Full model answers to all 7 Review Questions printed at the end of NCERT’s Psychology textbook, Chapter 6: “Attitude and Social Cognition” (Reprint 2026-27). This book uses Review Questions instead of a formal “Exercises” section; the same 7 questions appear in both the English and Hindi editions, one-to-one. After them come the chapter’s in-text questions: the opening mental exercise, Activity 6.1 and the questions printed under Figures 6.1 and 6.3.
Q. Define attitude. Discuss the components of an attitude.
Answer: An attitude is a state of mind: a set of views or thoughts about some topic (called the attitude object) that carries an evaluative feature (positive, negative, or neutral), is accompanied by an emotional component, and includes a tendency to act in a particular way towards that object. An attitude has three components, together called the A-B-C components: the Affective component is the emotional aspect (how one feels about the attitude object); the Behavioural (or conative) component is the tendency to act in a particular way towards the object; and the Cognitive component is the thought or belief aspect. These three are usually consistent with each other, though not always: in Box 6.1’s “Green Environment” example, a person’s cognitive component (a positive view of the environment) may be strong while the affective and behavioural components stay only weakly positive. Attitudes are themselves not behaviour, but they represent a tendency to behave or act in certain ways; they are part of cognition, along with an emotional component, and cannot be observed from outside.
Q. Are attitudes learnt? Explain how?
Answer: Yes, attitudes are mostly learned, through one’s own experiences and through interaction with others. A few research studies show some sort of inborn aspect of attitudes, but such genetic factors influence attitudes only indirectly, along with learning. Attitudes are learned through five mechanisms: (1) learning by association, e.g. a student develops a liking for a subject because of a liked teacher; (2) learning by being rewarded or punished, e.g. a teenager honoured as ‘Miss Good Health’ for doing yogasanas may develop a positive attitude towards yoga and health; (3) learning through modelling (observing others), e.g. children may form a respectful attitude towards elders by observing their parents show respect and being appreciated for it; (4) learning through group or cultural norms, e.g. offering money, sweets, fruit or flowers at a place of worship is normative behaviour in some religions, and this can actually combine all three prior mechanisms; and (5) learning through exposure to information, which needs no one else physically present, e.g. reading the biography of a self-actualised person can build a positive attitude towards hard work.
Q. What are the factors that influence the formation of an attitude?
Answer: Four factors provide the context for learning attitudes: (1) Family and school environment: parents and family members are important in the early years, and the school environment becomes important later; learning here happens through association, reward/punishment, and modelling. (2) Reference groups: these indicate the norms of acceptable behaviour and thinking, and their influence is especially noticeable at the start of adolescence, when it matters to a person that they belong to a group. (3) Personal experiences: direct personal experience, not routed through family or a reference group, can bring about a drastic attitude change; for example, an army driver who, after narrowly escaping death on a mission that killed all his companions, gave up his job, returned to his native village in Maharashtra, and became an active community leader. (4) Media-related influences: audio-visual media, the Internet, and school textbooks first strengthen the cognitive and affective components of an attitude and may later affect the behavioural component too; media can create consumerist attitudes with no check on their direction, or be used positively to build social harmony.
Q. Is behaviour always a reflection of one’s attitude? Explain with a relevant example.
Answer: No, behaviour is not always a reflection of one’s attitude. Psychologists have found that attitude and behaviour are consistent when the attitude is strong and central, the person is aware of their own attitude, there is little or no external/group pressure to behave otherwise, the person’s behaviour is not being watched or evaluated by others, and the person believes the behaviour will have a positive consequence. The book’s example is Richard LaPiere’s study: in an era when Americans were said to be prejudiced against the Chinese, LaPiere sent a Chinese couple travelling across the US to stay in hotels, and they were refused service only once. Sometime later, when LaPiere sent questionnaires to managers of hotels and tourist homes in the same areas where the couple had travelled, asking whether they would give accommodation to Chinese guests, a very large percentage said they would not. This negative attitude was inconsistent with the positive behaviour actually shown towards the travelling couple. This shows that attitudes may not always predict actual behaviour. Sometimes it is behaviour that decides the attitude: in Box 6.2, students who got only $1 for telling others the experiment was interesting concluded that their attitude towards it was positive (“I would not have told a lie for this small amount of money, which means that the experiment was actually interesting”).
Q. Differentiate between prejudice and stereotype.
Answer: A prejudice is an attitude towards a particular group, usually negative. A stereotype is a cluster of ideas about a specific group’s characteristics, which are assumed to apply to all members of that group; a stereotype is the cognitive component that a prejudice is often based on. In other words, the stereotype is the (usually undesirable) belief about the group, while prejudice is the negative attitude, carrying an affective (dislike/hatred) component as well as the cognitive one, built on that belief. Prejudice may also get translated into discrimination, the behavioural component, in which people behave less positively towards a target group than towards a group they favour.
Q. Prejudice can exist without discrimination and vice versa. Comment.
Answer: This is true. Prejudice (a negative attitude) can exist purely in a person’s mind, without ever being acted out as unequal treatment, so prejudice can exist without discrimination. Equally, discrimination (unequal behaviour towards a group) can occur without a genuinely held prejudiced attitude behind it, for example (our own illustration, not the book’s), when it results only from following an existing social practice rather than personal hostility, so discrimination can exist without prejudice. However, the two very often go together, and wherever both prejudice and discrimination exist, conflict between groups is very likely to arise within the same society. In many cases discriminatory behaviour can be curbed by law, but the cognitive and emotional components of prejudice are more difficult to change.
Q. Your friend eats too much junk food, how would you be able to bring about a change in her/his attitude towards food?
Answer: Using the factors that influence attitude change: I would consider the message: giving just enough information (not overwhelming), and choosing between a rational appeal (junk food is expensive and lacks nutrients) or an emotional appeal (junk food can affect how you look and feel around friends) and avoid a frightening message, since a message that generates too much fear turns off the receiver and has little persuasive effect. I would consider the source: the message will be more effective coming from a credible, likeable source (a doctor, a respected coach, or someone the friend already looks up to) rather than an unconvincing one. I would prefer face-to-face conversation over indirectly telling them (e.g. sharing an article), since face-to-face transmission is usually more effective than indirect transmission. Finally, I would consider my friend’s own target characteristics: if they have an open, flexible personality, a well-pitched conversation is likely to work; if their existing attitude is only mildly formed (not yet a firm value), it will be easier to shift, since formative attitudes change more easily than deeply held ones.
In-text questions. The chapter also asks questions inside the text: an opening mental exercise, one Activity box and two figure captions. They are answered below in the order the book prints them.
Q. Today, how many times did you tell yourself: “In my opinion…” or “Others may say so and so, but I feel…”? How important are these opinions to you?
Answer (guidance): What you fill in the blanks are opinions. Some are only moderately important to you: they are simply ways of thinking, and it does not matter much whether others agree. Others are extremely important: if someone challenges them you get emotional, and you may have made them part of your behaviour. Views that also have emotional and action components are more than opinions; they are attitudes.
Q. Which Picture will Make You More Eager to Buy a Laptop: Picture A, or Picture B? Why?
Answer: Picture A shows a professional-looking adult in a suit presenting the laptop; Picture B shows a schoolboy giving exactly the same message. The answer depends on who the buyer is, because of source characteristics (credibility and attractiveness). An adult buyer is more likely to be convinced by Picture A, since a professional, expert-looking source is more credible than a schoolchild. A schoolchild buyer, however, may be more convinced by Picture B, because another schoolchild is more attractive and easier to identify with as a source for that audience.
Q. Face-to-face Interaction versus Media Transmission. Which one works better? Why?
Answer: Face-to-face interaction works better. The book says face-to-face transmission of a message is usually more effective than indirect transmission through letters, pamphlets or mass media. A positive attitude towards ORS for young children is created more effectively when community social workers and doctors talk to people directly than when the benefits of ORS are only described on the radio. Television and the Internet come close to face-to-face interaction, but are not a substitute for it.
Q. Cut out an advertisement from a newspaper or magazine, that contains something special and catches your attention. Write down the following details about that advertisement, and present it to your class: the topic of the advertisement (for example, whether it is about a consumer product, some food, a company, a health matter, a national theme, etc.); good and bad consequences of the advertisement; whether it contains an emotional appeal or a rational appeal; whether it contains a popular figure: an expert source, or a well-liked person.
Answer (guidance): Your advertisement will be your own choice, so there is no single answer. Analyse it with the chapter’s factors of attitude change. Topic: say what the advertisement is about. Consequences: a good consequence could be useful information (for example, about a health product); a bad one could be creating a consumerist attitude, a wish to buy something one does not need. Appeal: it is a rational appeal if it gives facts such as saving money or fuel, and an emotional appeal if it plays on feelings such as caring for your family. Source: note whether the message comes from an expert (credibility) or from a well-liked film star or sportsperson (attractiveness).
Project Ideas. The two Project Ideas at the end of the chapter (the waste-management survey and the interpersonal judgment exercise) are open-ended activities, so they are not answered here.
Q1, Q3 and Q4 ask you to “discuss” or “explain”: structure these answers with clear sub-headings (components, factors, or conditions) rather than one flowing paragraph, as the model answers above are structured.