Attitudes are positive or negative evaluations of people, objects, events, activities, ideas, or just about anything in your environment. Attitudes do not predict behavior as well as psychologists originally thought, because they tend to be general whereas behavior is specific and situational factors may override an attitude in determining behavior. The accessibility of an attitude and the frequency with which an attitude is rehearses increase the probability that an attitude will predict behavior.
Persuasion is the deliberate attempt to change someone's attitude.
Messages are more persuasive when the are easy to follow, have an emotional appeal when trying change an affective attitude and cognitive appeal when trying to change a cognitive attitude, take advantage of the primacy effect, and present both sides of an argument. A source, or communicator of the message, is more persuasive when it is credible and likable. If the receiver has forewarning of a persuasive effort or the message is outside the receiver's latitude of acceptance, the persuasion will be less effective. As other things can be learned by operant condition, classical condition, and observational learning, new attitudes can also be learned in these ways. Lean Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory explained that when a person's behavior is inconsistent with an attitude, he changes the attitude, to relieve the state of cognitive dissonance.