hi and welcome to shorts in psychology today we're going to talk about some of the different functions that attitudes can serve attitudes are mental processes that are embedded in social life they're ideas that we hold about ourselves others objects and experiences they exist because they serve some function for the person they influence our reaction to an interpretation of the information we encounter attitudes can have four purposes including utilitarian or adaptive ego defensive knowledge and the self expressive or value expressive function let's look at each of these functions in more detail the utilitarian or adaptive function relates to rewards and punishments the attitude serves as a means to reach a desired goal or to avoid an undesired one utilitarian attitudes are aroused by the activation of a need associated with an attitude object and aroused favorable or unfavorable feelings the knowledge function of attitudes is based on a person's need to maintain a stable organized and meaningful structure of the world attitudes that provide a standard against which a person evaluates aspects of his world served the knowledge function to the self or value expressive function takes into account attitudes that are held because they express a person's value or enhance his self-identity lastly the ego defensive function of attitudes may be aroused by internal or external threat this could include frustrating events appeals or the build up of repressed impulses and suggestions by authoritarian sources now that we've defined each of the four functions that attitudes can serve let's look at an illustrative example your attitude towards your safe psychology exam a student may have the attitude that they want to be a psychologist so they want to do a lot of revision regardless of what others think of them this attitude serves the utilitarian function as it's helping them achieve their goal of becoming a psychologist by performing well in their psychology exam maximizing rewards and minimizing any potentially unfavorable feelings associated with not achieving this goal minimizing punishment alternatively a student may have a negative attitude towards studying as they don't want others to think that they are nerd this attitude serves the ego defensive function as it is protecting them from feelings they would rather not experience being viewed as a nerd by their peers a student may believe that it's important to always try their best at tasks and therefore has a positive attitude towards studying for the psychology exam this attitude serves the self expressive function as it is expressing the students value of hard work similarly the attitude that it is important to study in order to pass the psychology exam serves the knowledge function as it helps the student to maintain a stable and organized structure of the world to finish let's examine a past exam question pause the video for a moment while you attempt it you could justify any of the four functions for this question so choose the one you feel most confident explaining as Part B is worth 4 marks you need to well-made points one should be a good definition of your stated function followed by an explanation of how Yasmin's attitude could serve this function Jasmine's attitude could serve the utilitarian function as it is helping her attain her goal of having good physical fitness as well as perhaps enhancing her self-esteem both of which are rewards which aroused favorable feelings similarly her attitude could also serve the ego defensive function has a positive attitude towards going to the gym would protect her self-esteem and prevent her from experiencing unpleasant thoughts and feelings about her self-image and physical fitness a positive attitude towards going to the gym also serves the self expressive function as it is expressing Yasmin's value of exercise and being physically healthy finally Jasmine's attitude could serve the knowledge function as a positive attitude towards going to the gym could help her to maintain an organized structure of the world by including regular exercise yes Minh may also use this as a standard to evaluate her physical fitness and activity level I hope this has helped you to better understand the functional model of attitudes thanks for listening