Attitude is an opinion belief or value judgement which is based on experience or shared knowledge (11)... dispositions either develop through direct experience or are learned from others through socialization. The study of attitudes is particularly important when assesed stereotypes, bias, prejudice, persuasion, and survey material. With particular reference to attitudes about people, it is important to recognize how often we display attitude towards new groups (13)___we have had little or no contact. For examples we my form stereotypes about journalists, thinking of them ambitious. (14)___, tough and cynical without ever having met one. In this sense, the process (15)___ occurs, where an attitude extends from specific instances within a category to include all members of that category.Attitudes can be said to have three main components the cognitive or intellectual (the information that is at hand about the target). The emotional or affective (the gut reaction to such information)and the behavioral (the degree to which we act out that which we know and feel) in this way, a football supporter can have an extensive knowledge of his or her team’s history. A liking of the game, and will have attended some fixtures. It is (16)___ intellectual an affective qualities because they can be usually be inferred only from the behavioral component (17)___often give replies which they think conform to others expectation of them, and which are therefore socially acceptable. In this way respondents to attitude tests may well provide contrived answers (18)___ this possibility many questionnaires ask seemingly indirect questions. (19)___people will not realize the actual purposes of the test, and (20)___ “real” and spontaneous answers.

Taken from O’Sullivan et all. (1994). Key concepts in Communication Cultural Studies Routledge​