ATTITUDE

Definition and Elaboration

Psychologists define attitude as a learned – as opposed to an in-born-tendency to evaluate things in a certain way.This can include evaluations of people,issues, objects or events. Such evaluations are often favourable or unfavourable but they can also be uncertain at times. Thus we often speak of ‘mixed feelings’about an individual or an event. An attitude is an expression of favour or disfavour toward a person, place, thing, or event (or the attitude object).

Attitude object is an entity towards which an individual’s attitudes are directed. Gordon Allport once described attitudes as “the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology”.

Psychologists have also fine tuned this definition. According to Eagly and Chaiken, an attitude is “a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour.” Theevaluationswhichpeople make canrangefromthe extremelyunfavourable to the extremely favourable, or can be more moderate. Attitudes can be mixed, and with regard to the same object, may vary from time to time.

Attitudes are classified as explicit and implicit. If a person is aware of his attitudes, and they influence his behaviour and beliefs, his attitudes are explicit. Explicit attitudes are formed consciously. A person may be unaware of hisimplicit beliefs though thesestill have some influence on his conduct and behaviour. Implicit attitudes are subconscious attitudes.

Carl Jung, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, defines attitude as a “readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way”. According to Jung, attitudes occur in pairs out of which one is conscious and the other unconscious. Within this broad definition, Jung defines several attitudes. He identifies the following pairs of attitudes:

Structure

Modern psychologists regard attitude as a complex, multidimensional construct. Construct means a theoretical concept. In this context, the term ‘construct’ means that it has been created by the practitioners of a discipline. A construct can also result from social practice or the manner in which people use common language. A construct is not a simple (natural or social) occurrence or event or observation; it is something which is theoretically formulated. Thus, sociologists formulate social constructs for analyzing social phenomena. The constructs mediate betweenthe observations sociologists make and the way they interpret them. Multidimensional means that the theoretical concept consists of more than one component or ingredient. Attitude has three components. These components are cognitive, affective and conative. Cognitive part consists of a person’s thoughts and beliefs about the attitude object. ‘Cognitive’ means ‘relating to the process of acquiring knowledge through reason, intuition and perception’. The emotional (or affective) part consists of the feeling which the object, person, issue or event evokes. ‘Affective’ means emotional. The behavioural part consists of the manner in which the attitudeinfluences a person’sbehaviour.‘Conative’ in psychology means a mental processinvolvingthe will–impulse, desire or resolve. In simple terms, it means ‘behavioural’. William J. McGuire proposed this classic, tripartite view of attitudes.

Researcherswho madeempiricalstudiescouldnot,however,clearlyisolatethethoughts,emotions, and behavioural intentions associated with a particular attitude. There is often no consistency, as required by the tripartite view of attitudes, between cognitive, affective, and behavioural associations of an attitude. Some psychologists think that in attitude structure, the cognitive and behavioural components are products of the emotional component, and that behaviour is driven by underlying beliefs.

Although there is disagreement on the particular structure of attitudes, evidence shows that they reflect more than the positive and negative evaluations of a particular object. Attitudes have other features – like importance, certainty, or strength and associated knowledge. Further, inter-attitudinal structure connects different attitudes to one another and to deeper psychological structures, such as values or ideology.

Functions

In psychology (and in sociology), functionalism means a particular approach which theorists adopt for understanding social or psychological phenomena. In simple terms, they try to understand the purpose which the phenomenon under study serves in the society or in the personality of the individual. For example, sociologists do not study religion in the manner in which theologians study it.Theologians maystudythedetails of the religiousdoctrine,itsevolution,and how it cancontribute to the spiritual progress of its followers. Sociologists will study it differently. They will examine how religion contributes to social stability. That is the function of religion in society.

Psychologists study attitudes similarly considering how attitudes contribute to the overall well being of the individual. Attitudes perform various functions forthe psychological and mental benefit oftheindividual. An individual’sattitudesoften satisfy hisparticular psychological needs.Men have not only physical but also psychological needs. Thus, men need a sense of self-esteem. Otherwise, they will be demoralized. This is called the functional aspect of an attitude since it performs a psychological function forthe individual. Psychologistsexplorethegeneral andparticular attitudes

of individuals by considering the manner in which an individual’s attitudes affect him. They ask, ‘what purposes in a psychological sense are served by the attitudes which an individual holds?’

According to functional theories of attitude, attitudes are important to human psychological functioning. Attitudes are constructs that people create in order to meet their physical, social, and emotional needs.

In Daniel Katz’s view, attitudes perform various functions. First, attitudes have a knowledge function, which enables individuals to understand their environment and to be consistent in their ideas and thinking. Most attitudes serve this basic function in some measure.

Secondly, many attitudes have a utilitarian function. They help individuals in maximizing benefits and minimizing disadvantages while interacting with individuals, groups and situations in their environment. Utilitarian attitudes lead to behaviour that optimizes one’s interests.

Thirdly, attitudes perform a social role, helping in an individual’s self-expression and social interaction. Subscribing to a given set of attitudes signals one’s identification with important reference groups to express one’s core values, and to establish one’s identity. This social role of attitudes is known as social identity function; it underlies an individual’s desire to establish his individual and social identity.

Fourthly, attitudes promote and maintain an individual’s self-esteem. As we shall shortly see, psychologists have identified the psychodynamic mechanisms by which attitudes support self-esteem. This aspect suggests that attitudes can serve as defence mechanisms for handling an individual’s internal mental conflicts. These conflicts reflect tensions within the individual psyche. The defence mechanisms hide an individual’s true motives from himself or psychologically isolate him from groups perceived as hostile or threatening.

Attitudes maintain self-esteem in other ways also. An individual’s attitudes toward many things are influenced by hisview on howthey affect hisownself-assessment.Forinstance,our attitudestoward our friends and social acquaintances depend on whether we regard such association as enhancing orloweringour social standing.Attitudes whichleadindividuals to associate withsuccessfulgroups (such as a winning cricket team) may be motivated by an unconscious desire for boosting their self- esteem by “basking in reflected glory”.

(Based on The Role of Attitude Functions in Persuasion and Social Judgment Sharon Shavitt Michelle R. Nelson )

Case Studies