PSYCHOLOGY- II

Dr. RAM MANOHAR LOHIYA

NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY
LUCKNOW

2016

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SYNOPSIS ON “STUDY OF ATTITUDES TOWARDS DOWRY
PROHIBITION ACT, 1961”
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SUBMITTED TO:
Ms. ISHA YADAV
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
PSYCHOLOGY
SUBMITTED BY:
VIVASVAN PRAKASH
SEMESTER:- II
SECTION :- “B”
ROLL NO. : 169

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would to convey my sincere thanks to my colleagues, who
painstakingly reviewed most of the content Special thanks, are due to our
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR MS. ISHA YADAV (PSYCHOLOGY).
I am grateful to my mother for her enormous help in formatting and
verifying the contents of the said project work. I am also thankful to the seniors for
ensuring that project would be well enough to be presented in front of others. I also
acknowledge the contribution of my friends for the editing, proof checking and
general guidance they have provided. This has been invaluable. Finally, I’m
indebted to all my teachers for verifying of the content.
I am also very grateful to the various sources of information, the
journals, magazines and lots of articles which provided me all aspects of
information.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT…………………………………………………………………….I

CHAPTER : 1 INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….4-5

CHAPTER : 2 DEFINITION OF ATTITUDE………………………………………..6—7

CHAPTER :3 HOW ATTITUDES ARE MEASURED……………………………….8-10

CHAPTER : 4 CHANGE………………………………………………………………11-14

CHAPTER :5 ATTITUDE –BEHAVIOUR RELATIONSHIP…..............................15-16

CHAPTER:6 FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDE…………………………………..…….17-18

CHAPTER: 7 DOWRY PROHIBITION ACT, 1961…………………......................19-22

CHAPTER: 8 STUDY OF ATTITUDES……………..........................………………23-25

CHAPTER: 9 CONCLUSION……………………………..…………………………26-28

CHAPTER: 10 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………II

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CHAPTER : 1 INTRODUCTION

In psychology, an attitude is an expression of favor or disfavor toward a person,

place, thing, or event (the attitude object). Prominent psychologist Gordon
Allport once described attitudes "the most distinctive and indispensable concept in
contemporary social psychology.” Attitude can be formed from a person's past and
present. Key topics in the study of attitudes include attitude measurement, attitude
change, consumer behavior, and attitude-behavior relationships.

OBJECTIVES:-

In this project, the main objective is to study the Attitude towards Dowry Prohibition
Act, 1961 in the field of development of women empowerment of different
individuals.

HYPOTHESIS:-

Attitude differs from individuals to individuals on same topic and it is also clearly
seen that the attitude towards the women empowerment in girls/women are likely the
positive attitude as compared to men/boys.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:- In this project, the research methodology is

experimental methodology.

This is an experiment where the researchers manipulates one variable, and

control/randomizes the rest of the variables. It has a control group, the subjects have
been randomly assigned between the groups, and the researcher only tests one effect
at a time.

TENTATIVE CHAPTERISATION:-

1. Introduction
2. Definitions & Measurement
3. Structure & Function
4. Formation & Change
5. Attitude-behavior relationship
6. Study of attitudes towards dowry prohibition act, 1961
7. Conclusion

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REFERNCES:-

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_(psychology)
2. Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.

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CHAPTER : 2 DEFINITION OF ATTITUDES

Do you favour or oppose a ban on assault weapons? Should smoking be banned in

public places? Would you rather listen to rock music or jazz, drink Coke or Pepsi,
work on an IBM computer or a Mac? As these questions suggest, each of us has
positive and negative reactions to various persons, objects and ideas. These reactions
are called attitudes. If you think about this project you’ve read, you’ll realize just how
pervasive attitudes are. For example, self-esteem is an attitude that each of us had
about ourselves, attraction is a positive attitude toward another person, and prejudice
is a negative attitude of certain groups.

In The Psychology of Attitudes, Alice Eagly and Shelly Chaiken (1993)noted that
there are two school of thoughts on how the term attitude should be defined. One is
that an attitude is a combination of affective, behavioural, and cognitive reactions to
an object (Breckler, 1984; Rajecki 1982). According to this tri-component approach,
an attitude is (1) a positive or negative, or mixed, affective reactions consisting of our
feelings about an object; (2) a behavioural predisposition, or tendency to act in a
certain manner towards an object; and (3) a cognitive reaction, as our evaluation of an
object is based on relevant beliefs, images, and memories (Judd et al., 1991).

Thoughts and feelings are not always related to each other, or do they necessarily
guide our behavior. Due to this lack of consistency, many social psychologists prefer
to keep the three components separate and use the word attitude in primarily affective
terms (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Pratkanis, 1989; Zanna & Rempel, 1988). In this
single component definition, an attitude is a positive or negative evaluation of an
object, expressed at some level of intensity—nothing more, nothing less. Like, dislike,
love, hate, admire and detest are the kinds of words people use to describe their
attitudes.

Social psychology
An attitude is an evaluation of an attitude object, ranging from extremely negative to
extremely positive. Most contemporary perspectives on attitudes also permit that
people can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object by simultaneously
holding both positive and negative attitudes toward the same object. This has led to
some discussion of whether individual can hold multiple attitudes toward the same
object.
An attitude can be as a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, events,
activities, and ideas. It could be concrete, abstract or just about anything in your
environment, but there is a debate about precise definitions. Eagly and Chaiken, for
example, define an attitude as "a psychological tendency that is expressed by
evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor."1 Though it is
sometimes common to define an attitude as affect toward an object, affect (i.e.,

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discrete emotions or overall arousal) is generally understood to be distinct from

attitude as a measure of favorability.2 Attitude may influence the attention to attitude
objects, the use of categories for encoding information and the interpretation,
judgement and recall of attitude-relevant information. These influences tend to be
more powerful for strong attitudes which are easily accessible and based an elaborate
knowledge structure. Attitudes may guide attention and encoding automatically, even
if the individual is pursuing unrelated goals.
Jung's definition
Attitude is one of Jung's 57 definitions in Chapter XI of Psychological Types. Jung's
definition of attitude is a "readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain
way". Attitudes very often come in pairs, one conscious and the other unconscious.
Within this broad definition Jung defines several attitudes.
The main (but not only) attitude dualities that Jung defines are the following.

 Consciousness and the unconscious. The "presence of two attitudes is

extremely frequent, one conscious and the other unconscious. This means that
consciousness has a constellation of contents different from that of the
unconscious, a duality particularly evident in neurosis".
 Extraversion and introversion. This pair is so elementary to Jung's theory of
types that he labeled them the "attitude-types".
 Rational and irrational attitudes. "I conceive reason as an attitude".
 The rational attitude subdivides into the thinking and feeling psychological
functions, each with its attitude.
 The irrational attitude subdivides into the sensing and intuition psychological
functions, each with its attitude. "There is thus a typical thinking, feeling,
sensation, and intuitive attitude".
 Individual and social attitudes. Many of the latter are "isms".
In addition, Jung discusses the abstract attitude. “When I take an abstract
attitude...”. Abstraction is contrasted with creationism. “CREATIONISM. By this I
mean a peculiarity of thinking and feeling which is the antithesis of abstraction”. For
example: "I hate his attitude for being Sarcastic."

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CHAPTER : 3 HOW ATTITUDES ARE MEASURED

In 1928, Louis Thurstone published an article entitled “Attitude Can Be Measured.”

What Thustone failed to anticipate, however, is that measurement is a tricky business.
Indeed, several years ago, one review of the research uncovered more than five
hundred different methods of determining an individual’s attitude (Fishbein & Ajzen,
1972).

SELF-REPORT MEASURES: The easiest way to assess a person’s attitude about

something to ask. The method of self-report is direct and straightforward. But
attitudes are sometimes too complex to be measured by a single question. As
recognized by public opinion pollsters, one problem is that responses to a single
question can be heavily influenced by wording, context, and other extraneous factors.
For example, six hundred Americans were asked if the government was spending too
much money on “assistance to the poor,” and only 23 percent agreed. Yet when the
same question was asked to about “welfare,” the agreement rate rose to 53 percent
(Times, 1994). In another survey, respondents who were asked if “people should have
freedom to express their opinions publicly” were more likely to say yes if the
preceding question was about the Catholic Church than if it was about the American
Nazi Party (Ottati et al., 1989). Clearly, responses to attitude questions are influenced
by the context in which they are asked.

Recognizing the problems with single-question measures, researchers commonly use

multiple-item questionnaires known as attitude scales. Attitude scales come in
different forms, perhaps the most popular being the Likert Scale, named after its
inventor, Rensis Likert (1932). In this technique, subjects are presented with a list of
statements about an attitude object and are asked to indicate on a multiple-point scale
how strongly they agree or disagree with each statement. Each respondent’s total
attitude score is derived by summing his or her responses to all the items. However,
whether attitudes are measured by one question or by a full-blown scale, the results
should be interpreted with caution. All self-report measures assume that people
express their true opinions. Sometimes this is a reasonable assumption to make, but
often it is not. Wanting to make a good impression on others, people are reluctant to
admit to their failures, weaknesses, unpopular opinions and prejudices.

One approach to this problem is to increase the accuracy of self-report measures. To

get respondents to answer attitude questions more truthfully, researchers sometimes
use the bogus p. peline, an elaborate mechanical device that supposedly records our
true feelings –like a lie-detector test. Not wanting to get caught in a lie, subjects tend
to answer attitude questions with less social desirability bias when they think that
deception would be detected by the bogus pipeline (Jones & Sigall, 1971; Roese &
Jamieson, 1993).

Covert Measures: A second approach to the self-report problem is to use indirect,

covert measures of attitudes. One possibility in this regard is to use observable

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behavior –such as facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language. For example,
Gary Wells and Richard Petty (1980) unobtrusively videotaped college students
listening to a speech and noticed that when the speaker took the position that subjects
agreed with (that tuition costs should be lowered), most made vertical head
movements. But when the speaker took a contrary position (that tuition costs should
be raised), head movements were in a horizontal direction. Without realizing it,
subjects had signaled their attitudes by nodding and shaking their heads.

Although behavior provides clues, it is far from perfect as a measure of attitudes.

Sometimes we nod our heads because we agree; at other times we nod to be polite.
The problem is that people monitor their overt behavior just as they monitor self-
reports. What about internal, psychological reactions that are difficult, if not
impossible, to control? Does the body really betray how we feel? In the past,
researchers tried to divine attitudes from involuntarily physical reaction such as
perspiration, heart rate, and pupil dilation. The results, however, were always the
same: measures of arousal may well reveal the intensity of one’s attitude towards an
object but not whether that attitude is positive or negative. On the physiological
record, love and hate look very much the same.(Petty & Cacioppo, 1983).

Although physiological arousal measures cannot distinguish between positive and

negative attitudes, there are some exciting new alternatives. One is the facial
electromyography(EMG). Different muscles in the face contracts when we are happy
than we are sad. Some of the muscular changes cannot be seen with the naked eyes,
however, so the facial EMG is used. To determine whether the EMG can be used to
measure the effect associated with attitudes, John Cacioppo and Richard Petty (1981)
recorded facial muscles activity of subjects as they listened to an agreeable or
disagreeable message. The agreeable message increased activity in the cheek muscles,
the facial pattern characteristics of happiness. The disagreeable message sparked
activity in the forehead and brow area, the facial patterns associated with sadness and
distress. Outside observers who watched the subjects were unable to see these subtle
changes. Apparently, muscles in the human face reveal smiles, frowns, and other
reactions to attitude objects that otherwise are hidden from view (Cacioppo et al.,
1986; Tassinary & Cacioppo, 1992).

Electrical activity in the brain may also assist in the measure of attitudes. In 1929,
Hans Burger invented a machine that could detect, amplify and record “waves” of
electrical activity in the brain through electrodes pasted to the surface of the scalp.
The instrument is called an electroencephalograph, EEG and the information it
provides takes the form of line tracings called brain waves. Based on an earlier
discovery—that certain patterns of electrical brain activity are triggered by exposure
to stimuli that are novel or inconsistent—Cacioppo and his colleagues (1993) had
subjects list ten items they like and ten they did not like within various object
categories(fruits, sports, movies, universities, etc.). Later these subjects were brought
into laboratory, weird to an EEG and presented with the list of category words that

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depicted the objects they liked and disliked. The result: The brain-wave pattern
normally triggered by inconsistency increased when a disliked stimulus appeared after
a string of positive items, and when a liked stimulus was shown after a string of
negative items, than when either stimulus evoked the same attitude as the items that
preceded it. Although more research is needed, this discovery suggests that attitudes
may be betrayed by electrical activity in the brain.[ CITATION Sha \l 1033 ]

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CHAPTER : 4 CHANGE

Attitudes can be changed through persuasion and an important domain of research on

attitude change focuses on responses to communication. Experimental research into
the factors that can affect the persuasiveness of a message include:

1. Target Characteristics: These are characteristics that refer to the person who
receives and processes a message. One such trait is intelligence - it seems that
more intelligent people are less easily persuaded by one-sided messages.
Another variable that has been studied in this category is self-esteem.
Although it is sometimes thought that those higher in self-esteem are less
easily persuaded, there is some evidence that the relationship between self-
esteem and persuasibility is actually curvilinear, with people of moderate self-
esteem being more easily persuaded than both those of high and low self-
esteem levels (Rhodes & Woods, 1992). The mind frame and mood of the
target also plays a role in this process.
2. Source Characteristics: The major source characteristics are expertise,
trustworthiness and interpersonal attraction or attractiveness. The credibility of
a perceived message has been found to be a key variable here; if one reads a
report about health and believes it came from a professional medical journal,
one may be more easily persuaded than if one believes it is from a popular
newspaper. Some psychologists have debated whether this is a long-lasting
effect and Hovland and Weiss (1951) found the effect of telling people that a
message came from a credible source disappeared after several weeks (the so-
called "sleeper effect"). Whether there is a sleeper effect is controversial.
Perceived wisdom is that if people are informed of the source of a message
before hearing it, there is less likelihood of a sleeper effect than if they are told
a message and then told its source.
3. Message Characteristics: The nature of the message plays a role in persuasion.
Sometimes presenting both sides of a story is useful to help change attitudes.
When people are not motivated to process the message, simply the number of
arguments presented in a persuasive message will influence attitude change,
such that a greater number of arguments will produce greater attitude change

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4. Cognitive Routes: A message can appeal to an individual's cognitive

evaluation to help change an attitude. In the central route to persuasion the
individual is presented with the data and motivated to evaluate the data and
arrive at an attitude changing conclusion. In the peripheral route to attitude
change, the individual is encouraged to not look at the content but at the
source. This is commonly seen in modern advertisements that feature
celebrities. In some cases, physician, doctors or experts are used. In other
cases film stars are used for their attractiveness.

Emotion and attitude change

Emotion is a common component in persuasion, social influence, and attitude change.

Much of attitude research emphasized the importance of affective or emotion
components. Emotion works hand-in-hand with the cognitive process, or the way we
think, about an issue or situation. Emotional appeals are commonly found in
advertising, health campaigns and political messages. Recent examples include no-
smoking health campaigns and political campaign advertising emphasizing the fear of
terrorism. Attitudes and attitude objects are functions of cognitive, affective and
conative components. Attitudes are part of the brain’s associative networks, the
spider-like structures residing in long term memory that consist of affective and
cognitive nodes.

By activating an affective or emotion node, attitude change may be possible, though

affective and cognitive components tend to be intertwined. In primarily affective
networks, it is more difficult to produce cognitive counterarguments in the resistance
to persuasion and attitude change.

Affective forecasting, otherwise known as intuition or the prediction of emotion, also

impacts attitude change. Research suggests that predicting emotions is an important
component of decision making, in addition to the cognitive processes. How we feel
about an outcome may override purely cognitive rationales.

In terms of research methodology, the challenge for researchers is measuring emotion

and subsequent impacts on attitude. Since we cannot see into the brain, various
models and measurement tools have been constructed to obtain emotion and attitude
information. Measures may include the use of physiological cues like facial
expressions, vocal changes, and other body rate measures. For instance, fear is

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associated with raised eyebrows, increased heart rate and increase body tension
(Dillard, 1994). Other methods include concept or network mapping, and using
primes or word cues in the era.

Components of emotion appeals

Any discrete emotion can be used in a persuasive appeal; this may include jealousy,
disgust, indignation, fear, blue, disturbed, haunted, and anger. Fear is one of the most
studied emotional appeals in communication and social influence research.

Important consequences of fear appeals and other emotion appeals include the
possibility of reactance which may lead to either message rejections or source
rejection and the absence of attitude change. As the EPPM suggests, there is an
optimal emotion level in motivating attitude change. If there is not enough motivation,
an attitude will not change; if the emotional appeal is overdone, the motivation can be
paralyzed thereby preventing attitude change.

Emotions perceived as negative or containing threat are often studied more than
perceived positive emotions like humor. Though the inner-workings of humor are not
agreed upon, humor appeals may work by creating incongruities in the mind. Recent
research has looked at the impact of humor on the processing of political messages.
While evidence is inconclusive, there appears to be potential for targeted attitude
change is receivers with low political message involvement.

Important factors that influence the impact of emotion appeals include self efficacy,
attitude accessibility, issue involvement, and message/source features. Self efficacy is
a perception of one’s own human agency; in other words, it is the perception of our
own ability to deal with a situation. It is an important variable in emotion appeal
messages because it dictates a person’s ability to deal with both the emotion and the
situation. For example, if a person is not self-efficacious about their ability to impact
the global environment, they are not likely to change their attitude or behavior about
global warming.

Dillard (1994) suggests that message features such as source non-verbal

communication, message content, and receiver differences can impact the emotion
impact of fear appeals. The characteristics of a message are important because one
message can elicit different levels of emotion for different people. Thus, in terms of
emotion appeals messages, one size does not fit all.

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Attitude accessibility refers to the activation of an attitude from memory in other

words, how readily available is an attitude about an object, issue, or situation. Issue
involvement is the relevance and salience of an issue or situation to an individual.
Issue involvement has been correlated with both attitude access and attitude strength.
Past studies conclude accessible attitudes are more resistant to change.

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CHAPTER : 5 ATTITUDE-BEHAVIOUR RELATIONSHIP

The effects of attitudes on behaviors is a growing research enterprise within

psychology. Icek Ajzen has lead research and helped develop two prominent
theoretical approaches within this field: the theory of reasoned action and, its
theoretical descendant, the theory of planned behavior. Both theories help explain the
link between attitude and behavior as a controlled and deliberative process.

Theory of reasoned action

The theory of reasoned action (TRA), is a model for the prediction of behavioral
intention, spanning predictions of attitude and predictions of behavior. The
subsequent separation of behavioral intention from behavior allows for explanation of
limiting factors on attitudinal influence (Ajzen, 1980). The Theory of Reasoned
Action was developed by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen (1975, 1980), derived from
previous research that started out as the theory of attitude, which led to the study of
attitude and behavior. The theory was "born largely out of frustration with traditional
attitude–behavior research, much of which found weak correlations between attitude
measures and performance of volitional behaviors" (Hale, Householder & Greene,
2003, p. 259).

Theory of planned behavior

The theory of planned behavior was proposed by Icek Ajzen in 1985 through his
article "From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior." The theory was
developed from the theory of reasoned action, which was proposed by Martin
Fishbein together with Icek Ajzen in 1975. The theory of reasoned action was in turn
grounded in various theories of attitude such as learning theories, expectancy-value
theories, consistency theories,[2] and attribution theory.[3] According to the theory of
reasoned action, if people evaluate the suggested behavior as positive (attitude), and if
they think their significant others want them to perform the behavior (subjective
norm), this results in a higher intention (motivation) and they are more likely to do so.
A high correlation of attitudes and subjective norms to behavioral intention, and
subsequently to behavior, has been confirmed in many studies.[4] The theory of
planned behavior contains the same component as the theory of reasoned action, but

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adds the component of perceived behavioral control to account for barriers outside
one's own control.

Motivation and Opportunity as Determinants (MODE)

Russell H. Fazio proposed an alternative theory called "Motivation and Opportunity

as Determinants" or MODE. Fazio believes that because there is deliberative process
happening, individuals must be motivated to reflect on their attitudes and subsequent
behaviors. Simply put, when an attitude is automatically activated, the individual must
be motivated to avoid making an invalid judgement as well as have the opportunity to
reflect on their attitude and behavior.

A counter-argument against the high relationship between behavioral intention and

actual behavior has also been proposed, as the results of some studies show that,
because of circumstantial limitations, behavioral intention does not always lead to
actual behavior. Namely, since behavioral intention cannot be the exclusive
determinant of behavior where an individual's control over the behavior is incomplete,
Ajzen introduced the theory of planned behavior by adding a new component,
"perceived behavioral control." By this, he extended the theory of reasoned action to
cover non-volitional behaviors for predicting behavioral intention and actual behavior.

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CHAPTER : 6 FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUTDE

Another classic view of attitudes is that attitudes serve particular functions for
individuals. That is, researchers have tried to understand why individuals hold
particular attitudes or why they hold attitudes in general by considering how attitudes
affect the individuals who hold them. Daniel Katz, for example, writes that attitudes
can serve "instrumental, adjustive or utilitarian," "ego-defensive," "value-expressive,"
or "knowledge" functions. The functional view of attitudes suggests that in order for
attitudes to change (e.g., viapersuasion), appeals must be made to the function(s) that
a particular attitude serves for the individual. As an example, the "ego-defensive"
function might be used to influence the racially prejudicial attitudes of an individual
who sees themselves as open-minded and tolerant. By appealing to that individual's
image of themselves as tolerant and open-minded, it may be possible to change their
prejudicial attitudes to be more consistent with their self-concept. Similarly, a
persuasive message that threatens self-image is much more likely to be rejected.

Daniel Katz classified attitudes into four different groups based on their functions

1. Utilitarian: provides us with general approach or avoidance tendencies

2. Knowledge: help people organize and interpret new information
3. Ego-defensive: attitudes can help people protect their self-esteem
4. Value-expressive: used to express central values or beliefs

Utilitarian People adopt attitudes that are rewarding and that help them avoid
punishment. In other words, any attitude that is adopted in a person's own self-interest
is considered to serve a utilitarian function. Consider you have a condo, people with
condos pay property taxes, and as a result you don't want to pay more taxes. If those
factors lead to your attitude that "increases in property taxes are bad" your attitude is
serving a utilitarian function.

Knowledge People need to maintain an organized, meaningful, and stable view of the

world. That being said important values and general principles can provide a
framework for our knowledge. Attitudes achieve this goal by making things fit
together and make sense. Example:

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 I believe that I am a good person.

 I believe that good things happen to good people.
 Something bad happens to Bob.
 So I believe Bob must not be a good person.

Ego-Defensive This function involves psychoanalytic principles where people use

defense mechanisms to protect themselves from psychological harm. Mechanisms
include:

 Denial
 Repression
 Projection
 Rationalization

The ego-defensive notion correlates nicely with Downward Comparison Theory

which holds the view that derogating a less fortunate other increases our own
subjective well-being. We are more likely to use the ego-defensive function when we
suffer a frustration or misfortune.

Value-Expressive

 Serves to express one's central values and self-concept.

 Central values tend to establish our identity and gain us social approval thereby
showing us who we are, and what we stand for.

An example would concern attitudes toward a controversial political issue.

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CHAPTER : 7 DOWRY PROHIBITION ACT, 1961

In India, Dowry  refers to the durable goods, cash, and real or movable property that
the bride's family gives to the bridegroom, his parents, or his relatives as a condition
of the marriage. It is essentially in the nature of a payment in cash or some kind of
gifts given to the bridegroom's family along with the bride and includes cash,
jewellery, electrical appliances, furniture, bedding, crockery, utensils and other
household items that help the newlyweds set up their home. Dowry is referred to
as Jahez inArabic (derived from Islamic jahez-e-fatimi). In far eastern parts of India,
dowry is called Aaunnpot.
The dowry system is thought to put great financial burden on the bride's family. In
some cases, the dowry system leads to crime against women, ranging from emotional
abuse, injury to even deaths. The payment of dowry has been prohibited under
specific Indian laws including, the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 and subsequently by
Sections 304B and 498A of the Indian Penal Code.
Various reasons have been suggested as cause of dowry practice in India. These
include economic factors and social factors.
Economic factors
There are many economic factors that contribute towards the system of dowry. Some
of these include inheritance systems and the bride’s economic status.
Some suggestions point to economics and weak legal institutions on inheritance place
women in disadvantage, with inheritances being left only to sons. This leaves women
dependent upon their husbands and in-laws, who keep the dowry when she
marries. Prior to 1956, including during the British Raj, daughters had no rights of
inheritance to their family's wealth. In 1956, India gave equal legal status to daughters
and sons among Hindu, Sikh and Jain families, under the Hindu Succession Act (India
grants its Muslim population the Sharia derived personal status laws). Despite the new
inheritance law, dowry has continued as a process whereby parental property is
distributed to a daughter at her marriage by a social process, rather than after parents
death by a slow court supervised process under Hindu Succession Act (1956).
Dowry gave, at least in theory, women economic and financial security in their
marriage in the form of movable goods. This helped prevent family wealth break-up
and provided security to the bride at the same time. This system can also be used as
a premortem inheritance, as once a woman is presented with movable gifts, she may
be cut off from the family estate.

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For many, dowry has become a greater financial burden on the family, and can leave
families destitute based on the demands from the groom. The demand for dowry has
increased over time.
Social factors
The structure and kinship of marriage in parts of India contributes to dowry. In the
north, marriage usually follows a patrilocal (lives with husband’s family) system,
where the groom is a non-related member of the family. This system encourages
dowry perhaps due to the exclusion of the bride's family after marriage as a form
of premortem inheritancefor the bride. In the south, marriage is more often conducted
within the bride's family, for example with close relatives or cross-cousins, and in a
closer physical distance to her family. In addition, brides may have the ability
to inherit land, which makes her more valuable in the marriage, decreasing the chance
of dowry over the bride price system.
In addition to marriage customs that may influence dowry, social customs or rituals,
and parents expectations of dowry are important factors to consider. A 1995 study
showed that while attitudes of people are changing about dowry, dowry continues to
prevail. In a 1980 study conducted by Rao, 75% of students responded that dowry was
not important to marriage, but 40% of their parents’ likely expected dowry.
While India has been making progress for women’s rights, women continue to be in a
subordinate status in their family. Women’s education, income, and health are some
significant factors that play into the dowry system, and for how much control a
woman has over her marriage.
Religious factors
Dowry in India is not limited to any specific religion. It is widespread
among Hindus and other religions. For example, Indian Muslims call dowry as jahez,
justify the practice in terms of jahez-e-fatimi. Islamists classify jahez into two
categories: The first comprises some essential articles for the outfit of the bride as
well as for conjugal life. The other is made up of valuable goods, clothes, jewelry, an
amount of money for the groom's family, which is settled on after bargaining.
The jahez often far exceeds the cost of the baraatand marriage parties. The jahez is
separate from cash payment as Mahr or dower that Sharia religious law requires.
Dowry deaths relate to a bride’s suicide or murder committed by her husband and his
family soon after the marriage because of their dissatisfaction with the dowry. Most
dowry deaths occur when the young woman, unable to bear
the harassment and torture, commits suicide by hanging herself or consuming poison.
Dowry deaths also include bride burning where brides are doused in kerosene and set
ablaze by the husband or his family. Sometimes, due to their abetment to commit
suicide, the bride may end up setting herself on fire.[41] Bride burnings are often
disguised as accidents or suicide attempts. Bride burnings are the most common forms

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of dowry deaths for a wide range of reasons like kerosene being inexpensive, there
being insufficient evidence after the murder and low chances of survival rate. Apart
from bride burning, there are some instances ofpoisoning, strangulation, acid attacks,
etc., as a result of which brides are murdered by the groom’s family.
India, with its large population, reports the highest number of dowry related deaths in
the world according to Indian National Crime Record Bureau. In 2012, 8,233 dowry
death cases were reported across India, while in 2013, 8,083 dowry deaths were
reported. This means a dowry-related crime causes the death of a woman every 90
minutes, or 1.4 deaths per year per 100,000 women in India. For contextual reference,
the United Nations reports a worldwide average female homicide rate of 3.6 per
100,000 women, and an average of 1.6 homicides per 100,000 women for Northern
Europe in 2012.

Laws against dowry

The first all-India legislative enactment relating to dowry to be put on the statute book
was the The Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 and this legislation came into force from
July 1, 1961. It marked the beginning of a new legal framework of dowry harassment
laws effectively prohibiting the demanding, giving and taking of dowry. Although
providing dowry is illegal, it is still common in many parts of India for a husband to
seek a dowry from the wife's family and in some cases, this results in a form
of extortion and violence against the wife. To further strengthen the anti-dowry law
and to stop offences of cruelty by the husband or his relatives against the wife, new
provisions were added to the Indian criminal law - section 498A to Indian Penal
Code and section 198A to the Criminal Procedure Code in 1983. In 2005,
the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act was passed, which added an
additional layer of protection from dowry harassment.

Criticisms on the enforcement of dowry law

Although the changes in Indian criminal law reflects a serious effort by legislators to
put an end to dowry-related crimes, and although they have been in effect for many
years now, they have been largely criticised as being ineffective. Despite the Indian
government's efforts, the practice of dowry deaths and murders continues to take
place unchecked in many parts of the country and this has further added to the
concerns of enforcement. There is criticism by women's groups that India's dowry
harassment laws are ineffective because the statutes are too vague, the police and the
courts do not enforce the laws and social mores keep women subservient and docile,
giving them a subordinate status in the society. Further, many women are afraid to
implicate their husbands in a dowry crime simply because the Indian society is
viewed as having conditioned women to anticipate or expect abuse and in some sense
eventually, endure it. While the laws give great powers, they are not effectively
enforced by the police or by courts. It can take up to 10 years for a case to go to court

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and even once in court, husbands and in-laws end up getting away with extortion or
even murder because the women and their families cannot prove 'beyond reasonable
doubt' that they are the victims of such crimes, as there are rarely any
outside witnesses. Moreover, when deaths occur through bride
burning, evidence itself is usually lost in flames.

Criticisms on the abuse of dowry laws

There is growing criticism that the dowry laws are often being misused, particularly
section 498A IPC which is observed by many in India as being prone to misuse
because of mechanical arrests by the police. According to the National Crime Records
Bureau statistics, in 2012, nearly 200,000 people including 47,951 women, were
arrested in regard to dowry offences. However, only 15% of the accused were
convicted.
In many cases of 498a, huge amounts of dowry are claimed without any valid
reasoning. A rickshaw puller's wife can allege that she gave crore's of money as
dowry and since it is a cognizable case, police are bound to register the case. And in
most cases, the capacity of the wife or her parents and the source of the funds are
never tracked.
On April 19, 2015, the Indian government sought to introduce a bill to amend Section
498A IPC based on the suggestions of the Law Commission and Justice Malimath
committee on reforms of criminal justice. News reports indicate that the proposed
amendment will make the offence compoundable and this would facilitate couples to
settle their disputes.

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CHAPTER : 8 STUDY OF ATTITUDES

In normal life, people define the term “attitude” as the positive or negative expression
towards anything, any person and any event etc. Everyone show their attitudes in day-
to-day life. For example, if a child is there who likes chocolate ice-cream and dislikes
other favours then that child is showing his positive attitude towards chocolate ice-
cream and negative attitude towards the other favours of ice-cream but there is
another child who dislikes chocolate ice-cream and likes other favour ice-cream, in
this case this child is showing the different attitude towards the same object.

In the same way, in this project the study of attitudes is being done on different
subjects (persons) towards the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961. The main purpose of the
project is to check how the attitude differs from individual to individual on the same
topic and also to check that who has positive attitude towards women empowerment
—men or women.

In this regard a questionnaire was made consisting of 10 questions based on Dowry

Prohibition Act, 1961 and there was a group of 10 people in which 5 were boys and 5
were girls and they were asked to answer the said questionnaire so that their attitudes
on the same topic can be checked.

The questionnaire which was provided to the subjects of the experiment as follows:

Questions:

1. How far do you think that the definition which is given in Section 2 of Dowry
Prohibition Act, 1961 is absolutely correct? Does it need any king of change?

Def.: Definition of ‘dowry'. —In this Act, “dowry” means any property or
valuable security given or agreed to be given either directly or indirectly—

(a) by one party to a marriage to the other party to the marriage; or

(b) by the parent of either party to a marriage or by any other person, to either
party to the marriage or to any other person, at or before 1 [or any time after
the marriage] 2 [in connection with the marriage of the said parties, but does
not include] dower or mahr in the case of persons to whom the Muslim

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Personal Law (Shariat) applies. 3 [***] Explanation II.— The expression

“valuable security” has the same meaning as in section 30 of the Indian Penal
Code (45 of 1860).

2. How this Act help women in their empowerment?

3. Does this penalty which is given in Section 3 of the Act is sufficient?
4. Sometimes this Act is being misused by some people and because of that
innocent gets behind bars. What do you think are the measures to control this
type of misuse of the said Act?
5. How far do you agree with the statement that dowry demand amounts to
cruelty?
6. It is mentioned in Section 6 that dowry to be for the benefits of the wife &
heirs and it should be transfer within 3 months after the date of the marriage.
How far do you experience in real life?
7. What do you think leads an individual to take dowry from another party when
they already well-established in the society?
8. To advice Dowry Prohibition Officer there is a advisory board consisting of 3
men and 2 women who are social welfare worker. Does it shows a good step
taken by the Govt. toward increasing women empowerment?
9. What should be the punishment for the person who are the cause behind the
dowry death?
10. If this Act would not be there, then what would be the condition of women’s
status in our society?

ANALYSIS OF THE EXPERIMENT

In this we can clearly see that the different people have different attitude on the same
topic.

Findings: this shows that the attitude differs from individual to individual and it is
clearly founded that the women have positive attitude toward women empowerment
as compared to men.

Results: The subjects or people were asked to provide answer of the questionnaire.
We can clearly see the difference in attitude on the said topic. There were some

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people who had positive attitude towards dowry prohibition act in regards to the
women empowerment but there are some who had negative attitude towards it.

The outcome of this experiment is as follows: 3 out of 5 men have positive attitude
towards the dowry prohibition act which helps in the development of women
empowerment and the remaining two have negative attitude. In the same way, 4 out of
5 girls have positive attitude towards the dowry prohibition act which helps in the
development of women empowerment and the remaining had negative attitude. In
total 7 out of 10 have positive attitude towards the dowry prohibition act which helps
in the development of women empowerment and the remaining three had negative
attitude.

Conclusion: It is clearly seen with the help of this project that the attitude differs
from one individual to another individual. One thing is also there that there are 70%
of the people have positive attitude towards the dowry prohibition act, 1961 with
respect to the development of women and the remaining 30% finds it is of no use.
This percentage shows how the attitude differs from one individual to another. As
attitude is nothing but the favour or disfavor towards people or anything.

At last the experiment was successful and hence, the hypothesis of the project is
proved by the experiment and it is correct.

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CHAPTER :8 CONCLUSION

Attitudes have long been considered a central concept of social psychology. In fact,
early writers have defined social psychology as the scientific study of attitudes (e.g.,
Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918) and in 1954 Gordon Allport noted, "This concept is
probably the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary American
social psychology" (p. 43). As one may expect of any concept that has received
decades of attention, the concept of attitudes has changed over the years (see Allport,
1954, for an early review). The initial definitions were broad and encompassed
cognitive, affective, motivational, and behavioral components. For example, Allport
(1935) defined an attitude as "a mental and neural state of readiness, organized
through experience, exerting a directive and dynamic influence upon the individual's
response to all objects and situations with which it is related" (p. 810). A decade later,
Krech and Crutchfield (1948) wrote, "An attitude can be defined as an enduring
organization of motivational, emotional, perceptual, and cognitive processes with
respect to some aspect of the individual's world" (p. 152). These definitions
emphasized the enduring nature of attitudes and their close relationship to individuals'
behavior. Some sociologists (e.g., Fuson, 1942) and psychologists (e.g., Campbell,
1950) even defined attitudes simply in terms of the probability that a person will show
a specified behavior in a specified situation. In subsequent decades, the attitude
concept lost much of its breadth and was largely reduced to its evaluative component.
In the succinct words of Daryl Bem, "Attitudes are likes and dislikes" (1970, p. 14).
Similarly, Eagly and Chaiken (1993), in a highly influential textbook, defined
attitudes as "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular
entity with some degree of favor or disfavor" (p. 1). Along the way, many functions
that were initially ascribed to attitudes have been reassigned to other cognitive
structures and the accumulating body of empirical findings drew many of the classic
assumptions into question. A growing body of literature suggests that attitudes may be
much less enduring and stable than has traditionally been assumed. As we review

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below, self-reports of attitudes are highly context-dependent and can be profoundly

influenced by minor changes in question wording, question format or question order.
For some researchers, this malleability simply reflects measurement error (e.g.,
Schuman & Presser, 1981): People presumably hold stable attitudes, yet Attitudes --3
their assessment is subject to contextual influences. For other researchers, the same
findings indicate that all we assess in attitude measurement are evaluative judgments
that respondents construct at the time they are asked, based on whatever information
happens to be accessible (e.g., Schwarz & Strack, 1991). From this perspective, the
traditional attitude concept may not be particularly useful and we may learn more
about human cognition and behavior from a detailed analysis of the underlying
judgmental processes. Other researchers have taken intermediate positions in an
attempt to maintain the traditional attitude concept. For example, Lord and Lepper (in
press) and Tourangeau and his colleagues (e.g., Tourangeau, 1992) equate attitudes
with relatively stable memory structures, but assume that individuals sample from
these structures when they answer attitude question. Hence, a stable attitude can result
in variable attitude reports, depending on which aspect of the knowledge structure
(attitude) is accessed. Others (e.g., Wilson, 1998) suggested that individuals may hold
multiple attitudes about an object, accessing different ones at different points in time.
As we illustrate below, it is surprisingly difficult to design conclusive empirical tests
to evaluate the relative merit of these proposals and, with a few plausible
assumptions, each is compatible with the available data. Yet, a scientific concept like
"attitude" is to be evaluated on the basis of its explanatory power -- and without
taking judgmental processes into account, there is little that the attitude concept
explains. In fact, the contemporary definition of attitudes as "likes and dislikes" (Bem,
1970, p. 14) equates attitudes with evaluative judgments. Hence, the first section of
this chapter highlights judgmental processes and the second section applies these
process assumptions to some findings that are typically considered evidence for the
enduring nature of attitudes. In response to the malleability of attitude reports, social
psychologists have repeatedly tried to replace or supplement verbal self-report
measures with other, presumably more direct, ways to assess individuals' evaluative
responses to attitude objects. These attempts range from the "bogus pipeline" (Jones
& Sigall, 1971) of the 1970's to the recent development of sophisticated "implicit"
measures of attitudes (e.g., Dovidio & Fazio, 1992). Recent findings suggest that such

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measures may be just as context dependent as verbal reports, although the relevant
contextual variables may differ. The third section addresses these developments,
which are discussed in more detail by Attitudes --4 Banaji and colleagues (this
volume) and Bassili (this volume). Much as the enduring nature of attitudes has been
called into question, another body of research suggested that attitudes may not be
closely related to behavior either (see Wicker, 1969, for an influential early review).
Instead, we may expect a close relationship between attitudes and behavior only under
some specific, and relatively narrow, conditions (see Bohner & Schwarz, this
volume). These conditions can be fruitfully conceptualized within a judgment
perspective, as we review in the final section. Although we consider these topics
central to current developments in attitude research, we are keenly aware that our
coverage does not do justice to the broad range of topics that has been addressed
under the attitude rubric. For treatments of topics not addressed in this chapter we
refer readers to Eagly and Chaiken (1993, 1998), Petty and Wegener (1998), and
Bohner & Schwarz (this volume).[ CITATION Nor01 \l 1033 ]

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CHAPTER: 9 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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 Eagly, A., & Chaiken, S. (1995). Attitude strength, attitude structure and
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