ABSTRACT
The concept of ‘attitude’ is, of course, one of the most important concepts in psychology. It would seem to be the natural first step in the analysis and prediction of behaviour, some form of analysis of ‘predisposition to act’. Allport (1935: 798) himself wrote, ‘The concept of attitude is probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology. In fact several writers … define social psychology as the scientific study of attitudes.’ And perhaps the single most significant contributor in the evolution of the concept of the ‘attitude’ was Allport himself. Allport was repelled by the way that psychoanalysis dug far too deeply for the root causes of human action, while more behavioural approaches, he thought, just skimmed the surface and did not go deep enough. It was Allport who gave early social psychology much of its distinctive feel, and led it carefully away from where it might have ended up in the endless psychoanalytic depths.
