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NIOS Class 10 Psychology Chapter 15 Attitudes, Beliefs and Social Cognition
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Attitudes, Beliefs and Social Cognition
Chapter: 15
TEXTBOOK QUESTIONS ANSWERS
INTEXT QUESTIONS 15.1
State whether statements are true or false:
Q.1. Attitudes are positive evaluations of a person or an object.
Ans: False.
Q.2. Emotions expressed about an attitude object refers to the affective component of an attitude.
Ans: True.
Q.3. Attitudes are held for a short period of time.
Ans: False.
Q.4. Attitudes provide us with a sense of self.
Ans: True.
Q.5. Holding specific attitudes helps us to gain approval from others.
Ans: True.
INTEXT QUESTIONS 15.2
State whether the statements are ‘True’ or ‘False’:
Q.1. Learning plays an important role in the acquisition of attitudes.
Ans: True.
Q.2. We tend to adopt similar attitudes of the groups we belong to.
Ans: True.
Q.3. Messages that produce anxiety and fear are ineffective.
Ans: False.
Q.4. Change in attitude is higher if the message is conveyed by an expert.
Ans: False.
Q.5. Attitudes that are strong and personally important are difficult to change.
Ans: True.
INTEXT QUESTIONS 15.3
Read the list of attitudes carefully and state which type of learning was used for attitude formation: direct contact, direct instruction, interaction with others and observational learning.
Q.1. Asha’s mother listens to Hindi classical music at home and while driving. Asha has grown up hearing this music and now she too likes to hear this type of music.
Ans: Observational learning.
Q.2. Amit’s father sits down with his son and explains why it is important to stop smoking and lead a healthy life. Amit stops smoking.
Ans: Direct instruction.
Q.3. Shekar notes that his parents, elder brother, an uncle and close friends value hard work and commitment to work. He also starts to hold this attitude towards his studies.
Ans: Interaction with others.
Q.4. Five year old Rekha watches her grandmother praying everyday in the morning now she also joins her grandmother while praying.
Ans: Observational learning.
Q.5. Five year old Mehak has recently joined a primary school. Her class room is coloured brightly, with lots of toys and a teacher who is warm and pleasant. She goes to school everyday happily.
Ans: Direct contact.
INTEXT QUESTIONS 15.4
Fill in the blanks:
Q.1. ___________ help simplify information so that we can interpret new information quickly. (schemas, social cognition)
Ans: Schemas.
Q.2. ____________ are learnt through personal experiences and social communication. (personal schemata, role schemata, event schemata)
Ans: Event schemata.
Q.3. The tendency to be sensitive to negative information is called ___________. (counterfactual thinking, negativity bias)
Ans: Negativity bias.
Q.4. When we prevent ourselves about thinking of certain topics we engage in ___________. (counterfactual thinking, thought suppression)
Ans: Thought suppression.
TERMINAL EXERCISE
Q.1. Define attitudes. Describe the three components of attitude.
Ans: Attitudes are defined as our favourable or unfavourable evaluations of people, objects, and situations. We communicate our attitudes in the form of statements such as: “I like mangoes”, “I enjoy classical music”, or “I do not enjoy rock music”. When we use words such as ‘like’, ‘dislike’, ‘love’, ‘hate’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ we are describing our attitude towards objects, people or issues.
Three components of attitude:
(i) Cognitive part: It refers to the thinking that brings about the development of a belief about the attitude object.
(ii) Affective part: It refers to the direction (positive or negative feeling), intensity of a person’s evaluation or the emotion experienced towards the attitude object.
(iii) Behavioural part: It is the likelihood of acting in a certain manner towards the attitude object.
Q.2. Briefly describe the functions of attitudes. Illustrate your answer with examples.
Ans: The functions of attitudes are mentioned below:
(i) Attitudes allow us to understand the world around us. Positive attitudes help to come closer to some people and make you agree to their requests. You may identify with role models (e.g. Sachin Tendulkar, Mother Teresa) and try to develop their way of thinking and behaving. The negative attitudes make us stay away from such people or situations.
(ii) Attitudes help describe the social groups that each one of us belongs to. As members of a family, group of friends, or, religious, political group we share similar attitudes and this helps to bind us together. Thus we may favour the religious and political groups we belong to and show unfavourable attitude towards the other groups.
(iii) Attitudes also help us to understand ‘who we are’ or our identity. Attitudes express an individual’s values and self-concept. For example, some people value equality while others may value freedom or compassion. Mahatma Gandhi’s attitude towards honesty and Mother Teresa’s concern for the poor and needy is well known.
(iv) Attitudes help us to get support, praise and acceptance from others. People who hold similar attitudes are attracted toward each other. For example, your friend and you share common interests and attitudes, both of you like each other and hence it makes easier to carry on the friendship. Thus attitudes help us to adjust in our social interaction.
Q.3. How are attitudes formed? Illustrate your answer with examples.
Ans: Attitudes are defined as our favourable or unfavourable evaluations of people, objects, and situations. We communicate our attitudes in the form of statements such as: “I like mangoes”, “I enjoy classical music”, or “I do not enjoy rock music”. When we use words such as ‘like’, ‘dislike’, ‘love’, ‘hate’, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ we are describing our attitude towards objects, people or issues. Attitude consists of three aspects i.e. cognitive, affective and behavioural:
(i) Cognitive part: It refers to the thinking that brings about the development of a belief about the attitude object.
(ii) Affective part: It refers to the direction (positive or negative feeling), intensity of a person’s evaluation or the emotion experienced towards the attitude object.
(iii) Behavioural part: It is the likelihood of acting in a certain manner towards the attitude object.
These three components, thinking, feeling and behaving, come together and we form an attitude towards a person or an object. At times these components may be inconsistent. Thus you may hold a positive attitude towards a neighbour – he is intelligent and hardworking (positive qualities) – but you may not like his/her manners. Or you may not like your neighbour but you may still help him/her when the situation demands. Both the possibilities are likely to occur. Normally if you hold a strong attitude, all the three components of attitude remain consistent and do not contradict each other.
For example, if a well known cricketer, like Sachin Tendulkar, is visiting your neighbourhood and you are extremely fond (feeling) of playing and watching cricket, then you will actively plan (thinking process), and visit the venue (behaviour). Or, you may find Sachin Tendulkar to be an excellent cricket player (thinking part), yet are not a keen player yourself nor do you watch the game of cricket regularly (low liking emotional experience) and hence may decide not to put in the effort to meet him (low probability of behaviour).
Q.4. Can attitudes be changed? Explain the three important factors that help to bring about attitude change.
Ans: Attitude change is possible when a message plays on the emotions of others. Select advertisements (from television, newspaper or magazines) about body image and target adolescents in the age group of 15-16 years. Analyse on the basis of the three components of attitude. Which attitude component is most dominant in the advertisement message.
(i) Source: The person who delivers the message is called the communicator. The probability, that you will change your attitude is higher if the message is conveyed by experts, who are considered to be trustworthy, attractive and similar to the person receiving the message. Thus, if the cricketer Sachin Tendukar says that a particular drink gives him energy, the target audience is likely to be young children who consider him as a role model in the field of sports. They are likely to buy the drink because they assume that they would be able to ‘play like him’.
(ii) Message: The nature of message is important because it provides the information for attitude change. The message should be clear and well organised. Messages that produce anxiety and fear are more effective. Thus an advertisement on soap may explain that perspiration from the body results in bad odour and your friends will turn away from you. Or, if you have a bath with a particular soap then you are likely to be flooded with friends!
(iii) Person: The characteristics of the person whose attitude is to be changed plays an important role in attitude change. Attitudes that are strong, personally important, complex and interconnected are difficult to change. Thus your attitude towards family would be difficult to change rather than preference of a soap or drink.
Q.5. Explain the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. Specify the conditions under which the attitude-behaviour relationship will be strong.
Ans: The relationship between attitude and behaviour is complex and it is often difficult to predict one’s attitude from his or her behaviour. How many times have you heard people state that they want to be fit but they do not exercise, or that they are worried about global warming but drive a big car which consumes petrol by the gallons! People say one thing but do not necessarily follow it up with appropriate behaviours.
Studies have shown that there are certain special conditions under which attitudes can predict behaviour:
(i) When attitudes are strong and consistent, that is when the three components of attitude are clear and stable they better predict behaviour. Weak, unimportant and ambiguous attitudes are less likely to predict behaviour.
(ii) When one holds a strong attitude or when one is conscious of one’s attitude, thereby it is also easily recalled and possible to predict behaviour.
(iii) When attitudes have been formed through direct experience prediction of behaviour is more accurate.
(iv) When one acts under social pressure, attitude may be expressed in diverse ways. An adolescent may not want to smoke or drink because it affects health. But peer group pressure may force him to drink. Thus his way of thinking is different from his behaviour. When external influences are minimal then attitude behaviour relationship becomes strong It is important to note whether behaviour is spontaneous or well planned. When behaviour is deliberated upon and planned, particularly which college to join, or when and whom to marry, these issues become important hence hasty decisions will not be taken. Thus when we have time to think and it is personally relevant then the attitude-behaviour relationship will be strong.
Q.6. Define social cognition. Explain the role of schemas in organising our thinking and behaviour.
Ans: Social cognition refers to information received from the social world which is interpreted, analysed and remembered, such that we come to think, feel and understand about the people who live around us. But the information coming in is too much so we have to learn to organise it in the form of schemas. Schemas are a set of interconnected beliefs, information and examples about social objects, events and people. Once formed the schemas guide our thinking and behaviour. They simplify information so that we can interpret new information rapidly. There are various types of schemas dealing with persons, events and social roles.
The role of schemas in organising our thinking and behaviour are:
Schemas – Young Vs Older Generation
Request an elderly person (a male and a female) to prepare a list that describes themselves and another list that describes the younger generation. Also, ask the youth (a male and female) to describe themselves and the older generation.
Now compare the two lists how each group has a particular schema about themselves, as well as the other social group.
(i) Attribution: Understand the Causes of Behaviour We also look for the causes of one’s own and other people’s behaviour. This is termed as attribution. If your friend does not invite you for her birthday party you are going to question why she did not do so. So we are like naïve scientists trying to establish cause and effect relationships. If you fair poorly what reasons are you likely to put forward and when you do well in the examination what reasons will you give? There are two categories either you will attribute your success or failure to internal causes pertaining to personal reasons, (e.g. “I faired poorly because I did not put in effort”, or “I did well in the examination because I put in a great deal of effort”). The external causes include anything outside the person. For instance, “I faired poorly in the examination because the question paper was tough”.
(ii) Sources of Errors or Biases in Social Cognition: The internal or external causes lead us to commit the fundamental attribution error. For example, when we see another person come late for a meeting and drop her notes on the floor, we are likely to reach a conclusion that the person is ‘disorganised and clumsy’. We tend to explain the cause of ‘coming late’ and ‘dropping notes’ to internal causes. When we are in the same position then we are likely to attribute the reasons of the same happening to external causes, such as, there was a traffic jam and the floor was slippery. Thus when we perceive others we perceive their behaviour to be caused by internal causes and say she is ‘that kind of a person’. When we try to explain our own behaviour we do it in terms of situational or external causes.
