Rohall 3e ppt ch09

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Social PsychologySociological Perspectives

THIRD EDITIONRohall, Milkie, Lucas

Chapter Nine

Social Attitudes


The Social Psychological Study of Attitudes

• Attitudes are the positive or negative evaluations of an object, a person or group, or an idea

• Sociologists examine how our position in society affects attitude formation

• The social psychological study of attitudes seeks to explain how social forces affect individuals’ attitudes and how these attitudes, in turn, relate to behavior


The Social Psychological Study of Attitudes

• We will address the following questions:– What is the nature of an attitude? How do

researchers study attitudes and behaviors?– How do people construct attitudes?– How do attitudes vary across social groups? Do

attitudes change over time?– How do attitudes toward other people form in group

contexts?


SI: The Social Construction of Attitudes

• The interactionist perspective views attitudes like any other aspect of social life: – They are continually being constructed based on our

interactions with other people

• Contemporary research suggests that direct experience with specific people or objects may have as strong or stronger effect on our attitude development than our preexisting values and beliefs


SI: Dimensions of Attitudes

• Attitudes have multiple dimensions and they relate to other important concepts:

– Values and beliefs refer to strongly held, relatively stable sets

of attitudes

– The cognitive or “thinking” aspect of an attitude is formally

called an opinion

– It is also possible to have a non-attitude toward an object,

when you do not care either way about an object

• Together, these concepts show the challenges of assessing what people really think and feel about the world



Figure 9.1 Percentage of Blacks, Whites and Those in Other Racial Groups Who Feel “Very Warm” Toward Blacks and “Very Warm” Toward Whites.


SI: Linking Attitudes and Behavior

• One of the reasons people study attitudes is to predict people’s behaviors

• The relationship between our attitudes and behavior is typically small

– The small relationship between attitudes and behavior may reflect poor measurement of attitudes and/or behaviors

• People also have agency, the ability to act differently than they think and feel in a situation




SI: Prejudicial Attitudes and Behavior

• One major application of symbolic interaction to the study of attitudes and behaviors is the understanding of prejudice

• W.E.B. Du Bois made very frank observations of the poor relationships between African Americans and whites

• His observations led many scholars to study the causes of prejudicial attitudes and behaviors


SI: Conscious and Unconscious Racism

• Despite the fact that most people do not consider themselves racist, racism still exists in society and can take on many forms– Conscious racism can be measured by asking

people if they dislike a particular group– Unconscious racism includes the ways in which we

may be biased against a group without being aware of it

– Institutional racism occurs when minority groups lack the same access to services or opportunities afforded other group members


SI: The Study of Social Distance

• Social distance refers to how close we feel to other people

• The strength of attitudes toward people in other groups may reflect our prejudices toward people in those groups

• Findings from years of research using Emory Borgardus’ (1882–1973) (1958) social distance scale show that respondents felt “closest” to “Canadians,” “Americans,” and “English” and most distant to Asians and blacks



SI: LaPiere’s Study of Prejudice

• Richard T. LaPiere (1934) studied the relationships of prejudicial attitudes and behavior

• He spent two years traveling extensively with a Chinese couple in the United States, staying at various hotels and eating at local restaurants

• He sent a survey to establishments asking them, “Will you accept members of the Chinese race as guests in your establishment?” followed by a visit by Chinese guests


SI: Findings from LaPiere’s Study

• LaPiere found that almost all hotel owners or operators indicated that they would not provide service to a Chinese person

• Of the 251 hotel and restaurant visits, only one hotel refused service

• According to LaPiere, attitudes exist as symbolic representations in the mind of an individual; what individuals do with those representations is highly dependent on social conditions



SI: Subtle Sexism

• Conscious and unconscious prejudices toward someone’s race, class, and gender can exist for any group of people

• Subtle sexism refers to the unequal treatment of women that goes unnoticed– Pervasive use of the term “he” in texts is an example

of unconscious gender bias– Sexist cultural beliefs can also affect men’s and

women’s career aspirations


SI: Blumer’s Theory of Group Position

• According to Blumer’s theory of group position, prejudicial attitudes reflect a group’s relative position in society

• Among the dominant group, themes of group superiority (toward oneself) and inferiority (toward the minority group) help to sustain one’s higher status in society

• These two factors influence the development of the feeling of entitlement among the dominant group, believing they deserve their position, and fear of the lower-status group


SI: Changing Prejudicial Attitudes

• One technique for improving relationships between groups is the social contact hypothesis– Members of each group must have equal status, such as

similar age or educational level.

– They must have some kind of shared goal to complete together, something that they can accomplish as a team.

– There must be interaction among group members.

– There must be some authority supporting and guiding the process


SI: Prosocial Attitudes and Behaviors

• A number of psychologists and sociologists are also dedicated to the study of positive attitudes and behaviors– Prosocial behavior includes any behavior that benefits

another person

– Altruism refers to the motivation to help another person

• Prosocial behavior starts when children are able to take the role of the other and have some moral reasoning


SSP: Social Structure, Attitudes,and Behavior

• From a structural point of view, our attitudes reflect our position in society

• Our attitudes vary based on our social status (i.e., race, class, and gender)

• Our attitudes are also affected by agents of socialization


SSP: Attitudes and Agents of Socialization

• Individuals rely on their primary agents of socialization for initial sets of values and beliefs that govern attitude processes

• Families transmit attitudes in at least two ways:– Families generally produce offspring of similar status

in society and status is associated with attitudes – Second, families may simply socialize or teach their

children their values and beliefs


Figure 9.2 Passing on Values and Attitudes.


SSP: Gender, Attitudes, and Behavior

• Americans generally report being moderate to conservative but attitudes can vary tremendously by social status and location:– Westerners and women reporting to be more liberal than

Southerners and men

– Married people tend to be more conservative than singles

– More non-whites identify themselves as liberal than whites in the U.S.


SSP: Gendered Attitudes

• Behavioral differences between men and women are quite clear

• Men and women continue to spend different amounts of time with their children– Women’s time in child care has remained consistent

despite the increases in time spent in the paid labor force over the last century

• Women tend to be less supportive on the use of force or violence in a variety of situations

• These findings show that women are adopting men’s role behaviors at a faster pace than the converse


SSP: Race, Ethnicity, and Attitudes

• Racial or ethnic statuses also influence attitudes– African Americans tend to be more supportive of public

– Whites were most likely to attribute inequality between groups to a lack of motivation or willpower policies related to civil rights

• These differences in values and beliefs among racial groups may reflect structural positions of African Americans in U.S. society who share a history of discrimination and lack of entitlements


Social Context of Attitude

• Because people have multiple statuses, understanding attitudes requires exampling people’s multiple characteristics and social contexts– Ex: both men and whites in the U.S. have generally

supported the sue of the death penalty more than women.

• One way to study the relationships is to examine multiple affiliations at the same time.


Figure 9.3 Percentage Favoring the Death Penalty by Gender and Race.


Sociological Model of Attitudes and Identity

• Individuals can incorporate values into their identities which helps explain how they develop attitudes and behaviors in different situations

• Situational factors may affect how we think and behave

• Identities help us make decisions in complex situations involving differing attitudinal and behavior choices.

• People are motivated to keep their attitudes and behaviors aligned to their values



SSP: Attitudes Across the Life Course

• Social structure and personality researchers study cohort replacement by comparing attitudes toward social issues based on the birth cohort, or generation, to which people belong

• Americans’ attitudes toward social issues have changed in a number of ways over the years

• Generations should develop different attitudes based on their different social interactions and experiences over time


Attitude Stability and Change

• Historical experiences, such as the Great Depression, can affect some groups of people and not others

• Many social changes that occurred in the U.S. have occurred unevenly across groups


GP: Group Processes and Attitudes

• Group processes work shows that interactions in groups affect attitudes toward people inside and outside of the group

• Ridgeway and Balkwell (1997) combined elements of the symbolic interactionist and group processes perspectives in the development of status construction theory


GP: Status Construction Theory

• Status construction theory posits that individuals develop status value in face-to-face interactions in groups

• This theory asserts that attitudes about individuals in groups form as a result of both direct experience in the group and larger cultural information contained in the status of the individuals– If members of different social groups interact in ways

that advantage one group over another then people will begin to develop beliefs linking higher status to persons advantaged by the interactions


GP: Research in Status Construction Theory

• After a series of activities between these groups, Ridgeway and colleagues (1998) found that individuals in both the low- and high-resource groups developed positive biases toward the high-resource group

• The researchers posit that lower-status members give their positive attitudes toward dominant groups in exchange for the dominate groups’ agreement to provide support in some way



GP: Social Identity Theory and Attitudes

• According to social identity theory, we categorize people into in-groups and out-groups, people we identify with and people we do not identity with

• Group bonds can impact attitudes toward members

of in- and out-group members

• The effects of group status can exist above and beyond interaction processes


GP: Linking Social Identity and Attitude Formation

• In one application of social identity theory and attitudes, Willer (2004) found that government-issued terror warnings led to increases in approval ratings for the U.S. president

• These findings are attributed to the tendency to view members of our in-group more positively when the group is threatened


Chapter 9: Bringing It All Together

• This chapter emphasized the study of attitudes and behavior

• Symbolic interactionists study the nature and construction of attitudes

• The social structure and personality perspective emphasizes the effects of our social positions on attitudes and behavior

• Group processes perspective shows that beliefs about others are informed by our position in a group and group membership