Psychology 2720A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Cognitive Dissonance, Classical Conditioning, Individualism

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2720A/B
• Professor: Mike Morrison

Document Summary

A target can be a person, an issue, an object, a group, a behavior, etc. An attitude is not just a set of beliefs. Three parts of an attitude (abc"s: affective: our feelings or beliefs toward the attitude target. Our emotions evaluate a target for us (ex. Butterflies in the stomach when you see your crush or feeling ill when the politician you hate is talking): behavioral: our intention to act toward the attitude target, cognitive: our knowledge of the attitude target. Aspects of attitudes: attitudes can contain conflicting elements. Affective and cognitive elements may be mixed - > ambivalent attitudes: explicit attitudes: those we are conscious of and able to express. Implicit attitudes: exist below consciousness, cannot be verbally expressed. Affective sources: attitudes influenced by what sort of feelings people, or object evoke: evaluative conditioning: good feelings become associated with a previously-neutral object through classical conditioning, emotion learning: pairing objects with positive things.