Question based on ISTD MBA Solved Assignment and other course
Answer:
Psychologists define attitudes as a learned tendency to evaluate things in a certain way. This can include evaluations of people, issues, objects or events. Such evaluations are often positive or negative, but they can also be uncertain at times. For example, you might have mixed feelings about a particular person or issue.
- Allport (1935) defined an attitude as a mental or neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence on the individual’s response to all objects and situations to which it is related. A simpler definition of attitude is a mindset or a tendency to act in a particular way due to both an individual’s experience and temperament.
- An attitude is defined as, “a learned pre-disposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object”.
- Attitude is a mental and natural state of readiness organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects situations with which is related.
- An attitude is a cognitive element; it always remains inside a person. In organizational context, employees have attitudes related to job security or uncertainty, prestige of the department and the work that does etc. The individual’s attitudes toward these factors are indicative of his apathy or enthusiasm toward the activities and objectives of the organization.
- Attitude means settled behavior, which implies that in a given situation, a person will act automatically in a certain manner depending on his or her attitude.
- Thurstone defined attitude as “the sum total of a person’s inclinations and feelings, prejudice or bias, preconceived notions, ideas, fears, threats and convictions about any specific topic”.
- Attitude is an enduring system of positive or negative evaluations, emotional feelings and ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ action tendencies with respect to a social object.
- Attitude is a residuum of experience, by which further activity is conditional and controlled.
- Attitude is the degree of positive or negative affect associated with some psychological object.
- Attitude is an individual mental process which determines both the actual and potential responses of each person in the social world.
- Attitude is an acquired tendency to act in specific ways toward objects.
- Attitude is a subjective and personal affair.
Nature and Characteristics
An attitude is a tendency to react positively or negatively in regard to an object. For example, a person who has a positive attitude towards the religion is likely to enjoy going to worship services, believe that the religious institutions foster morality and may, therefore, contribute financially also. An attitude is always directed toward some object, such as the temple, school, etc. A person who has an attitude has a readiness or a disposition to react favorable or unfavorably to anyone of a large variety of related situations. Until some situation arouses it, however, the attitude is latent.
Attitude affects behaviour of an individual by putting him ready to respond favourably or unfavourably to things in his environment. Attitude acquired through learning over the period of time. The process of learning attitude started from childhood and continues throughout the life of person.
Attitude is characterized by the following elements:
- Valence: It refers to the magnitude or degree of favorableness or unfavorableness toward the object/event. If a person is relatively indifferent toward an object then his attitude has low valence.
- Multiplicity: It refers to the number of elements constituting the attitude. For example, one student may show interest in studies, but another not only shows interest, but also works hard, is sincere, and serious.
- Relation to Needs: Attitudes vary in relation to needs they serve. For example, attitudes of an individual toward the pictures may serve only entertainment needs. On the other hand, attitudes of an employee toward task may serve strong needs for security, achievement, recognition, and satisfaction.
Importance of Attitude
- Attitudes serve as one way to organize our relationship with our world. They make our interactions more predictable affording us a degree of control.
- Attitudes also enable us to reduce the vast amount of information that we possess into manageable units. Attitude represents the combination of many bits of information for us.
- We can use others attitudes to make judgments about them.
- It has been found consistently that the more similar our attitudes are to those of others, the more we like them.
- Finally, people’s attitudes can sometimes be useful in predicting behavior, such as how they will vote in an election or which brand of car they buy.
Determinants of Attitude
Attitudes are determined by the following:
- Experience: Individuals develop certain job related attitudes through job experience.
- Association: Our geographic region, religion, educational background, race, age, sex and income- class-all strongly influence our attitudes.
- Family: Family members exert influence on the initial “core” of attitudes held by an individual.
- Peer Groups: As persons approach their adulthood, they increasingly rely on their peer groups for approval/attitudes.
- Society: Social class and religious affiliation play a vital role in forming attitudes of an individual.
- Personality Factors: Personality differences between individuals appear to be very important factor of attitude formation.
Features of Attitudes
The following are the features of attitudes:
- Attitudes Affect Behavior: People have a natural tendency to maintain consistency between their attitudes and behavior.
- Attitudes are Not Visible: Attitude constitutes psychological phenomena which cannot be directly observed, but can be understood by observing the consequences of attitudes. For ex, positive attitude of a worker is observed by his or her high productivity.
- Attitudes are Acquired: Attitudes are gradually learnt over a period of time, right from childhood, throughout the life time of a person.
- Attitudes are Pervasive: Attitudes are formed in the process of socialization and may relate to anything in the world. For ex, attitude towards persons, politics, religion, work, superiors, colleagues, subordinates, government policies etc.
