attitude

n. Attitudes are evaluations of objects occurring in ongoing thoughts about the objects or stored in memory. Attitudes can be influenced by and can influence beliefs, affect, and behavior in relation to the attitude object. For example, people often infer attitudes toward an entity from their affective feelings in the presence of this object and beliefs about the object’s attributes. For example, one might form a positive attitude toward a new type of computer on the basis of one’s mood at the time or beliefs that the computer is fast and user-friendly. However, attitudes can be distinguished from affective feelings in that attitudes entail a cognitive evaluation. Attitudes are also distinct from beliefs in that beliefs can be verified or falsified with objective criteria. Attitudes can be measured with direct procedures requiring attitude report (explicit measures) or indirect ones tapping spontaneous associations that are difficult to control (implicit measures).      - HLi, DA