Attitudes are a hypothetical cognitive construct that reflects an individual’s organization of opinions, beliefs, and behavior. Given the importance of attitudes in directing and motivating behavior, they have received significant study and experimentation, as every social change or advancement also requires an awareness of what causes attitude shifts, i.e., the factors that resist this change.

Definition of Attitude

 An attitude is a psychological mental structure that directs individuals’ behavior towards certain topics and away from others. An example of an attitude is an individual’s love for a particular specialization or their dislike for another, or an individual’s affinity for or aversion to a particular group.

Components of Attitude

 An attitude consists of three basic elements that interact with each other to form the overall attitude:

1- Cognitive Component: This involves an individual’s beliefs, ideas, perceptions, and knowledge about a specific subject. Attitudes, whether towards objects, people, situations, or other entities, and the beliefs encompassing individual perceptions and knowledge about a specific topic, contribute to how we form our attitudes—positively or negatively—towards subjects and situations. Each attribute linked to a belief usually has a particular evaluation for us: is it desirable or undesirable?

Example: The belief system about cigarette smoking refers to the set of beliefs an individual holds on this topic, which then organizes their behavior.

2- Emotional Component: This refers to an individual’s feelings and emotions towards a specific subject. Attitudes involve certain emotional charges, as people tend to have a specific emotional response towards people, subjects, or situations they like or dislike, find joyous or detestable, or see as good or bad. This aspect is often the most prone to stability and resistance to change.

When individuals encounter new facts or information that contradicts what they believe about things or people, this aspect helps maintain the attitude due to the emotional charges involved.

3– Behavioral Component: Attitudes carry with them a tendency or inclination to act or not act in a certain way. If we like something, a person, a group, or a particular topic, we might behave in ways that allow us to support, endorse, or get closer to it.

Returning to the smoking example, the three components of the attitude are:

A- The individual’s belief that smoking is harmful to health (cognitive component).

B- The individual’s dislike for the smell of smoking and smokers (emotional component).

C- Avoiding smokers or trying to prevent them from smoking (behavioral component).

Importance of Studying Attitudes

Attitudes are one of the most important subjects of social psychology due to their impact in directing individual behavior. The prevalence of the concept of attitude is due to several reasons:

• Attitudes are relatively stable, meaning an individual’s judgments about topics and issues that concern them are relatively constant.
• They are learned and acquired; thus, they can be changed, and programs can be developed to reinforce desired attitudes.
• Attitudes determine how individuals respond to experiential situations.
• Knowledge of individuals’ attitudes allows for predictions about their behavior in various situations.
•  Attitudes play a key role in defining the boundaries between a society’s values and the orientations of its individuals.

Characteristics of Attitudes

1- Attitudes are acquired and learned, not inherited.

2- Attitudes are formed and associated with social stimuli and situations, shared by various individuals or groups.

3- Attitudes do not arise from nothing; they are the result of a relationship between an individual and an environmental subject or issue.

4- Attitudes are diverse and vary according to the stimuli and topics they are associated with.

5- An attitude includes a cognitive element expressing an individual’s beliefs or mental knowledge about the subject of the attitude.

6- An attitude includes an emotional element expressing the individual’s evaluation, affection, or emotional response to the subject of the attitude.

7- An attitude includes a behavioral element expressing the individual’s overt behavior directed towards the subject of the attitude.

Functions of Attitudes

• They determine and interpret the path of behavior.
• They organize motivational, emotional, and cognitive perceptual processes around certain aspects of the environment in which the individual lives.
• They are reflected in the individual’s behavior, words, actions, and interactions with others in various groups and in the culture, they live in.
• They facilitate the individual’s ability to make decisions in various psychological situations with some consistency and unity, without hesitation or thought in every situation.
• They crystallize and clarify the image of the relationship between the individual and their social world.
• They direct the individual’s responses to people, objects, and topics in an almost fixed way.
• They help the individual to feel, perceive, and think in a specific way regarding the topics of the social environment.
• They express the individual’s conformity with the prevailing standards, values, and beliefs of their society.

Changing Attitudes

 Despite attitudes being relatively stable and resistant to change, they are susceptible to modification due to ongoing interactions between the individual and environmental variables. Some methods of changing attitudes rely on the cognitive aspect, involving logical arguments and explaining information and facts related to the attitude subject. Other methods rely on the emotional aspect, with psychologists generally recommending a gradual strategy for changing attitudes and creating a tolerant environment for change.

Important Factors that Facilitate Attitude Change

• Weakness and instability of the attitude.
• The presence of parallel or equally strong attitudes that can be tipped in favor of one over the others.
• Direct experiences related to the attitude subject.
• Superficial or marginal attitude.

Important Factors that make changing attitudes difficult

• The strength and deep-rootedness of the old attitude.
• Intellectual inertia and rigidity of opinion among individuals.
• The association of intense emotion with the attitude, turning it into a blindness-causing and deafness-inducing fanaticism.
• Perception of the new attitude as a threat to the self.

Additionally, strong motivations within an individual can resist changes in attitudes.

In conclusion, attitudes play a significant role in our daily lives in various fields that involve guiding behavior, making decisions, and developing business strategies. Therefore, understanding attitudes is essential to help community members anticipate future developments, drive innovation in various fields, and maintain religious, moral, educational, and social values.

Author: Khaled Al-Muayyad, Philosophy Teacher at Masarat Initiative