Attitude Theory and
Formation
A number of social psychological attitude theories can be
cited to describe how attitudes towards persons with disabilities develop and how
they change. These theories can be studied to describe both the development and
change of attitudes. In this study, various theories were ascribed to explain
the formation of attitudes toward persons with disabilities.
Attitude formation and how people come to evaluate objects
in the environment positively and negatively, is a long standing issue in
social psychology (Olson and Fazio, 2001). Ajzen (2001) however reviewed that
there is a general agreement that attitudes represent a summary evaluation of a
psychological object. These can either
be positive or negative, harmful or beneficial, pleasant or unpleasant, favorable
or unfavorable evaluations or beliefs held about an object, people or event and
are composed of cognitive, affective and behavioral components.
The
cognitive component represents what people know or believe about the attitude
object; the affective component is made up of feelings that the object
produces; and the behavioral component is a predisposition to act toward the
object in a particular way (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975; Nairne, 2003; Judge and
Robbin, 2007). For instance, in studying negative attitudes toward groups such
as persons with disabilities, social psychologists often distinguish between
negative stereotypes (negative beliefs and perceptions about a group) as the
cognitive component; prejudice (negative feelings toward the group) the
affective component; and discrimination (negative action against member of the
group) the behavioral component.
Specifically,
Leatherman and Niemeyer (2005) exemplified the interaction of triadic model of
attitudes among teachers. They suggest that teachers form attitudes towards
children with disabilities, and ultimately towards inclusion, based on a
child’s characteristics, the factors in the classroom and their previous
experiences. The cognitive component
refers to knowledge and beliefs about the causes of behavior of children with
disabilities in an inclusive setting. The affective component is based on the
cognitive understanding of disability or persons with disability, which can
motivate people to get involved in working with a child with disability, or
generate feeling that could cause them to exclude a child with disability from
typical activities. The behavioral component deals with a tendency to behave or
respond in a particular way when in contact with children who have disabilities
(e.g. move farther away from the child).
Some
theorists however prefer to define an attitude as only the cognitive and
affective component, while other only the affective component. The behavioral
component is assumed to be influenced by both the cognitive and the affective
components (Walker, 2008). Nonetheless, all share a consensus about attitudes
as the interrelationship among pertinent beliefs, feelings and behavior
(Nolen-Hoeksema, et al, 2009).
According to Leutar and Raič (2008), understanding the role of attitudes in the process of
human adaptation is significant as they can be shaped and changed. They
influence not only behavior but including the cognitive processes: perception;
memory; and thinking.
Leonard and Crawford (1989), presented a two-level of theory
of attitudes toward persons with disabilities (as cited in Gething, 1994).
According to this theory, attitudes toward persons with disabilities are in two
forms: societal level which relates to treatment of persons with disabilities
as a group, and personal level which relates to personal interaction. Attitudes
at the societal level relate to issues such as provision of goods and services,
education employment, etc. These denote prevalent beliefs espoused by and
influenced by the society (e.g. governments, cultural orientation, historical
background, or other prevailing conditions). On the other hand, attitudes on
the personal level are more directly related to personal experience and include
ease in social interaction, judging attributes of the person as distinct from
the disability, and degree of comfort interacting with person with disability.
Attitudes at the social level signify the cognitive, while those at the
personal level indicate the affective component of attitudes (Pedi- sić,
2000,in Leutar and Raič, 2008).
Societal attitudes
tend to be more remote and do not necessarily have congruence with personal
ones. This remoteness causes differences between the two (Daruwalla and Darcy,
2005). An illustration of this discrepancy lies in the statement by Gething
(1994) that avers: “People with disabilities should be able to live in the community,
but not next door to me”.
Societal attitudes
still may impact personal attitudes toward persons with disabilities since
attitudes are socially learned, socially expressed, and socially changed (Smith
and Hogg, 2008). Attitudes are personal dispositions but at the same time a
societal product. They always have a social reference. They have their basis in
social communication and learning, which are shared with other members of the
group or community (Dalal, 2006).
The most primary illustrations are behaviorist learning
theories which stipulate that attitudes can be (classically or operantly)
conditioned through experience (Nairne, 2003). In classical conditioning, a
conditioned stimulus (CS) precedes an unconditioned stimulus (US). This CS-US
arrangement eventually leads to a conditioned response or attitude change after
sufficient repetitions (Erwing et al, 2008). This implies that when initially
neutral social stimuli are paired constantly with positive or negative stimuli,
subjects will develop positive or negative attitudes toward the previously
neutral stimulus. For example, attitudes towards persons with disabilities can
be conditioned by culture and how the public views or treats persons with
disabilities. If a child is exposed to the society’s idea that persons with
disabilities are dirty, stupid, pathetic, aggressive, useless, and the like, he
will convey these negative adjectives to negative attitudes toward persons with
disabilities. These begin to emerge early in the process of development,
wherein children already categorize people with or without disabilities and
prefer those without disabilities (Krahe and Altwasser, 2005). Moreover, these
attitudes can be further strengthened through reinforcements most especially
from significant others. For instance, if a parent rewards the child for
showing respect or helping a person with disability, this may allow favorable
attitudes toward persons with disabilities.
Bandura’s Social Learning Theory also emphasizes that
attitudes are emulated from models. People can acquire new attitudes
vicariously by observing and imitating other people’s actions (Forsyth, 2007).
Observational learning plays a critical role, like when children imitate
attitudes of parents, other adults and peers toward members of various groups
like persons with disabilities (Feldman, 2008). If an individual sees someone,
for instance, his mother talk to a person with disability in a respectful and
acceptable way, s/he can display the same behavior by modeling her.
Particularly, the media greatly influences attitude formation toward persons
with disabilities. Persons with disabilities are portrayed as sick, suffering,
looking for help and having special needs (Ruffner, 1990, in Krahe and
Altwasser, 2005).Their portrayal of persons with disabilities and related
issues can inculcate stereotypical views and misconceptions.
Tajfel and Turner’s Social Identity Theory focuses on the
impact of group membership to one’s attitudes. It implies that people concern
themselves with categorizing in-groups or out-groups (Myers, 2005). Group
membership serves as the source of pride and self-worth. To maximize one’s
self-esteem, people assign more favorable features to one’s own group than to
other groups. People come to view members of out-groups as inferior to members
of in-group (Myers, 2005; Feldman, 2008; McShane and Glinow, 2008).
Once individuals identify with their group, and start to
think in terms of “we” and “us”, they also begin to recognize “them” and
“they”. They tend to exaggerate the difference between their group and other
group. They develop ingroup-outgroup bias, or the tendency to view and stress
the relative superiority of their own groups to other groups (Frosyth, 2007).
Forsyth (2007) added that groups may just be collection of
individuals but these collections shape the society. They have a deep impact on
individuals as they mold actions, thoughts and feelings. They can change their
members by prompting them to change their attitudes and values as they come to
agree with the overall consensus of the group. With this, attitudes are
socially structured and guarded in social consensus defined by group
membership. In some societies, attitudes are pressures towards uniformity and
are closely related with group goals or group identity (Dalal, 2006). Since
individuals who identify with a group take on more and more of the typical
features of the member of that group, they adapt the attitudinal preferences
and behavior that characterize the group as well.
In the case of
persons with disabilities, attitudes towards them are shaped according to their
social categorization. Members of the nondisabled
group majority tend to maintain a certain social distance and treating them as
outsiders based solely on being different and being “non-abled” (Mishra, 2002;
Bedini, 1992). From a historical and sociological point of view, the majority
group of the nondisabled people maintained the ableist perspective, which
implies having disability is negative and as much as possible, be treated,
cured or even eliminated. This results to negative attitudes of the society
toward persons with disabilities (Campbell, 2008).
