances.
Prejudice and prosocial behaviour
Prejudice is a negative attitude towards a group; a stereotype is its cognitive component; discrimination is the behaviour. Prosocial behaviour is helping; the bystander effect and diffusion of responsibility explain why help becomes less likely as witnesses increase.
Worked example
A student who has never met a rural classmate says, "Village students can't handle computers." Reasoning: the belief about a group's traits is a stereotype, the negative evaluation accompanying it is prejudice, and refusing the classmate a partner role would be discrimination.
Traps
Prejudice, stereotype and discrimination are not interchangeable. The fundamental attribution error concerns others, not the self. Dissonance reduction can work by changing either attitude or behaviour.