Attitude

What the official syllabus says

UPPCS Main Examination, General Studies IV:

Attitude: Content, structure, function, its influence and relation with thought and behavior, moral and political attitudes, social influence and persuasion.

Topics in detail

Content of attitude

• Meaning: a learned, fairly lasting evaluation of a person, object, group or idea.
• Attitude object, direction (positive or negative) and strength.
• Explicit attitudes (conscious, stated) and implicit attitudes (automatic, often unconscious).
• Attitudes, beliefs, values and opinions: how they differ.
• Formation of attitudes: direct experience, classical and operant conditioning, observational learning, family, school, media and culture.

Structure of attitude

• The ABC model: affective (feelings), behavioural (tendency to act) and cognitive (beliefs) components.
• Consistency among the three components, and what happens when they conflict.
• Attitude strength, accessibility and ambivalence.
• Attitude systems: how one attitude is linked to others and to core values.

Functions of attitude

• Daniel Katz's four functions: utilitarian (adjustive), ego-defensive, value-expressive and knowledge.
• Attitudes as mental shortcuts that save effort in a complex world.
• Social identity: attitudes as markers of belonging to a group.

Influence and relation with thought and behaviour

• When attitudes predict behaviour: strong, specific and accessible attitudes; direct experience.
• The attitude-behaviour gap: LaPiere's study (1934) of hotels and restaurants.
• Icek Ajzen's theory of planned behaviour: attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control.
• Behaviour shaping attitude: Leon Festinger's cognitive dissonance (1957) and Daryl Bem's self-perception theory.
• Stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination as the cognitive, affective and behavioural sides of a biased attitude.
• Confirmation bias and motivated reasoning.

Moral and political attitudes

• Moral attitudes: evaluations of right and wrong; moral conviction and its strength.
• Attitudes towards the weaker sections, women, minorities and persons with disabilities; reducing prejudice through contact (Gordon Allport's contact hypothesis).
• Political attitudes: liberal, conservative, radical and reactionary positions; left and right.
• Political socialisation: family, school, media, peer groups.
• Political apathy and political participation; polarisation.
• The civil servant's political neutrality: holding private political views without letting them affect official work.

Social influence

• Conformity: Solomon Asch's line-judgement experiments; informational and normative influence.
• Compliance techniques: foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face, low-balling.
• Obedience to authority: Stanley Milgram's experiments and their lessons for hierarchies.
• Groupthink (Irving Janis) and its risks in official decision-making.
• Social facilitation, social loafing and the bystander effect.
• Minority influence: how a consistent minority can change the majority view.

Persuasion

• The Yale approach: source (credibility, attractiveness), message (one-sided or two-sided, emotional or rational) and audience.
• The elaboration likelihood model (Petty and Cacioppo): central and peripheral routes.
• Fear appeals, repetition, framing and the role of the communicator's credibility.
• Nudge (Thaler and Sunstein): changing behaviour through choice architecture rather than compulsion.
• Persuasion in public policy: campaigns such as Pulse Polio, Swachh Bharat, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao and voter awareness.
• Ethics of persuasion: persuasion versus manipulation and propaganda.

Attitude change and the public servant

• Ways attitudes change: new information, persuasion, experience, dissonance, contact with other groups.
• Resistance to change: reactance, selective exposure, strong prior commitment.
• Attitudes a public servant needs: openness to criticism, service orientation, respect for citizens, neutrality, readiness to adopt new technology.
• Attitudes that harm administration: arrogance, status consciousness, cynicism, fear of taking decisions.
• Changing public attitudes on social issues: dowry, child marriage, open defecation, girls' education, through awareness and example.

Overlaps

• Prejudice and attitudes towards the weaker sections link to Aptitude and Foundational Values.
• Managing one's own emotions and influencing others continue in Emotional Intelligence.
• Communalism, regionalism and social empowerment are in UPPCS Mains: General Studies I.