CBSE Class 12 Psychology Attitude And Social Cognition Worksheet

Question. What are the factors that influence the formation of an attitude?
Answer. The factors influencing attitude formation are as follows:
(i) Family and School Environment: Learning of attitudes within the family and school usually takes place by association, through reward and punishment and through modeling.

(ii) Reference groups: Attitudes towards various topics such as political, religious and social groups, occupations, national and other issues is developed through reference groups. This is learning by reward and punishment.
(iii) Personal experiences: Personal experience can bring a drastic change in our attitude. Here is a real-life example. A driver in the army went through a personal experience that transformed his life. On one mission, he narrowly escaped death although all his companions got killed. He gave up his job in the army and worked actively as a community leader. Through a purely personal experience the individual evolved a strong positive attitude towards community upliftment.
(iv) Media-related influences: Media can exert both good and bad influences on attitudes.On one hand, the media and internet make people better informed than other modes of communication while on the other hand it can create negative attitudes in people.

Question. Is behaviour always a reflection of one’s attitude? Explain with a relevant example.
Answer. There is consistency between Attitudes and Behaviour when
(i) The attitude is strong, and occupies a central place in the attitude system.
(ii) The person is aware of his attitude, there is no external pressure for the person to behave in a particular way. For example, there is no group pressure to follow the norm.
(iii) The person’s behaviour is not being watched or evaluated by others.
(iv) The person thinks that the behaviour would have a positive consequence.

In the days when Americans were said to be prejudiced against the Chinese, Richard LaPiere, an American social psychologist, conducted the following study. He asked a Chinese couple to travel across the United States, and stay in different hotels. Only once during these occasions they were refused service by one of the hotels. Sometime later, LaPiere sent out questionnaires to managers of hotels and tourist homes in the same areas where the Chinese couple had travelled, asking them if they would give accommodation to Chinese guests. A very large percentage said that they would not do so. This response showed a negative attitude towards the Chinese, which was inconsistent with the positive behaviour that was actually shown towards the travelling Chinese couple. Thus, attitudes may not always predict actual pattern of one’s behaviour.

Sometimes it is behaviour that decides the attitude.
In the experiment by Festinger and Carlsmith, students who got only one dollar for telling others that the experiment was interesting, discovered that they liked the experiment. That is, on the basis of their behaviour (telling others that the experiment was interesting, for only a small amount of money), they concluded that their attitude towards the experiment was positive (“I would not have told a lie for this small amount of money, which means that the experiment was actually interesting”).

Question. Highlight the importance of schemas in social cognition.
Answer. Social cognition refers to all those psychological processes that deal with the gathering and processing of information related to social objects. These include all the processes that help in understanding, explaining and interpreting social behaviour. The processing of information related to social objects (particularly individuals, groups, people, relationships, social issues, and the like) differs from the processing of information related to physical objects. People as social objects may themselves change as the cognitive process takes place. For instance, a teacher who observes a student in school may draw conclusions about her/him that are quite different from the conclusions drawn by the student’s mother, who observes her/him at home. The student may show a difference in her/his behaviour, depending on who is watching her/him — the teacher or the mother. Social cognition is guided by mental units called schemas.
Schemas and Stereotypes
A schema is defined as a mental structure that provides a framework, set of rules or guidelines for processing information about any object. Schemas (or ‘schemata’) are the basic units stored in our memory, and function as shorthand ways of processing information, thus reducing the time and mental effort required in cognition. In the case of social cognition, the basic units are social schemas. Some attitudes may also function like social schemas. We use many different schemas, and come to know about them through analysis and examples.

Question. Prejudice can exist without discrimination and vice versa. Comment.
Answer. Prejudices can exist without being shown in the form of discrimination. Similarly, discrimination can be shown without prejudice. Yet, the two go together very often. Wherever prejudice and discrimination exist, conflicts are very likely to arise between groups within the same society. Our own society has witnessed many deplorable instances of discrimination, with and without prejudice, based on gender, religion, community, caste, physical handicap, and illnesses such as AIDS. Moreover, in many cases discriminatory behaviour can be curbed by law. But, the cognitive and emotional components of prejudice are more difficult to change.

Prejudice gets translated into discrimination (the behavioural component) whereby people behave in less positive way towards a particular target group compared to another group which they favour. In our society there has been cases of discrimination due to prejudice based on gender, religion, community, caste, physical handicap and illness such as AIDS.

Question. Explain how the attribution made by an ‘actor’ would be different from that of an ‘observer’.
Answer. There is an overall tendency for people to give greater weightage to internal or dispositional factors than external or situational factors. This is called fundamental attribution error. It varies from culture to culture.
A distinction is made between the attribution that a person makes for his/her positive and negative experiences (actor-role) than the attribution made by another person’s positive and negative experiences (observer-role). This is called actor-observer effect. For example, if you get good marks in a test you attribute it to your ability and hard work while if you get bad marks you say that you were unlucky or that the test was difficult. On the other hand, if your class-mate gets good marks you attribute his/her success to good luck or an easy test and if your class-mate gets bad marks you attribute his/her failure to low ability or lack of effort.

Question. How does social facilitation take place?
Answer. Improvement in performance in the presence of others is called social facilitation. For example, cyclists racing with each other perform better than when they cycle alone.

CBSE Class 12 Psychology Chapter 6 Attitude And Social Cognition Objective Type Questions 

Question. ____________ are attitudes that contain a ‘should’ or ‘ought’ aspect.
(a) Beliefs
(b) Values
(c) Stereotypes
(d) Prejudices
Answer. B

Question. In 1957, Leon Festinger published his theory of
(a) balance
(b) cognitive dissonance
(c) learning
(d) attitude
Answer. B

Question. ____________ is a cluster of interrelated traits and attributes assumed to be characteristics of certain kinds of individuals.
(a) Prejudice
(b) Stereotype
(c) Attribution
(d) None of the above
Answer. B

Question. ____________ is an example of negative attitude towards people.
(a) Prototype
(b) Stereotype
(c) Discrimination
(d) Prejudice
Answer. D

Question. _______________ is the scientific field that seeks to understand the nature and causes of individual behaviour and thought in social situations.
(a) Social psychology
(b) Child psychology
(c) Clinical psychology
(d) Counselling psychology
Answer. A

Question. Making inferences about personal qualities of people on meeting them is called
(a) Social cognition
(b) Pro-social behaviour
(c) Impression formation
(d) Social facilitation
Answer. C

Question. Improvement in behaviour due to presence of other individuals is known as
(a) imitation
(b) social facilitation
(c) interaction
(d) none of the above
Answer. B

Question. An augmentation in behaviour due to the presence of other individuals is known as:
(a) imitation
(b) social facilitation
(c) interaction
(d) none of the above
Answer. B

Question. When people attribute failure to task difficulty they are referring to following factors:
(a) External, stable
(b) Internal, stable
(c) External, unstable
(d) Internal, unstable
Answer. C

Question. Fundamental attribution error means explaining the actions of others on the basis of internal causes. (True/False)
Answer. True

Question. ____________ is a group based way of expressing frustration, and is often results in negative attitudes or prejudice against the weaker group.
Answer. Scapegoating

Question. Responding to others who are in need or distress is called social cognition. (True/False)
Answer. False

Question. _____________ is the phenomenon by which majority group places the blame on minority out-group for its social, economic and political problems.
Answer. Stereotype

Question. Cognitive units called ____________ activate social cognition.
Answer. Schema(s)/Social Schema

Question. The process of assigning cause to the behaviour shown in specific social situation is called _______________.
Answer. Attribution

CBSE Class 12 Psychology Chapter 6 Attitude And Social Cognition Very Short Answer Questions 

Question. What are values?
Answer. Values are attitudes with a ‘should’ or ‘ought’ aspect, i.e., moral or ethical values. For example, one should work hard or one should be honest.

Question. What is a stereotype?
Answer. A stereotype is a cluster of ideas regarding the characteristics of a specific group. They are category-based schemas about a group of people. For example, a stereotype that Americans are hardworking.

Question. Explain the concept of prejudice.
Answer. Prejudices are negative attitudes towards a particular group and are based on stereotypes (the cognitive component). The cognitive component of prejudice is accompanied by dislike or hatred (the affective component). Prejudice gets translated into discrimination (the behavioural component) whereby people behave in less positive way towards a particular target group compared to another group which they favour. In our society there has been cases of discrimination due to prejudice based on gender, religion, community, caste, physical handicap and illness such as AIDS.

Question. What is cognition?
Answer. Cognition refers to all those mental processes that deal with obtaining and processing of information.

Question. Explain social cognition with the help of examples.
Answer. Social cognition refers to all those psychological processes that deal with the gathering and processing of information related to social objects. For example, a teacher’s conclusions regarding a student’s behavior in school are quite different from his mother’s conclusion who observes him at home.

Question. What is halo effect?
Answer. During formation of impression, we have a tendency to think that a target person who has one set of positive qualities must have other positive qualities. This is known as halo effect. For example, if we are told that a person is ‘tidy’ and ‘punctual’, we are likely to think that the person must also be ‘hardworking’.

Question. What is social facilitation?
Answer. Improvement in performance in the presence of others is called social facilitation. For example, cyclists racing with each other perform better than when they cycle alone.

Question. Explain pro-social behaviour.
Answer. Pro-social behavior or altruism is doing something or thinking about the welfare of others without any self-interest. For example, sharing things, cooperating with others, helping during natural calamities, showing sympathy, doing favours to others.

CBSE Class 12 Psychology Chapter 6 Attitude And Social Cognition Short Answer Questions-I 

Question. How message characteristics facilitate attitude change?
Answer. The message for attitude change contains a rational appeal or an emotional appeal makes a difference. For example, an advertisement for cooking food in a pressure cooker may point out that this saves cooking gas (rational appeal) or preserves nutrition (emotional appeal).
The motives activated by the message also determine attitude change. For example, drinking milk makes a person healthy, good-looking, more energetic and more successful in one’s job.
The mode of spreading the message plays a significant role. Face-to-face transmission of the message is usually more effective than indirect transmission. As for instance, through letters and pamphlets or even through mass media.

Question. State any 3 sources of prejudice. 
Answer.
(i) Learning: Prejudices are learned through association, reward and punishment, observing others, group or cultural norms and exposure to information. Family, reference groups, personal experiences and media play a role in the learning of prejudices. Prejudiced persons show low adjusting capacity, anxiety and feelings of hostility against outgroup.
(ii) A Strong Social Identity and Ingroup Bias: Prejudiced individuals who have a strong social identity and have a very positive attitude towards their own group boost this attitude by holding negative attitudes towards other groups.
(iii) Scapegoating: The majority group places the blame on a majority outgroup for its social, economic and political problems. Scapegoating is a group-based way of expressing frustration and it often results in negative attitudes or prejudices against the weaker group.

Question. Explain social cognition with the help of suitable examples.
Answer. Social cognition refers to all those psychological processes that deal with the gathering and processing of information related to social objects. For example, a teacher’s conclusions regarding a student’s behavior in school are quite different from his mother’s conclusion who observes him at home.

Question. What are the characteristics of pro-social behaviour? 
Answer. The characteristics of pro-social behavior are
(i) Aim to benefit or do good to others without expecting anything in return.
(ii) Helpign others without expecting anything in return.
(iii) To willingly benefit others without any kind of pressure.
(iv) Provide help without any difficulty or any cost.

CBSE Class 12 Psychology Chapter 6 Attitude And Social Cognition Short Answer Questions-II

Question. Explain how attitudes are formed.
OR
Explain the conditions which lead to the learning of attitudes. 
Answer. The process of attitude formation takes place in the following ways
(i) Learning attitudes by association: A positive attitude towards the subject is learned through positive association between a teacher and a student in school. In other words, students often develop a liking for a particular subject because of the teacher.
(ii) Learning attitudes by being rewarded or punished: If an individual is praised for showing a particular attitude, chances are high that s/he will develop the attitude further. For example, if a teenager does yogasanas regularly and gets the honour of being Miss Good Health in her school, she may develop a positive attitude toward yoga and health in general. Similarly, if a child constantly falls ill because he/she eats junk food instead of proper meal, then the child is likely to develop a negative attitude towards junk food, and also a positive attitude towards eating healthy food.
(iii) Learning attitudes through modeling (observing others): We learn attitudes through association and through reward and punishment. For example, children form a respectful attitude towards elders by observing that their parents show respect for elders and are appreciated for it.
(iv) Learning attitudes through group or cultural norms: Learning attitudes through group or cultural norms is through association, reward or punishment and modeling. For example, offering money, sweets, fruit and flowers in a place of worship is a normative behavior in some religions. When individuals see that such behaviour is shown by others and is socially approved, they develop a positive attitude towards such behaviour.
(v) Learning through exposure to information: With the huge amount of information that is being provided through media, both positive and negative attitudes are being formed. By reading the biographies of self-actualised person, an individual may develop a positive attitude towards hard work.

Question. Discuss two-step theory of attitude change.
Answer. The 2-step concept of attitude change was proposed by an Indian psychologist,S. M. Mohsin.
Step 1: The target changes his attitude by identifying with the source.
Step 2: The source shows an attitude change towards the attitude object. The target also shows an attitude change. This is a kind of imitation or observational learning.
For example,
Step 1: Preeti reads in newspaper that a particular soft drink she enjoys is harmful. But she imitates the sports person with whom she identifies.
Step 2: The sports person having positive feelings towards his fans may change his habit of consuming the soft drink by substituting it with a health drink. Now, Preeti will also change her attitude and stop consuming the harmful soft drink.

Question. Discuss the sources of prejudice.
OR
How are prejudices formed?
Answer. The sources of prejudice are:
(i) Learning: Prejudices are learned through association, reward and punishment, observing others, group or cultural norms and exposure to information. Family, reference groups, personal experiences and media play a role in the learning of prejudices. Prejudiced persons show low adjusting capacity, anxiety and feelings of hostility against outgroup.
(ii) A strong social identity and ingroup bias: Prejudiced individuals who have a strong social identity and have a very positive attitude towards their own group boost this attitude by holding negative attitudes towards other groups.
(iii) Scapegoating: The majority group places the blame on a majority outgroup for its social, economic and political problems. Scapegoating is a group-based way of expressing frustration and it often results in negative attitudes or prejudices against the weaker group.
(iv) Kernel of truth concept: People continue to hold stereotypes because they think that after all, there must be some truth or ‘kernel of truth’ in what everyone says about the other group.
(v) Self-fulfilling prophecy: The target group may behave in ways that justify the prejudice, i.e., conform the negative expectations which may thus strengthen the existing prejudice.

Question. State the strategies for overcoming prejudice. 
OR
How can prejudice be handled?
OR
Discuss the strategies for handling prejudice.
Answer. The strategies for handing prejudice would be effective if they aim at:
(i) Minimizing opportunities for learning prejudices.
(ii) Changing such attitudes.
(iii) De-emphasising a narrow social identity based on ingroup.
(iv) Discouraging the tendency towards self-fulfilling prophecy among the victims of prejudice.
These goals can be accomplished through:
(a) Education and information dissemination, for correcting stereotypes related to specific target groups and tackling the problem of strong ingroup bias.
(b) Increasing intergroup contact allows for direct communication, removal of mistrust between the groups and discovery of positive qualities in the outgroup. This strategy is successful if
- The two groups meet in a cooperative rather than competitive context
- Close interactions between the groups help them to know each other better
- The two groups are not different in power or status.
(v) Highlighting individual identity rather than group identity

Question. Discuss the concept of impression formation with the help of examples.
Answer. When we meet people, we make inferences about their personal qualities. This is impression formation. For example, if a person is good looking we form impressions that the person would be sincere and hard-working.
The person who forms the impression is called the perceiver. The individual about whom the impression is formed is called the target. Impression formation consists of the following sub-processes:
(i) Selection: Information is collected about target person.
(ii) Organisation: Information is combined in a systematic way.
(iii) Inference: A conclusion is drawn about the kind of person the target is.

Question. Explain the factors that influence impression formation.
Answer. Impression formation is influences by:
(i) Nature of information available to the perceiver.
(ii) Social schemas in the perceiver (including stereotypes).
(iii) Personality characteristics of the perceiver.
(iv) Situational factors

CBSE Class 12 Psychology Chapter 6 Attitude And Social Cognition Long Answer Questions 

Question. Explain social cognition. Discuss with examples the role of schemas in social cognition. 
Answer. Social cognition refers to all those psychological processes that deal with the gathering and processing of information related to social objects. For example, a teacher’s conclusions regarding a student’s behavior in school are quite different from his mother’s conclusion who observes him at .homeAttitudes, impression formation and attribution are such processes which involve mental activities related to gathering and processing of information about the social world. Collectively this is called social cognition.Schemas guide social cognition. A schema is defined as a mental structure that provides a framework, set of rules or guidelines for processing information about any object.
Schemas are the basic units stored in our memory and in case of social cognition; the basic units are social schemas. Most of the schemas are in the form of categories or classes.
- Schemas that function in the form of categories are called prototypes.
- Schemas reduce time and mental effort required in cognition.
A stereotype is a cluster of ideas regarding the characteristics of a specific group. They are category-based schemas about a group of people. For example, a stereotype that Americans are hard-working. If you hear positive things about a group, the social schema about the group would be positive while when you hear negative things about the group, your social schema about the group would be in the form of negative stereotype. The effects of stereotypes are that they give rise to prejudices and biases about specific groups.

Question. State the factors which influence pro-social behaviour.
Answer. The factors influencing pro-social behaviour are:
(i) It is based on the inborn natural tendency in human beings.
(ii) It is influenced by learning. Individuals from family environments which emphasise helping as a value and praise helpfulness show more pro-social behaviour.
(iii) Some cultures encourage people to help the needy and distressed.
(iv) Pro-social behaviour is expressed when the situation activates certain social norms that require helping others. The norms are:
(a) Norm of Social Responsibility which states that we should help anyone who needs help.
(b) Norm of Reciprocity which states one should help those persons who have helped us in the past.
(c) Norm of Equity which states that we should help others whenever it is fair to do so. For example, it is fair to help a person who has lost all belongingness in a flood than to help a person who has lost everything through gambling.
(v) People may not help the needy because they feel that the person might feel insulted or may become dependent.
(vi) Pro-social behaviour is more likely to be shown by individuals who have a high level of empathy.
(vii) Pro-social behaviour is reduced by factors such as bad mood, being busy with one’s own problems, or feeling that the person to be helped is responsible for his/her situation.
(viii) Pro-social behaviour is reduced when people are part of a large group. For example, when there is a road accident each person thinks that it is not his/her responsibility alone to give help and that someone else may take the responsibility which is not the case when the person is alone. The people are thus influenced by the phenomenon of the diffusion of responsibility. 

Question. Discuss factors influencing impression formation. Explain actor-observer effect in attribution.
Answer. Impression formation is influenced by:
(i) Nature of information available to the perceiver.
(ii) Social schemas in the perceiver (including stereotypes).
(iii) Personality characteristics of the perceiver.
(iv) Situational factors
The process of impression formation is influenced by the above factors which are in turn influenced by
- Primacy effect
- Recency effect
- Halo effect
We assign causes to the behavior shown in specific social situations. This process is called attribution. A distinction is made between the attribution that a person makes for his/ her positive and negative experiences (actor-role) than the attribution made by another person’s positive and negative experiences (observer-role). This is called actor-observer effect.
When a individual attributes his/her own success, he/she emphasizes on internal factors but for failures to external factors; whereas when he/she attributes success of others he gives emphasis to external factors and for failures to internal factors.

LONG ANSWER QUESTIONS

1. Explain the various factors that may influence Pro-social behavior of an individual.

2. ‘Rahima is a tennis player and is participating in the zonal. She is very talented yet she is feeling nervous as it has to be played in front of an audience. Explain the various reasons for which the arousal may take place with reference to social facilitation.

3. After forming an impression, we often go through the process of assigning the cause to a person’s behavior. Elaborate.

4. Explain the characteristics by which impression formation may be influenced.

5. How is Prejudice different from Stereotypes? What are the various sources of Prejudice?

6. ‘Attitude may change in the direction of information that is presented or in the direction opposite to that of information presented.’ Justify your statement.

7. Differentiate between cognitive consistency and Cognitive Dissonance.

8. ‘The processes and conditions of learning are different as it may vary the attitudes of people.’ Elaborate and give examples in support of your answer.

9. What is the A-B-C component of Attitude? Explain with the help of examples.

10. What is social cognition? Explain its various components briefly.