Social psychologyChapter 7Attitude and attitude changeAttitude: a mental representation that summarizes an individual’s evaluation of a particular person, group, thing, action or idea.Attitude change: the process by which attitudes form and change by the association of positive or negative information with the attitude object.Persuasion: the process of forming, strengthening or changing attitudes by communication. Measuring attitudesResearches infer attitudes from people’s reactions to attitude objects. Such reactions can range form subtle uncontrollable evaluative reactions that people are unaware of, to more deliberate and controllable expressions of support or opposition. Assessing these different reactions shows that implicit attitudes can sometimes differ from explicit attitudes.Two aspects of people’s reactions are important for attitudes:Attitude direction: whether the attitude is favorable, neutral, or unfavorableAttitude intensity: whether the attitude is moderate or extremeThe most straightforward way to measure attitudes to through self-report.Social psychologists usually get people to report their attitudes using attitude scales.Researchers need to keep in mind that the words they use and the response options they offer can subtly change the attitudes people report.Social psychologists also use observations of behavior to gauge attitudes.Explicit attitude: the attitude that people openly and deliberately express about an attitude objecct in self-report or by behavior.People can control their explicit...