ATTITUDES

• The importance of attitudes in

understanding psychological
phenomenon was given formal
recognition early in the history of
social psychology. From the time of
the concepts entry into the language of
psychology until now. Interest in
attitudes has been strong and growing.
However over the years attitudes have
been studied with differing emphases
and methods.
• In addition there were
studies concerned with relationship of
attitudes to some social variable.
World war brought with it a growing
concern about the places if the
attitudes concept in understanding
prejudice, particularly anti-Semitism.
TOPIC- 1 CONCEPT OF
ATTITUDE:-
• It is necessary to be precise in
defining attitudes, because the variety
of published definitions and
descriptions is almost endless. Like
any another concept, attitudes may also
be in two ways- conceptual and
operational. There is quite a difference
in the conceptual definition of the term
attitude, and divergent point of view
regarding the concept of attitudes has
developed.
• When the term attitude first
entered the field of social object. For
the first time, all port noted that all the
definition of attitude which he had
observed contained the words
“readiness”, “set” (tendency to
respond) or disposition to act. Even All
port has used these term n defining
attitude. He defines attitude as follow :

• “Attitude is a mental and

neural state of readiness organized
through experience, exerting a
directive or dynamic influence upon
the individual’s response to all objects
and situations with which it is related”.

• Apart from the conceptual

approach, there is operational approach
in defining the term attitude.
Theconceptof attitude is
 operationalised in a number of ways
but in most cases, studies rely on some
kind of questionnaire to measure
attitude. Taking attitude from this point
of view. Only evaluative aspect of
attitudes has been taken into account.

• From organizational behavior

point of view attitude is defined in
evaluative term. For example we
produce two definitions and both of
them specify similar aspect in attitude
that is evaluation aspect. Reitz has
defined attitude as follows:

• “ Attitude is the persistent tendency

to feel and behave in a favorable way
towards some opbject, person.or
ideas”.
TOPIC – 2 Attitude , opinion
and Belief
• There are certain other terms
such as opinion and belief, which are
used quite closely with attitudes.
However there is a basic difference in
these terms. An opinion is generally of
one’s judgment of a particular set of
facts; an evaluation of the
circumstance presented to
him.Thurstone defines opinions as
expressions of attitudes. However,
Kolasa observes that an opinion is
response to a specifically limited
stimulus, but the response is certainly
influenced by the predisposition with
which the individual is operating, that
 is the attitude structure. Undoubtedly
attitudes are basic to opinion as well as
to many other aspects of behavior.
• A difference can also be
made between attitude and belief. A
belief is an enduring organization of
perceptions and cognitions about some
aspect of individual’s world. Thus
belief is a hypothesis concerning the
nature of objects, more particularly
concerning one’s judgment of the
probability regarding their nature. In
this sense belief is the cognitive
component of attitude whichreflectes
the manner in which an objects is
perceived kolasa observes that beliefs
are stronger than opinions.
• The difference between attitude
opinion and belief exits on conceptual
basis. Most researchers believe that
these three terms are so closely tied
 that it is difficult to separate them
expect one limited conceptual basis. In
the literature often there is
considerable amount of overlapping in
these threeterms.Most psychologists,
however believe that attitudes are
more fundamental to human behavior
than are the related aspects. For this
reason more attempts have been made
to analyze attitudes as compared to
others.

TOPIC-3
CHARACTERISTICS OF
ATTITUDE
• IN understanding attitude change
.the analysis of attitude characteristics
is an imp orient element. Theories of
attitude suggest numerous types of
their characteristics. Such
characteristics may be : (1)
extremeness of the attitude (2)
multiplexity (3) consistency (4)
interconnectedness (5) consonance of
the attitude cluster of which the focal
attitude is a part (6) the number and
strength of the needs which are served
by the attitude , there may be two
types of attitude change: congruent
and incongruent. The congruent
change is one in which the direction of
change is opposite to the originally
held attitude. Congruent change is
easier to produce than incongruent
one- especially when the attitude
system is interconnected with
supporting attitudes.
• Another characteristic involved
in changeability of attitude is their
simplicity. The number of facts
involved in the cognition and the
number of facts of which it is related
make the attitude simple or complex
one. Attitude which reflects the core or
principal component of an individual’s
personality would most likely be very
resistant to change.