Social Psychology Research on Beliefs and Attitudes: Implications for Research on Learning From Text

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors review the social psychology research on beliefs and attitudes. They deal with an orientation to social psychology theory and research and present a brief history of the field as it diverged from experimental psychology and then converged with cognitive psychology. The authors discuss key differences in important terms used by social psychologists and cognitive psychologists. They also discuss relevant social psychology research on the structure and functions of beliefs, and present two widely recognized theories of how beliefs change. The authors describe the social psychology research findings to educational research by summarizing what the social psychology research tells about learning from text. They aim to compare the findings to those from educational research. The authors explain the constructs of knowledge and beliefs in terms of the implications for research on learning from text. They utilize the term beliefs for what social psychologists usually refer to as attitudes.