Attitudes and Related Psychosocial Constructs
Theories, Assessment, and Research
- Lewis Aiken - Pepperdine University, USA
Attitudes have a major impact upon behaviour and upon one's ability to manage and adapt to change while also influencing the behaviour of those around oneself. This book provides a compact but comprehensive, research-oriented treatment of attitudes and related psychosocial constructs (values, opinions, beliefs, and personal orientations). It focuses on the meaning, measurement, and utility of attitudes in various applied settings, such as education or the workplace. The topics explored include social and personal matters such as prejudice and discrimination, illness and disability, death and dying, poverty and unemployment, conflict and violence, schools and teachers, work and retirement, and politics, religion, and morality. The book should prove of interest to both students and professionals who find themselves involved with measuring, evaluating, and modifying attitudes.
"The emphasis on application of attitudes to a variety of "real-world" issues is what makes this book particularly unique..The presentation of factors that influence measurement reliability is outstanding, as is discussion of ways to assess validity and standardize an instrument.. Aiken has succeeded in developing an informative and interesting book that makes attitudes accessible to students by positioning them in concrete, applied contexts."
