present, ethical standards regulate research, and pluralistic and multicultural perspectives to the social sciences have emerged. Most modern researchers in the 21st century are interested in phenomena such as attribution, social cognition, and self-concept. Social psychologists are, in addition, concerned with applied psychology, contributing towards applications of social psychology in health, education, law, and the workplace. Core theories and concepts Attitudes In social psychology, an attitude is a learned, global evaluation that influences thought and action. Attitudes are basic expressions of approval and disapproval or likes and dislikes. For example, enjoying chocolate ice cream or endorsing the values of a particular political party are examples of attitudes. Because people are influenced by multiple factors in any given situation, general attitudes are not always good predictors of specific behavior. For example, a person may generally value the environment but may not recycle a plastic bottle because of specific factors on a given day. Research on attitudes has examined the distinction between traditional, self-reported attitudes and implicit, unconscious attitudes. Experiments using the Implicit Association Test (IAT), for instance, have found that people often demonstrate implicit bias against other races, even when their explicit responses profess impartiality. Likewise, one study found that in interracial interactions, explicit attitudes correlate with verbal behavior, while implicit attitudes correlate with nonverbal behavior. Attitudes are also involved in several other areas of the discipline, such as conformity, interpersonal attraction, social perception, and prejudice. Persuasion Persuasion is an active method of influencing that attempts to guide people toward the adoption of an attitude, idea, or behavior by rational or emotive means. Persuasion relies on appeals rather than strong pressure or coercion. The process of persuasion has been found to be influenced by numerous variables that generally fall into one of five major categories: Communication: includes credibility, expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness. Message: includes varying degrees of reason, emotion (e.g., fear), one-sided or two-sided arguments, and other types of informational content. Audience: includes a variety of demographics, personality traits, and preferences. Medium: includes printed word, radio, television, the internet, or face-to-face interactions. Context: includes environment, group dynamics, and preliminary information. Dual-process theories of persuasion (such as the elaboration likelihood model) maintain that persuasion is mediated by two separate routes: central and peripheral. The central route of persuasion is influenced by facts and results in longer-lasting change, but requires motivation to process. The peripheral route is influenced by superficial factors (e.g. smiling,