Attitudes are associated
beliefs and
behaviors towards some object. They are not stable, and because of the communication and behavior of other people, are subject to change by
social influences, as well as by the individual's
motivation to maintain cognitive consistency when
cognitive dissonance occurs—when two attitudes or attitude and behavior conflict. Attitudes and attitude objects are functions of
affective and cognitive components. It has been suggested that the inter-structural composition of an associative network can be altered by the activation of a single node. Thus, by activating an affective or emotional node, attitude change may be possible, though affective and cognitive components tend to be intertwined.