An attitude is a hypothetical construct representing an evaluation of some object, with cognitive (beliefs), affective and behavioural components. It may be explicit or implicit, outside immediate awareness. An ideology is a relatively coherent set of attitudes, usually a political world view. While people who adhere to liberal and conservative ideologies are equally happy, liberals experience more positive affect, while conservatives experience less negative affect. Values are higher-order abstractions of what individuals consider to be ideal, as end-state objectives in life, as a modes of conduct, or as character strengths. Where values are in conflict, changes in a value, attitude or behavior may result while value pluralism can lead to trade-off reasoning. Nations and cultures can be described in terms of several value dimensions, including power distance, avoidance of uncertainty, masculinity–femininity, and individualism–collectivism. Attitudes serve a number of functions or purposes to the individual: instrumental or adaptive, providing a sense of understanding of one’s world, ego-defensive and value-expressive. Attitudes can predict patterns of multiple behaviours. The Theory of Reasoned Action states that one’s attitude toward a certain action (expected desired consequences) and the expectations of others predict intention to act in a certain way. Intention to act predicts action. The Theory of Planned Behaviour adds considerations of personal control to this equation.

KEYWORDS: attitude, attitude–behaviour, attitude functions, ideology, implicit attitude, Theory of Planned Behaviour, Theory of Reasoned Action, value pluralism, values

1. Surprisingly, most people tend not to rate health as an important value.

2. People with conservative beliefs value freedom more highly than equality, while social democrats tend to value both equality and freedom highly.

3. Integrative complexity tends to be higher among people with conservative political ideologies.

4. Canadians tend to value self-control, obedience and being ambitious more highly than people in the United States.

5. Conservative people are generally happier than liberal people.

6. Attitudes based on affect are more resistant to persuasion.

7. Research shows consistently that attitudes accurately predict behaviour.

8. According to the Theory of Reasoned Action, the best single predictor of a behaviour is an intention to behave in that way.

9. One criticism of the Theory of Reasoned Action is that it ignores attitude complexity.

10. The Theory of Planned Behaviour overcomes the deficiencies of the theory of reasoned action, and fully accounts for the complexities of the relationship between attitude and behaviour.

1. F

2. T

3. T

4. F

5. F

6. T

7. F

8. T

9. T

10. F 

MCQ's for Chapter 4

1. What are the differences between attitudes and values?

2. How are values related to political ideologies?

3. Outline the four functions of attitudes.

4. Describe four value dimensions along which differences between nations have been studied.

5. Compare the values characteristic of your own country with those outlined by Hofstede. Do you perceive any changes?

6. Outline the personal and situational factors that determine the relationship between attitudes and behaviour.

7. Outline the Theory of Reasoned Action. On what grounds has it been criticized?

8. What is the difference between direct and indirect attitude measurement? What are implicit attitudes and how can they be measured?

9. Explain the MODE model in terms of motivation and opportunity.

10. Compare and contrast the Theory of Planned Behaviour with the Theory of Reasoned Action.

1. What are the factors that influence the relationship between attitudes and behaviour? Describe a model of the attitude–behaviour relationship.
2. Describe a model of values. How are values related to attitudes and to behaviours?