NCERT TEXTBOOK QUESTIONS SOLVED

1.What competencies are required for becoming an effective psychologist?
Ans. For becoming an effective psychologists, following competences are essential:
(а)General Skills (b) Observational Skills (c) Specific Skills
(a)General Skills:
•General skills are essential for all professional psychologists.
•These skills include personal as well as intellectual skills.
•Once ensuring that a student has these skills subsequent training in his/her area of specializations to him/her intellectual and personal skill are as follows:
Interpersonal Skills: Ability to listen and be empathic. It may be verbal or non-verbal.
•Cognitive:
— Ability to solve problems — Having curiosity and flexibility
•Affective Skills:
— Openness to ideas — Agreeableness — Honesty
•Expressive skills: Ability to communicate in verbal and non-verbal form.
•Reflective Skills:
— Intrapersonal intelligence —Ability to examine own motives,attitude and behaviour.
•Personal skills:
— Personal hygiene — Time management
(b)Observational Skills:
Psychologists should have training in objectives and systematic observation.
•They should have skill to observe various aspects of surrounding including people and varying events.
•Psychologists should engage in observing people and their actions with following precautions:
— Patience. — Optimistic curiosity.
— Respecting clients privacy.
— Awareness of people reactions, emotions and motivation.
— Training good questions which could be answered during observation.
(c)If the psychologist wants to work in a specialized field then professional training in specific skill development is essential.
The main specific skills are as follows:
(a) communication skills (b) Psychological testing skill
(c) Interviewing skill (d) Counselling skill

2.What are the generic skills needed by all psychologists?
Ans. General/Generic Skills:
•These are essential for all professional psychologists.
•These skills include personal as well as intellectual skills.

3.Define communication. Which component of the communication process is most important? Justify your answer with relevant examples.
Ans.Communication is a conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintentional process in which feelings and ideas are expressed as verbal and/or non-verbal messages that are sent, received and comprehended.
Component of the Communication:
The mort important component of communication is speaking with the use of language.
•Language involves use of vocabulary which includes words by symbols.
•Communicator must know how to use words appropriately in organized and understandable form.
•It is necessary to be clear and precise.
•Communication takes place within a context and needs to consider the other’s frame of reference.
•It is important for the speaker to adjust his vocabulary level and choice of words to
fit the level of the listener.
•Slang expressions, words unique to a culture, euphemism can become obstacles in good communication.
•Listening may appear as a passive behaviour, as it involves silence. But this is far from true.
•Listening requires a person to be attentive, patient, non-judgmental and have the capacity to analyze and respond.
•It is an active process.
•Hearing and listening are not the same, hearing is biological mechanism. It involves reception of a message through sensory channels.

4.Describe the set of competencies that must be kept in mind while administering a psychological test.
Ans.•Developing the skills of psychological testing is important since tests are important tools used for the assessment of individuals for various purposes. Proper training is required for administration, scoring and interpretation of tests.
•Psychologists study individuals, differences based on factors such as occupation, age, gender, education, culture, etc.
•While using psychological test, following factors must be kept in mind:
1.An attitude of objectivity 2. Scientific orientation
3. Standardised Interpretation must be kept in mind. For example, in organizational and personnel work, in business and industry, where specialized tests are used to select individuals for specific jobs, it is essential to use actual performance records or ratings as a criterion for establishing validity of a test.
•Suppose the personnel department wants to know whether a certain psychological test can help it to identify potentiality of best stenographers.
•It must be established that the test differentiates among employees of several performance levels.
•It should be found the performance on the job of a newly employed worker selected on the basis of test indeed matches with his/her test scores.

5.What is the typical format of a counselling interview?
Ans. Interview refers to purposeful conversation through face-to-face interactions.
•It follows a basic question-answer format.
•First, the objectives of the interview are set.
•The interviewer then prepares on interview format.
•There is a basic format which is followed, regardless of the interview’s purpose; i.e., an interview has three stages:
— Opening — The body — The closing
A.Opening of the Interview:
1. In involves establishing report between the two communicators, so that the interview becomes comfortable.
2. Generally, the interviewer starts the conversation and does most of the talking at the outset. This serves two functions:
(a)It establishes the goal of the interview
(b)It gives the interviewee time to become comfortable with the situation and the interviewer.
B. Body of the Interview:
1.This is the heart of the process.
2.In this stage, the interviewer asks questions in an attempt to generate information and data that are required to fulfil/required for the purpose.
Sequence of Questions:
To accomplish the purpose of an interview, the interviewer prepares set of questions – called a schedule for different domains or categories he/she wants to cover.
1.To form the schedule, the interviewer must first decide on the domain/categories under which information is to be generated. For example for questions used in job interview (box 9.5), the interviewer selected various categories such as not use’ of the organization last worked for, satisfaction with the past job, views on product etc.

NCERT TEXTBOOK QUESTIONS SOLVED

1.Compare and contrast formal and informal groups, and in groups and out groups.
Ans. Formal Groups:
(i)The functions of a formal group are explicitly stated, as in an office organization, or social work club.
(ii)They have rigidly stated functions and the roles of the members are well-defined or imposed.
(iii)Formal groups have a chain of command for decision-making, e.g., military or bureaucracy. .
Informal Groups:
(i)Informal decision-making process may exist as parallel mechanisms.
(ii)Members of informal groups usually feel more comfortable to take decision in informal settings, e.g., tea time group or lunch group.
(iii)There are no elicit rules and regulations for informal group.
In-group:
(i)It is generally considered as ‘me, my, we, or our’ group.
(ii)People in in-group are viewed as having desirable behaviour and admirable traits,
(iii)It is always good, strong, cohesive, kind-hearted, open, relaxing and cool.
Out-group:
(i)It is considered as ‘they’ group.
(ii) Members are often perceived negatively.
(iii) It is always bad, dirty, damaging, dangerous and has people with negative emotions.

2. Are you a member of a certain group? Discuss what motivated are you to join that groups.
Ans. Definitely I am member of various groups. In other words, I will say that there is no dimension of life where I am not related to a group because we all are social beings and for everything, we are dependent on this or that group. There are various reasons which

3. How does Tuck man’s stage model help you to understand the formation of groups?
Ans. According to Tuck man, group formation takes place in following stages:
(i)Forming Stage: When group-members first meet, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the group, the goal, and how it is to be achieved.
(ii)Storming: There is a stage of inter group conflict. There is conflict among members about how the target of the group is to be achieved, who is to control the group and its resources, and who is to perform what task.
(iii)Norming: Group-members by this time develop norms related to group behaviour. This leads to development of a positive group identity.
(iv)Performing: At this stage, the structure of the group has evolved and is accepted by group-members. The group moves towards achieving the group goal.
(v)Adjourning Stage: In this stage, once the function is over or goal is achieved, the group may be disbanded.
These stages help in group formation. Which occurs on the basis of following factors:
(i)Proximity: Individuals with similar background, living in the same complex (e.g., going to the same school) may form groups on the basis of proximity.
(ii)Similarity: It has been observed that more the similarity in the attitudes, interest, beliefs and value system of two persons, greater the likelihood that they would form a group.
(iii)Common Motives and Goals: When a number of people have common objectives or goals, they tend to get together and form a group.

4. How do groups influence our behaviour? (CBSE 2008, 2014)
Ans. I.Group influence our behaviour in following three forms:
•‘Social facilitation’ is a form of group influence.
•‘Social facilitation’ refers to a concept that performance on specific task is influenced by the mere presence of others.
•Norman Triplett observed that individuals show better performance in presence of others, than when they are performing the same task alone.
Better performance in presence of others is because the person experiences According to arousal, which makes the person react in a more intense manner.
The arousal is because the person feels he or she is being evaluated. Cottrell called this idea evaluation apprehension. The person will be praised if performance is good (reward), he/she will be criticised if it is bad (punishment). We wish to get praise and avoid criticism, therefore we try to perform well and avoid criticism.
As in case of complex task, the person may be afraid of making mistakes. And the fear of criticism or punishment is stronger.
If the others present are also performing same task, this is called a situation of co action. When task is simple or a familiar one, performance is better under co-action than when the person is alone.
Task performing can be facilitated and improved or inhibited and worsened by the presence of others. If we are working together in a larger group, the less effort each member puts in. This phenomena is called social loafing, based on diffusion of responsibility.
Diffusion of responsibility can also be frequently seen in situations where people are expected to help.
II.‘Social loafing refers to reduction in motivation when people are functioning collectively.
• It is a form of group influence.
(i)Group members feel less responsible for the overall tasks being performed and therefore exert less effort.
(ii)Motivation of members may decrease because they realize that their contributions cannot be evaluated on the individual basis, so to why to work hard.
(iii) The performance of the group is not to be compared with that of the other groups.
(iv)There is improper co-ordination (or no co-ordination) among members.
III.Group polarization is a group influence which refers to the strengthening of groups initial position as a result interaction and discussion.
As a result of group discussion opinion shifts towards more extreme positions than those whicfi they initially held.
In group polarization, it has been found that groups are more likely to take extreme decisions than individuals alone. Group polarization occurs due to the following factors:
(i)In the company of like-minded people, people are likely to hear newer arguments favouring their view-points.
(ii)When people find others also favouring their view-point, they feel that their view is validated by the public. This is a sort of bandwagon effect.
(iii)When people find others having similar views, they are likely to perceive them as in-group.

5.How can you reduce social loafing in groups? Think of any two incidents of social loafing in school. How did you overcome it?
Ans. Social loading is a negative group influence. Which occurs due to defusion of responsibility. For the quality performance of the group, it should be reduced. It can be reduced through the following methods:
(i)By making the efforts of each person identifiable.
(ii)increasing the pressure to work hard (making group-members committed to successful tasks performance).
(iii)increasing the apparent importance or value of a task.
(iv)making people feel that their individual contribution is important.
(v)strengthening group cohesiveness which increases the motivation for successful group outcome.

6.How often do you show conformity in your behaviour? What are the determinants of conformity?
Ans. Conformity: It is a most indirect form of social influence in which individuals change their behaviour or beliefs to correspond more closely to the behaviour of others in the group. It essentially involves yielding to group pressure.
•People conform because it is comfortable.
•Non-conformity is socially undesirable and many a times punishable offence.
•Most people believe that majority is always right, so it is better to conform.

7. Why do people obey even when they know that their behaviour may be harming others? Explain. (Delhi Board 2014)
Ans. Obedience: It is most direct form of social influence. Obedience refers to accepting commands/orders from the authority. Authority refers to a person who has inherent power to give reward or punishment.
If a person has power over another, obedience can be demanded; such a person usually has the means to enforce orders.
•Milligram’s studies seem to suggest that the ordinary people are willing, may be with some, reluctance, to harm an innocent person if ordered by someone in authority.
It has been observed that obedience to authority relieves the individual from the responsibility of their actions.
•Individual believes that if he/she will not obey then it will attract penalty.
•Authority commands for destructive obedience are gradually increased from lesser to greater levels of violence.
Sometimes events involved in destructive obedience move so quickly, that the people obeying orders have little time for thinking logically.

8.What are the benefits of co-operation?
Ans. Groups may be co-operative or competitive. Technically, the behaviour that yields maximal joint profit for all the parties involved is called co-operation. The behaviour that yields maximal relative gain is labelled competition.
•Co-operative goals are those, which are defined in such a way that each individual can attain the goal if other members are also attaining their goals. There is interdependence in goal attainment.
Effects of co-operation:
•Goal achievement becomes easy.
•Interpersonal relations get strengthened.
•Cohesiveness rises in the group.
•Group-members become ready to work for others.
•Willingness to accept other’s divergent view-point.

9. How is one’s identify formed?
Ans. • Identity refers to the aspect of one’s self-concept that is based on group-membership.
•Our identity tells us what we are in a larger context.
•After one develops an identity, he/she internalises the norms emphasized in a group and adopts them.
•Identity provides a member of a group with a shared set of values, beliefs and goals about the social world.
•Identity helps to co-ordinate attitude and behaviour.
•The development of identity leads to the devaluation of the out group.

10.What are some of the causes of intergroup conflict? Think of any international conflict.
Reflect on the human price of this conflict.
Ans. • Conflict is a process in which either an individual or a group perceives that the others have opposite interest, and both try to contradict each other.
• In such conflicts intense feeling of ‘We’ and ‘They’ dominate.
• Both the groups believe that only their group (in group) will protect their interest.Individual group conflict occurs when the individuals, needs are different from the group’s needs, goals or norms. Inter group conflict refers to the situation of conflict between groups. It often occurs to maintain the identity of the group different and stronger than the other groups.
Some Major Reasons for Group Conflicts:
1.One major reason is lack of communication and faulty communication between both parties. This kind of communication leads to suspicion, i.e., there is a lack of trust, and hence, conflict results.
2. Another reason for inter group conflict is relative deprivation. It arises when members of a group compare themselves with the members of another group, and L perceive that they do not have what they desire to have, which the other group has.
In other words, they feel that they are not doing well in comparison to other groups. This may lead to feelings of deprivation and discontentment, which may trigger conflict.
3. Another cause of conflict arises when one party believes that it is better than the other, and what it is saying should be done. When this does not happen, both parties start accusing each other.
4.A feeling that the other group does not respect the norms of my group, and actually violates those norms, can cause conflict
5.Desire for retaliation for some harm done in the past could be another reason for conflict.
6.Biased perceptions are at the root of most conflicts.
7. Research has shown that when acting in groups, people are more competitive as well as more aggressive than when they are on their own. Groups compete over scarce resource, both material resources (e.g., territory) and money as well as social resources (e.g., respect and esteem).
8.Perceived inequality is another reason for conflict.
9.According to Gardener Murphy most conflicts begin in the minds of men and then go to the field.
Gardener Murphy, in his book ‘In the Minds of Men’, explains intergroup conflicts at three levels:
(a) Structural Level: It includes high rates of poverty, economic and sound stratification, inequality, limited political and social opportunity, e.g., Tribal areas of Jharkhand and West Bengal becoming fertile ground for Naxal movement.
(b) Group Level: Social identity, realistic conflict between groups over resources and unequal power relations between groups lead to conflicts, e.g., Dalits in India or Women Empowerment Movement.
(c) Individual Level: It includes beliefs, biased attitudes and personality characteristics. These are important determinants.

NCERT TEXTBOOK QUESTIONS SOLVED

1.Define attitude. Discuss the components of an attitude.
Ans. Attitudes are state of the mind, set of views or thoughts or ideas regarding some topic which have an evaluative feature (positive, negative or neutral). These are relatively stable predispositions. .
Various components of an attitude are as follows:
(i)The thought component is referred to as the cognitive aspect of attitude.
(ii)The emotional component is known as the affective aspect.
(iii)The tendency to act is called the behavioural (conative) aspect.
These three aspects have been referred to as the A-B-C (affective-behavioural-cognitive)components of attitude. Attitudes are themselves not a tendency to behave or act in certain ways. They are part of cognition, along with an emotional component which cannot be observed from outside.

2.Are attitudes learnt? Explain how?
Ans. By enlarge attitudes are learnt. They are formed on the basis of learning.
Formation of Attitudes: The term ‘attitude formation’ refers to the movement we make from having no attitude toward an object to having a positive or negative attitude. There are some factors which contribute to the formation of attitudes:

3.What are the factors that influence the formation of an attitude?
Ans. The following factors provide the context for the learning of attitude through various processes:
(i) Family and School Environment: parents and other family-members play a significant role in attitude formation. Learning of attitudes within the family and school usually takes place by association, through rewards and punishment and through modelling.
(ii)Reference Groups: Attitudes towards political, religious and social groups, occupations, national and other issues are often developed through reference groups. Reference groups indicate to an individual the norms regarding acceptable behaviour and ways of thinking. Various institutions, religion, culture and communities are form of reference groups.
(iii) Personal Experiences: Many attitudes are formed, not in the family environment or through reference groups, but through direct personal experiences which bring about a drastic change in our attitude towards people and our own life.
(iv) Media Related Influences: Technological advances have made audio-visual media and internet as very powerful sources for attitude formation. School textbooks also influence attitude formation. The media can be used to create consumerist attitude. The media can exert both good and bad influences on attitudes.

4. Is behaviour always a reflection of one’s attitude? Explain with a relevant example.
Ans. An individual’s attitude may not always be exhibited through behaviour. Likewise one’s actual behaviour may be contrary to one’s attitude towards a particular topic. Psychologists have found that there would be consistency between attitude and behaviour when:
(i)The attitude is strong and occupies a central place in the attitude system.
(ii)The person is aware of his/her attitudes.
(iii)Person’s behaviour is not being watched or evaluated by others.
(iv)Person thinks that the behaviour would have a positive consequences.
Richard La Piere, an American social psychologist, conducted the following study. He asked a Chinese couple to travel across the United States, and stay in different hotels. Only once during these occasions they were refused service by one of the hotels. La Piere sent out questionnaires to managers of hotels and tourist homes in the same areas where the Chinese couple had travelled asking them if they would give accommodation to Chinese guest. A very large percentage said that they would not do so. This response showed a negative attitude towards the Chinese, which was inconsistent with the positive behaviour that was actually shown towards the travelling Chinese couple. Attitudes may not always predict actual pattern of one’s behaviour.

5.Highlight the importance of schemas in social cognition.
Ans.•Social schemas (schemata) are mental structure.
•They function as a framework to process social information. These schemas lead to emergence of prototypes.
•Prototypes are concepts which have most of the defining features of a concept, class or family.
•These are best representatives of the population.
•Various stereotypes emerge from these schemas. In other words stereotypes are category-based schemas.

6. Differentiate between prejudice and stereotype.
Ans. Prejudices are negative attitude.
•These are bias about others.
•Prejudices are baseless and false.
•It refers to biased attitude formed about an individual or a group of people.
•These are usually negative.
•It has three components, i.e., A-B-C-
(a) Affective (Emotional i.e dislike or hatred).
(b)Behavioural (i.e., discrimination).
(c)Cognitive (Believes, i.e., stereotypes).
Stereotypes are cognitive component of prejudice. It is strongly influenced by the processing of incoming social information.
•These are over-generalized beliefs, e.g., girls are talkative.
•Stereotypes are category based schemas.
•These may be positive or negative or neutral.
•Stereotype has no emotional blending.
•From stereotypes, prejudices may emerge very easily.
•Stereotypes are usually formed for the groups.
•Stereotypes are pre conceived notions.

7. Prejudice can exist without discrimination and vice-versa. Comment.
Ans. Prejudices can exist without being shown in the form of discrimination. Similarly,
discrimination can be shown without prejudice.
•Wherever prejudice and discrimination exist, conflicts are very likely to arise between groups within the same society.
•We all witnessed many instances of discrimination, with and without prejudice, based on gender, religion, community, caste, physical handicap, and illnesses such as AIDS.
•Moreover, in many cases, discriminatory behaviour can be curbed by law. But, the cognitive and emotional components of prejudice are more difficult to change.

8. Describe the important factors that influence impression formation.
Ans. Impression formation is a process by which impression about others is converting into more or less induring cognitions or thoughts about them.In short, impression formation is a process through which we draw quick conclusion/ inferences regarding others.
Factors facilitating Impression Formation:
•Nature of the phenomena (familiar or unfamiliar).
•Personality traits of the perceiver.
•Social schemas stored in the mind of perceiver.
•Situational factors.
The process of impression formation consists of the following three sub-processes:
•Selection: We take into account only some bits of information about the target person.
•Organization: the selected information is combined in a systematic way.
•Inference: We draw a conclusion about what kind of person the target is.
Some specific qualities, that influence impression formation, are:
•The information presented first has a stronger effect than the information presented at the end. This is called the primacy effect.
•We have a tendency to think that a target person who has one set of positive qualities must also be having other specific positives that are associated with first set. This is known as halo effect, e.g., if we think that a person is ‘tidy’ then we are likely to think that this person must also be hard/working.
•Whatever information comes at the end may have a stronger influence on impression formation. This is known as the recency effect.

9.Explain how the attribution made by an ‘actor’ would be different from that of an ‘observer’.
Ans. Actor observer phenomena refers to the tendency to attribute our own behaviour mainly to situational causes but the behaviour of others mainly to internal (dispositional) cause.
A distinction is found between the attribution that a person makes for actorrole and observer-role.
Person makes attribution for his/her own positive and negative experiences, it is actor role and the attribution made for another person’s positive and negative experience is observer-role.
For example, if we get good marks, we will attribute it to our own ability and hard work (actor-role, internal attribution for a positive experience). If we get bad marks, we will say we were unlucky or test was difficult (actor-role, external attribution for negative experience).
On the other hand, if our classmate gets good marks, we will attribute his/her success to good luck or easy test (observer-role, external attribution for positive experience). If same classmate gets bad marks, we are likely to feel that his/her failure was because of low ability or due to lack of effort (observer-role, internal attribution for a negative experience).
The reason for the difference between the actor and observer roles is that people want to have a nice image of themselves, as compared to others.

10.How does social facilitation take place?
Ans. • It is form of group influence.
•Social facilitation refers to a concept that performance on specific task is influenced by the mere presence of others.
•Norman Triplett observed that individuals show better performance in presence of others, than when they are performing the same task alone.
Better performance in presence of others is because the person experiences arousal, which makes the person react in a more intense manner.
The arousal is because the person feels he or she is being evaluated. Cottrell called this idea evaluation apprehension. The person will be praised if performance is good (reward); is criticised if performance is bad (punishment). We wish to get praise and avoid criticism, therefore we try to perform well and avoid criticism.
As in case of complex task, the person may be afraid of making mistakes. And the fear of criticism or punishment is stronger.
If the others present are also performing same task, this is called a situation of co-action. When task is simple or a familiar one, performance is better under co-action than when the person is alone.
Task performing can be facilitated and improved or inhibited and worsened by the presence of others. If we are working together in a larger group, the less effort each member puts in. This phenomena is called social loafing, based on diffusion of responsibility. Diffusion of responsibility can also be frequently seen in situations where people are expected to help.

11.Explain the concept of pro-social behaviour.
Or
Describe the factors influencing Pro-social behaviour. (CBSE 2013)
Ans. Pro-social behaviour is any positively valued behaviour that does good to another person, is done without any pressure from outside and without any expectation of a reward or a return.
Humans are social beings. Most of their activities are organized with the help of others. We cannot live and grow unless there is support from others. We often engage in helping others. Such efforts are considered as pro-social behaviour. For any behaviour to be pro¬social, it should fulfil the following conditions:
•There has to be an intention to benefit the other person. Any pro-social act, which one accomplishes by compulsion or as a requirement of a job, does not merit to be called ‘pro-social’.
•The behaviour should be considered socially desirable by the other members of the society. Obviously, helping a thief in stealing is not a pro-social behaviour.
•If an act intended to benefit others is also expect to benefit the helper, it cannot be termed as ‘pro-social’.
The intentions and the consequent positive behaviour are more important considerations of pro-social behaviour than the actual benefits.
The other term which are used interchangeably with pro-social behaviour is altruism. The literal meaning of altruism is “doing things or acting for the interest of others without any ulterior motive.” It is a behaviour that reflects an unselfish concern for the welfare of others. All charitable, humanitarian, philanthropic activities, which people do without any self-interest, come under the category of altruism behaviour.
Determinants of Pro-social Behaviour: The pro-social behaviour depends on many factors.
(i)Pro-social behaviour is based on an inborn, natural tendency in human beings to help other members of their own species.
(ii)Pro-social behaviour is influenced by learning through modelling and positive reinforcement in the family.
(iii)Cultural factors influence pro-social behaviour. Some cultures actively encourage people to help the needy and distressed. Individuals in cultures suffering from a shortage of resources may not show a high level of pro-social behaviour.
(iv) Pro-social behaviour is expressed when the situation activates certain ‘social norms’ that require helping others. Three norms have been mentioned in context of pro-social behaviour:
(a)The norms of social responsibility. We should help anyone who needs help without considering any other factors.
(b)The norms of reciprocity. We should help persons who have helped us in the past.
(c)The norms of equity. We should help others whenever we find that it is fair to do so.
(v)Pro-social behaviour is affected by the expected reactions of the person who is being helped. For example, people might be unwilling to give money to a needy person because they feel that the person might feel insulted, or may become dependent.
(vi)Pro-social behaviour is more likely to be shown individuals who have a high level of empathy, that is, the capacity to feel the distress of the person who is to be helped, e.g., Mother Teresa.
Factors inhibiting Pro-social Behaviour:
(a)Diffusion of Responsibility: Pro-social behaviour may be reduced when the number of bystanders is more than one. On the other hand, if there is only one bystander, this person is more likely to take responsibility and actually help the victim. It happens because each person thinks that others will take the responsibility.
(b)Feeling State of the Individual: Person in a bad mood, being busy with one’s own problems or feeling that the person to be helped is responsible for his/her problem, may not help others.

12.Your friend eats too much junk food, how would you be able to bring about a change in his/her attitude towards food?
Ans. Since my friend eats junk food, it will have some reinforcing value to him/her. In order to bring about a change in his/her attitude towards food, following techniques could be used:
First of all what needs to be targeted is ‘the way he/she thinks about junk food, i.e., the cognitive aspect of his/her positive attitude towards junk food. The modification in his/ her attitude can be achieved through using rational as well as emotional appeal and, if required, help of a dietician whose credibility in this area is very high will be of great use. Attitude changes may be brought about by:
1.Encouraging him/her to read about what is required for a healthy development, e.g., minerals etc. which are not found in junk food.
2.Showing him/her the negative consequences of eating junk food like obesity, other health-related problems by exposing him/her to real life examples.
3.Request people around him/her like family-members, elders and teachers whom he/ she likes. If they provide a role model, i.e., not to consume junk food then he/she will imitate their behaviour.
4.Giving his/her choice and space to decide what is right for him/her considering both the aspects of the food and asking him/her to focus and think about the future problems associated with his/her liking.
All these things can bring about cognitive dissonance which might ultimately bring about the attitude change.