The term Attitude as well as the concepts "attitude formation" and "attitude change"

constitute an important part of the field of social psychology. Attitudes are an

evaluation of a particular person, belief, event, place, or thing. They are positive or
negative views of an "attitude object." People may also have ambivalent feelings
toward a certain target, which means that they can simultaneously possess positive
and negative attitudes toward the same object. For example if someone
says that I like my job. This statement expresses his attitude towards his job.
Each and every person has different attitude at different conditions. For example
if someone says that I like my job. This statement expresses his attitude towards
his job. Each and every person has different attitude at different conditions.

There are three components of attitude.

1. Cognitive component: It refers that's part of attitude which is related in

general know how of a person, for example, he says smoking is injurious to
health. Such type of idea of a person is called cognitive component of attitude.

2. Effective component: This part of attitude is related to the statement which

affects another person. For example, in an organization a personal report is
given to the general manager. In report he point out that the sale staff is not
performing their due responsibilities. The general manager forwards a written
notice to the marketing manager to negotiate with the sale staff.

3. Behavioral Component: The behavioral component refers to that part of

attitude which reflects the intension of a person in short run or in long run.
For example, before the production and launching process the product.
Report is prepared by the production department which consists of there
intention in near future and long run and this report is handed over to top
management for the decision.

How do attitude affect behavior:

A person’s behavior changes when what he is exposed to changes. Meaning, a

person’s behavioral pattern changes depends on his

his experiences and his disagreement with others. One of the main factors
influencing behavioral patterns is the society people live in. Behavioral changes is
often related to the Principal of Consistency where people expect everything in their
minds to be constant and never changing and different information are always
agreeing with each other. But disagreements do happen occasionally and the brain
goes into a state of dissonance. Dissonance happens when two pieces of
information disagrees with each other. Generally, people dislike being in a state of
dissonance and so, they will work towards solving the problem and with this, their
behavior may change. A good example of dissonance is where your friend may
disagree with you in something and in a situation where your friend is a good thing
but his disagreement is not, the two subjects cannot possible relate to each other
and this causes dissonance.

Since a person’s attitude and behavior are different, a reason can be created even
when the person does not believe in it. This is done to give the impression of not
being in a state of dissonance to others. This, however, is only temporary and the
dissonance still exists and that person’s opinions must still change to resolve this
problem. There can also be dissonance between attitude and behaviors where a
person does not agree with his or her own attitude. That person will then work
towards creating a balance between the two.

Accessibility to an attitude depends on how important it is to the individual. If one

were to have the individual talk about their attitude on a subject, they would be more
likely to behave according to that subject because it has been reiterated. However, if
you give an individual some guidance on good attitudes(or reason to have a certain
attitude) and continually focus on that attitude-they will be more likely to think and act
through that mind set.

The most significant factor in attitude and behavior relations is the individual's
experiences that shape their attitude which leads to corresponding behaviors. If an
employee has no prior experiences with a given situation, they are far less likely to
behave and react in a positive way. Yet individuals who have experience with an
attitude know how they will behave in the given situation.

Employee attitudes and behaviors are usually related either one way or another, so
when an employee has a negative perspective of their job, or a supervisor, or the
organization as a whole-then they are less likely to care about their job performance,
disregard their supervisor or try to cause problems with them, or not consider
anything that would benefit the company as a whole-just worry about doing just
enough in their job and get paid. However, if an individual likes their job-they will take
pride in doing it correctly, if they like their supervisor-they are more likely to
communicate and participate with them, and if they value the organization as a
whole-they tend to look for ways to improve the company as a whole, even when
they don't have too.
Why is it important to study attitudes?

To create a positive impact based on an individual's attitude, one must influence the
individual to identify with the desired attitude by creating personal interest and value-
so that person is more inclined to correspond with the desired attitude, leading to the
desired behavior. When a specific attitude is desired, as well as a specific resulting
behavior, its best not to, " Beat around the bunch." as they say. If one wanted to
know whether an individual was open to being promoted, they should be direct
asking, " Would you consider being promoted to [specific job]?, rather than asking, "
Do you have any desire to move anywhere in the company?" By specifically stating
that you are thinking of promoting them, you get a specific behavior regarding the
idea of a promotion. By simply asking where they would like to move in the company,
you are giving the individual to explain where they would like to go and why-not
hinting at a promotion because it was not implied.

Importance of Attitudes:

 Attitudes serve as one way to organize our relationship with our world. They
make our interactions more predictable affording us a degree of control.
For example, the attitude “I like working for this company” is very useful in
guiding our behavior towards the company’s work. 

 Attitudes also enable us to reduce the vast amount of information that we

possess into manageable units. All the beliefs we have about our company
could be summarized as “I like my company”, and thus our attitude represents
the combination of many bits of information for us.

 We can use others attitudes to make judgments about them.

 It has been found consistently that the more similar our attitudes are to those
of others, the more we like them.

 Finally, people’s attitudes can sometimes be useful in predicting behavior,

such as how they will vote in an election or which brand of car they will buy.

How are attitudes formed?

Attitudes are formed by the basic underlying values and beliefs we have adopted
throughout our life. Our up-bringing has a great influence on how our attitudes are
formed because they influence the underlying beliefs and values that create our
overall attitude.
Events that happen in our life's experience greatly influence the formation or our own
personal attitudes. Things like culture, religion, politics, and family environment all
have a significant influence on the formation of attitudes.

The basic processes through which we learn attitudes remain the same throughout
life, though as we grow older the attitudes we learn may be more complex, and the
ones we already hold may become more resistant to change.

It can be difficult to determine what kind of argumentation will be effective in

changing a person's attitudes; a more scientifically inclined individual might be
appealed to best with a well-presented, logically based argument. However, that
same person might on another day have a religious experience such as an epiphany
that radically alters his attitudes. These changes can be long-lasting, while some
people's attitudes may fluctuate less or for shorter periods of time

All our attitudes are learned from our experience of the social context around us. The
influence of the family, schooling, and peer groups waxes and wanes as we grow
into adolescence and adulthood. 

Thus, the primary sources of our attitudes change as we mature. A final source of
attitudes is the culture in which a child grows up. Culturally prevalent prejudices are
generally reflected in prejudiced attitudes.