Photographer: Foster Thompson
First subject: what caused the decrease in cigarette usage in the US? The increased hassle, or increased awareness in the population? The opening leads straight into the discussion of the psychology scholars. Led by Jodi Treadway, the class goes into a discussion on the cause of this behavior change, and how it relates to bigger behavior changes.
By the third Tuesday of Murray GSP, the Psychology class was in the middle of its Behavior unit, covering whether attitude or behavior changes first, and how the two affect each other. Regarding decreased cigarette use in the US, the class consensus was that the increased hassle had the largest impact on the change in behavior. Clearly, behavior can change without the need for a change in attitude.
Photographer: Foster Thompson
But what even is an “attitude”? Well, in psychology an attitude is made up of three parts: the affect, the behavioral tendency, and cognition, often shortened to ABC. An affect is an emotional base for an attitude, and can be composed of multiple emotions, any emotion, complex to simple, positive to negative. The behavioral tendency is any action taken to be in accordance with the rest of the attitude, such as avoiding a restaurant because you don’t like the food served there. And finally, cognition is the mental processes relating to the attitude that go on in the head.
And the order of the acronym doesn’t mean the affect has to be formed before cognition, as these parts can take shape in whatever order to make an attitude.
As an example of attitude forming behavior, the class analyzed prejudice. Prejudice usually stems from emotions such as hate, fear, disdain, making the affect. For cognition, stereotypes are common examples of thoughts formed in relation to prejudice. And the behavioral tendency is discrimination, which takes on many forms. But many people hold prejudice yet don’t act on it. Why?
Because of moral hypocrisy! Moral hypocrisy is the principle that one will avoid following their attitude when it comes at a cost. Of course, people can still follow their attitude even if it’s at a cost, but more often than not, people aren’t willing to follow their attitude when there’s unwanted side effects. Moral hypocrisy is the prime example of behavior not matching with someone’s attitude, as attitudes rarely change with behavior.
There’s also implicit attitudes, which we may not be aware of, such as microaggressions, that can contradict our explicit attitudes. In order to show an implicit attitude in action, Jodi took an implicit association test in front of the class. During this activity, some scholars gave callouts, others just watched, but overall everyone enjoyed the activity. With multiple tests available, many students wanted to take one on their own time, learning more about their own implicit attitudes.
But the discussions are by far the most important part of psychology! Every new topic brought conversation,and every student participated. When the class discussed which reason was more important to decrease smoking (more hassle or more awareness), some contrasted smoking in the US to smoking in Europe and Asia, some made claims that other substances are easier to access, and some made claims that both the hassle and increased awareness were to blame. Students also bring up personal experiences such as gas station employees offering vapes, or examples of breaking rules when discussing moral hypocrisy (but make sure not to step on the grass!).
At the end of the class, the discussion shifts to what the next lesson has in store, each scholar looking forward to the class’s next meeting.
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