Page 4 - LN 2_Attitude and Social Cognition

▪ When the person experiences a kind of mental discomfort, some aspect in the
attitude system changes in the direction of consistency, because our cognitive
system requires logical consistency.

c) The two-step concept:

✓ Proposed by S.M. Mohsin, an Indian psychologist.
✓ According to him, attitude change takes place in the form of two steps.
In the first step, the target of change identifies with the source. The ‘target’
is the person whose attitude is to be changed. The ‘source’ is the person
through whose influence the change is to take place. Identification means
that the target has liking and regard for the source. S/he puts
herself/himself in the place of the target, and tries to feel like her/him. The
source must also have a positive attitude towards the target, and the regard
and attraction becomes mutual.
In the second step, the source herself/himself shows an attitude change, by
actually changing her/him behaviour towards the attitude object.
Observing the source’s changed attitude and behaviour, the target also
shows an attitude change through behaviour.
✓ This is a kind of imitation or observational learning.

▪ Factors that Influence Attitude Change
a) Characteristics of the existing attitude:
✓ All four properties of attitudes mentioned earlier, namely, valence
(positivity or negativity), extremeness, simplicity or complexity
(multiplexity), and centrality or significance of the attitude, determine
attitude change.
✓ An attitude change may be congruent — it may change in the same direction
as the existing attitude (for example, a positive attitude may become more
positive, or a negative attitude may become more negative).
✓ On the other hand, an attitude change may be incongruent — it may change
in a direction opposite to the existing attitude (for example, a positive
attitude becomes less positive, or negative, or a negative attitude becomes
less negative, or positive).
b) Source characteristics :
✓ Source credibility and attractiveness are two features that affect attitude
change.
✓ Attitudes are more likely to change when the message comes from a highly
credible source rather than from a low-credible source.
c) Message characteristics :

✓ The message is the information that is presented in order to bring about an
attitude change.
✓ Attitudes will change when the amount of information that is given about
the topic is just enough, neither too much nor too little.