ATTITUDE VS BEHAVIOUR

ATTITUDE VS BEHAVIOUR

                                                                                

                                                           Our behaviors are greatly influenced by our attitudes. What we learn from our society and environment, we use them in our life and behave in similar way in similar situations. We can say that our behaviors are also somewhat controlled by the condition or situation we are working or acting in. we can conclude that behavior is the use and revelation of our attitudes in different social situations, subjected to different social norms and conditions.

                        In general times and in normal cases our behavior is guided by our inherent attitudes and we don’t feel any discomfort in such times and enjoy the particular situation and continue to behave in that way. We all humans have a very fundamental attitude that is we love to stay and continue in the most favorable state and with most favorable company. That is why we feel better when we are with our friends or relatives or with known persons as compared to strangers or new persons. That is why people take time to adapt with and understand new persons. It is called social adaption or cognitive adaption.

                                   In some situations our behaviors divert from our attitude and even become totally opposite. In such cases the social environment or the situation is powerful enough to influence the person to act or behave in a way contradictory to his personal attitude. For example, A person starting from his childhood don’t like spicy food and feel irritated with such food. But during his adulthood days he had a romantic partner and one day she invited him to her home to have a dinner with her parents. The boy went there and found moist of the dishes are spicy and full of chilly. Still he took the dinner with a smile in his face and when asked by his girlfriend about the food items, he said the foods were very delicious even if he didn’t like them. In this case the person’s behavior was totally against his true attitude. Here the person was influenced by the situation and thus acted against his attitude. Though he had a smile in his face but actually he didn’t liked the food and was not comfortable with them. So we can infer from the above discussion that in some situations our behavior diverts from our attitude and in some situations we behave totally opposite to our attitudes. And in such situations we feel uncomfortable as the action or activity we are undergoing is not favorable to our true attitude.

                     Here we get a very strange argument that is, such transition or diversion from our attitude in our social behavior can occur in general times when there is no external pressure on the person concerned. But during extreme conditions, when there pressure on a person, he always rely upon his attitudes to deal with such situation. Under pressure the true attitude of a person comes out and person concerned also consciously or subconsciously act per his inherent attitudes and simply don’t get a chance to think about the situation and make adjustment with his attitude to behave in a more acceptable or effective way. We can increase the pressure on a person in different ways like giving less time to decide or act on a particular problem or issue. Such pressure is called time pressure and under time pressures a normal person bank upon his original attitudes to deal with the situation. That is why in certain psychological tastings “time pressure” is used as an effective tool to bring out the true attitude of a candidate.

                 So it is very important to have a good set of attitudes as in extreme situations we have to bank upon them consciously or subconsciously. Under such conditions we hardly get any time or chance to plan or decide about our further action or behavior.

Ø  Our behaviors are greatly dependent on our attitudes and in normal situations when there is no pressure, we sometimes behave in strange ways diverting from our true attitudes. But under extreme conditions or under pressure we always bank upon our true attitudes as we don’t get any time or chance to decide or plan our further action or behavior under such situations. Ø  So it is very necessary for all of us to inculcate good and strong attitudes so that they will help us in dealing with extreme situations and to work under pressure. A person with good attitudes handles a tough and challenging situation in an effective manner because he has complete faith in his abilities and attitudes.

   

 

ATTITUDE FORMATION

HOW WE ACQUIRED THE ATTITUDES WE POSSESS ?

                                    Attitude formation is a very long and dynamic process. Attitude formation starts right from the birth of a child. Our environment and culture plays a crucial role in forming our attitudes. Attitudes are formed in three ways;      (1) Social and cultural practices.

                                            (2) Social cognitive learning.

                                            (3) Personal experience.

(1) Social and cultural practices:  If a person continuously experiences a particular process or belief, he adopts that as a basic attitude. Continuous teachings also make us to adopt certain trends as attitudes. We see people following   many social norms and we develop a belief that we should do the same and thus inculcate that practice as an attitude.

                      For example, we never seen gods but, we believe in gods and thus believe in worships and make different rituals and fasting. We observe different festivals only because from our childhood we have seen our parents, relatives and people around us doing such things. A child never seen a ghost and never experienced what it is, but feels afraid when told about ghost and takes its food. T his is because from a very early time it is taught and made to believe that there is something like ghost and that is very cruel and furious.

                 The way, we greet others. The way, we show gratitude and respect to our elders and relatives are also acquired from social practices. In our country we show respect to our elders by bowing our head and making namaskar  . In western countries children greet their elders by saying ‘good morning’ or ‘good evening’. So many of the attitudes we posses are acquired through social norms and cultural practices.

(2) Social learning:  Social learning is also a major factor in making our attitudes. Many things we learn from our society directly or indirectly. We observe and obey certain social norms and hence these become our attitudes. For example, we learn how to behave with our teachers, how to behave with elders, how to talk with opposite sex. All these things we learn from our society. We see some persons involving in anti-social activities and getting punished. Thus we make a strong dislike for these activities. We see people making bad remark about smokers and drunkards, thieves and robbers and ergo we develop a strong dislike about these activities. We see people helping each other in work and get the work done easily. We see people working cooperatively to attain a common goal and achieve that in less time. So we inculcate these virtues as attitudes. In such way many of our good as well as bad attitudes are acquired through social learning. Sometimes we ourselves change our attitudes by social learning. It is a very good tool to inculcate good attitudes in a person by making him to live in a good society or environment.

(3) Personal experience:  Attitudes learned through personal experience are the strongest attitudes and very immune to persuasion or change. We inculcate some attitudes by our personal experiences in certain situations. We very strongly rely upon such attitudes and hardly accept any change or  effort of persuasion about these attitudes. We very strongly rely upon our senses and the things we see, hear or feel by our own senses make great impact on us. So we don’t accept a counter argument about these things. For example, a person doesn’t know anything about yoga. Suddenly an unknown person started talking about yoga before him. He told the benefits and importance of yoga in making a healthy body and healthy mind. At first the first person may accept something but will never believe strongly the other’s views about yoga. But if he himself will practice yoga for some days and will experience its benefits then definitely he will develop a very strong belief about the worthiness of yoga and also advise others to practice yoga to maintain good physical as well as mental health.

                       Here in this case the first person developed a liking for yoga by self experience and hence his belief in its effectiveness is very strong. And it is very difficult to convince the person that yoga is not so effective as he himself experienced the benefits of it. Similarly we acquire many attitudes from our personal experiences in different situations and we strongly rely on such attitude and don’t easily accept a counter argument by someone else about these attitudes.