Encyclopedia of Sociology

ATTITUDES

Southeast Asian Asian Refugee Studies Project 1983
Bibliography of Hmongs. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.

U.S. Government Printing Office 1989 An Annotated
Bibliography on Refugee Mental Health. Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Warren, W. H. 1989 ‘‘Maps: A spacial Approach to
Japanese American Communities in Los Angeles.’’
Amerasia 13:137–151.

Wong, Bernard 1987 ‘‘The Role of Ethnicity in Enclave
Enterprises: A Study of the Chinese Garment Fac-
tories in New York City.’’ Human Organization
46(2):120–130.

——— 1988 Patronage, Brokerage, Entrepreneurship and
the Chinese Community of New York. New York: AMS Press.

——— 1977 Chinese American Community.

Wong, Paul, Meora Manvi, and Takeo Hirota Wong
1998 ‘‘Asiacentrism and Asian American Studies?’’
Amerasia. 21 (1, 2):137–147.

Yochum, G., and V. Agarwal 1988 ‘‘Permanent Labor
Certifications for Alien Professionals, 1975–1982’’.
International Migration Review 22(2):365–381.

——— 1983 ‘‘Korean Communities in America: Past,
Present, and Future.’’ Amerasia 10(2):23–51.

Yu, Elena, and William T. Liu 1992 ‘‘U.S. National
Health Data on Asian/Pacific Islanders: A Research
Agenda for the 1990s.’’ American Journal of Public
Health 82:12.

Zhou, M. 1992 Chinatown: The Socioeconomic Potentials of
An Urban Enclave. Philadelphia: Temple Universi-
ty Press.

WILLIAM T. LIU

ELENA S. H. YU

ASSIMILATION

See Ethnicity.

ATHEISM

See Religious Orientations.

ATTITUDES

Attitude ‘‘is probably the most distinctive and indis-
pensable concept in contemporary American so-
cial psychology’’ (Allport 1985, p. 35). Hundreds

of books and thousands of articles have been

published on the topic. A review of this literature

may be found in Eagly and Chaiken (1998). De-

spite this popularity, there is considerable disa-

greement about such basics as terminology. Sever-

al terms are frequently used as synonyms for

attitude, including opinion and belief. Contempo-

rary writers often distinguish attitudes from cognitions,

which is broader and includes attitudes as well as

perceptions of one’s environment. Most analysts

distinguish attitude from value, the latter referring

to a person’s ultimate concerns or preferred modes

of conduct.

An attitude is a learned predisposition to re-

spond to a particular object in a generally favor-

able or unfavorable way. Every attitude is about an

object, and the object may be a person, product,

idea, or event. Each attitude has three compo-

nents: (1) a belief, (2) a favorable or unfavorable

evaluation, and (3) a behavioral disposition. This

definition is used by most contemporary writers.

However, a small minority define attitude as con-

sisting only of the positive or negative evaluation

of an object.

A stereotype is one type of attitude. Originally,

the term referred to a rigid and simplistic ‘‘picture

in the head.’’ In current usage, a stereotype is a

belief about the characteristics of members of

some specified social group. A stereotype may be

positive (Asian Americans are good at math) or

negative (women are bad at math). Most stereo-

types are resistant to change.

Attitudes link the person to other individuals,

groups, and social organizations and institutions.

Each person has literally hundreds of attitudes,

one for each significant object in the person’s

physical and social environment. By implication,

the individual’s attitudes should reflect his or her

location in society. Thus, attitudes are influenced

by gender, race, religion, education, and social

class. Considerable research on the relationship

between social position and attitudes has been

carried out; this literature is reviewed by Kiecolt

(1988).

ATTITUDE FORMATION

Many attitudes are learned through direct experi-

ence with the object. Attitudes toward one’s school,

job, church, and the groups to which one belongs