The Fao and the Usda: Implications for Functionalist Learning

CHAPTER 8 - Summary of Attitude and Source Change Theories

Numerous empirical findings have shown biased judgments of (future) teachers depending on students’ ethnic and social background. Furthermore, research has indicated that (future) teachers’ stereotypes and attitudes differ depending on students’ backgrounds and appear to influence (future) teachers’ judgments. Based on theories of stereotype change, attitude change, and judgment formation, a short intervention was developed to change stereotypes and attitudes and to reduce judgment biases. In an experimental study (within- and between-subject design) with N = 215 preservice teacher students, the effectiveness of the intervention on stereotype change, attitude change, and reduction of judgment distortions was tested. The results showed hypothesized effects of the intervention on stereotypes and attitudes towards students with an immigration background and students with low social status. Furthermore, the intervention showed effects on preservice teacher students’ judgments, especially for low-status students.

Ever since Thomas and Znaniecki (1918) first suggested that the study of attitudes should be the central problem of social psychology, researchers in the area have placed a great deal of emphasis on the theory and measurement of attitude and attitude change. This concentration on attitudes was especially facilitated by a rapid development of methods for measuring attitudes and attitude change. As a result of the availability of measurement techniques and this concentration of emphasis and effort, social psychologists have provided, and are continuing to provide, a large body of literature concerning both attitudes and opinions.

Research evidence is presented to support a new and simple theory of attitude formation and change. This theory posits that the attitude of any individual converges overtime on the arithmetic mean of the attitude-pertinent information received by the individual. Consequently, the stability of an attitude is dependent on the number of messages out of which that attitude was formed. This formulation also implies that the emotional state or feelings of an individual and the degree of heterogeneity of influences to which he or she was exposed are unrelated to attitude change. Using a multi-stage, multi-time proce-dure, and instruments designed to detect and measure interpersonal influence, data provided by 135 high school students over a six-month interval support these hypoth-eses. While the notion that cognitive processing of information may be too complex and unpredictable to be represented by a few simple quantitative laws or principles remains a suspicion even among some social scientists, the last decade of empirical re-

Protection motivation and self-efficacy: A revised theory of fear appeals and attitude change

This paper introduces a new communication model to the marketing literature: Hunter, Levine, and Sayers' (1976) Hierarchical theory of communication and attitude change. We first compare the hierarchical model with the well known multiattribute attitude model, popularized by Fishbein (1967). We then discuss managerial implications.

Predictions concerning the effects of participation in protest activity stimulated by conflict and resentment are derived from two theories of attitude change, sociotherapy and dissonance reduction...

Illicit drugs and driving: prevalence, beliefs and accident involvement among a cohort of current out-of-treatment drug users

Innocents Abroad: Attitude Change toward Hosts

Suggestions for population policy strategies have ranged from “do nothing” to “use inescapable force.” In practice, however, persuasion and positive incentives are the two strategies that are most widely employed in contemporary population planning programs. Other means for lowering the birth rate tend to be rejected by policymakers as ethically unacceptable, ineffective, or infeasible. In both social psychological theory and population policy practice there is a growing skepticism about the efficacy of communication and persuasion as means for producing behavior change. This paper challenges that estimate. Recent advances in attitude theory and measurement may provide a useful set of guidelines for family planning communication programs.

The self-concept is undergoing something of a renaissance in contemporary social psychology. It has, of course, been a central concept within symbolic interactionism since the seminal writings of Mead ( 1934), Cooley (1902), and James ( 1890). However, even within this sociological tradition there has been a revitalization of interest in the self-concept: with developments in role theory (Turner 1978; Gordon 1976), with the increasing focus on the concept of identity (McCall & Simmons 1978; Stryker 1980; Gordon 1968; Guiot 1977; Burke 1980), with the reemergence of interest in social structure and person­ ality (House 198 1 ; Turner 1976; Kohn 1969, 198 1 ; Rosenberg 1979), and with the reconceptualization of small group experimental situations (Alexander and colleagues 197 1 , 1 98 1 ; Webster & Sobieszek 1974). The reemergence of the self-concept is even more dramatic within psycho­ logical social psychology. Much of this revitalization of interest in self­ phenomena (e.g. self-awareness, self-esteem, self-image, self-evaluation) is due to the revolution in psychology (Dember 1974; Manis 1977), generally at the expense of behaviorism. As a result, the self-concept has become conspicuous in areas and traditions that were previously considered alien terrain: within behaviorism via Bern's ( 1972) theory of self-attribution; within social learning theory via Bandura's ( 1977) focus on self-efficacy; and within cognitive dissonance theory via Aronson's ( 1968) and Bramel's ( 1968) reformulations. It is also increasingly evident in theories of attitude and value formation and change (Rokeach 1973, 1979), in attribution theory (Epstein. 1973; Bowerman 1978), and in various other recent theories of cognitive

n the first half of the nineteenth century, nearly two hundred British men and women toured the United States and then wrote books about their travels. Their books did much to set the terms for the period’s articulation of national differences. Through their description of American manners, they established an array of stillfamiliar oppositions: American openness and British reserve, American energy and British leisure, American merchants and British gentlemen. But in describing the differences between the United States and Great Britain, they also threw into relief the many connections that continued to exist between the two nations. In particular, they illuminated a shared Anglo-American culture of social reform. Nineteenth-century reform has long been seen as tak ing place within the bounds of the nation, but it actually depended, I will show, on transatlantic imitations and exchanges. The Atlantic was crossed and recrossed by reformers paying visits to one another, going on lecture tours, and attending Anglo-American conventions against slavery and for temperance or world peace; it was also crossed by writings about reform, including pieces by corresponding societies; reform petitions and “Friendly Addresses”; as well as pamphlets, periodicals, and novels. In this context, it makes sense that a number of the British travelers who came to the United States did so to advocate certain reformist causes and that their travel books furthered this work. The Anglo-American scope of social reform points to the need for a transatlanticism that is as attentive to the connections across national boundaries as to the differences between nations, as attentive to the concrete collaborations of individuals and groups as to the imaginings of nations as a whole. In this essay, I will elaborate such an approach by first placing this new transatlanticism in the context of earlier attempts to read American and British works alongside one another, and then by using it to reconsider the most famous of the I

Israel’s attacked to Hezbollah at Lebanon has arisen international reactions because of enormoue victims caused by that action, whom mostly were civilians. International society has asked the United Nations Security Council to pass a Resolution for handling this problem based on the authority stipulated in the United Nations by United Syastes as one of the Security Council’s member, finally the Resolution contains essential element which stated that the situation in Lebanon has caused breach to international peace and safety. Security Council Resolution Number 1701 is a good starting point to change the regional reality become one goal, to keep the peace and safety in Lebanon, which has been desired by international community. Final result of this Resolution however depends on intention of the parties to comply with it because it has no sanction mechanism. Based on Article 25 of the United Nations Charter, Security Coincil’s decision legally binds all member of the United Nations, and those countries, which are not member, shoul act according to this Resolution for the peace and safety of international world.

The past three decades have been marked by significant progress in our understanding of the biological foundations of human behaviour, the evolutionary forces that drive human conduct and cognition and...

The Dadaist Prose of Williams and Cummings: A Novelette and [No Title] Antonio Ruiz One of the most famous and polemic catalogues in postmodern theory was proposed by Ihab Hassan in his study of postmodernism: Modernism Postmodernism Romanticism/Symbolism Pataphysics/Dadaism Form (conjunctive, closed) Antiform (disjunctive, open) Purpose Play Design Chance Hierarchy Anarchy Mastery/Logos Exhaustion/Silence Art Object/Finished Work Process/Performance/Happening Distance Participation Creation/Totalization Decreation/Deconstruction Synthesis Antithesis Presence Absence Centering Dispersal (Dismemberment 267–68) These often quoted dichotomies have always attracted my attention, particularly the first one, as it represents a Damocles sword constantly threatening the claim of originality promoted by the high priests of postmodernism. Even Hassan himself has recognized the avant-garde spirit of the concept he is trying to define: “But if much of modernism appears hieratic, hypotactical, and formalist, postmodernism strikes us by contrast as playful, paratactical, and deconstructionist. In this it recalls [End Page 101] the irreverent spirit of the avant-garde, and so carries sometimes the label of neoavant-garde” (Postmodern Turn 121). The case of Dada’s inclusion in the cataloguing of postmodern traits is significant. Dada was a movement of reaction against the rationalist tradition of Western thought (Rubin, 1967). Tzara said that “Dada doubts all” (Tzara 92). Similarly, deconstructive postmodern thought is seen by some as nihilistic: “it partakes of uncertainty and doubt, and accepts ambiguity” (Sanouillet 226). Like Dada, postmodernism is defined by rejection: “The rejection of all-encompassing, teleological theories of human and social change associated with Enlightenment ideas about reason and progress” (Locher, 1999). Postmodernism also strives to achieve other major goals: “linking claims about social life, human nature, and criteria of truth and validity with strategies of power; and replacing the emphasis on subject and consciousness with an emphasis on language as intersubjective” (Locher, 1999). Like David Locher, I also claim that these goals were previously proposed by Dada. The Dadaists, for example, believed that meaning was arbitrary. As language signified nothing, it could be manipulated in any way desired (Richter, 1965). They also believed that there is no absolute truth and abolished the distinction between the concepts of high and low (or popular) art and culture. As a matter of fact, most of the features assigned to postmodernism can also be applied to Dadaism (paraphysics/Dadaism, chance, antiform, play, anarchy, exhaustion/silence, performance, participation, deconstruction, antithesis, absence, dispersal, combination, against interpretation . . .).1 My intention in proposing these parallels is not to suggest the lack of originality of prior proposals in the field of postmodernist theory but rather to reflect upon the debt that postmodernism, as also modernism, owes this avant-garde movement. Dada “was neither a school nor a movement but rather an essentially chaotic phenomenon that cut across art forms and national boundaries” (Tashjian xii). Zurich, Berlin, Cologne, Paris, and Hanover are some of the cities that are usually mentioned in relation to Dadaism. However, “even before the highly publicized activities at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich in 1916, a loosely organized collection of New York avant-garde artists offended the New York critics with their antics and their suspiciously foreign names—Benjamin de Casseres, Jean Crotti, Marius de Zayas, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia—” (Schmidt 92).2 These artists were associated with Walter Arensberg’s circle and connected with Stieglitz’s gallery and his magazine Camera Work. Eventually they founded several short-lived little magazines, including Picabia’s 391, de Zaya’s 291, Man Ray’s TNT, and Man Ray and Duchamp’s The Blind Man and New York Dada. These magazines preceded the release of other publications, edited by Americans, that flirted with Dadaism. I refer, for example, to Broom and Secession. In these magazines, writers like E. E. [End Page 102] Cummings, William Carlos Williams, and Mina Loy found an ideal forum in which to publish their most radical writing. The relation of Williams and Cummings with Dadaism is complex, replete with curiosities and contradictions. In the case of Williams—although it can also be said of Cummings—the desire to affirm his American identity—Whitman’s “barbaric yawp”—led him to take on the anti-art Dadaist attitudes and use them to break from structures and conventions...