Social attitude and human behavior. Social attitudes and behavior

The concept of installation was introduced for the first time in experimental psychology L. Lange in 1888, when studying the characteristics of perception, and was understood as a holistic modification of the state of the subject, directing his reactions and interaction (G. Allport, F. Haider, S. Ash, L. Festinger). The effects of the setting are directly revealed in the reconciliation of the resulting conflicting contents. In the theory of D.I. Uznadze, the attitude is the central explanatory principle that mediates the processes of identification, nomination, logical thinking(Uznadze D.I., 1966). It means the representation of a single phenomenon in the field of cognitive, affective and behavioral. Sets of attitudes are depicted as a hierarchy of dispositions (lat. dispositio - location): an elementary fixed attitude (situational, set), a social fixed attitude (generalized, attitude, attitude), the general dominant orientation of the personality. The dispositional concept establishes links between sociological, socio-psychological and general psychological approaches

Socio-psychological attitudes there are states of psychological readiness that develops on the basis of experience and influences a person's reactions to those objects and situations with which he is associated and which are socially significant. The concept of "attitude" should be considered not as a general attitude, position towards any object, phenomenon, person, but as a disposition - readiness for a certain behavior in specific situation. This concept expresses a specific connection between the inner and outer world of the individual.

In sociology, the concept of "attitude" was used for the first time by W. Thomas and F. Znaniecki to denote the orientations of an individual as a member of a group relative to the values of the group. Defining a situation by an individual through social attitude and values of the group gives an idea of the degree of adaptation of the individual. Thus, the attitude, in contrast to the attitude in the original psychological sense, fixes to a greater extent the value (normative) attitude towards the social object, points both to the fact of experiencing, and to the fact of separation (communicability). The concept of attitude has been defined as "an individual's psychological experience of the value, meaning, meaning of a social object" or as "the state of consciousness of an individual with respect to some social value."

There are four periods in the history of attitude research in Western social psychology:

1) from the introduction of this term in 1918 to World War II ( characteristic this period - a rapid increase in the popularity of the problem and the number of studies on it);

2) 40-50s. (a characteristic feature is the decline in research on this issue due to a number of difficulties and dead ends that have been discovered);

3) 50–60s. (a characteristic feature is the revival of interest in the problem, the emergence of a number of new ideas, but at the same time the recognition of the crisis state of research);

4) 70s (a characteristic feature is a clear stagnation associated with an abundance of contradictory and incomparable facts) (Shikhirev P.N., 1999).

After the discovery of the phenomenon of attitude, a kind of “boom” began in his research. Several various interpretations attitude, many contradictory definitions of it. In 1935, G. Allport wrote a review article on the problem of attitude research, in which he counted 17 definitions of this concept. From these seventeen definitions, those traits of attitude that were noted by all researchers were singled out. In the final systematized form, they looked like this. Attitude was understood by everyone as a definite and organized state of consciousness and nervous system, expressing readiness for a reaction, using previous experience and providing a guiding and dynamic influence on behavior.

Thus, the dependence of attitude on previous experience and its important regulatory role in behavior were established.

M. Smith identified four functions of attitude (Table 1).

Table 1

Attitude functions

Functions	Source of occurrence	Meaning
fixtures	Associated with the need to ensure the most favorable position of a person in the social environment	Positive attitudes to favorable incentives. Negative - to sources of unpleasant stimuli
energy protective	Associated with the need to maintain the internal stability of the individual	Negative attitudes towards those persons whose actions can serve as a source of danger to the integrity of the individual. The source of a negative attitude can be a negative attitude towards us.
value-expressive	Linked to personal resilience needs	Positive attitudes are developed, as a rule, towards representatives of our personality type.
Worldview Organizations	Developed in relation to knowledge about the world. Scientific ideas + mundane	The system of attitudes is a set of emotionally colored elements of knowledge about the world, about people

In 1942, M. Smith determined the three-component structure of the installation:

a cognitive component containing knowledge, representation;

affective - reflecting the emotional and evaluative attitude to the object;

behavioral (conative) - expressing the potential readiness of the individual to realize certain behavior in relation to the object.

In 1934, La Pierre, in the course of an experiment, revealed that there is not always a clear relationship between attitude and behavior.

The experiment was as follows. La Pierre traveled around the United States with two Chinese students. They visited 252 hotels and in almost all cases (with the exception of one) met with a normal reception in them, corresponding to the standards of service. No difference in service between La Pierre himself and his Chinese students was found. After completing the trip (two years later), La Pierre wrote to 251 hotels asking him if he could hope for hospitality again if he visited the hotel, accompanied by the same two Chinese, now his employees. The answer came from 128 hotels, and only one contained an agreement, 52% had a refusal, and the rest were evasive. La Pierre interpreted these data in such a way that there is a discrepancy between the attitude (attitude towards people of Chinese nationality) and the actual behavior of hotel owners. From the responses to letters, one could conclude that there was a negative attitude, while in real behavior it was not manifested; on the contrary, the behavior was organized as if it were performed on the basis of a positive attitude. This conclusion has been called "La Pierre's paradox" and has given rise to deep skepticism about the study of attitude. If real behavior is not built in accordance with the attitude, what is the point in studying this phenomenon? The decline in interest in attitudes was largely due to the discovery of this effect.

In subsequent years, various measures were taken to overcome the identified difficulties. On the one hand, efforts were made to improve the technique of measuring attitudes (it was suggested that the scale was imperfect in the La Pierre experiment), on the other hand, new explanatory hypotheses were put forward. Some of these proposals are of particular interest. M. Rokeach expressed the idea that a person has two attitudes at the same time: to an object and to a situation.

“Turn on” can be either one or the other attitude. In La Pier's experiment, the attitude towards the object was negative (attitude towards the Chinese), but the attitude towards the situation prevailed - the owner of the hotel in a particular situation acted in accordance with the accepted standards of service. In the proposal of D. Katz and E. Stotland, the idea of different manifestations of some different aspects of attitude took on a different form: they suggested that in different situations the cognitive, then the affective components of the attitude may appear, and the result will therefore be different. There have been many more various explanations the results of the La Pierre experiment, in particular those proposed by M. Fishbine (both attitude and behavior consist of each of four elements, and it is not necessary to correlate attitude with behavior in general, but each element of attitude with each element of behavior, perhaps then there will be no discrepancy).

Modern social psychologists (Zimbardo F., Leippe M., 2000) consider it appropriate to talk about the installation system, since the installation is a complex formation consisting of interconnected individual elements. F. Zimbardo and M. Leippe give the following definition. Installation- this is a value disposition, a stable predisposition to a certain assessment, based on cognitions (knowledge, opinions), affective reactions, established behavioral intentions (intentions) and previous behavior, which, in turn, can influence cognitive processes, on affective reactions, on the folding of intentions and future behavior.

Attitude has a great influence on perception and evaluation social phenomena and objects. There is a so-called halo effect. First of all, the “halo” is created by factors of external attractiveness, superiority, good relationship to us.

One of the main problems that arise in the study of social attitudes is the problem of changing them. Routine observations show that any of the dispositions that a particular subject has can change. The degree of their variability and mobility depends, of course, on the level of a particular disposition: the more complex the social object, in relation to which a person has a certain disposition, the more stable it is. If we take attitudes as a relatively low (compared to value orientations, for example) level of dispositions, then it becomes clear that the problem of changing them is especially relevant.

Change (create installation)

In the process of human communication, social interaction, attitudes are transformed. In interaction there is always an element of a conscious or unconscious desire to change the attitudes of another person.

Nominated a lot various models explaining the process of changing social attitudes. These explanatory models are built in accordance with the principles that are applied in a particular study. Since most studies of attitudes are carried out in line with two main theoretical orientations - behaviorist and cognitivist, explanations based on the principles of these two directions have received the greatest distribution.

In behavioristically oriented social psychology (studies of K. Hovland's social attitudes), the principle of learning is used as an explanatory principle for understanding the fact of changing attitudes: a person's attitudes change depending on how the reinforcement of one or another social attitude is organized. By changing the system of rewards and punishments, it is possible to influence the nature of the social attitude, to change it.

However, if the attitude is formed on the basis of the previous life experience, social in its content, then change is also possible only under the condition of “turning on” social factors. Reinforcement in the behavioral tradition does not involve these kinds of factors. The subordination of the social attitude itself to higher levels of dispositions once again substantiates the need to address the entire system of social factors, and not just direct “reinforcement”, when studying the problem of changing attitudes.

In the cognitivist tradition, the change in social attitudes is explained in terms of the so-called correspondence theories: F. Haider, T. Newcomb, L. Festinger, C. Osgood, P. Tannenbaum (Andreeva G.M., Bogomolova N.N., Petrovskaya L. A., 1978). This means that a change in attitude occurs whenever a discrepancy arises in the cognitive structure of an individual, for example, a negative attitude towards an object and a positive attitude towards a person who gives this object a positive characteristic collide. Inconsistencies can also occur for various other reasons. It is important that the incentive for changing the attitude is the individual's need to restore cognitive conformity, i.e., an ordered, "unambiguous" perception of the outside world.

Installations form a system. Attitudes that are in the center and form a large number of connections are called central, focal (attitudes towards knowledge associated with the worldview and moral credo of the individual). home central installation- this is an attitude towards our own "I", since in the process of socialization we always correlate all phenomena that are significant for us with the thought of ourselves. The installation of self-esteem of one's own "I" turns out to be at the intersection of all the connections of the system. Changing the focal setting is impossible without destroying the integrity of the personality. The concept of "I" is negative only in extremely neurotic people.

Peripheral settings have few connections and are therefore easier and faster to change. When changing the setting, the following situations are possible:

Neighboring installations change in direction (from plus to minus);

· the importance of the installation may change;

· the principle of communication between neighboring installations may change.

The system of attitudes is based on both cognitive and emotional connections. More reliable and fast way changing attitudes is relevant to the problem. The logical way to change the installation does not always work, as a person avoids information that can prove the fallacy of his behavior. There is a relationship between the probability of setting change and the amount of information about the setting (as the amount of information increases, the probability of change increases, but there is a saturation limit). The probability of changing the installation depends on its balance. A person tends to avoid information that can cause the cognitive dissonance- discrepancy between relevant installations, as well as discrepancy between expected and actual performance results. In the case of a balanced system of attitudes, the speech impact of another person or group acts on the principle of assimilation contrast action (If a person’s opinion is close to the speaker’s opinion, opinions are combined (assimilation), if the opposite is true, the person is even more convinced that he is right (contrast)).

A person has a system of information selection: at the level of attention (attention is directed to what interests a person); at the level of perception; at the memory level.

Influence methods: a set of techniques that implement the impact on:

Needs, interests, inclinations, motivation;

on attitudes, group norms, self-esteem of people;

on the state in which a person is and which changes his behavior.

To change motivation, a person is involved in a new activity. To change behavior, it is necessary to change the hierarchy of its motives, actualizing the motives of a lower sphere (for example, the regression method).

IN domestic psychology installation problem was the subject of study at school D. N. Uznadze. The meaning that D. N. Uznadze invested in the concept of attitude differed from that accepted in foreign psychology. In his opinion, the installation is not mental process and not a behavioral act, but special kind reflections of reality. The occurrence of the installation is conditioned by both the object and the subject, the installation arises:

1) as a reaction to a certain situation;

2) as a result of satisfaction of a certain need.

Before the implementation of any activity, according to D. N. Uznadze, a person psychologically prepares for its implementation, even if he is not aware of this process. A holistic dynamic state of the subject, a state of readiness for a certain activity, a state that is determined by two factors: the need of the subject and the corresponding objective situation, D. N. Uznadze called the installation.

Installation, in his opinion, is the primary property of the organism, the most primitive, unconscious reaction to external stimuli. Assuming that there must be another, higher level of organization of the psyche, D. N. Uznadze introduced the principle of hierarchy into psychology, considering two levels of mental activity: the level of attitude and the level of objectification.

At the level of installation, behavior is determined by the impact of the situation, immediate and urgent needs are met. At the level of objectification, activity acquires a more generalized character, independent of the situation, since a person in his actions takes into account the needs of other people, as well as social requirements.

Attitude functions. In the works of M. Smith, D. Bruner and R. White, an approach was outlined to the problem of attitude functions. Researchers have identified following features that the social setting performs:

1) object evaluation function, performed by the attitude, sets "ready-made" evaluative categories and allows the subject to evaluate the incoming information with its help and correlate it with his motives, goals, values and interests:

2) the function of social adaptation- the attitude helps the subject to assess how other people relate to the social object and directs him to those objects that serve to achieve the set goals. The social setting mediates interpersonal relationships: an attitude can act as a means of maintaining a person's relationship with other people, or as a means of breaking these relationships;

3) externalization (function of embodiment) is connected with the existence of internal problems and contradictions in a person and is a "spokesman" of the deep motives of a person.

D. Katz, integrating the ideas developed in behaviorism, psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology and cognitivism, substantiated the attitude in terms of the needs that it satisfies, and singled out four functions.

instrumental function expresses the adaptive tendencies of human behavior, the attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals, helps a person to earn approval and be accepted by other people.

Ego-protective function- Attitude contributes to the resolution of internal conflicts of the personality, protects people from receiving unpleasant information about themselves and about social objects that are significant to them.

Value Expression Function(function of value, self-realization) - attitude acts as a means of self-determination, liberation of the subject from internal tension, expression of himself as a person in relation to social objects, organization of his behavior.

Knowledge organization function- Attitude gives simplified indications of the way of behavior in relation to a particular object, allows you to avoid a feeling of uncertainty and ambiguity, sets the direction for interpreting events.

Studies of attitudes carried out in modern foreign psychology have confirmed their relationship with behavior, a number of factors have been identified that weaken this relationship, and it has been revealed that strong attitudes predetermine the behavior of an individual. It has been experimentally established that the influence of attitudes on behavior is determined by the strength or accessibility of attitudes (E. Aronson). The accessibility of the attitude depends on the high degree of its awareness by the individual (M. Snyder, W. Swanney, etc.), the availability of extensive knowledge about the object of the attitude (W. Wood): what more people knows about the object, the more accessible the assessment of this object becomes, and the more likely it is possible to make a prediction about its behavior.

A social attitude becomes available for awareness and regulation of behavior when it is formed in direct experience of interaction with an object or is repeatedly fixed in the memory of an individual (R. Fazio, M. Zann, D. Regan). The strength of an attitude can be determined by the speed and strength of the connection of the evaluative reaction to its object.

The extent to which attitudes can determine the behavior of a person and the ability to predict it depends not only on the strength of attitudes, but also on "internal" personal and "external" situational factors that mediate their relationship.

To "internal" personal factors, determining the relationship "attitude - behavior", researchers include the motivational factor, personal interest of a person and self-monitoring.

It was revealed that people in organizing their actions are guided by alternative attitudes, depending on how beneficial it is for them. For example, when deciding whether to advocate the closure of an environmentally harmful production, a person will evaluate not only the threat of pollution environment, but also the fact that he may lose his job due to the closure of this enterprise. In this case, the influence motivational factors to "choose" from alternative attitudes in connection with the need to satisfy needs that are more significant for a person.

Personal interest of a person(L. Sivacek and U. Krano) is understood as a person's feeling of the degree of importance, the need for something in his life. It is determined by both motivational and value factors: the more important the result of actions is for a person, the stronger the connection between attitude and action.

Self-monitoring(M. Snyder) means a way of presenting oneself in social situations and regulating behavior in order to make the desired impression. People with a high degree of self-monitoring know how to make a good impression, constantly analyze their behavior and pay attention to the reaction of others, change their course of action if it does not achieve the expected effect in society. They behave like "social chameleons", adjusting their behavior to the situation, feeling the attitude of others, so they least of all act in accordance with their own attitudes. Possessing pronounced self-control, such people easily adapt to new job new roles and relationships.

In contrast, people with low level self-monitoring people are less influenced by their social environment, as a result of which they trust their own attitudes more. M. Snyder and W. Swan experimentally proved that the behavior of people with low self-monitoring is more related to attitudes than people with high level self-monitoring.

Thus, according to foreign researchers, "internal" personality variables (motives, values, individual characteristics) to a certain extent affect the relationship between attitude and behavior.

Personal behavior largely depends on "external", situational factors that influence both attitudes and the behavior they regulate. Foreign researchers have identified and described more than 40 different factors that determine complex and ambiguous relationships between attitude and behavior.

The results of experiments (E. Jones, G. Segall, R. Page) showed that personal attitudes and attitudes expressed externally differ from each other, since the external expression of attitudes depends on a variety of situational causes and social influences, and behavior is more directed " true" attitudes.

The specifics of the relationship "attitude - behavior" are influenced by situational factors, which are understood as both global social impacts (for example, the situation of social instability, the economic and political situation in the country, etc.), and more "private" situational influences. Allocate such levels of social influence as social and cultural, institutional and group and interpersonal. When studying the relationship between attitudes and behavior, the following situational factors are most often mentioned:

1) the impact on human behavior of the attitudes and norms of other people (the influence of significant others and group pressure);

2) the absence of an acceptable alternative, since the discrepancy between attitude and behavior is associated with the inability to realize one's attitude in reality;

3) the impact of unpredictable events encourages a person to act even contrary to his attitudes;

4) lack of time due to busyness, haste or the desire to solve several problems at once.

As we can see, behavior is determined not so much by attitudes as by the situation in which a person finds himself. Further researchers suggested that to predict behavior it is necessary to take into account both internal and external factors, through which intentions (intentions) of a person become real behavior. Relationships "attitude - intention - behavior" are disclosed by A. Aizen and M. Fishbine in the theory of cognitive mediation of action (model of justified action). They experimentally proved that it is the intentions (intentions) of a person that have the main influence on behavior. Intentions are determined by two factors:

1) attitude towards behavior;

2) subjective norms of human behavior (perception of social influence).

The model of "justified action" is based on the idea of rational awareness and elaboration by a person of information about the consequences of actions, assessment of these consequences and his own ideas about the expediency of behavior from the point of view of other people. The model has been successfully used to predict various kinds behavior, although it had a number of shortcomings inherent in almost all foreign "attitude" concepts.

The main drawback of these concepts is that in them the person acts in a situation isolated from general social conditions human life. Researchers do not take into account the specific historical, political, socio-economic conditions in which the behavior of the individual is realized, thereby ignoring the problem of the influence exerted by society on the individual.

Thus, the social attitude, being a systemic formation, is included in other, more complex systems that take shape according to different criteria, and the interaction of these complex systems. Regulation social behavior should be interpreted in the context of the entire dispositional system of the individual, and not only from the side of one or another social attitude.

The concept of installation in domestic and foreign psychology.

The structure of the social attitude of the individual.

The dispositional concept of the social attitude of V.A. Yadov.

The problem of attitudes in social psychology occupies, indeed, the most important place, since it is the formation of numerous attitudes of the personality that makes it possible to determine how the social experience acquired in the process of socialization is refracted by the personality and concretely manifests itself in its actions and deeds. It is through the installation that it is possible to resolve the issue of regulating human behavior and activity.

The formation of the concept social attitude should be considered in the development of two traditions: domestic general psychology and Western social psychology.

Dmitry Nikolaevich Uznadze and his students are considering installation as a primary holistic undifferentiated state that precedes conscious mental activity and underlies behavior. Separate acts of behavior, all mental activity are phenomena of secondary origin. Installation - that mediating formation between the influence of the environment and mental processes, which explains the behavior of a person, his emotional and volitional processes, i.e. acts as a determinant of any activity of the organism. Thus, thinking (as well as creative fantasy, work, etc.) arises in a situation of difficulty in acts of behavior caused by a certain attitude, when the complication of the situation makes it necessary to make this difficulty a special object of study.

Types of attitudes: diffuse, motor, sensory, mental, social - readiness for perception and action in a certain way.

In Western social psychology, the term " attitude ”, which in the literature in Russian is translated either as “social attitude”, or is used as a tracing paper from English attitude. For the term "installation" (in the sense that was given to it in the school of D.N. Uznadze), there is another designation in English language- "set". The study of attitudes is a completely independent line of research that does not go in line with the development of the ideas of set ("set") and has become one of the most developed areas of social psychology. The current situation in American research on attitudes is characterized by an abundance of mini-theories. (Shikhirev) and the absence of any generalizing theoretical concept.

The term "attitude" was proposed in 1918 by the American sociologist and social psychologist William Isaac Thomas and the greatest sociologist of the 20th century Florian Witold Znaniecki. Later, many definitions of this concept were developed, after 10-12 years there were more than 100 of them, but the understanding of attitude by all researchers included the following: attitude - psychological experience by an individual of the value, meaning, meaning of a social object. Attitudes are evaluative attitudes because they contain a positive or negative reaction to something. This state is formed on the basis of previous experience, it necessarily has a guiding and dynamic influence on human behavior.

Attitude serves to satisfy some important needs of the subject, but it was necessary to establish which ones. Four functions of attitudes have been identified:

1) adaptive (sometimes called utilitarian, adaptive) - the attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals;

2) the function of knowledge - the attitude gives simplified instructions on the way of behavior in relation to a particular object;

3) the function of expression (sometimes called the function of value, self-regulation) - the attitude acts as a means of releasing the subject from internal tension, expressing oneself as a person;

4) the function of protection - the attitude contributes to the resolution of internal conflicts of the individual.

Attitude is able to perform all these functions because it has a complex structure.

Later, in 1942, Brewster M. Smith finds three components in the structure of attitude: cognitive, affective and behavioral (conative). In his opinion, a social attitude is nothing more than awareness, evaluation and readiness to act.

The affective component of attitudes is prejudice . The essence of prejudice lies in a negative preconceived opinion about a group and about its individual representatives. While some definitions of prejudice also refer to positive bias, the term "prejudice" is almost always used to refer to negative tendencies. Gordon Allport, in his classic The Nature of Prejudice, called prejudice "an antipathy based on an erroneous and inflexible generalization."

Racial and gender prejudices have been studied most thoroughly.

Thanks to the mobility of people and the migration processes that have marked the last two centuries, the races that inhabit the world have intermingled, and their relationships are sometimes hostile and sometimes friendly. However, polls today reveal people who are not without prejudice. Agreeing or disagreeing with the statement "I would most likely feel embarrassed dancing with a black gentleman (with a black lady) in a public place" gives a more accurate picture of the racial attitudes of a white person than agreeing or disagreeing with the statement "I I will be embarrassed if there is a black (black) with me on the bus. Many people who are quite sympathetic to "national diversity" at work or in educational institution nevertheless carry out free time in the society of people of their race, among them they choose their lovers and life partners. This helps explain why, according to a survey of 390 college and university students, 53% of African Americans feel excluded from "social contact." (This was reported by 24% of Asian Americans, 16% of Mexican Americans, and 6% of European Americans.) And the problem with this majority-minority relationship is not just that the majority are white and the minority are colored. On NBA basketball teams, white players (and in this case they are the minority) feel a similar disconnect from their teammates.

Prejudice and discriminatory behavior can be not only open, but also hidden behind some other motives. In France, Great Britain, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands, vulgar racism is being replaced by disguised racial prejudice in the form of an exaggeration of ethnic differences, a less favorable attitude towards emigrants - representatives of national minorities and discrimination against them for allegedly non-racial reasons. Some researchers call this hidden racism "modern racism" or "cultural racism."

The cognitive component of attitudes is stereotypes . The term is taken from polygraphy - the stereotype literally means an imprint. The eminent journalist Walter Lipmann, who in 1922 first coined the term stereotype and described the difference between reality stereotypes, called them "the little pictures we carry in our heads."

Stereotypes can be both positive and negative, moreover, people often hold positive stereotypes about groups against which they have negative prejudices. For example, people who dislike fellow Asians may still view them as smart and well-mannered.

The reasons for the emergence of stereotypes are usually a lack of knowledge, dogmatic upbringing, underdevelopment of the personality or a stop for some reason of the processes of its development.

Stereotypes are generalized beliefs about a group of people and that, as such, they can be true, false, and overgeneralized compared to the "rational kernel" they contain. Stereotypes are useful and necessary as a form of economy of thinking and acting in relation to rather simple and stable objects and situations, adequate interaction with which is possible on the basis of habitual and experience-confirmed ideas.

According to gender stereotypes men and women differ in their socio-psychological characteristics. Most people are of the opinion that men have such qualities as independence, self-reliance, emotional restraint, efficiency and professionalism, and women - softness, emotionality, indecision, helplessness, dependence. The assessment of all these qualities included in gender stereotypes is ambiguous and depends on the worldview and attitudes of a person.

Indeed, the average man and woman differ somewhat from each other in such parameters as sociability, empathy, social influence, aggressiveness and sexual initiative, but not in terms of intelligence. However, individual differences between men and women vary widely, and it is not uncommon for stereotypes to be misused at all. Moreover, gender stereotypes often exaggerate differences that are actually minor;

Less noticeable, but perhaps no less powerful, is the effect awareness a person that others hold negative prejudices and stereotypes about the group to which he or she belongs. Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson hypothesized that stereotype threat - the fear of confirming the negative stereotypes of others makes it difficult for a person to complete the task at the level of their present capabilities. In a series of experiments to test this idea, students were asked to answer difficult questions taken from the oral section of the final exam. Black students performed worse than their abilities allowed them, but only if their racial identity was highly visible and they were convinced that a poor response would confirm the cultural stereotype that blacks were less intelligent than whites.

The behavioral component of attitude is manifested in discrimination. Under discrimination commonly referred to as unfair treatment of other people based on their group membership. Prejudice and discrimination are processes that take place at the individual level. When similar processes occur at the group or organizational level, they are called various "-isms" and institutional discrimination.

Jane Eliot, an American educator and anti-racist, became world famous after she invented a psychological experiment that showed the groundlessness and complete groundlessness of racial discrimination. On April 5, 1968, she began the lesson by asking the children what they thought of blacks. The children began to respond, mostly referring to various racial stereotypes, such as that all blacks are mentally retarded, or that they are unable to do any kind of work. Jane then asked the children if they wanted to know what it was like to be a black man and they agreed. Eliot divided the students into two groups - children with light, blue eyes were placed in a privileged group, and children with dark, brown eyes were made into an oppressed caste. On the day of the experiment, the blue-eyed people were allowed to play in the new gymnasium, they could get a second helping at lunch, they had an extra five minutes of recess, Eliot praised them for their diligence and good answers in class. The other group, on the contrary, was deprived of all these privileges and, in addition, Eliot tied ribbons around the neck of all the brown-eyed students. On the very first day, the results of the experiment were stunning - blue-eyed people began to behave arrogantly and arrogantly, treating representatives of the other group with disdain. The grades of the blue-eyed ones improved, even for those students who had previously performed worse. With brown eyes, the situation was completely reversed - they became quiet and submissive, even those who had previously shown dominant positions in the class. They could not cope with simple tasks that previously did not cause any difficulties. The next day, Jane did the same experiment, but with the groups switched roles. And the same situation repeated itself again - the previously servile and quiet brown-eyed people now began to treat the blue-eyed people caustically and mockingly, and they, in turn, no longer showed the arrogance that they showed the day before, becoming humiliated and depressed. At 2:30 pm, Jane stopped the experiment - she allowed the blue-eyed people to remove the ribbons from their necks and the children rushed into each other's arms, crying.

Jane then conducted a series of similar experiments in subsequent years with other children. Her experiments caused heated debate among educators and psychologists and brought understanding of the racial problem to a new level. The experiment showed that the backwardness, failure and other unfavorable features of the dark-skinned racial groups are caused not by their original origin, but by their oppression by the dominant race.

Racism, sexism, ageism - these are just a few examples of the many preconceived thoughts and feelings that large groups of people may harbor towards other groups, based on their biological, sociological or psychological characteristics.

Institutional discrimination is the discrimination that takes place at the level large group, society, organization or institution. These are unequal or unfair patterns of behavior or preferential treatment of people by a large group or organization solely on the basis of belonging to a group. These patterns may or may not be conscious and intentional. We see daily reports of such institutional discrimination occurring in the education system, commercial and industrial organizations, legal and judicial systems, and professional sports.

Three components have been identified in numerous experimental studies. Although they gave interesting results, many problems remained unresolved. Another difficulty arose about the relationship of attitude with real behavior. This difficulty was discovered after the implementation of the famous experiment of Richard Lapierre in 1934.

Lapierre traveled around the United States with two Chinese students. They visited 252 hotels and in almost all cases (with the exception of one) met with a normal reception in them, corresponding to the standards of service. No difference in service between Lapierre himself and his Chinese students was found. After completing the trip (two years later), Lapierre turned to 251 hotels with letters asking if he could hope for hospitality again if he visited the hotel, accompanied by the same two Chinese, now his employees. The answer came from 128 hotels, and only one contained an agreement, 52% had a refusal, the rest were evasive. Lapierre interpreted these data in such a way that there is a discrepancy between the attitude (attitude towards people of Chinese nationality) and the actual behavior of hotel owners. From the responses to letters, one could conclude that there was a negative attitude, while in real behavior it was not manifested; on the contrary, the behavior was organized as if it were performed on the basis of a positive attitude.

This conclusion has been called "Lapierre's paradox" and has given rise to deep skepticism about the study of attitude. It turned out that real behavior is not built in accordance with the attitude. The decline in interest in attitudes was largely due to the discovery of this effect.

Thus, the attitude is a psychological mechanism for regulating both the unconscious and conscious activity of the subject; it “serves” both the simplest and most complex forms of social behavior. The mechanism of "activation" of a social attitude depends not only on the needs, the situation, their satisfaction, but also on the motivation for a particular act by a person or a group of people. It depends on the so-called disposition in which the subject of activity finds himself.

Leningrad sociologist V.A. Yadov, developed his original dispositional concept of social attitude.

Disposition (or predisposition) - readiness, predisposition of the subject to a behavioral act, action, deed, their sequence. In personalist psychology (V. Stern), the disposition denotes a causally unconditioned propensity to act, in G. Allport's theory of personality - numerous personality traits (from 18 to 5 thousand), forming a complex of predispositions to a certain reaction of the subject to external environment. In domestic psychology, the term "disposition" is used primarily to denote the conscious readiness of the individual to assess the situation and behavior, due to its previous experience.

The concepts of "attitudes" or social attitudes also emphasize their direct connection with a certain (social) need and the conditions of activity in which the need can be satisfied. The change and consolidation (fixation) of a social attitude is also determined by the corresponding relationship between needs and the situations in which they are satisfied.

Consequently, the general mechanism for the formation of a fixed attitude at one or another of its levels is described by the formula P -> D<- С,

where P - need, D - disposition, C - situation or conditions of activity.

Needs, activity situations, and dispositions themselves form hierarchical systems. Concerning needs , then the allocation of the needs of the first (lower) level in them as psycho-physiological or vital, as well as more elevated, social - is generally accepted.

V.A. Yadov, within the framework of his concept, structured the needs according to the levels of inclusion of the individual in various spheres of social communication and social activity. These levels of inclusion of a person in various spheres of social communication can be designated as

initial inclusion in the near future family environment ,

into numerous so-called contact collectives or small groups ,

in one or another area of work ,

inclusion through all these channels, as well as many others, into a holistic social class system through the development of the ideological and cultural values of society.

The basis of the classification here is, as it were, the consistent expansion of the boundaries of the activity of the individual, the need or need for certain and expanding conditions for the full-fledged life of a person.

The conditions of activity or situations in which certain needs of the individual can be realized also form a certain hierarchical structure.

The basis of structuring is the duration of time during which the main characteristics of these conditions are preserved (i.e., the situation of activity can be taken as stable or unchanged).

The lowest level of such a structure is formed by subject situations , the peculiarity of which is that they are created by a specific and rapidly changing subject environment. Within a short period of time, a person passes from one such “objective situation” to another.

Next level - group communication conditions . The duration of such situations of activity is incomparably longer. For a considerable time, the main features of the group in which human activity takes place remain unchanged.

Even more stable are the conditions of activity in one or another social sphere - in the areas of work, leisure, family life (at home).

Finally, maximum temporal stability (and in comparison with those indicated above) is characteristic of the general social conditions of human life, which constitute the main features (economic, political, cultural) social "situation » his activity.

In other words, the social situation undergoes significant changes within the framework of "historical" time; the conditions of activity in a particular social sphere (for example, in the sphere of labor) can change several times during a person's life; the conditions of a group situation change over the course of years or months, and the subject environment - in a matter of minutes.

Let us now turn to the central term of our scheme P -> D<- С , i.e. to personality dispositions, these dispositional formations are also formed into a certain hierarchy.

1. Apparently, its lowest level includes elementary fixed installations. They are formed on the basis of vital needs and in the simplest situations. These attitudes, as a readiness for action fixed by previous experience, are devoid of modality (the experience of “for” or “against”) and are unconscious (there are no cognitive components). According to D.N. Uznadze, consciousness participates in the development of a mindset, when a habitual action encounters an obstacle and a person objectifies his own behavior, comprehends it, when the act of behavior becomes the subject of comprehension. Not being the content of consciousness, the attitude "underlies these conscious processes."

2. The second level of the dispositional structure - social fixed installations more precisely - the system of social attitudes. Unlike elementary behavioral readiness, the social attitude has a complex structure. It contains three main components: emotional (or evaluative), cognitive and actually behavioral. In other words, it is an "attitude" or "attitude". Social attitudes are formed on the basis of an assessment of individual social objects (or their properties) and individual social situations (or their properties).

3. The next dispositional level is the general orientation of the interests of the individual in one or another sphere of social activity, or basic social attitudes . With some simplification, we can assume that these attitudes are formed on the basis of the complex social needs of joining a certain field of activity and inclusion in this field. In this sense, the orientation of the individual is an identification with a particular area of social activity. For example, one can find a dominant focus on the sphere of professional activity, in the sphere of leisure, on the family (the main interests are concentrated on family life, raising children, creating home comfort, etc.). It is assumed that the social attitudes of this level also contain three components: cognitive, emotional (evaluative) and behavioral. Moreover, the cognitive formations of such dispositions are much more complex than the formations of the lower level. At the same time, the general orientation of the personality is more stable than attitudes toward individual social objects or situations.

4. The highest level of the dispositional hierarchy is formed by the system value orientations life goals and the means to achieve these goals. The system of value orientations is ideological in its essence. It is formed on the basis of the higher social needs of the individual (the need for inclusion in a given social environment in the broad sense as the internalization of general social, social class conditions of life) and in accordance with general social conditions that provide opportunities for the realization of certain social and individual values.

The expediency of including in the regulation of the activity of a certain dispositional formation, fixed in past experience, directly depends

from the needs of the corresponding vital or social level and

on the level of the situation or conditions of activity.

To regulate behavior at the level of an elementary behavioral act in some objective situation, one or another elementary fixed setting may be adequate; to regulate a socially significant act in given circumstances, the leading dispositions are most likely extracted from a system of fixed social attitudes; in the case of regulation of activity in a certain social sphere, “responsibility” for the general readiness is borne by the basic social attitudes, the orientation of the interests of the individual, and in the regulation of the social activity of the individual as a whole, its value orientations as the highest level of the dispositional hierarchy become dominant.

However, under certain conditions, a relatively elementary behavioral act can be regulated by a disposition of a higher level, as is the case if an unusual social significance is attached to this act due to prevailing circumstances.

Based on the concept of dispositional regulation of behavior, the cognitive, emotional and behavioral components, reflecting the main properties of the dispositional structure, form, as it were, relatively independent subsystems within the framework of the general dispositional hierarchy. The basis for this assumption is the experimental data of the "attitude" studies.

The development of the proposed concept eliminates the “exclusion” of the social attitude from a broader context and gives it a certain, important, but limited place in the regulation of the entire system of personality activity.

Now, from the point of view of dispositional regulation of behavior, Lapierre's paradox is easily explained: cases of discrepancy between a particular social attitude and an observed act can be explained by the fact that the leading role in the regulation of behavior belonged to a disposition of a different level. Thus, the value orientation towards the prestige of the institution dictated a negative answer regarding the service of colored people. And the same orientation implies compliance with the accepted rules of service, if the client, as they say, "is on the threshold."

One of the main problems that arise in the study of social attitudes is the problem of changing them. Routine observations show that any of the dispositions that a particular subject has can change. Many different models have been put forward to explain the process of changing social attitudes. These explanatory models are built in accordance with the principles that are applied in a particular study.

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Behavior is a form of interaction of an organism with the environment, the source of which is needs. Human behavior differs from the behavior of animals in its social conditioning, awareness, activity, creativity and is goal-setting, arbitrary.

Social attitude (attitude)- this is a certain state of consciousness, based on previous experience, regulating the attitude and behavior of a person.

Researchers are currently actively searching for relationship between attitude and behavior considering the various factors and circumstances that go along with it.

So, when do attitudes determine behavior? Preferences predict behavior if:

The personality setting was strong and clear enough,

The installation is in the field of human consciousness,

Knowledge about the object of this attitude,

The method of forming the installation,

When other influences are reduced.

When the pressure of the situation is strong, attitudes do not condition behavior as much as when the pressure is relatively weak. This is easy to see in Lapierre's study. Well-dressed respectable people who show up at the door of a hotel or restaurant find it difficult to refuse service, despite feelings of prejudice against this ethnic group. Outside pressure is stronger, as the rules for accepting clients require appropriate service for anyone who needs it and can pay for it.

Whether attitudes determine a person's behavior depends not only on the strength of the attitudes, but also on the personal and situational factors that mediate their relationship.

The ambiguity of the relationship "attitude - behavior" can also arise due to the influences exerted on human behavior by situational factors. Situational factors can be understood as both global social impacts (for example, the situation of social instability, the economic and political situation in the country, etc.), as well as more “private” situational influences.

Situational factors influencing human behavior that are most often mentioned when studying the relationship of attitudes and behavior:

1) The influence on human behavior of the attitudes and norms of other people (the influence of significant others and group pressure).

A person who wants to be in harmony with the group, with other people, can give up his attitudes and behave as the majority wants. In this case, a person's behavior can be determined not by his own, but by other people's attitudes. The equally famous experiment of S. Milgram showed that people, contrary to their beliefs, values and attitudes, can hurt others, following the experimenter's attitude. At the same time, the influence of the surrounding people is not constant and can change depending on the situation.

2) Lack of an acceptable alternative.

In addition to social factors, variables such as the lack of an acceptable alternative, as well as exposure to unpredictable events, can also influence the relationship between attitudes and behavior. The absence of an acceptable alternative lies in the fact that the discrepancy between attitude and behavior is determined by the inability to implement the attitude in practice, in reality. So, for example, people may be forced to buy those products that they have a negative attitude towards, since there are simply no others.

3) Exposure to unpredictable events.

The impact of unpredictable events lies in the fact that an unexpected situation makes a person act sometimes even contrary to his attitudes. For example, a lonely person who does not love his neighbor (negative attitude), having fallen ill, is forced to turn to her for help.

4) Lack of time.

Finally, another situational factor that can change the attitude-behavior relationship is the lack of time caused by a person being busy or trying to solve several problems at once.

In Western social psychology and sociology, the term "attitude" is used to denote social attitudes, which is translated into Russian as "social attitude", or is used without translation as "attitude". The study of attitudes is one of the most developed areas of social psychology. It should be noted that in English there is also a designation for the term "set" - "set", but this is a different line of research, close in meaning to the understanding of the set in the school of D. N. Uznadze.

In the history of attitude research in Western social psychology, the following periods are distinguished:

20-40s 20th century - first period rapid growth in the popularity of the problem and the number of studies. W. Thomas and F. Znanetsky in 1918 for the first time introduced the concept of attitude into socio-psychological terminology. Under the attitude, they understood "the psychological experience by the individual of the value, meaning, meaning of the social object", or as "the state of consciousness of the individual regarding some social value." The definition reveals the main features of attitude: the social nature of the objects with which the attitude and behavior of a person is associated, the awareness of relationships and behavior, the emotional component and the regulatory role.

Subsequently, discussions about the content of the concept and methods of measuring social attitudes developed (G. Allport, D. Hartman, L. Thurstone, R. Likert, and others). The definition of attitude given by

G. Allport in 1935: "Installation is a state of psycho-nervous readiness that has developed on the basis of experience and has a directing and (or) dynamic influence on the individual's reactions to all objects or situations with which he is associated."

40-50s gg. 20th century - second period a decrease in interest in research on this issue due to the difficulties that have arisen. Within the framework of the "multicomponent view of attitude" (M. Smith, D. Krech and R. Cruchfield), the structural components of the social attitude were studied. Three components were singled out in it: cognitive (knowledge about the installation object), affective (emotional assessment of the object), conative (behavioral) component (purposeful actions in relation to the object).
50-60s gg. 20th century - third period revival of interest in the problem, the emergence of new ideas, but also the recognition of the crisis state of research. The problems of changing social attitudes (functional theories, K. Hovland's persuasive communication), the conditions and mechanisms for changing attitudes (the theory of cognitive correspondence), the relationship of its various components to each other are being studied, methods of measuring attitudes are being improved. Representatives of the functional theory identified and substantiated the main functions of attitude.
70s gg. 20th century - The fourth period stagnation is associated with many contradictory and incomparable facts on the problem of attitude. Development of "mini-theories" intended to explain the accumulated empirical material.
80-90s gg. 20th century - fifth period studying attitude systems, problems of changing attitudes (cognitive models of persuasive communication by R. Petit, J. Cachoppo, S. Cheiken), the role of social attitudes in the processing of incoming information, the relationship between attitudes and behavior (E. Aronson, R. Fazio, D. Myers and etc.).

In domestic psychology, the problem of attitude was the subject of research at school. D. N. Uznadze. The meaning that D. N. Uznadze invested in the concept of attitude differed from that accepted in foreign psychology. In his opinion, the installation is not a mental process and not a behavioral act, but a special kind of reflection of reality. The occurrence of the installation is conditioned by both the object and the subject, the installation arises:

1) as a reaction to a certain situation;
2) as a result of satisfaction of a certain need.

In domestic psychology concepts and concepts that are to some extent close to the idea of a social attitude arose in the framework of the study of other psychological problems and reflect only certain properties of a social attitude. This is the category of relations in the concept of V. N. Myasishchev, which he understood as an integral system of individual, selective, conscious connections of the individual with various aspects of objective reality: with natural phenomena and the world of things; with people and social phenomena; personality with itself as a subject of activity. According to Myasishchev, the system of relations is determined by the entire history of human development, it expresses his personal experience and internally determines his actions and experiences.

The concept of personal meaning in the theory of A. N. Leontiev reveals the personal significance of an object, action or event that finds itself in the field of action of the leading motive and determines the direction of the expected behavior or activity of the individual. We produce personal meanings from the place of a person in the system of social relations and from his social position. A change in a person's social position entails a rethinking of his relationship to reality, in some cases it can lead to deep restructuring of the entire set of personal meanings and manifest itself in "losing oneself" and the loss of the meaning of existence.

The orientation of the individual in the works of L. I. Bozhovich is considered as the internal position of the individual in relation to the social environment and individual objects of the social environment. These positions may be different in relation to diverse situations and objects, but in them one can state the dominant trend, which allows one to predict behavior in relation to new situations and objects in a certain way. The orientation of a person can also be considered as a predisposition, as a predisposition of a person to act in a certain way, including the entire sphere of his life, all the most complex social objects and situations.

Attitude functions. In the works of M. Smith, D. Bruner and R. White, an approach was outlined to the problem of attitude functions. Researchers have identified the following functions that a social attitude performs:

1) object evaluation function, performed by the attitude, sets "ready-made" evaluative categories and allows the subject to evaluate the incoming information with its help and correlate it with his motives, goals, values and interests:
2) function of social adjustment- the attitude helps the subject to assess how other people relate to the social object and directs him to those objects that serve to achieve the set goals. The social setting mediates interpersonal relationships: an attitude can act as a means of maintaining a person's relationship with other people, or as a means of breaking these relationships;
3) externalization (function of incarnation) is connected with the existence of internal problems and contradictions in a person and is a "spokesman" of the deep motives of a person.

Knowledge organization function - attitude gives simplified instructions on how to behave in relation to a particular object, avoids a sense of uncertainty and ambiguity, sets the direction for interpreting events.

Thus, social attitudes in the process of social cognition allow people to organize their ideas about the world around them and ways of behaving in relation to specific objects or situations, in the process of regulating social behavior they help a person to self-determine, navigate in the changing conditions of the social world, perform the functions of ego protection and expression of values .