1. Research on the concept and dynamics of social attitudes

The concept, which to a certain extent explains the choice of the motive that induces an individual to engage in activity, is the concept of a social attitude .

The problem of installation was the subject of research in the school of D. N. Uznadze.

D. Uznadze defined the installation as an integral dynamic state of the object, a state of readiness for a certain activity.

This condition is determined by the factors of the need of the subject and the corresponding objective situation.

A mood of behavior to meet a given need and in a given situation can be fixed in the case of a repetition of the situation, then a fixed setting arises as opposed to a situational one .

Installation in the context of the concept of D. Uznadze concerns the implementation of the simplest physiological human needs.

The idea of ​​identifying the special states of the individual, preceding its real behavior, is present in many researchers.

This range of issues was considered by I. N. Myasishchev in his concept of human relations .

The relationship, understood as “a system of temporary connections of a person as a person of a subject with all of reality or with its individual parties,” explains the directionality of the future behavior of an individual.

The tradition of studying social attitudes has developed in Western social psychology and sociology.

To refer to social attitudes, the term "attribute" is used.

In 1918, W. Thomas and F. Znanetsky established two dependencies, without which it was impossible to describe the adaptation process: the interdependence of the individual and social organization.

They proposed to characterize both sides of the above relationship with the help of the concepts “social value” (to characterize social organization) and “social setting”, “attitudes” (to characterize an individual).

For the first time, the notion of attribution was introduced - “the state of consciousness of an individual relative to a certain social value”.

After the discovery of the phenomenon of attitudes, a boom began in his research.

Several different interpretations of attitudes arose: a certain state of consciousness and the nervous system, expressing readiness for reaction, organized on the basis of previous experience, exerting a directing and dynamic influence on behavior.

As the main method, various scales proposed by L. Turnstone were used.

Functions of attitudes :

1) adaptive (adaptive) - the attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve the achievement of his goals;

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

3) the function of expression (the function of self-regulation) - the attitude acts as a means of freeing the subject from internal tension, expressing himself as a person;

4) protection function - attribution helps to resolve internal conflicts of the individual.

In 1942, M. Smith defined the structure of the attribute:

1) the cognitive component (awareness of the object of social attitudes);

2) the affective component (emotional evaluation of the object);

3) behavioral component (consistent behavior in relation to the object).

A stereotype is an excessive generalization of a phenomenon, turning into a stable belief and influencing the system of a person’s relationships, behaviors, thought processes, judgments, etc.

The process of stereotyping is called stereotyping.

As a result of stereotyping, a social setting is formed - a person’s predisposition to perceive something in a certain way and act in one way or another.

The peculiarities of the formation of social attitudes are related to the fact that they possess some stability and carry the functions of facilitation, algorithmization, cognition, as well as an instrumental function (introducing the individual to the system of norms and values ​​of a given social environment).

The installation can help to perceive the image of another person more correctly, acting on the principle of a magnifying glass during attraction, and can also block the normal perception, obeying the principle of a distorting mirror.

D. N. Uznadze believed that the installation is the basis of the selective activity of a person, and therefore, is an indicator of possible activities.

Knowing the social attitudes of a person, one can predict his actions.

Changes in attitudes depend on the novelty of the information, the individual characteristics of the subject, the order in which information is received, and the system of attitudes that the subject already has.

Since the installation determines the selective direction of behavior of the individual, it regulates the activity on three hierarchical levels: semantic, target and operational.

At the semantic level, attitudes are most generalized and determine the relationship of a person to objects that have personal significance for an individual.

Target attitudes are associated with specific actions and the desire of a person to finish the job started.

They determine the relatively stable nature of the activity.

If the action is interrupted, then the motivational tension is still maintained, ensuring the person is ready to continue it.

The effect of the incomplete action was discovered by K. Levin and more thoroughly studied in the studies of V. Zeigarnik (the Zeigarnik effect).

At the operational level, the installation determines the decision-making in a particular situation, contributes to the perception and interpretation of circumstances based on the past experience of the subject's behavior in such a situation and the corresponding prediction of the possibilities of adequate and effective behavior.

J. Godfroy identified three main stages in the formation of social attitudes of a person in the process of socialization.

The first stage covers the period of childhood up to 12 years.

Installations developing during this period correspond to the parent models.

From 12 to 20 years, attitudes acquire a more specific form, their formation is associated with the assimilation of social roles.

The third stage covers the period from 20 to 30 years and is characterized by the crystallization of social attitudes, the formation on their basis of a belief system, which is a very stable mental neoplasm.

By the age of 30, the installations are notable for their considerable stability, it is extremely difficult to change them.

Any of the dispositions that a particular subject has may vary.

The degree of their variability and mobility depends on the level of a particular disposition: the more complex a social object, in relation to which a person has a certain disposition, the more stable it is.

Many different models have been put forward explaining the processes of changing social attitudes.

Most studies of social attitudes are carried out in the course of two main theoretical orientations - behavioral and cognitive .

Behaviorist-oriented social psychology (studies of K. Hovland’s social attitudes as an explanatory principle for understanding the fact of attitudes change (the designation of “social attitudes” in Western social psychology)) uses the principle of learning: the attitudes of a person change depending on how or other social installation.

Changing the system of rewards and punishments, you can influence the nature of social attitudes.

If the attitude is formed on the basis of previous life experience, then the change is possible only if the "inclusion" of social factors.

The subordination of the social setting itself to higher levels of dispositions justifies the need, when examining the problem of changing attitudes, to apply to the entire system of social factors, and not just to “reinforcements”.

In the cognitive tradition, an explanation of the change in social attitudes is given in terms of the so-called conformity theories of F. Haider, G. Newcomb, L. Festinger, C. Osgood.

A change in the installation occurs when there is a discrepancy in the individual's cognitive structure, for example, a negative installation on an object and a positive installation on a person, giving a positive characteristic to the object.

The impetus for changing attitudes is the individual's need to restore cognitive fit, orderly perception of the external world.

The phenomenon of social attitudes is caused both by the fact of its functioning in the social system and by the property of regulating the behavior of a person as a being capable of active, conscious, transformative production activity, included in a complex interweaving of connections with other people.

Therefore, in contrast to the sociological description of changes in social attitudes, it is not enough to reveal only the totality of social changes preceding the change in attitudes and explaining them.

A change in social attitudes must be analyzed both in terms of the content of objective social changes affecting this level of dispositions, and in terms of changes in the active position of the individual, caused not just in response to the situation, but due to circumstances generated by the development of the personality itself.

These analysis requirements can be fulfilled under one condition: when considering the installation in the context of the activity. If a social setting arises in a certain sphere of human activity, then one can understand its change by analyzing the changes in the activity itself.

2. Varieties of social attitudes existing in society

Prejudice is a special type of attitude (mostly negative) towards members of a particular social group.

Discrimination - negative actions directed against these people, attitudes translated into actions.

Prejudice is the attitude (usually negative) towards members of a social group based only on their affiliation to this group.

A person who has a prejudice against a social group, by a special (usually negative), evaluates its members by belonging to this group.

Their individual traits or behavior do not matter.

People with prejudice to certain groups often process information about these groups differently than information about other groups.

They pay more attention to information that is consistent with their biased views, it is often repeated and as a result is remembered more accurately than information that is not consistent with these views.

If prejudice is a special type of installation, then it can not only include a negative assessment of the group against which it is directed, but also contain negative feelings or emotions of people expressing it when they are in the presence or thinking of representatives of the group that is I do not like.

Prejudice may include opinions and expectations regarding members of different social groups — stereotypes that assume that all members of these groups exhibit the same traits and behave in the same way.

When people think about prejudice, they usually focus on its emotional or evaluative aspects.

Prejudice is associated with certain aspects of social cognition — the ways in which we isolate, store, recover from memory, and later use information about other people.

In our attempts to find explanations for various phenomena of the social world, we often use the shortest cognitive paths.

This is usually done when our ability to cope with social information reaches its limit; then we are most likely to rely on stereotypes as the shortest mental ways to understand other people or form judgments about them.

Social attitudes are not always reflected in external actions.

In many cases, people who negatively relate to representatives of different groups may not express these views openly.

Laws, social pressure, fear of retaliation - this keeps people from openly expressing their prejudices.

Many people who have prejudices feel that open discrimination is bad, and they perceive such actions as a violation of personal behavioral standards.

When they notice that they have discriminated, they feel a great discomfort.

In recent years, blatant forms of discrimination — negative actions against objects of racial, ethnic, or religious prejudice — have been rarely observed.

The new racism is more subtle but equally cruel.

Social control is the influence of society on attitudes, ideas, values, ideals and human behavior.

Social control includes expositions , norms and sanctions . Expectations - the requirements of others in relation to this person, acting in the form of expectations.

Social norms are patterns that prescribe what people should say, think, feel, do in specific situations.

Social sanction is a measure of influence, the most important means of social control.

Forms of social control are diverse ways of regulating human life in a society, which are caused by various social (group) processes.

They predetermine the transition of external social regulation into intrapersonal regulation.

This is due to the internalization of social norms.

In the process of interiorization, social ideas are transferred to the consciousness of an individual.

The most common forms of social control:

1) law - a set of regulations that have legal force and regulate the formal relations of people across the state;

2) taboos include a system of prohibitions to commit any actions or thoughts of a person.

Social control is exercised through repeated, habitual for most ways of behavior of people, common in a given society - customs .

Customs are learned from childhood and have the character of a social habit.

The main feature of custom is prevalence.

Custom is determined by the conditions of society at a given time and is thus different from tradition, which is timeless in nature and exists for quite a long time, being passed on from generation to generation.

Traditions are such customs that have developed historically in connection with the culture of a given ethnos; handed down from generation to generation; determined by the mentality of the people.

Customs and traditions encompass mass forms of behavior and play a huge role in the integration of society.

There are special customs that have a moral meaning and are associated with the understanding of good and evil in a given social group or society — morality .

The category of morals serves to designate customs that have moral significance and characterize all those forms of human behavior in a given social stratum that can be subjected to moral evaluation.

At the individual level, morals are manifested in man’s manners, his behavior.

Manners include a set of behaviors of this particular person or a particular social group.

Habit is an unconscious action that has been repeated so many times in a person’s life that has become automated.

Etiquette - the established order of behavior, forms of treatment or a set of rules of conduct relating to the external manifestation of attitudes towards people.

Any member of society is under the strong psychological influence of social control, which is not always realized by the individual due to the processes and results of interiorization.

Social norms are certain patterns that prescribe what people should say, think, feel, and do in specific situations.

Most often, norms are established models, standards of behavior from the point of view not only of society as a whole, but also of specific social groups.

Norms perform a regulatory function both in relation to a specific person and in relation to a group.

The social norm acts as a social phenomenon that does not depend on individual variations.

Most social norms are unwritten rules. Signs of social norms:

1) validity. Norms can not apply only to one or a few members of a group or society, without affecting the behavior of the majority.

If the norms are public, they are generally significant within the framework of the whole society, if they are group-wide, then their validity is limited to the framework of this group;

2) the possibility of applying a group or a society of sanctions , rewards or punishments, approval or censure;

3) the presence of the subjective side.

Manifested in two aspects: a person has the right to decide for himself whether to accept or not accept the norms of a group or society, to comply with them or not to fulfill them;

4) interdependence. In society, the norms are interrelated and interdependent, they form complex systems that regulate the actions of people.

Regulatory systems may be different, and this difference sometimes contains the possibility of conflict, both social and personal.

Some social norms contradict each other, putting a person in a situation of necessity of choice;

5) масштабность. Нормы различаются по масштабу на собственно социальные и групповые.

Социальные нормы действуют в рамках всего общества и представляют собой такие формы социального контроля, как обычаи, традиции, законы, этикет и т. д.

Действие групповых норм ограничивается рамками конкретной группы и определяется тем, как здесь принято себя вести (нравы, манеры, групповые и индивидуальные привычки).

Все процедуры, при помощи которых поведение индивида приводится к норме социальной группы, называются санкциями. Социальная санкция – мера воздействия, важнейшее средство социального контроля.

Виды санкций: негативные и позитивны е, формальные и неформальные .

Negative sanctions are directed against a person who has receded from social norms.

Positive sanctions are aimed at the support and approval of the person who follows these standards.

Formal sanctions are imposed by an official, public or state body or their representative.

Informal suppose is usually the reaction of group members, friends, colleagues, relatives, etc.

Positive sanctions are usually more powerful than negative ones. The impact of sanctions depends on many circumstances, the most important of which is agreement on their application.