Zaini Mohd Bakry b Zulkifli

MP111471

In everyday conversations, you can hear the word attitude used in dozens of different ways. A teacher tells students that they have ‘a bad attitude’. A boss phrase an employee with statement ‘good work attitude’. Players are commended for ‘a team attitude’. “When you get up in the morning, your attitude towards sleep might decide whether you hit the snooze button”. Your attitudes towards food decide what you have for each meal”. Furthermore, “when a friend calls wanting to go out, your response may be affected by your attitudes of the friend and his suggested activity.

i How the components of attitude can help in behavioral development? (Zaini Mohd Bakry BZulkifli)

Attitude is a favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction toward something or someone, exhibited in ones beliefs, feelings, or intended behaviour . We can say attitude is the person’s reaction to its likings and disliking or how you express your likes and dislikes towards particular people, things, and occurrences.

They reflect that how one feel about something. For example if someone says that I like my job. This statement is the representation of his attitude toward his work. Each and every person has different attitude at different conditions.

There are three components of attitude.

1. Cognitive component:

It refers to that part of the related behaviours in general know how a person. This involves a person’s belief / knowledge about an attitude object. For example: “I believe spiders are dangerous”.

2. Effective component:

This part of attitude is related to the statement which affects another person. This involves a person’s feelings / emotions about the attitude object. For example: “I am scared of spiders”.

3. Behavioural/conative Component:

The way the attitude we have influences how we act or behave. For example: “I will avoid spiders and scream if I see one”.

Attitudes can also be explicit and implicit. Explicit attitudes are those that we are consciously aware of and that clearly influence our behaviours and beliefs. Implicit attitudes are unconscious, but still have an effect on our beliefs and behaviours.

People are more likely to behave according to their attitudes under certain conditions:

When your attitudes are the result of personal experience. When you are an expert in the subject. When you expect a favourable outcome. When the attitudes are repeatedly expressed. When you stand to win or lose something due to the issue.

People with positive attitude may have good behaviour. This is because the attitudes have a powerful effect on behaviour. However dissonance can also occur between a person's attitude and behaviour. If a person acts in a way that does not agree with his or her attitude, then an attempt will be made to regain balance.

This means that he or she will either correct the behavior or try to make amends, or change his or her attitude and come to accept that type of behaviour. He or she may also attempt to excuse their behavior and blame it on a temporary lapse brought about by a situation that required him or her to act out in such a way for a greater good or lesser evil.

The dissonance between attitude and behavior also explains why a person that continues to behave against his or her morals will find that the morals become weaker because his or her attitude toward that behavior is no longer strongly opposed to it.