Explain how bodily cues can influence people's thoughts and feelings.

#!#An arritude is an evaluation of an object along a positive-negative dimension. It includes three core components: affect (emotion), cognition (thoughts and knowledge), and behavior (the tendency to approach or avoid the object). Attitudes can be measured with self-report Likert scales. Their strength or importance can be assessed with response latencies that capture attitude accessibility (how readily the attitude can become active in an individual's mind).

#!#Attitude linkage measures gauge attitude centrality (how closely an attitude is correlated to attitudes about other issues). Implicit attitude measures tap into attitudes that people are unaware they have or may be unwilling to report.

It can be hard to predict behavior from attitudes because attitudes can conflict with other powerful determinants of behavior. The reasons underlying our attitudes can be difficult to pinpoint. If attitudes are general, they may not predict specific behaviors well.

Behavior can have substantial effects on attitudes. Cognitive consistency theories emphasize how much people value consistency among their various attitudes and between their attitudes and behavior.

Cognitive dissonance theory is based on the idea that people experience dissonance, or discomfort, when attitudes and behavior are inconsistent. To reduce the dissonance, people try to bring their attitudes in line with their behavior.

After making a difficult choice between two objects or courses of action, people engage in dissonance reduction by finding new attractions in the chosen alternative and previously undetected flaws in the unchosen alternative.

People engage in effort justification when they exert effort toward a goal that turns out to be disappointing. They justify their expenditure of energy by deciding the goal is truly worthwhile.

Induced (forced) compliance leads to a need to reduce dissonance. When induced to argue for a position at variance with their true attitudes, those who are poorly compensated feel they must justify their behavior. They typically do so by changing their attitudes to align better with their behavior.

Inconsistency between attitudes and behavior should produce dissonance only when there is free choice (or the illusion of it) to engage in the behavior, when there is insufficient justification for the behavior, when the behavior has negative consequences, and when the consequences were foreseeable.

People can offset or reduce the negative effects of psychological inconsistency--and of threats to self-identity and self- esteem more generally--by engaging in self-affirmation: affirming other important elements of their identity, such as their values.

Dissonance is apparently universal, but there are cultural differences in the conditions that prompt people to experience it. Japanese people, for instance, tend to experience post-decision dissonance only when asked to think about what another person would choose.

Self-perception theory is based on the premise that people change their attitudes to align with their behavior because they observe their behavior and the circumstances in which it occurs and then infer, just as an observer might, what their attitudes must be.

Whereas self-perception may play a role in generating the effects in some dissonance experiments, evidence indicates that there is often a motivational component as well. Self-perception appears to account for attitude change when attitudes are weak or unclear to begin with, and more motivated dissonance reduction is invoked when attitudes are more strongly held.

Bodily sensations are often incorporated into people's judgments about an object or appraisals of a situation.

According to system justification theory, people are motivated to justify the broader sociopolitical system in which they live. One method of justification is through stereotypes that play up the advantages of belonging to relatively disadvantaged groups, such as the belief that poor people are happier than wealthy people.

The certainty of mortality can elicit paralyzing anxiety. Terror management theory maintains that people often cope with this anxiety by striving for symbolic immortality through their offspring, through their identification with institutions and cultural worldviews that live on after their own death, and by striving for self-esteem as a means of maintaining good standing in society.

1. Consider an attitude object you feel strongly about, something you love or something you hate. Maybe you're passionate about soccer. Perhaps you are staunchly opposed to capital punishment. Describe this attitude in terms of the three elements of affect, cognition, and behavior.

2. Suppose you're an attitude researcher and want to assess participant attitudes about the institution of marriage. Describe three methods you might use in your assessment.

3. You have two close friends whom you like very much, Tanya and Amanda. Unfortunately, Tanya can't stand Amanda. This makes your life difficult, as the three of you can never spend time together without Tanya getting irritated. Based on what you learned about cognitive dissonance theory, how might you go about getting Tanya to like Amanda more?

4 Although we readily assume that attitudes relate in meaningful ways to behavior, research suggests they don't always match up. Consider the dentist as the attitude object. Why might attitudes toward the dentist not necessarily predict behavioral responses to the dentist?

5. Suppose you're choosing between two vacation spots you think are equally amazing: Greece and Costa Rica. You have to pick one, and you elect to go to Costa Rica. Following your decision, Costa Rica starts to sound even more fantastic-- zip-lining, cloud forests, and incredible wildlife. In contrast, Greece seems a little less special: It's expensive, and the beaches aren't really that nice. According to cognitive dissonance theory, how might you account for this change in your attitude following the decision?

6. Although your son already likes vegetables, you want him to eat even more of them. You decide to pay him $1 to spend at the toy store for every portion of vegetables he eats. Given what you learned about self-perception theory, is this a good approach? Why or why not?