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The Tripartide Model Of Attitude : Avioral And Cognitive Approach

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We define an attitude as a summary evaluation of an object of thought. An attitude object is anything a person holds in mind, be it concrete (e.g. pizza) or abstract (e.g. freedom of speech), be it things, persons, groups or abstract ideas. Attitudes can encompass affective, behavioural and cognitive responses, as summarized in the Tripartide model of attitudes (Allport, 1935) An environmentalist might strongly believe that air pollution destroys the ozone layer, which increases the risk of cancer(cognitive); it might get angry or sad about the extinction of endangered species (affective) and it might use public transportation rather than a car and participate in recycling (behavioural). Because it is difficult to separate the different classes of response from each other and because it is not a necessity for all classes to be represented, we adopted a one-dimensional definition of attitude as a summary evaluation Tripartide model: The assumption that affective, cognitive and behavioural responses are independent elements of attitude Some definitions characterise attitudes as enduring concepts which are stored in the memory and can be retrieved accordingly: Allport, 1935 ; Eagly & Chaiken, 2007. This perspective is called the ‘File-drawer model’, because it perceives attitudes as mental files which individuals consult for the evaluation of the object in question (Wilson et al., 1990) File-drawer model: A theoretical perspective that characterises attitudes as enduring

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