ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with a basic dimension of the measurement of deviance perception, fourth problem area: the nature of the response process or mechanism which readers expected to sample from respondents. Attitude or Perception terms have been defined in scores of different ways, but for the purposes of the study have chosen the term "perception" over "attitude" mainly because it has a much broader meaning. Because the study of perception was more closely tied to cognition, attitude developed into a concept in its own right. Allport proposed that the main ingredient of attitude was "affective." However, two other important components were proposed and empirically supported. Components were the "cognitive" and the "dispositional." The important change came with Chein who criticized previous theories of attitudes, especially those of Allport and Doob, for paying insufficient attention to the cognitive elements of attitude. One of the first studies to assess the public's attitudes towards mental illness was conducted by Starr in 1955.
