For a few minutes quietly do the following
mental exercise. Today, how many times did
you tell yourself : �In my opinion�� or
�Others may say so and so, but I feel��?
What you fill in the blanks are called
opinions. Now continue the exercise : how
important are these opinions to you? The
topics of some of these opinions may be only
moderately important to you; they are
simply ways of thinking, and it does not
matter much to you that others agree or
disagree with your views.
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On the other
hand, you may find that some other topics
are extremely important to you. If someone
opposes or challenges your views about
these topics, you get emotional. You may
have made some of these views part of your
behaviour. In other words, if your views are
not merely thoughts, but also have
emotional and action components, then
these views are more than �opinions�; they
are examples of attitudes.
All definitions of attitudes agree that an
attitude is a state of the mind, a set of views,
or thoughts, regarding some topic (called
the �attitude object�), which have an
evaluative feature (positive, negative or
neutral quality). It is accompanied by an
emotional component, and a tendency to
act in a particular way with regard to the
attitude object. The thought component is
referred to as the cognitive aspect, the
emotional component is known as the
affective aspect, and the tendency to act
is called the behavioural (or conative)
aspect.
Taken together, these three aspects
have been referred to as the A-B-C
components (Affective-Behavioural-
Cognitive components) of attitude. Note that
attitudes are themselves not behaviour, but
they represent a tendency to behave or act
in certain ways. They are part of cognition,
along with an emotional component, and
cannot be observed from outside.
Attitudes have to be distinguished from
two other closely related concepts, namely,
beliefs and values. Beliefs refer to the
cognitive component of attitudes, and form
the ground on which attitudes stand, such
as belief in God, or belief in democracy as a
political ideology. Values are attitudes or
beliefs that contain a �should� or �ought�
aspect, such as moral or ethical values. One
example of a value is the idea that one
should work hard, or that one should
always be honest, because honesty is the
best policy. Values are formed when a
particular belief or attitude becomes an
inseparable part of the person�s outlook on
life. Consequently, values are difficult to
change.