Attitude: Definition, Feature, Structure and Function in Human Behaviour

To prepare for ETHICS for any competitive exam, aspirants have to know about the Attitude. It gives an idea of all the important topics for the IAS Exam and the Economy syllabus (GS-IV.). Attitude terms are important from Ethical perspectives in the UPSC exam. IAS aspirants should thoroughly understand their meaning and application, as questions can be asked from this static portion of the IAS Syllabus in both the UPSC Prelims and the UPSC Mains exams. Even these topics are also highly linked with current affairs. Almost every question asked from them is related to current events. So, apart from standard textbooks, you should rely on newspapers and news analyses as well for these sections.

Attitude: The Psychological Perspective

• “Attitude is the State of mind or a set of views or settled way of thinking or feeling about something in a particular way which has an evaluative feature (Positive, Negative or Neutral)” Attitude is part of social Psychology.
• Attitudes are abstract constructs, not something we can directly observe. We can observe them only with behaviour. To elaborate, whenever a person sees or thinks about a targeted object, the sum of thoughts and emotions that are created in a person constitute an attitude.
• In our day to day life, our attitude determines our behaviour towards people, situations, events etc. which in turn shapes the larger social interaction in societies.

Forming Attitudes: The Developmental Process

• In general, attitudes form part of our cognitive system by learning through one’s own experiences and through interaction with others.
• There are three stages in people’s life when most of our attitudes are formed or when we learn how to evaluate things.
• It’s the early childhood and adolescence which are tender stages of attitude formation as the person has no particular attitude toward most of the objects when he is born.
• There are few research studies that show some inborn aspects of attitude but such genetic factors influence our attitudes indirectly along with learning but not directly. Therefore, to form certain specific attitudes there are few specific conditions required.

Enroll now for UPSC Online Course

1. Learning by Association: First level of association happened at the level of Parents and Family. We form our attitudes towards something by learning from parents. Next level of association happened at the school level with teachers and friends. Third level of association at the organisational level where we work. If we are in the company of good people, we develop good attitudes. Or even by associating with books we can learn certain attitudes.

 “Positive attitudes learned through positive association between us and associated person”

Learning by being rewarded or punished (Instrumental Conditioning): Rewards and punishments create certain attitudes on the basis of their personal experiences. Such attitudes may be positive or negative depending on how it influences him/her.

Learning through Modelling (Observing others): Often, it’s not association nor by rewards or punishments but sometimes we learn attitudes by observing celebrities or teachers or parents or role models etc.

Learning attitudes through Cultural Norms: Very often we learn attitudes through norms of our culture. Norms are unwritten rules about behaviour that everyone is supposed to be shown under specific circumstances. Over time, these norms may become part of our social cognition, in the form of attitudes.

• Learning attitudes through Social comparison: When one’s attitude corroborates with those held by significant others, they are accepted as being an accurate response to attitude objects.
• Learning through exposure to Information: By exposure to information like autobiographies, books and information through various media like newspapers, the internet creates opinion formation which in turn leads to attitude.

 Contrast: Attitudes versus Values

Techniques with which we learn to evaluate attitude objects and hence a particular type of attitude is formed towards them: 

Enroll now for UPSC Online Classes

Factors Shaping Attitudes

The following factors provide the context for the learning of attitudes through the processes described above.

• Family and School Environment: Particularly in the early years of life, parents and other family members play a significant role in shaping attitude formation. Later, the school environment becomes an important background for attitude formation. Learning of attitudes within the family and school usually takes place by association, through rewards and punishments, and through modelling.
• Reference Groups: Reference groups indicate to an individual the norms regarding acceptable behaviour and ways of thinking. Thus, they reflect learning of attitudes through group or cultural norms. Attitudes towards various topics, such as political, religious and social groups, occupations, national and other issues are often developed through reference groups. Their influence is noticeable especially during the beginning of adolescence, at which time it is important for the individual to feel that s/he belongs to a group. Therefore, the role of reference groups in attitude formation may also be a case of learning through reward and punishment.
• Personal Experiences: Many attitudes are formed, not in the family environment or through reference groups, but through direct personal experiences which bring about a drastic change in our attitude towards people and our own life.

• Media-related Influences: Technological advances in recent times have made audio-visual media and the Internet very powerful sources of information that lead to attitude formation and change. In addition, school level textbooks also influence attitude formation. These sources first strengthen the cognitive and affective components of attitudes, and subsequently may also affect the behavioural component. The media can exert both good and bad influences on attitudes. On one hand, the media and Internet make people better informed than other modes of communication.

ABC of Attitude: Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioural Components

Cognitive Component of Attitude

• We develop Cognition through analytical thought processes. It is the ability to think and deliberate, the basis of which we form our opinions and views. It consists of the following elements:
• Knowledge about the target object
• Awareness about others opinion about the object
• Societal opinion
• Cognitive aspect of an attitude may be either positive or negative or even neutral.
• Example: If a person sees a snake,
• Positive Cognition – Not to kill them but they are part of biodiversity and few worships as god as part of religion
• Negative Cognition – Snakes are Dangerous and kill them
• Neutral Cognition – Neither kill them nor worship

Affective Component of Attitude

• The Affective component deals with the emotional aspect of the Attitude that is moods, feelings associated with targeted objects. It is the result of past life experiences for longer periods in life.

Example:

• If we grow in a poverty conditions and face hunger in the past, we compassion towards weaker section of people who are facing hunger
• If someone is a victim of corruption he may blame entire officials and the system as corrupt.

Behavioural Component of Attitude

• This is the action towards the target object. It is the tendency to act in a particular way.
• Any kind of Behaviour exhibition depends on the both Affective and Cognitive component of Attitude.
• Affective component
• Cognitive component
  • Behaviour

Enroll now for UPSC Online Course

Example: A ‘Green Environment’: The A-B-C Components of an Attitude

Suppose a group of people in your neighbourhood start a tree plantation campaign as part of a ‘green environment’ movement. Based on sufficient information about the environment:

• Cognitive: Your view towards a ‘green environment’ is positive (cognitive or ‘C’ component, along with the evaluative aspect).
• Affective: You feel very happy when you see greenery. You feel sad and angry when you see trees being cut down. These aspects reflect the affective (emotional), or ‘A’ component of the same attitude.
• Behavioural: Now suppose you also actively participate in the tree plantation campaign. This shows the behavioural or ‘B’ component of your attitudes towards a ‘green environment’.

In general, we expect all three components to be consistent with each other, that is, in the same direction. However, such consistency may not necessarily be found in all situations. 

For example, it is quite possible that the cognitive aspect of your ‘green environment’ attitude is very strong, but the affective and behavioural components may be relatively weaker. Or, the cognitive and affective components may be strong and positive, but the behavioural component may be neutral. Therefore, predicting one component on the basis of the other two may not always give us the correct picture about an attitude. 

• Behavioural components are very much important in making India Open defecation free.
• But it should be noted here that some attitudes don’t need to act in a particular direction. Either they just stop at cognitive/Emotional due to fear or shy feeling.

Example: A person who abides by the traffic rules gets angry if someone violates rules like talking on phone while driving but still, he doesn’t try to caution him or complain to authorities due to fear or take it as usual. 

Attitude Structure: Organizing Positive and Negative Evaluations within Components

• Structure of attitude includes how positive and negative evaluation are organised within and among the cognitive affective and behavioural component of attitude.
• The structure often decides the extent to which an attitude in question can affect the behaviour of an individual. People with integrity are less ambivalent.
• Attitude structure answers the question of how positive and negative evaluations are organized within and between the components- cognitive, affective and behavioral.

One-Dimensional Perspective: Absence of Ambivalence in Attitude Formation

• In one-dimensional perspective it is assumed that presence of positive belief, emotions and behavior prevents the occurrence of negative beliefs, emotions and behavior. Or in other words they are extreme opposites of a scale.
• This perspective thus implies that there is consistency in a person’s attitude towards the attitude object and there will be no attitudinal ambivalence.

Two-Dimensional Perspective: Distinguishing Positivity and Negativity in Attitude Space

• Two-dimensional views suggest that positive and negative elements are stored along two separate dimensions. One dimension reflects positive belief, emotion and behavior elements, and the other dimension reflects many negative belief, emotion and behaviour elements. The attitude may lie anywhere on this two-dimensional plane.
• This view proposes that people can possess any combination of positivity or negativity in their attitudes. Attitudes may subsume little positivity and high negativity, little negativity and high positivity, or no positivity or negativity (i.e., a neutral position).

Thus, attitude structure represents the attitude content and their combination with respect to the attitude object which helps us to predict people’s attitude. 

Functions of Attitude: Serving Psychological, Social, and Emotional Needs

Knowledge Function – Attitude helps us to understand the overwhelming amount of information in the world. They are shortcuts, helping us to simplify our perception of the world so that it becomes more manageable, controllable and safer. However in the absence of knowledge about a person, we may use a stereotyped attitude for judging the person.

E.g. – people who are not familiar with nuclear energy may develop an attitude that it is dangerous and should not be used as an energy source.

Utilitarian Function – The utilitarian function exists in attitudes that maximise rewards and minimize punishments obtained from attitude objects. If a person holds or expresses a socially acceptable attitude, other people will reward them with approval and social acceptance.

E.g. – politicians show a positive attitude towards reservation as it helps in getting votes.

• Object-Appraisal Function – It is often considered the most basic function of attitudes. It holds that all attitudes serve to simplify reasoning and behavior by providing a guide for how to interact with (i.e. approach or avoid) an attitude object. This function is served by all attitudes which are strong and repetitive in nature and thus easy to retrieve from memory.
• Ego Defence – Ego defense refers to holding an attitude that protects our self-esteem or that justifies action that makes us feel guilty. Attitude helps to protect us from ourselves and from others and to explain why we have done something that could be seen as undesirable.
• Social-adjustive function – It causes people to like attitude objects (e.g. cars, places like restaurants) that are popular among people whom they admire and dislike attitude objects that are unpopular.
• Emotions Experience function – Another basic function of attitudes is that they help people to experience emotions. Emotions themselves fulfill basic psychological needs, and, thus, people go for emotional experiences, even when the experiences are unpleasant (horror movies). One way of experiencing these emotions is through the possession and expression of strong positive or negative attitudes. For example, people can have a positive attitude towards pet animals because it helps in fulfilling their emotional need of care, affection, love and loyalty.
• Value expression – Attitudes are manifestations of our values. Attitude helps us to relate to ourselves & to others, presenting a fairly unified image which helps to establish our identity for both ourselves and for others. The attitude we express helps communicate who we are & may make us feel good because we have asserted our identity.

Enroll now for UPSC Online Classes

Attitude Change: Influences and Implications

• During the process of attitude formation, and also after this process, attitudes may be changed and modified through various influences.
• Attitudes that are still in the formative stage, and are more like opinions, are much more likely to change compared to attitudes that have become firmly established, and have become a part of the individual’s values.
• From a practical point of view, bringing about a change in people’s attitudes is of interest to community leaders, politicians, producers of consumer goods, advertisers, and others. Unless we find out how attitudes change, and what conditions account for such change, it would not be possible to take steps to bring about attitude change.

Influences on Attitude Change: Informational vs. Normative

Factors Influencing Attitude Change: Understanding the Dynamics

• Characteristics of existing attitude – Positive attitude is easily subjected to change compared to Negative attitude.
  • Example: If a person reading about women empowerment after seeing successful women his positive attitude towards women become more positive or his positive attitude may become negative fearful of in future women may become more powerful and dominate men and ignores family responsibilities.
• Source Characteristics – Source credibility affects attitude change. Attitudes are more likely to change if a message comes from a highly credible source.
  • Example: If an Engineering student planning to buy a laptop is more convinced by a computer professional who explains the features than a school child explains the same features.
• Message Characteristics – Attitude will change when the information present in the message is enough but neither too extreme information nor too low information. Also, whether the information has rational or emotional appeal also matters.
  • Example:
• An advertisement for cooking food in a pressure cooker may point out that this saves fuel such as cooking gas (LPG) and is economical (rational appeal). Alternatively, the advertisement may say that pressure-cooking preserves nutrition, and that if one cares for the family, nutrition would be a major concern (emotional appeal). The motives activated by the message also determine attitude change.
• Drinking milk may be said to make a person healthy and good-looking, or more energetic and more successful at one’s job.
• Mode of Spreading the Message – Mode of spreading the message plays a significant role. Face-to-face transmission of the message is usually more effective than indirect transmission, as for instance, through letters and pamphlets, or even through mass media.
  • Example: A positive attitude towards Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) for young children is more effectively created if community social workers and doctors spread the message by talking to people directly, than by only describing the benefits of ORS on the radio.
• Target Characteristics – Qualities of the target, such as persuasibility, strong prejudices, self-esteem, and intelligence influence the likelihood and extent of attitude change. People, who have a more open and flexible personality, change more easily. People with strong prejudices are less prone to any attitude change than those who do not hold strong prejudices. Persons who have a low self-esteem, and do not have sufficient confidence in themselves, change their attitudes more easily than those who are high on self-esteem.

Relationship Between Attitude and Behavior: Influential Factors

Following factors influences relation between Attitude & Behaviour:

• Qualities of a person – Values like courage, integrity etc.
• People who are aware of their feelings display greater attitude behaviour consistently than those people who rely on situational questions to decide how to behave.
• People with a high level of integrity show high correlation between Attitude and Behaviour.
• People in individual society have more correlation compared to people in collective society.
• Individuals who depend on their own feelings and principles to judge act much more consistently with their attitudes towards moral issues than the people who rely on external standards to determine what is moral.
• Qualities of attitude – Strong and weak attitude show high and low correlation between attitude and behaviour.
• Attitude accessibility – Attitudes which are acted upon on a regular basis are more accessible from memory. Such attitudes show higher correlation with behaviour.
• Situation:
• Norms or belief about how one should or is expected to behave in a given situation can exert a powerful influence on behaviour.
• Time pressure results in behaviour as per attitude
• Survival instincts dominate attitude.

Steps To Increase Correlation Between Attitude And Behaviour

• Development of emotional intelligence.
• Introspection
• Attitude literacy – learn what attitudes are. Identify your good and bad attitudes.
• Connecting with conscience – try to understand the reasons behind holding a particular attitude.
• Developing values of integrity and truthfulness.
• Discovering ways to motivate yourself.
• See change as an opportunity to grow.
• Seeing criticism as an feedback and opportunity to achieve excellence.

Enroll now for UPSC Online Course

Types of Attitude: Exploring Four Main Categories

Though we have many types of attitudes, mainly we deal with four types of attitudes. They are:

1. Moral Attitudes
2. Political Attitudes
3. Bureaucratic Attitudes
4. Democratic Attitudes

Exploring Moral Attitudes: Virtues and Principles

Morality refers to righteousness. Moral attitudes are attitudes concerned with righteous manners. Thus, Moral attitudes is not a neutral concept. It is a bias towards righteousness or virtuousness. Some of the moral attitudes are:

1. Goodness
2. Respect
3. Love & Compassion
4. Selflessness
5. Empathy

The Essence of Goodness: Foundation of Moral Integrity

• We were born with a materialistic nature. Any materialistic nature of life consists of three modes, they are – Goodness, Passion & Ignorance. When a living entity comes in contact with nature, he is subjected to these three modes.
• Goodness refers to the Good intentions in our actions. This is the Mother of all Moral attitudes. All other moral attitudes derived from this. Good actions start with good intentions.
• Goodness is the pre-condition for inner happiness. Goodness is purer than other modes of life and it frees one from sinful actions. Those who are situated in this mode develop knowledge but they become conditioned by the concept of happiness.
• Passion is loaded with unlimited desires and belongings. Because of this one is bound to materialistic activities.

• Ignorance comes with laziness. It is the root cause of suffering and delusion of all living entities. The result will be madness, sleep and unhappiness and no purpose to life.
• Sometimes the mode of ignorance becomes prominent and defeats the mode of goodness. And sometimes passion is prominent over others and similarly goodness defeats other modes of life. There is always competition among them for supremacy.

The Principle of Respect: Upholding Dignity in Human Interaction

• Human beings have dignity and value. They are autonomous and end themselves. Every living entity has to be treated with respect, Give Respect And Take Respect.

Love & Compassion: Nurturing Connections and Alleviating Suffering

• Love is deep affection towards others and compassion is action oriented sympathetic feeling for someone’s sufferings and misfortunes.

Selflessness: Acting Without Expectation, Nurturing Universal Harmony

• Selflessness is willing to act without expecting anything in return. A selfless action is the basis of all existence. Consciousness is the basis of selfless action.
• Advita Philosophy talks about self-consciousness. It states that we treat other souls as our souls. Then we tend to help each other without expecting anything in return which results in positive universal emotions and no negative feelings.

Empathy: Understanding Others’ Emotions, Key to Emotional Intelligence

It’s the basic awareness of the emotions and feelings of others. Empathy is the basis of Emotional Intelligence, ability to use our emotions in a positive way to overcome conflicts and challenges. We can develop this attitude only when we are selfless. It is simply stepping into someone’s shoes. 

Enroll now for UPSC Online Classes

Political Attitudes: Approach to Political Issues and Systems

• Political Attitudes are a set of which an individual approaches a political problem and which determines his line of conduct towards that problem.
• It’s also a set of rules & regulations, customs, traditions, beliefs that influences the political system of that country.
• The sum total of political attitudes of an individual reveals that person’s outlook on the political aspect of social living. They define the relationship between the citizen, govt and functions of the political system.

Some of the Political Attitudes:

• After Independence, India adopted western liberal democratic form of government where there is a nominal head instead of hereditary. The Representative form of govt having features such as rule of law, independent judiciary, federal spirit, Unbiased and committed bureaucracy, free and fair elections, Elections based on Universal adult franchise etc
• But even after seven decades of independence, these democratic institutions failed to perform to the expected level whereas western democracies were successful. It’s the country’s political system that determines and influences the functioning of these institutions and in turn decides the success of other institutions like economic progress, fiscal discipline, administration and elections.
• Our political system is structured on lines of western liberal democracy but in reality, it’s feudal in nature resulting in their failure. This is true in case of the functioning of the political party system. It’s based on the multi-party system, FPTP voting system and Universal adult franchise etc. But outcomes of elections and functioning of political parties are not determined by cognition. They appeal to the public’s emotions rather than their progress.
• Western democracies and Indian democracy, the main difference lies in the political attitudes of the people.
• Voting Behaviour of public decided by emotions, ideology and progress and development report card of the govt.

We have a constitution but we lack “constitutionalism” in the country. We should take steps to strengthen the democratic institutions in letter and spirit. 

Bureaucratic Attitudes: Essential Traits for Official Conduct

Some of the Bureaucratic attitudes which an official should possess are (Which will discuss in detail in the next chapter)

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Commitment to the ideals of the Constitution
• Transparency & Accountability
• Abide to the rules & regulations but one should possess empathy and compassion also
• Courage of Conviction
• 4E – Economy, Efficiency, Effectiveness & Equity
• Objectivity
• Impartiality
• Non – Partisanship
• Proactive & Dynamic

Enroll now for UPSC Online Course

Democratic Attitudes: Pillars of a Flourishing Democracy

Democratic attitudes are a set of values which strengthens democracy. Some of the common examples of democratic attitudes are,

1. Freedom and Liberty
2. Equality & Rule of law
3. Fraternity
4. Rights and Duties etc.

Freedom And Liberty:

• The term liberty means absence of restraints on the activities of individuals and at the same time, providing opportunities for the development of individual personalities.
• Constitution of India secures the citizens liberties by putting them under its preamble mentioned as:

“Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith, and worship”

• Every individual freedom to enjoy his liberty as sanctioned by the law. The duty of the law is to safeguard one’s personal liberty.
• Law and Liberty: The law and liberty are twins and are connected to each other to sanction equal treatment equally for all.
• Understanding the concept of liberty begins in the classroom by the conduct and attitude of the student towards his teacher and his classmates. Raising questions to clarify doubts to his class teacher is his/her right, but the sanction of it becomes liberty.
• Liberty is just the sanction of law and the restrictions imposed are also a kind of liberty. Conducive learning environment of the classroom, conditions the student to understand the meaning and the purpose of liberty. The basic fact of liberty is that law is the condition of liberty.

Liberty: Positive and Negative Perspectives

How does law protect liberty?

• Provides congenial atmosphere for the smooth running of civilized life in society. Law punishes criminals and defends the rights of the individuals.
• Law guarantees the enjoyment of individual rights and duties and protects them. The state punishes the individual who causes harm to others and hinders the path of others.
• The Constitution is custodian of liberty and it confines the authority of the state and protects the fundamental right of the people.

Equality: Attitude Towards Fairness and Justice

• Equality is a powerful moral and political ideal that has inspired and guided human society for many centuries. Concept of equality invokes the idea that all human beings have an equal worth regardless of their colour, gender, race, or nationality. It maintains that human beings deserve equal consideration and respect because of their common humanity. Shared humanity lies in the universal human rights.
• Liberty and rights lead to a third principle in political theory, which is of equality. Equality determines how rights are to be distributed amongst the individuals as citizens and groups, both whether equally or unequally.
• Equality, which means state of being equal. It signifies ‘having the same rights, privileges, treatments, status, and opportunities. Equality is treated as something that relates to distributive principle because of which rights, treatments, and opportunities are distributed amongst the beneficiaries in a fair manner.
• Fairness does not mean all to be treated equally in all circumstances. In fact, it very well means unequal treatment for those who are unequal. Essentially it relates to the principle of justice, because it requires fair distributive principle. However, those who are equal should not be treated as unequal and the unequal as equal.

Enroll now for UPSC Online Classes

How can equality be achieved?

• It is necessary sometimes to treat people differently in order to ensure that they can enjoy equal rights. Certain differences may have to be taken into account for this need. Some special consideration for the disabled and protection for women employees especially in the corporate and IT industries when they travel amidst work in the night are provided.
• These acts should not be treated as an infringement of equality but an enhancement of equality. Similarly, some of the policies are needed to overcome the hindrances of equality by the government. For example, India follows the principle of reservation and other countries follow affirmative action.

Establishing Formal Equality: This is the first step towards ending inequality in society. Political, economic, social inequalities can be reduced by customs and the legal system. In India, our constitution provided equality in the form of fundamental rights and Directive principles of state policy and various other sections of the constitutions and other statutes. 

Differential Treatment – Formal equality or equality before law not sufficient to make principle equality in reality. Sometimes it is necessary to treat people differently in order to ensure that they can enjoy equal rights. For example, Reservations. 

Affirmative Action – Affirmative action implies that it is not sufficient to establish formal equality by law. In order to eliminate deep rooted inequalities, some positive measures are necessary and such positive measures could minimize and slowly eliminate the entrenched forms of social inequalities.

Affirmative action Vs Reverse discrimination:

Thomas Hobbes: “What good is freedom to a starving man? He cannot eat freedom or drink it”. 

Attitude of Fraternity: Fostering Brotherhood and Harmony

Fraternity means a sense of brotherhood. The constitution promotes this feeling of fraternity by the system of single citizenship and fundamental duties promotes harmony and common brotherhood. 

Behaviour: The Dynamic Interplay of Stimulus and Response in Human Attitude

• Behaviours are responses/reactions we make or activities we engage in. Behaviours are simple or complex and some behaviours are short and enduring. Some behaviours are overt. Few behaviours are Internal or covert.
• All Behaviours covert or overt are associated with or triggered by some stimulus in the environment or changes that happen internally. Therefore, Behaviour is an association between stimulus and response.

Exploring the Relationship Between Mind and Behavior in Human Attitude

• Brain is the most essential part of the human body for its survival. Brain controls our thoughts, stores the information required for the function of our organs.
• But the mind is the set of faculties including cognitive aspects such as consciousness, imagination, perception, thinking, intelligence, judgement, language and memory, as well as non-cognitive aspects such as emotion and instinct.
• Mind can’t exist without the brain but the mind is a separate entity. There is a relation between mind and behaviour.
• Mind causes a Behaviour. Any particular kind of behaviour depends on how our mind responds to the stimulus and environment we were in.
• By using positive visualisation techniques and feeling positive emotions one can bring significant changes in bodily processes which will reflect in our behaviour.

Enroll now for UPSC Online Course

Harnessing the Power of Mind’s Imaginary Potential to Influence Behavior in Attitude Formation

• Blind people able to imagine the context with mind’s imaginary power and they tend to act according to the situation
• A study proved that a person with blocked arteries was made to visualise that blood was flowing through her/ his blocked arteries. After practicing this over a period of time, significant relief was obtained by these patients as the degree of blockage became significantly less. Use of mental imagery, i.e. images generated by a person in her/his mind, have been used to cure various kinds of phobias (irrational fears of objects and situations).

Factors Influencing Human Behavior: Evolutionary, Historical, Cultural, Biological, and Socio-Cultural Factors

• The way humans evolved tend to behave in a particular way – Ancient humans started their early life with hunting food later they practised settled agriculture. But still some of the tribes follow such hunting behaviour.
• Historically Constructed Behaviour à After Aryans invasion caste system started evolving. Now it’s surviving in a matured form of caste hierarchy.
• Culturally Constructed Behaviour à Some cultures treat women as family elder (Matriarchy) and some cultures treat women as subordinate to men (Patriarchy).
• Biological shaping of Behaviour à Genes and Heredity – Maldhari community in Gujarat and Bishnoi community in Rajasthan are protecting animals’ lions and blackbuck from so many generations
• Socio-Cultural shaping of Behaviour à Different behaviour exhibition in food habits: Eating Veg and Non vegetarian food part of socio-cultural shaping of behaviour in India.

Attitude-Behavior Relationship: Consistent Alignment and Divergent Cases

Attitude is a set of features which is an evaluation feature and Behaviour is a tendency to act in a particular direction. End result of attitude is Behaviour but it can’t always be true. Sometimes we failed to act on a particular issue. 

Will attitude & behaviour move in the same direction? 

Therefore, Attitudes are not behaviours but they represent a tendency to behave or act in a certain way. 

Social Behavior through Attitude Analysis

Social behaviour is how the social environment influences our thoughts, emotions and behaviour. A pro social behaviour builds a harmonious society but an anti-social behaviour drags country to bottom of the table in the development indices 

Enroll now for UPSC Online Classes

Addressing Anti-Social Behavior: The Role of Attitude and Intervention

• Illiteracy and poor level understanding on social issues even among educated people
• Poverty
• Disturbed peace of mind
• Unemployment
• Family and health issues

Best way to reduce anti-social behaviour is by providing early intervention services by indulging them in pro social activities. Early Intervention services can help measure anti-social behaviour and effectively teach children and young adults the positive behaviours that should be adopted which they will carry into adulthood and provide a positive social impact on their local society. 

In addition to this, by addressing potential challenges at an earlier stage it gives charities the chance to prevent them becoming serious issues that could become a strain on society. Pro-social behaviour is the only way to address anti-social activities.

Cultivating Pro-Social Behavior: The Altruistic Nature of Attitude

• Throughout the world, doing good to others and being helpful is described as a virtue. All religions teach us that we should help those who are in need. This behaviour is called helping or pro-social behaviour.
• Pro- social behaviour is very similar to ‘altruism’, which means doing something for or thinking about the welfare of others without any self-interest (in Latin ‘alter’ means ‘other’, the opposite of ‘ego’ which means ‘self’).

Pro-social behaviour has the following characteristics:

• Aim to do good to others
• To be done without any expectations in return
• Voluntarily gives lending hand where there is no external pressure
• Involves some difficulty or cost to the person. For instance, a person who earns illegally wants to donate some money to get a reputation and his photograph will be published in the newspaper. This attitude can’t be called pro social behaviour.

But under what circumstances people show their pro-social attitude, it’s difficult to assess such behaviour by looking at the following case study. 

Factors Influencing Social Behaviour

• In born attitude of helping others
• Influenced by learning
• Cultural factors
• Value education
• Learning from the lives of great reformers

Norms which conditions Pro Social Behaviour:

• Norm of social Responsibility: We should help anyone who needs help, without considering any other factor.
• Norm of reciprocity: We should help those persons who have helped us in the past.
• Norm of equity: We should help others whenever we find that it is fair to do so.

Enroll now for UPSC Online Course

Example: Many of us may feel that it is fairer to help a person who has lost all belongings in a flood, than to help a person who has lost everything through gambling. 

• Pro-social behaviour is affected by the expected reactions of the person who is being helped. E.g. People might be unwilling to give money to a needy person because they feel that the person might feel insulted, or may become dependent.
• Pro-social behaviour is more likely to be shown by individuals who have a high level of empathy, that is, the capacity to feel the distress of the person who is to be helped. E.g. Baba Saheb Amate and Mother Teresa.

Pro-social behaviour may be reduced by factors such as a bad mood, being busy with one’s own problems, or feeling that the person to be helped is responsible for her/his own situation (that is, when an internal attribution is made for the need state of the other person). 

Pro-social behaviour may also be reduced when the number of bystanders is more than one. For example, the victim of a road accident sometimes does not get help because there are many people standing around the scene of the accident. Each person thinks that it is not her/his responsibility alone to give help, and that someone else may take the responsibility. This phenomenon is called “Diffusion of Responsibility”. On the other hand, if there is only one bystander, this person is more likely to take the responsibility and actually help the victim. 

Therefore, studying social behaviour is very much important in implementing any scheme or policy to understand how people are socially involved. 

The Dynamics of Social Influence and Persuasion in Shaping Attitudes and Behavior

• Social influence is the process through which a person’s Behaviour, attitudes, views or thoughts gets influenced by social communication.
• Persuasion is just a method of social influence. Social influence and persuasion, both are same but social influence at group/community level influencing one’s views or beliefs or attitudes and persuasion at individual level to pursue him to believe in something.
• Social behaviour helps us in opinion formation, impression formation and which in turn guide us to influence others. But either we obey or defy social influence on others to adopt it from our own point of view.

• Social Influence
  • Social Facilitation
  • Social Loafing

The nature of influence on Individual can be defined from two perspectives:

Social Facilitation – Behaviour in the Presence of others

Performance of specific actions or tasks is influenced by the mere presence of others. This is Called Social facilitation. 

As early as 1897, Norman Triplett observed that individuals show better performance in the presence of others, than when they are performing the same task alone. For instance, cyclists racing with each other perform better than when they cycle alone. 

Factors Influencing Behavior in Social Situations and Attitudes

• Arousal: Person experiences arousal, which makes the person react in a more intense manner. Arousal because a person feels he or she is being evaluated.
• Nature of Task: The nature of the task to be performed also affects the performance in the presence of others. A simple or familiar task, the person is surer of performing well, and the eagerness to get praise or reward is stronger. So, the individual performs better in the presence of others than s/he does when alone. But in the case of a complex or new task, the person may be afraid of making mistakes. The fear of criticism or punishment is stronger. So, the individual performs worse in the presence of others than s/he does when alone.
• Co-Action: If the others present are also performing the same task, this is called a situation of co-action. In this situation, there is social comparison and competition.

Social Loafing and its Impact on Group Behavior

• An individual performing an activity along with the others as part of a larger group. Task performance can be facilitated and improved, or inhibited and worsened by the presence of others. Many other kinds of social influence have been noticed.
• Diffusion of responsibility, which is often the basis of social loafing, can also be frequently seen in situations where people are expected to help. We will look into this aspect and other factors in helping behaviour in the section that follows.

Enroll now for UPSC Online Classes

Social Loafing: Causes and Effects

• Efforts of an individual in a group are pooled so that you look at the performance of the group as a whole. It has been found that individuals work less hard in a group than they do when performing alone.
• Social loafing is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task, i.e. one in which outputs are pooled with those of other group members.
• It is not possible for you to identify how much force each member of the team has been exerting. Such situations give opportunities to group members to relax and become a free rider.

Social Loafing: Examples and Observations

• If we are working together in a group, the larger the group, the less effort each member puts in
• Game of tug-of-war – Pulling rope against each other
• Political parties promising freebies during election campaign which will make citizens free rider
• One of the strong criticisms against Universal Basic Income is, it will make people have a lazy attitude and free money will be spent on buying luxury items than their capacity will eventually make people free riders.
• Social influence can be seen indirectly by conformity with majority opinion by compliance with requests from others and obedience from the direction/order/instruction of person/institution in authority.

Nature of Social Influence:

• It can be Positive or Negative
• It can be consciousness or Unconsciousness
• Nature of influence varies according to the context and depends on the person who is getting influence and who is influencing. Example: ISIS influencing youth across the world to choose the militancy
• Influence getting exhibited when you alone and when you are in public
• Nature of Influence can be varying from shorter to longer duration. Example: Most of the motivational sessions generally lasted not more than one day.

How to get Social Influence:

• By strong Leadership
• Political campaigns to influence our attitudes
• Media
• Person in the authority – The person who at higher hierarchy influences like Boss subordinate relationship
• External Pressure
• Culture

Attitude in Civil Service: The Art of Persuasion

• Social influence and persuasion both are interchangeable, so whatever the concepts applicable to social influence are the same applicable to persuasion also.
• Persuasion is part of civil servants’ day to day activities. He/she has to persuade various sections of people, his/her subordinate officials in his/her office, the public he/she interacts on a daily basis and his/her superior officers and persuade the government on any particular scheme or policy etc.

Applications of Attitude in Daily Life & Administration

An attitude formation is very much important towards any particular social issue, political issue, environmental issue or an economical issue. Its area of applications ranging from personal life to bringing good governance in the country. Some of the applications are: 

Making a Good Citizen: To create a good citizen, it’s a two-way process:

• Rule of Law – Responsibility of the govt to respect each and every community and giving unbiased attitude towards every individual.
• Social Responsibility – An individual, instead of solely waiting for the government to do things, gets better to take initiative and solve their own problems. A sense of social responsibility creates a social harmony in the society. Socially and morally responsible as a first step towards making a good citizen.

A Good citizen makes the society a better place to live in then we can find the solutions to the challenges facing the society. 

Enroll now for UPSC Online Course

Creating a sense of Patriotism: A standard dictionary defines patriotism as “love of one’s country.” But in wider sense it defined as:

• Special affection for one’s own country
• A sense of personal identification with the country
• Special concern for the well-being of the country
• Willingness to sacrifice to promote the country’s good

Accordingly, patriotism can be defined as love of one’s country, identification with it, and special concern for its well-being. This is only a definition. A fuller account of patriotism is having a bigger scope. Such an account would say something about the patriot’s:

• Beliefs about the merits of his country
• To be related to a past and a future that transcend the narrow confines of an individual’s life and its mundane concerns
• Social and political conditions that affect the ebb and flow of patriotism, its political and cultural influence.

Moral Dimensions of Patriotism: Exploring Attitude and Behavior

• Many think of patriotism as a natural and appropriate expression of attachment to the country in which we were born and raised and of gratitude for the benefits of life on its soil, among its people, and under its laws.
• They also consider patriotism an important component of our identity. Some go further, and argue that patriotism is morally mandatory, or even that it is the core of morality. There is, however, a major tradition in moral philosophy which understands morality as essentially universal and impartial, and seems to rule out local, partial attachment and loyalty.
• Adherents of this tradition tend to think of “one’s own” at odds with demands of universal justice and common human solidarity. There is nothing wrong in loving one’s own country and being loyal to it, but an extreme form of patriotism creating new kinds of social problems globally and creating hostility towards other countries. It tends to encourage militarism, and makes for international tension and conflict.

Examining Normative Issues Surrounding Patriotism: A Critical Analysis

• Patriotism has had a fair number of critics. The harshest among them have judged it deeply flawed in every important respect.
• In the 19th century, Russian novelist and thinker Leo Tolstoy found patriotism both stupid and immoral.
  • It is stupid because every patriot holds his own country to be the best of all whereas, obviously, only one country can qualify.
  • It is immoral because it promotes our country’s interests at the expense of all other countries and by any means, including war, and is thus at odds with the most basic rule of morality, which tells us not to do to others what we would not want them to do to us.
• Some of these objections can easily be countered. Even if full-fledged patriotism does involve a belief in one’s country’s merits, it need not involve the belief that one’s country is better than all others. And the fact that a country is not a collection of “discernible individuals” and that the social ties among compatriots are “largely invisible or impersonal,” rather than palpable and face-to-face, does not show that it is unreal or imaginary.
• However, there is another, more plausible line of criticism of patriotism focusing on its intellectual, rather than moral credentials. Moreover, Tolstoy’s arguments questioning the moral legitimacy of patriotic partiality and those highlighting the connection of patriotism with international tensions and war cannot be so easily refuted.

Addressing Social Problems through Attitude Development and Behavioral Change

• Developing a particular attitude towards a particular social issue helps in solving the social problems.
• India is a developing country facing many social issues. Poverty, Gender inequality, well-being of vulnerable sections of society, Sex ratio, Corruption as a social issue instead of looking at it as an administration issue, open defecation, racial discrimination etc.
• A social problem can also look from the perspective of Behavior to be addressed. It has both objective and subjective components. The objective component involves empirical evidence of the negative consequences of a social condition or behavior, while the subjective component involves the perception that the condition or behavior is indeed a problem that needs to be addressed, belief that particular social condition is harmful to the society.

Combating Prejudice and Discrimination: The Role of Attitude Change

• Prejudices are examples of attitudes towards a particular group. They are usually negative, and in many cases, they are based on stereotypes (the cognitive component) about the specific group.
• Stereotype is a cluster of ideas regarding the characteristics of a specific group. Often, stereotypes consist of undesirable characteristics about the target group, and they lead to negative attitudes or prejudices towards members of specific groups.
• The cognitive component of prejudice is frequently accompanied by dislike or hatred, the affective component.
• The behavioural component, when a Prejudice gets translated into discrimination, whereby people behave in a less positive way towards a particular target group compared to another group which they favour.

Prejudices can exist without being shown in the form of discrimination. Similarly, discrimination can be shown without prejudice. Yet, the two go together very often. Wherever prejudice and discrimination exist, conflicts are very likely to arise between groups within the same society. Our own society has witnessed many deplorable instances of discrimination, with and without prejudice, based on gender, religion, community, caste, physical handicap, and illnesses such as AIDS. Moreover, in many cases discriminatory behaviour can be curbed by law. But, the cognitive and emotional components of prejudice are more difficult to change. 

Understanding the Sources of Prejudice: The Role of Learning in Attitude Formation

• Learning: Like other attitudes, prejudices can also be learned through association, reward and punishment, observing others, group or cultural norms and exposure to information that encourages prejudice.
• The family, reference groups, personal experiences and the media may play a role in the learning of prejudices

Enroll now for UPSC Online Classes

Exploring Additional Factors Contributing to Prejudice Formation

Individuals who have a strong sense of social identity and have a very positive attitude towards their own group boost this attitude by holding negative attitudes towards other groups. These are shown as prejudices.

• Scapegoating: This is a phenomenon by which the majority group places the blame on a minority outgroup for its own social, economic or political problems. The minority is too weak or too small in number to defend itself against such accusations. Scapegoating is a group-based way of expressing frustration, and it often results in negative attitudes or prejudice against the weaker group.
• Kernel of truth concept: Sometimes people may continue to hold stereotypes because they think that, after all, there must be some truth, or ‘kernel of truth’ in what everyone says about the other group.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: In some cases, the group that is the target of prejudice is itself responsible for continuing the prejudice. The target group may behave in ways that justify the prejudice, that is, confirm the negative expectations. For example, if the target group is described as ‘dependent’ and therefore unable to make progress, the members of this target group may actually behave in a way that proves this description to be true. In this way, they strengthen the existing prejudice.

Effective Strategies for Addressing Prejudice

Knowing about the causes or sources would be the first step in handling prejudice. Thus, the strategies for handling prejudice would be effective if they aim at:

• Minimising opportunities for learning prejudices
• Changing such attitudes
• De-emphasising a narrow social identity based on the ingroup
• Discouraging the tendency towards self-fulfilling prophecy among the victims of prejudice.

Implementing Effective Strategies to Combat Prejudice

• Education and information dissemination, for correcting stereotypes related to specific target groups, and tackling the problem of a strong ingroup bias
• Increasing intergroup contact allows for direct communication, removal of mistrust between the groups, and even discovery of positive qualities in the outgroup. However, these strategies are successful only if the two groups meet in a cooperative rather than competitive context
• Highlighting individual identity rather than group identity, thus weakening the importance of group (both ingroup and outgroup) as a basis of evaluating the other person.

Fostering Ethical Governance for Effective Administration

• According to the World bank Good governance is defined as “the manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development”.
• Good Attitudes and Morally social behaviour towards public institutions and social institutions makes a governance a good governance.
• The objectives of good governance can be achieved only through Ethical governance, which is a governance carried out according to established standards. In India initiatives like citizen charter, RTI etc failed because there is a missing component of ethical governance in the governance of public administration. Bureaucracy with Colonial attitudes has failed to understand the importance of these revolutionary reforms in the public administration.
• To achieve ethical governance, we need a committed bureaucracy which is committed to the ideals of constitution, honesty and integrity and behavioral reforms in the bureaucracy.

Harnessing Attitude and Behavioral Norms in Conflict Management

• Attitudes and Behavioral norms play a very important role in conflict resolution either it is ethnic conflicts or communal violence or caste violence or son of soil theory. Sense of love towards one’s own community or land creates “We Vs Others Feeling”.
• Nothing can be achieved unless and until you believe in yourself and have a positive attitude. An individual must avoid finding faults in others. Individuals tend to lose control of their emotions and overreact, hurting the sentiments of the other person.

Strategies for Conflict Resolution and Harmony Maintenance

• Intergroup meetings, deliberations and consultations.
• Joint celebration of festivals
• Strict law and order enforcement and harsh punishment for those who disturbs social harmony with hidden motives
• Peaceful talks and discussions at govt level and civil society level
• Giving protection and protecting minorities and Tribals and their customs and traditions

Examples: Naga peace talks held by govt to end decades old ethnic conflicts among Naga tribes

Previous Year Questions: 

DOWNLOAD PDF