Saturday, December 13, 2008

Redefining Attitude Change

We all encounter some or the other person in our life whom we refer to as “high headed” of having a lot of “Attitude” for example if we smile at a person in our work place and don’t get a reply or try to talk to a person and don’t get an expected response our first reaction is “What attitude this person carries”.

Have we ever asked a question that why only negative behaviour is attached with attitude and not any positive one? Does attitude has all negatives in it and nothing positive?

When we talk about attitude we think about all that is negatively related to it, but the actual definition says the “Attitude is defined as a more or less stable set of predisposition of opinion, interest or purpose involving expectancy of a certain kind of experience and readiness with an appropriate response.”

Thus we can also say that they act as “frames of reference” for an individual i.e. while analyzing any situation we refer to the attitudes that we have developed. So before talking about changing the attitude we need to first learn about the components which make our attitude and how the attitudes are formed in any individual in the first place.So let us first talk about how we learn these “frames of references”.

Learning consists of observing the consequences and repeating the behaviour if desirable outcome occurs. As far as observation is concerned we observer those things or people who are of some interest to us that is why you will find that generally our attitudes are very similar to our parents, friends, spouse etc.

This is because we observer their attitude and follow it some times blindly without having any direct experience of that particular person or object. Apart from this some times our attitude is formed when we have directly experienced any thing and whether the attitude formend is positive or negative depends upon the type of experience we have. Suppose we try a new dish in a restaurant which doesn’t taste good so every time we think about it a negative feeling will come.

That is why when we talk about attitude change it’s very important to know whether our attitude is formed by direct experience or by observation. If suppose it is formed by observation then the best thing to do is to first have a direct experience that to an unbiased one. But in case you find that the attitude that you are about to or have thought of changing is formed due to observation then there is serious work to be done for which I need to tell you the components of attitude.

Our attitudes are made up of three components cognitive, affective and behavioural component. The cognitive component includes the beliefs and thoughts an individual has about a certain person, object or situation; the affective component includes the feelings towards that particular person, object or situation where as behavioral component talks about the behaviour towards that object depending upon the cognitive and affective component.

Now the question arises that why every where there is hype of attitude change? Since we know that we all have attitudes so it’s a universal phenomena and no body present on the earth is devoid of attitude because attitudes are never neutral in charge that means it will either have a positive or a negative charge attached with it.

By attitude change here I mean that converting the negative attitudes into the positive ones as we all have heard the importance of positive thinking it is the same as having positive attitude, as previously I have talked about cognitive aspect of attitude. So if one can think positive he can act positive.

So attitude change is nothing but changing the way we think or I should say reconstructing the thought in a positive manner because how we behave depends upon how we feel which in turn depends upon how we think.

So let’s experience the power of positive attitude and let’s get started with redefining our attitudes./articlesbase

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