Attitudes

A critical evaluation of the methods and theoretical assumptions that you have used to research “attitudes” in this module.

An attitude is not a directly observable phenomenon. Therefore what an attitude is and where it comes from is an incredibly debateable topic. An attitude can be defined as “A physiological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour” (Eagly &Chaiken, 1998, p 269). Some people assume attitudes are measured in the head; however other cognitive psychologists assume that attitudes are the product of complex processes that can alter depending on context. After researching attitudes within an experimental design and also within a discourse analysis; in this assignment I am critically evaluating how both a positivist approach and a social constructionist approach differ when making sense of the world and how they challenge the notion of what an attitude is.

Experimental social psychology is the most dominant form of social psychology in North America and Europe as argued by Langridge (2001) and Willig (2001). Within this framework it is suggested that psychology is a Science and manipulations of variables are usually empirically observed in a controlled environment; they follow assumptions that social behaviour is objectively describable and measurable. They assume behaviour does not happen spontaneously or at random, but it is caused by a range of factors internal and external to the individual. Relationships between these factors are seen as normal and a pattern generally true for most people, most of the time.

Critical social psychologists argue as to whether it is appropriate to use the same framework as natural sciences as a method of measuring actions/behaviours that may not be directly observable. They argue that humans are social beings as oppose to isolated individuals and to understand a behaviour we cannot rely on observation alone, but need to look into any meanings...