Stories as Attitudes :: Sociology Essays Research Papers

Stories as AttitudesCuriosity seems to be innately part of the military man experience. With this propensity towards curiosity comes our seemingly unsatiable need to search for answers to the institutions umteen unanswered (and conceivably unanswerable?) questions. maybe the most important of these questions regard the origin of the world, of life, and of us as humanity beings. The need to account for our own beginnings can be seen throughout history, as multiple explanations have been offered from diverse cultures, religions, philosophies and disciplines. For example, the folklore of even the most primitive human tribes indicates that they had given some thought to questions about the origin and history of the world (Mayr, 2001, p.1). This urge to account for a beginning has indeed led to many different answers and justifications throughout time, the most popular and noteworthy being the stories of creationism and organic evolution (Mayr, 2001). These two accounts at first ap pear to be entirely irreconcilable, so sparking centuries of heated controversy and debate. The purpose of this discussion is not to attempt to cut off the age-old arguments among creationists and evolutionists, but instead to investigate the psychosocial reasons behind the power of to each one sides assertion that they and they alone are right. According to the definition of an attitude (i.e., any cognitive representation that summarizes our evaluation of an physical object, which may be the self, otherwise people, things, actions, events, or ideas), the stories/explanations that we come up with to account for the world around us are nothing more than attitudes (Smith & Mackie, 2000, p. 247). Evaluating the inherent characteristics of attitudes will allow us to gain insight into new (and more useful?) ways of thought process about persuasion (i.e., the process by which attitudes are developed, reinforced, or changed by communications), thereby allowing us to further understa nd why inappropriate stories, specifically the stories of creationism vs. evolution, can be perceived as tremendously dour (Smith & Mackie, 2000, p. 248). People form attitudes/ create stories because they are useful in know the social environment and in establishing important connections with others. It is a well- known accompaniment in psychology that once an attitude is formed, it becomes very closely tie in to the representation of the object to which that attitude has been ascribed (i.e., the attitude object) (Smith & Mackie, 2000). This cognitive connection helps us to negotiate our interactions with these attitude objects in two ways through the object appraisal or knowledge function and/or the instrumental or utilitarian function.