Question

As you consider attitudes and the three elements of affect, cognition and behavior, does the nature of the emotion/feeling make a difference? For example, might hate create a stronger attitude than love? The three elements create an overall attitude about something but they can individually be either positive or negative (Jain, 2014).

Answer 1

An attitude is "a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols"

Attitudes structure can be described in terms of three components.

• Affective component: this involves a person’s feelings / emotions about the attitude object. For example: “I am scared of spiders”.
• Behavioral (or conative) component: the way the attitude we have influences how we act or behave. For example: “I will avoid spiders and scream if I see one”.
• Cognitive component: this involves a person’s belief / knowledge about an attitude object. For example: “I believe spiders are dangerous”.

Yes, the nature of the feeling or emotion do make a difference. Attitudes do not always predict behavior. Cognitive and affective components of attitudes are not necessarily expressed in behavior.The LaPiere's study shows that the cognitive and affective components of attitudes (e.g. disliking Chinese people) do not necessarily coincide with behavior (e.g. serving them).

people do not always follow it, sometimes behaving in seemingly quite illogical ways; for example, smoking cigarettes and knowing that smoking causes lung cancer and heart disease.

There is evidence that the cognitive and affective components of behavior do not always match with behavior.