Final answer:
Behavioral and attitudinal effects result from both situational forces and our own cognitive processes. Situational elements impact our behaviors and attitudes, but we can consciously alter them, especially when cognitive dissonance occurs.
Step-by-step explanation:
We display automatic behavioral and attitudinal effects because, according to social psychologists and behavioral economists, these effects are influenced both by situational factors and by internal cognitive processes.
Our attitudes are composed of affective, behavioral, and cognitive components; they are our evaluations of people, ideas, or objects that can be favorable or unfavorable.
Situations have power over our behaviors and attitudes, but we also have the agency to change these consciously by our own free will, particularly when we experience cognitive dissonance, a discomfort felt when our behaviors and attitudes are not in alignment.
Moreover, the actor-observer bias explains why we might attribute others' behavior to their dispositions while attributing our own actions to situational factors.
We have more information about our own situations, which leads us to provide situational explanations for our behavior, but we usually lack this information about others.
An understanding of this bias is important because it cultivates a deeper awareness of the systematic behavior that may initially appear irrational. Upon further analysis, it's evident that there can be underlying reasons for this seemingly irrational behavior.