WHAT IS ATTITUDE

 “Attitude is the State of mind or a set

of views or settled way of thinking or
feeling about something in a
particular way which has an evaluative
feature (Positive, Negative or Neutral)”
Attitude is part of social Psychology.
 Attitudes are abstract constructs, not
something we can directly observe.
We can observe them only with
behaviour. To elaborate, whenever a
person sees or think about targeted
object, the sum of thoughts and
emotions that created in a person
constitute attitude.
 In our day to day life, our attitude
determines our behaviour towards
people, situations, events etc. which in
turn shapes the larger social
interaction in societies.
Examples:

 Having attitude on
health that Eating
junk food unhealthily
 Smoking causes
cancer.
 Optimistic Vs
Pessimistic attitude
 Demographic
Dividend vs
Population burden
 Economic
Development Vs
Environmental
Protection
 

HOW AN ATTITUDE
FORMS?

 In general, attitudes form part of

our cognitive system by learning
through one’s own experiences and
through interaction with others.
 There are three stages in people’s life
when most of our attitudes are
formed or when we learn how to
evaluate things.
 It’s the early childhood and
adolescence which are tender stages
of attitude formation as the person
has no particular attitude toward most
of the objects when he is born.
  There are few research studies shows
that some inborn aspects of
attitude but such genetic factors
influence our attitudes indirectly along
with learning but not directly.
Therefore, to form certain specific
attitudes there are few specific
conditions required.
 

1. Learning by Association: First
level of association happened at
the level of Parents and Family. We
form our attitudes towards something
by learning from parents. Next level of
association happened at the school
level with teacher and friends. Third
level of association at organisational
level where we work. If we are
 company of good people, we develop
good attitudes. Or even by associating
with books we can learn certain
attitudes.
 

“Positive attitudes learned through

positive association between us and
associated person”

Example:

 Creating interest in a
subject in a particular
subject by associating
with teacher
 Leaning towards a
 particular ideology by
reading books or
associating with
likeminded people
 

Learning by being rewarded or

punished (Instrumental
Conditioning): Rewards and
punishments create certain attitudes on
basis of their personal experiences. Such
attitudes may be positive or negative
depends how it influence him/her.

Example:

 If a teenager does
yogasanas regularly
and gets “Miss Good
Health” title she
develops positive
 attitude towards yoga
 If a boy eats junk
food and gets sick, he
develops negative
attitude towards junk
food and develops
positive attitude
towards good health
 Being on time to
school and if late we
get punishment, it
develops attitude of
discipline
 Getting first rank in
class will be rewarded
by parents
 Severe punishment
develops negative
attitude towards
against teacher at
school.
 

Learning through Modelling

(Observing others): Often, it’s not
association nor by rewards or
punishments but sometimes we learn
attitudes by observing celebrities or
teachers or parents or role models etc.

Example:

 Children learns
respecting elders by
observing from
parents
 Role Models like
Gandhi, Abdul kalam,
Swami Vivekananda,
Cheguvera etc.
 Eka lavya learnt art of
arrowing by just
keeping photo of
 Dronacharya
Learning attitudes through Cultural
Norms: Very often we learn attitudes
through norms of our culture. Norms are
unwritten rules about behaviour that
everyone supposed to be show under
specific circumstances. Over time, these
norms may become part of our social
cognition, in the form of attitudes.

Example: Offering
coconut and fruits and
flowers to the god part of
some religious behaviour
which is approved by
society.
 

 Learning attitudes through Social

comparison: When owns attitude
 corroborates with those held by
significant others, they are accepted
as being accurate response to attitude
object.
 Learning through exposure to
Information: By exposing to
information like auto biographies,
books and information through
various media like newspapers,
internet creates opinion formation
which in turn leads to attitude.
 

Example: If a govt
launches any new policy,
we develop specific
opinion against such
policy by influencing
trough newspapers
 editorials, TV debates.
 

Attitude Vs. Values

Attitudes Values
·        What ·        What
do you is important
like/dislike for you?
? ·       
·        Whereas
Attitude is values are
related to a general in
particular nature.
thing.
·        Sub-
·        set of
 Super-set Values
of Values
·       
·        Values are
Attitude relatively
may stable and
change enduring.
with the
situation ·       
Values are
·        more
Attitude is strong,
rather weak intense and
and durable than
unstable attitude.

Techniques with which we learn to

evaluate attitude objects and hence a
particular type of attitude is formed
towards them:
 

In this
person is
exposed to
a positive
and neutral
stimulus
Classical/ repeatedly
Pavlovian and after
Conditionin some time
g: the
response to
 
neutral
stimuli
becomes
the same as
response to
positive
stimuli.
Instrument A process
al in which a
Conditionin positive
g: behavior
when
rewarded
has more
chances of
repetition
unlike the
negative
behavior
which if
repeated
would lead
to
punishment
and thus
less
chances of
repetition.
Example –
Parents
celebrating
the success
of child by
praising
them
among
friends will
form
positive
attitude of
child
towards
success.
Further,
when
parents
punish the
child for
their
mistakes, it
 discourage
the child to
make those
mistakes
again.
This
involves
learning
from our
social
Social
environme
Observatio
nt such as
n:
family,
school,
media and
its
expression.
 
FACTORS
INFLUENCING
ATTITUDE
FORMATION:
The following factors provide the context
for the learning of attitudes through the
processes described above.

 Family and School Environment:

Particularly in the early years of
life, parents and other family
members play a significant role in
shaping attitude formation. Later, the
school environment becomes an
important background for attitude
formation. Learning of attitudes within
the family and school usually takes
place by association, through rewards
 and punishments, and through
modelling.
 Reference Groups: Reference groups
indicate to an individual the norms
regarding acceptable behaviour and
ways of thinking. Thus, they reflect
learning of attitudes through group or
cultural norms. Attitudes towards
various topics, such as political,
religious and social groups,
occupations, national and other
issues are often developed through
reference groups. Their influence is
noticeable especially during the
beginning of adolescence, at which
time it is important for the individual
to feel that s/he belongs to a group.
Therefore, the role of reference
groups in attitude formation may also
 be a case of learning through reward
and punishment.
 Personal Experiences: Many
attitudes are formed, not in the family
environment or through reference
groups, but through direct personal
experiences which bring about a
drastic change in our attitude towards
people and our own life.
 

Example:  A driver in the army went through

a personal experience that transformed his life.
On one mission, he narrowly escaped death
although all his companions got killed.
Wondering about the purpose of his own life,
he gave up his job in the army, returned to his
native village in Maharashtra, and worked
actively as a community leader. Through a
purely personal experience this individual
 evolved a strong positive attitude towards
community upliftment. His efforts completely
changed the face of his village.
 

 Media-related
Influences: Technological advances in
recent times have made audio-visual
media and the Internet very powerful
sources of information that lead to
attitude formation and change. In
addition, school level textbooks also
influence attitude formation. These
sources first strengthen the cognitive
and affective components of attitudes,
and subsequently may also affect the
behavioural component. The media
can exert both good and bad
influences on attitudes. On one
 hand, the media and Internet make
people better informed than other
modes of communication.
 

CONTENT OF
ATTITUDE (ABC OF
ATTITUDE)
Cognitive Component of Attitude:

 We develop Cognition through

analytical thought process. It is the
ability to think and deliberate, basis of
which we form our opinions and
views. It consists of the following
elements:
 Knowledge about the target object
 Awareness about other’s opinion
about the object
  Societal opinion
 Cognitive aspect of attitude maybe
either positive or negative or even its
neutral.
 Example: If a person sees a snake,


o Positive Cognition – Not to kill

them but they are part of
biodiversity and few worships as
god as part of religion
o Negative Cognition – Snakes are
Dangerous and kill them
o Neutral Cognition – Neither kill
them nor worship
 

Affective Component of Attitude:

  Affective component deals with
emotional aspect of the Attitude that
is moods, feelings associated with
targeted object. It is the result of past
life experiences for longer periods in
life.
 Example:


o If we grow in a poverty conditions

and face hunger in the past, we
compassion towards weaker
section of people who are facing
hunger
o If someone victim of corruption he
may blame entire officials and
system as corrupt.
 

Cognitive Affective
 Aspect Aspect
Deals with
Emotiona
Knowledge
l part
and Thought

Product of Occurs at
deliberate sub-
thought and conscious
interpretation level

Ascribed
Acquired by
to a
a person
person

Maybe or
Product of May not
rationality be
rational

Behavioural Component of Attitude:

  This is the action towards the target
object. It is the tendency to act in a
particular way.
 Any kind of Behaviour exhibition
depends on the both Affective and
Cognitive component of Attitude.
 Affective component
 Cognitive component
o Behaviour
 

Example: A ‘Green Environment’: The A-

B-C Components of an Attitude

Suppose a group of people in your

neighbourhood start a tree plantation
campaign as part of a ‘green
environment’ movement. Based on
sufficient information about the
environment:

 Cognitive: Your view towards a ‘green

environment’ is positive (cognitive or
‘C’ component, along with the
evaluative aspect).
 Affective: You feel very happy when
you see greenery. You feel sad and
angry when you see trees being cut
down. These aspects reflect the
affective (emotional), or ‘A’ component
of the same attitude.
 Behavioural: Now suppose you also
actively participate in the tree
plantation campaign. This shows the
behavioural or ‘B’ component of your
attitudes towards a ‘green
environment’.
 

In general, we expect all three

components to be consistent with each
other, that is, in the same direction.
However, such consistency may not
necessarily be found in all situations.

For example, it is quite possible that the

cognitive aspect of your ‘green
environment’ attitude is very strong, but
the affective and behavioural
components may be relatively weaker.
Or, the cognitive and affective
components may be strong and positive,
but the behavioural component may be
neutral. Therefore, predicting one
component on the basis of the other two
may not always give us the correct
picture about an attitude.

 Behavioural component is very much

important in making India Open
defecation free.
 But it should be noted here that some
attitudes don’t need to act in a
particular direction. Either they just
stop at cognitive/Emotional due to
fear or shy feeling.
 

Example: A person who abide by the

traffic rules gets angry if someone
violates rules like talking on phone while
driving but still, he doesn’t try to caution
him or compliant to authorities due to
fear or take it as usual mindset.

STRUCTURE OF
ATTITUDE:

 Structure of attitude includes how

positive and negative evaluation are
organised within and among the
cognitive affective and behavioural
component of attitude.
 The structure often decides the extent
to which an attitude in question can
affect the behaviour of an individual.
People with integrity are less
ambivalent.
 Attitude structure answers the
question that how positive and
 negative evaluations are organized
within and between the components-
cognitive, affective and behavioral.
 

One-dimensional Perspective:

 In one-dimensional perspective it is
assumed that presence of positive
belief, emotions and behavior
prevents the occurrence of negative
beliefs, emotions and behavior. Or in
other words they are extreme
opposites of a scale.
 This perspective thus implies that
there is consistency in a person’s
attitude towards the attitude object
and there will be no attitudinal
ambivalence.
 

Two-dimensional Perspective:

 Two-dimensional view suggest

that positive and negative elements
are stored along two separate
dimensions. One dimension reflects
positive belief, emotion and behavior
elements, and the other dimension
reflects many negative belief, emotion
and behaviour elements. The attitude
may lie anywhere on this two-
dimensional plane.
 This view proposes that people can
possess any combination of positivity
or negativity in their attitudes.
Attitudes may subsume little positivity
 and high negativity, little negativity
and high positivity, or no positivity or
negativity (i.e., a neutral position).
 

Thus, attitude structure represents the

attitude content and their combination
with respect to attitude object which
helps us to predict people’s attitude.

FUNCTIONS OF
ATTITUDE :
Knowledge Function – Attitude helps us
to understand overwhelming amount of
information in the world. They are
shortcuts, helping us to simplify our
perception of the world so that it
becomes more manageable, controllable
and safer. However in the absence of
knowledge about a person, we may use a
stereotyped attitude for judging the
person.

E.g. – people who are not familiar with

nuclear energy may develop an attitude
that it is dangerous and should not be
used as an energy source.

Utilitarian Function – The utilitarian

function exists in attitudes that maximise
rewards and minimise punishments
obtained from attitude object. If a person
holds or expresses socially acceptable
attitude, other people will reward them
with approval and social acceptance.
E.g. – politicians show positive attitude
towards reservation as in help in getting
votes.

 Object-Appraisal Function – It is
often considered the most basic
function of attitudes. It holds that all
attitudes serve to simplify reasoning
and behavior by providing guide for
how to interact with (i.e. approach or
avoid) an attitude object. This function
is served by all attitudes which are
strong and repetitive in nature and
thus easy to retrieve from memory.
 Ego Defence – Ego defence refers to
holding an attitude that protects our
self-esteem or that justify action that
makes us feel guilty. Attitude helps to
protect us from ourselves and from
 other and to explain why we have
done something that could be seen
undesirable.
 Social-adjustive function – It causes
people to like attitude objects (e.g. car,
places like restaurants) that are
popular among people whom they
admire and dislike attitude objects
that are unpopular.
 Emotions Experience function –
Another basic function of attitudes is
that they help people to experience
emotions. Emotions themselves fulfill
basic psychological needs, and, thus,
people go for emotional experiences,
even when the experiences are
unpleasant (horror movies). One way
of experiencing these emotions is
through the possession and
 expression of strong positive or
negative attitudes. For example,
people can have positive attitude
towards pet animals because it helps
in fulfilling their emotional need of
care, affection, love and loyalty.
 Value expression – Attitudes are
manifestation of our values. Attitude
helps us to relate to ourselves & to
others, presenting a fairly unified
image which helps to establish our
identity for both ourselves and for
others. The attitude we express help
communicate who we are & may
makes us feel good because we have
asserted our identity.
 
ATTITUDE CHANGE:

 During the process of attitude

formation, and also after this
process, attitudes may be changed
and modified through various
influences.
 Attitudes that are still in the
formative stage, and are more like
opinions, are much more likely to
change compared to attitudes that
have become firmly established, and
have become a part of the individual’s
values.
 From a practical point of view,
bringing about a change in people’s
attitudes is of interest to community
leaders, politicians, producers of
consumer goods, advertisers, and
 others. Unless we find out how
attitudes change, and what conditions
account for such change, it would not
be possible to take steps to bring
about attitude change.
 

The change in attitude can be of

because of two types of influences:

  ·       
  Informational
influence is
  defined as
the change
Informati in opinions
onal or behavior
Influence
that occurs
when we
conform to
people
whom we
believe have
accurate
information.
We base our
beliefs on
information
given by
experts such
as scientists
as well as our
own family
and friends.
·       
Informational
conformity le
ad to real,
long-lasting,
changes in
beliefs. The
result of
informational
influence is
normally
private
acceptance
which refers
to real
change in
attitude of
people.

·        For
instance –
Reports on
plastic
pollution has
lead people
and
respective
governments
to change
 attitude
towards
plastic use
rising
inclination
towards
searching for
alternative.

  ·        It
Normativ occurs when
e we express
Influence opinions or
behave in
  ways that
help us to be
accepted or
that keep us
from being
isolated or
rejected by
others.
When we
engage in
normative
influence we
conform to
social norms
or socially
accepted
beliefs about
what we do
or should do
in particular
social
contexts.
·        The
outcome of
normative
influence
is public
conformity r
ather than
private
acceptance.

·        Public
conformity is
a superficial
change in
behavior that
is not
accompanied
by an actual
change in
one’s private
opinion or
attitude.
Impact of
social
influence
may appear
in our public
behavior
even though
we may
believe
something
completely
different in
private.

·        E.g. A
person can
treat women
at work place
as equal
colleagues
due to norms
at work place
but in home
he may have
different
attitude
towards his
wife or sister
where the
patriarchal
and
 regressive
attitude is
reflected in
his actions.

Majority influence occurs when the beliefs

held by the larger number of individuals in the
current social group are adopted by everyone.
Minority influence occurs when the beliefs
held by the smaller number of individuals in
the current social group prevail.

 
FACTORS THAT
INFLUENCE
ATTITUDE CHANGE:

 Characteristics of existing
attitude – Positive attitude is easily
subjected to change compared to
Negative attitude.
o Example: If a person reading
about women empowerment after
seeing successful women his
positive attitude towards women
become more positive or his
positive attitude may become
negative fearful of in future
women may become more
powerful and dominate men and
ignores family responsibilities.
 Source Characteristics – Source
credibility affect attitude change.
Attitudes more likely to change if a
message comes from highly credible
source.
o Example: If an Engineering student
planning to buy a laptop are more
convinced by a computer
professional who explains the
features than a school child
explains the same features.
 Message Characteristics – Attitude
will change when the information
present in the message is enough but
neither too extreme information nor
too low information. Also, whether the
information has rational or emotional
appeal also matters.
o Example:


o An advertisement for cooking

food in a pressure cooker may
point out that this saves fuel
such as cooking gas (LPG) and is
economical (rational appeal).
Alternatively, the advertisement
may say that pressure-cooking
preserves nutrition, and that if
one cares for the family,
nutrition would be a major
concern (emotional appeal). The
motives activated by the
message also determine
attitude change.
o Drinking milk may be said to
make a person healthy and
good-looking, or more energetic
 and more successful at one’s
job.
 Mode of Spreading the Message –
Mode of spreading the message plays
a significant role. Face-to-face
transmission of the message is usually
more effective than indirect
transmission, as for instance, through
letters and pamphlets, or even
through mass media.
o Example: A positive attitude
towards Oral Rehydration Salts
(ORS) for young children is more
effectively created if community
social workers and doctors spread
the message by talking to people
directly, than by only describing
the benefits of ORS on the radio.
  Target Characteristics – Qualities of
the target, such as persuasibility,
strong prejudices, self-esteem, and
intelligence influence the likelihood
and extent of attitude change. People,
who have a more open and flexible
personality, change more easily.
People with strong prejudices are less
prone to any attitude change than
those who do not hold strong
prejudices. Persons who have a low
self-esteem, and do not have
sufficient confidence in themselves,
change their attitudes more easily
than those who are high on self-
esteem.
 
RELATION BETWEEN
ATTITUDE AND
BEHAVIOUR
Following factors influences relation
between Attitude & Behaviour:

 Qualities of a person – Values like

courage, integrity etc.
 People who are aware of their feeling
display greater attitude behaviour
consistently then those people who
rely on situational question to decide
how to behave.
 People with high level of integrity
show high correlation between
Attitude and Behaviour.
 People in individual society have more
correlation compared to people in
collective society.
 Individuals who depend on their own
feelings and principles to judge act
much more consistently with their
attitudes towards moral issue than
the people who rely on external
standards to determine what is moral.
 Qualities of attitude – Strong and
weak attitude show high and low
correlation between attitude and
behaviour.
 Attitude accessibility – Attitudes
which are acted upon on regular basis
are more accessible from memory.
Such attitudes show higher correlation
with behaviour.
 Situation:
 Norms or belief about how one
should or is expected to behave in a
 given situation can exert a powerful
influence on behaviour.
 Time pressure results in behaviour as
per attitude
 Survival instincts dominate attitude.

STEPS TO INCREASE
CORRELATION
BETWEEN ATTITUDE
AND BEHAVIOUR:

 Development of emotional
intelligence.
 Introspection
 Attitude literacy – learn what attitudes
are. Identify your good and bad
attitudes.
  Connecting with conscience – try to
understand the reasons behind
holding particular attitude.
 Developing values of integrity and
truthfulness.
 Discovering ways to motivate yourself.
 See change as an opportunity to grow.
 Seeing criticism as an feedback and
opportunity to achieve excellence.
 

TYPES OF ATTITUDE:
Though we are having many types of
attitudes but mainly we deal with four
types of attitudes. They are:

1. Moral Attitudes
2. Political Attitudes
 3. Bureaucratic Attitudes
4. Democratic Attitudes
 

MORAL ATTITUDES:
Morality refers to righteousness. Moral
attitudes are attitudes concerned
with righteous manner. Thus, Moral
attitudes is not a neutral concept. It is a
bias towards righteousness or
virtuousness. Some of the moral
attitudes are:

1. Goodness
2. Respect
3. Love & Compassion
4. Selflessness
5. Empathy
 

Goodness:

 We born with materialistic nature. Any

materialistic nature of life consists of
three modes, they are – Goodness,
Passion & Ignorance. When living
entity comes in contact with nature,
he is subjected to these three modes.
 Goodness refers to the Good
intentions in our actions. This is the
Mother of all Moral attitudes. All other
moral attitudes derived from this.
Good actions start with good
intentions.
 Goodness is the pre-condition for
inner happiness. Goodness is purer
than other modes of life and it frees
one from sinful actions. Those who
 situated in this mode develop
knowledge but they become
conditioned by the concept of
happiness.
 Passion is loaded with unlimited
desires and belongings. Because of
this one bound to materialistic
activities.


·        A person loaded with goodness becomes

a good human Being.
·        A person loaded with passion leads a
materialistic nature of life

·        A person loaded

with ignorance becomes unnecessary asset to
the society.
  Ignorance comes with laziness. It is
root cause of suffering and delusion
of all living entities. The result will be
madness, sleep and unhappy and no
purpose to the life.
 Sometime mode of ignorance
becomes prominent and defeating the
mode of goodness. And sometimes
passion prominent over others and
similarly goodness defeats other
modes of life. There is always
competition among them for
supremacy.
 

Respect:

Immanuel Kant – Rational human beings

 should be treated as an end in themselves and
not as a means to something else.
 

 Human beings are having dignity and

value. They are autonomous and ends
themselves. Every living entity has to
be treated with respect, Give Respect
And Take Respect.
 

Love & Compassion

 Love is deep affection towards others

and compassion
is action oriented sympathetic feeli
ng for someone’s sufferings and
misfortunes.
 
 Compassio
Love
n
Feeling of
affection
Feeling of towards
affection someone
towards either we
someone know them
we know personally
personally or don’t
know them
at all

We are
ready to
We act
sacrifice for
selflessness
them – Self
Interest

Love is part Compassio

of n is much
 bigger than
compassion
Love

Defined in
Defined in
terms of
terms of
relationship
Humanity
s

Selflessness:

 Selflessness is willing to act without

expecting anything in return. A
selfless action is the of basis of all
existence. Consciousness is the basis
of selfless action.
 Advita Philosophy talks about self-
consciousness. It states that we treat
other souls as our souls. Then we tend
to help each other without expecting
 anything return which results in
positive universal emotions and no
negative feelings.
 

Empathy:

It’s the basic awareness of the emotions

and feelings of others. Empathy is
the basis of an Emotional
Intelligence, ability to use our emotions
in a positive way to overcome conflicts
and challenges. We can develop this
attitude only when we are selfless. It is
simply stepping into someone’s shoes.

Sympa Empath Compas

thy y sion
 Underst
Understa Uncondi
ands
nding tional
others
others love
feelings
feelings applied
without
by towards
feeling
feeling others
at
personall sufferin
yoursel
y gs
f

Look
Self –
from
Self – Oriented
Humanit
Oriente – “I am
y
d Hurt too
Perspect
“
ive

POLITICAL
ATTITUDES:
  Political Attitudes are a set of with
which an individual approaches a
political problem and which
determines his line of conduct
towards that problem.
 It’s also a set of rules & regulations,
customs, traditions, beliefs that
influences the political system of that
country.
 The sum total of political attitudes of
an individual reveals that person’s
outlook on the aspect on the
political aspect of social living. They
define the relationship between the
citizen, govt and functions of political
system.
 

Examples:
 1.      Voting behaviour of voters in an
Elections decided by political attitudes
followed by individual and political parties

2.      Govt policies were of socialist nature

when India got independence but after LPG
era in 1990’s India opened its economy and
followed pro market policy.

Some of the Political Attitudes are:

Political At
At Polit
Attitud
Individ ical
es
ual Part
towards
Level y
specific
  social level
issues  

Attitude Employ Politi

 cal
attitu
of des
People ment, of
towards Gender parti
political equality, es
system social towa
– behavio rds
Reactio ur, state
nary, poverty, –
Conserv etc. Lefti
ative, st ,
 
Progres Centr
sive. ist,
Right
ist.
 

 After the Independence, India

adopted western liberal democratic
form of government where there is a
 nominal head instead of hereditary.
The Representative form of
govt having features such as rule of
law, independent judiciary, federal
spirit, Unbiased and committed
bureaucracy, free and fair elections,
Elections based on Universal adult
franchise etc
 But even after seven decades of
independence, these democratic
institutions failed to perform to the
expected level where as western
democracies was successful. It’s
the country’s political system that
determines and influences the
functioning of these
institutions and in turn decides the
success of other institutions like
 economic progress, fiscal discipline,
administration and elections.
 Our political system in structure wise
on lines of western liberal
democracy but in reality, it’s in feudal
in nature resulting in their failure. This
is true in case of functioning of
political party system. It’s based on
the multi-party system, FPTP voting
system and Universal adult franchise
etc. But outcomes of elections and
functioning of political parties not
determined by cognitions. They
appeal to public’s emotions rather
than their progress.
 Western democracies and Indian
democracy, main difference lies in
the political attitudes of the people.
  Voting Behaviour of public decided
by emotions, ideology and progress
and development report card of the
govt.
 

Emotions/ Ideolog Cogniti

Affective y on
Stick to
particul
ar Most
Least ideolog develop
developed y ed
democratic irrespec democr
culture. tive or atic
democr culture
atic or
not.

Appeals to Appeal Appeals

 votes
s votes based
vote based
based on
on emotions
on progress
of the
ideolog report
public.
y of the
govt

Social
issues like Ideolog
Social
poverty, y
issues
unemploym oversha
play
ent, dows
major
economy the
role in
having no social
winning
role to play issues
here

Caste Leftist, Develop

support, centrist ment
votes based and and
on religion, Right- econom
 region etc,
ic
sympathy
progress
votes if any wing
,
particular ideolog
political
leader of a y
stability
community
etc
dies

We have constitution but we lack

“constitutionalism” in the country. We
should take steps to strengthen the
democratic institutions in letter and
spirit.

BUREAUCRATIC
ATTITUDES
Some of the Bureaucratic attitudes which
an official should possess are (Which will
discuss in detail in the next chapter)

 Honesty
 Integrity
 Commitment to the ideals of the
Constitution
 Transparency & Accountability
 Abide to the rules & regulations but
one should possess empathy and
compassion also
 Courage of Conviction
 4E – Economy, Efficiency, Effectiveness
& Equity
 Objectivity
 Impartiality
 Non – Partisanship
  Proactive & Dynamic
 

DEMOCRATIC
ATTITUDES:
Democratic attitudes are a set of values
which strengthens the democracy.
Some of the common examples of
democratic attitudes are,

1. Freedom and Liberty

2. Equality & Rule of law
3. Fraternity
4. Rights and Duties etc.
 

Freedom And Liberty:

  The term liberty means absence of
restraints on the activities of
individuals and at the same
time, providing opportunities for the
development of individual
personalities.
 Constitution of India secures the
citizens liberties by putting them
under its preamble mentioned as:
 

“Liberty of thought, expression, belief,

faith, and worship”

 Every individual freedom to enjoy his

liberty as sanctioned by the law. The
duty of the law is to safeguard one’s
personal liberty.
 Law and Liberty: The law and liberty
are twins and are connected to each
other to sanction equal treatment
equally for all.
 Understanding the concept of liberty
begins in the classroom by the
conduct and attitude of student
towards his teacher and his
classmates. Raising questions to
clarify doubts to his class teacher is
his/her right, but the sanction of it
becomes liberty.
 Liberty is just the sanction of
law and the restrictions imposed are
also a kind of liberty. Conducive
learning environment of classroom,
conditions the student to understand
the meaning and the purpose of
 liberty. The basic fact of liberty is that
law is the condition of liberty.
 

Two Phases of Liberty:

Positive Negative
liberty: Liberty:
Positive For J.S.
liberty mean Mill,
freedom to liberty
do something means
that the Negative
individual liberty He
should have submitted
rights and that there
opportunities should not
to develop be any
his restraint
 imposed
upon man
and his
actions.
He also
personality.
asserted
  that there
should not
be any
hindrance
in the path
of man.
 

·        John Locke:  Where there is no law

there is no freedom.
·        John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle:

Ø  Self-regarding actions – Affects no other

persons: Here state no role to interfere
 Ø  Other regarding actions – Causes harm to
others: External/state interference

·        Rousseau: Man was born free, but

everywhere he is in chains.

·        Harold J. Laski: Liberty is the eager

maintenance of that atmosphere in which men
have the opportunity to be their best selves.

·        Gettel: Definite laws, sure enforcement

and equality before law marked the advance of
civil liberty of man to man

·        Hegel: State is a March of God upon

earth and it is the highest expression and organ
of social morality.

How does law protect liberty?

  Provides congenial atmosphere for
the smooth running of civilized life in
society. Law punish criminal and
defends the rights of the individuals.
 Law guarantee the enjoyment of
individual rights and duties and
protect them. The state punishes the
individual who causes harm to others
and hinders path of others.
 Constitution is custodian of liberty and
it confines the authority of the state
and protects the fundamental right of
the people.
 

How Liberty is safeguarded?

·        Liberty is safer in the Democratic form
of govt than any other form of govt
 ·        Constitution

·        Rule of law

·        Fundamental rights

·        Independent judiciary

·        Decentralisation of powers

·        Economic security – It creates a equity

based society where everyone gets equal
opportunity.

·        Political education and vigilance

Equality:

 Equality is a powerful moral and

political ideal that has inspired and
guided human society for many
 centuries. Concept of equality invokes
the idea that all human beings have
an equal worth regardless of their
colour, gender, race, or
nationality. It maintains that human
beings deserve equal consideration
and respect because of their common
humanity. Shared humanity lies in the
universal human rights.
 Liberty and rights lead to a third
principle in political theory, which
is of equality. Equality determines
how rights are to be distributed
amongst the individuals as citizens
and groups, both whether equally or
unequally.
 
 Equality, which means state of being
equal. It signifies ‘having the same
rights, privileges, treatments, status,
and opportunities. Equality is treated
as something that relates
to distributive principle because of
which rights, treatments, and
opportunities are distributed amongst
the beneficiaries in a fair manner.
 Fairness does not mean all to be
treated equally in all
circumstances. In fact, it very well
means unequal treatment for those
who are unequal. Essentially it relates
to the principle of justice, because it
requires fair distributive principle.
However, those who are equal should
not be treated as unequal and the
unequal as equal.
How equality can be achieved?

 It is necessary sometime to treat
people differently in order to
ensure that they can enjoy equal
rights. Certain differences may have
to be taken into account for this need.
Some special consideration for
the disabled and protection for
women employees especially in the
corporate and IT industries when they
travel amidst work in the night are
provided.
 These acts should not be treated as
an infringement of equality but an
enhancement of equality. Similarly,
some of the policies are needed to
overcome the hindrances of equality
by the government. For example, India
 follows the principle of reservation
and other countries follow affirmative
action.
 

Establishing a Formal Equality:  This is

the first step towards the ending
inequality in the society. Political,
economic, social inequalities can be
reduced by customs and legal system. In
India, our constitution provided equality
in the form
of fundamental rights and Directive
principles of state policy and various
other sections of the constitutions and
other statutes.

Civic Econo Politic

 mic al
Equalit
Equali Equali
y
ty ty
·        ·        ·       
Equality Men Univer
before and sal
law women adult
(Article equal franchi
14) right to se
·        livelih (Articl
Prohibiti ood e 325
on ofand and
discrimi equal 326)
nation pay  
on (Articl
grounds e 39)
of
·       
religion
To
(Article
minimi
15)
se
inequal
·        ities in
Equality income
of status,
opportu opport
nity in unities
matters (Articl
of e 38)
public
employ  
ments
(Article
16)

·       
Abolitio
n of
Untouch
ability
(Article
17)

·       
Abolitio
 n of
titles
(Article
18)

Differential Treatment – Formal

equality or equality before law not
sufficient to make principle equality in
reality. Sometimes it necessary to treat
people differently in order to ensure that
they can enjoy equal rights. For example,
Reservations.

Affirmative Action –  Affirmative action

implies that it is not sufficient to establish
formal equality by law. In order to
eliminate deep rooted inequalities, some
positive measures are necessary and
such positive measures could minimize
and eliminate slowly the entrenched
forms of social inequalities.

Affirmative action Vs Reverse

discrimination:

Reverse
Affirmativ
Discriminat
e Action:
ion:
Rationale Giving
is to enable preferential
qualified treatment to
targeted targeted
groups to groups,
catch up usually by
the effects excluding
of past better-
 qualified
candidates
who are not
part of the
preferred
group.
discriminat
Except
ion in the
under
workplace.
unusual
  circumstanc
es, reverse
discriminati
on is not
legal.
 

Thomas Hobbes: “What good is freedom

to a starving man? He cannot eat
freedom or drink it”.
 

Fraternity:

Fraternity means a sense of brotherhood.

The constitution promotes this feeling of
fraternity by the system of single
citizenship and fundamental duties
promotes harmony and common
brotherhood.

BEHAVIOUR:

 Behaviours are responses/reactions

we make or activities we engage in.
Behaviours are simple or complex and
some behaviours are short and
 enduring. Some behaviours are overt.
Few behaviours are Internal or covert.
 All Behaviours covert or overt are
associated with or triggered by some
stimulus in the environment or
changes that happen internally.
Therefore, Behaviour as an
association between stimulus and
response.
 

Example:
1.      When a tiger is walking Infront of you,
your heartbeat rises and response should be
run from that place

2.      During UPSC prelims exam, few

aspirants suffers with stress and anxiety

 
Mind & Behaviour:

 Brain is the most essential part of

human body for its survival. Brain
controls our thoughts, stores the
information required for function of
our organs.
 But the mind is the set of faculties
including cognitive aspects such as
consciousness, imagination,
perception, thinking, intelligence,
judgement, language and memory,
as well as non-cognitive aspects such
as emotion and instinct.
 Mind can’t exist without brain
but mind is separate entity. There is
a relation between mind and
behaviour.
  Mind causes a Behaviour. Any
particular kind of behaviour depends
on our mind responds to the stimulus
and environment where we were in.
 By using positive visualisation
techniques and feeling positive
emotions one can bring significant
changes in bodily processes which will
reflect in our behaviour.
 

Examples:

 Blind people able to imagine the

context with mind’s imaginary power
and they tend to act according to the
situation
 A study proved that a person with
blocked arteries was made to visualise
 that blood was flowing through her/
his blocked arteries. After practicing
this over a period of time, significant
relief was obtained by these patients
as the degree of blockage became
significantly less. Use of mental
imagery, i.e. images generated by a
person in her/his mind, have been
used to cure various kinds of phobias
(irrational fears of objects and
situations).
 

What causes Human Behaviour?

 The way Human evolved tend to

behave in a particular way àAncient
humans started their early life with
hunting food later they practised
settled agriculture. But still some of
 the tribes following such hunting
behaviour.
 Historically Constructed
Behaviour à After Aryans invasion
caste system started evolving. Now its
surviving in matured form of caste
hierarchy.
 Culturally Constructed Behaviour à
Some cultures treat women as family
elder (Matriarchy) and some cultures
treats women as subordinate to men
(Patriarchy).
 Biological shaping of Behaviour à
Genes and Heredity – Maldhari
community in Gujarat and Bishnoi
community in Rajasthan are
protecting animals’ lions and
blackbuck from so many generations
  Socio-Cultural shaping of
Behaviour à Different behaviour
exhibition in food habits: Eating Veg
and Non vegetarian food part of socio-
cultural shaping of behaviour in India.
 

ATTITUDE &
BEHAVIOR:
Attitude is a set of features which is in
evaluation feature and Behaviour is a
tendency to act in particular
direction. End result of attitude is
Behaviour but it can’t be always true.
Sometimes we failed up to act to the
particular issue.

 
Is attitude & behaviour will move in
same direction?

Cases ·        If our

where attitudes are
attitudes negative our
and behaviour
behaviou will never be
r will go positive.
hand and ·        Strong
hand: attitude
  causes
tendency to
show rigid
behaviour

·        When
there is no
external
pressure to
 change our
attitudes,
behaviour

·        When
your
behaviour not
watched by
no one your
attitudes will
be same as
behaviour

Cases ·        If
where something
our rewarding in
behaviou nature and
r beneficial to
different us
from our ·        Weak
attitudes: attitudes will
eventually
 cause
different
behaviour

·       
Lobbying

Example:
1.      Political parties during campaigns
preaches about women empowerment but
when it comes to reality no party willing to
support women reservation bill in parliament

2.      USA & Russia openly supports India’s

candidature in security council seat but they
are not in favour of security council reforms in
reality.

 
Therefore, Attitudes are not
behaviours but they represent a
tendency to behave or act in a certain
way.

SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR:
 

Social behaviour is how social

environment influences our thoughts,
emotions and behaviour. A pro social
behaviour builds a harmonious society
but an anti-social behaviour drags
country to bottom of the table in the
development indices

 
What causes anti – Social Behaviour:

 Illiteracy and poor level understanding

on social issues even among educated
people
 Poverty
 Disturbed peace of mind
 Unemployment
 Family and health issues
 

Best way to reduce anti-social behaviour

is by providing early intervention
services by indulging them in pro social
activities. Early Intervention services can
help measure anti-social behaviour
and effectively teach children and
young adults the positive
behaviours that should be adopted
which they will carry into adulthood and
provide a positive social impact on their
local society.

In addition to this, by addressing

potential challenges at an earlier stage it
gives charities the chance to prevent
them becoming serious issues that could
become a strain on society. A pro social
behaviour is the only way to address
the anti-social activities.

Pro-Social Behaviour:

 Throughout the world, doing good to

others and being helpful is described
as a virtue. All religions teach us that
 we should help those who are in need.
This behaviour is called helping or
pro-social behaviour.
 Pro- social behaviour is very similar
to ‘altruism’, which means doing
something for or thinking about the
welfare of others without any self-
interest (in Latin ‘alter’ means ‘other’,
the opposite of ‘ego’ which means
‘self’).
 

Examples:
1.      During recent airplane crash at Kerala
airport, local people offered helping hand
before the rescue teams arrived. It saves many
lives on time.

2.      Sharing things, cooperating with others,

helping during natural calamities, showing
 sympathy, doing favours to others, and making
charitable donations.

Pro-social behaviour has the following

characteristics:

 Aim to do good to others

 To be done without any expectations
in return
 Voluntarily gives lending hand where
there is no external pressure
 Involves some difficulty or cost to the
person. For instance, a person who
earns illegally wanted to donate some
money to get reputation and his
photograph will publish on
newspaper. This attitude can’t be
called as pro social behaviour.
Case study:

Immediately after the

Mumbai blasts on 11
July, 2006, the
community stepped
forward to help the blast
victims in any way they
could. By contrast, on an
earlier occasion, nobody
came forward to help a
girl on a moving
suburban train in
Mumbai, when her purse
was being snatched. The
other passengers did
nothing to help, and the
girl was thrown out of the
train. Even as the girl was
lying injured on the
railway tracks, people
living in the buildings
around the area did not
 come to help her.

The question then is:

under what conditions,
and with what motives do
people help others? Still
need to study on such
behaviour.

But under what circumstances people

show their pro-social attitude, it’s difficult
to assess such behaviour by looking at
the following case study.

Factors Influencing Social Behaviour

 In born attitude of helping others

  Influenced by learning
 Cultural factors
 Value education
 Learning from the lives of great
reformers
 

Norms which conditions Pro Social

Behaviour:

 Norm of social Responsibility: We

should help anyone who needs help,
without considering any other factor.
 Norm of reciprocity: We should help
those persons who have helped us in
the past.
 Norm of equity: We should help
others whenever we find that it is fair
to do so.
 

Example: Many of us may feel that it is

fairer to help a person who has lost all
belongings in a flood, than to help a
person who has lost everything through
gambling.

 Pro-social behaviour is affected by the

expected reactions of the person who
is being helped. E.g. People might be
unwilling to give money to a needy
person because they feel that the
person might feel insulted, or may
become dependent.
 
  Pro-social behaviour is more likely to
be shown by individuals who have a
high level of empathy, that is, the
capacity to feel the distress of the
person who is to be helped. E.g. Baba
Saheb Amate and Mother Teresa.
 

Pro-social behaviour may be reduced by

factors such as a bad mood, being busy
with one’s own problems, or feeling that
the person to be helped is responsible for
her/his own situation (that is, when an
internal attribution is made for the need
state of the other person).

Pro-social behaviour may also be

reduced when the number of
bystanders is more than one. For
example, the victim of a road accident
sometimes does not get help because
there are many people standing around
the scene of the accident. Each person
thinks that it is not her/his responsibility
alone to give help, and that someone else
may take the responsibility. This
phenomenon is called “Diffusion of
Responsibility”.  On the other hand, if
there is only one bystander, this person is
more likely to take the responsibility and
actually help the victim.

Therefore, studying of social behaviour is

very much important in implementing
any scheme or policy to understand the
how people socially involved.
 

SOCIAL INFLUNCE &

PERSUASION:

 Social influence is the process

through which a person’s
Behaviour, attitudes, views or
thoughts gets influences by social
communication.
 Persuasion is just method of social
influence. Social influence and
persuasion, both are same but social
influence at group/community level
influencing one’s views or beliefs or
attitudes and persuasion at individual
level to pursue him to believe in
something.
  Social behaviour helps us in opinion
formation, impression formation and
which in turn guide us to influence
others. But either we obey or defy
social influence on others to adopt it
from our own point of view.
Example: College institution brought a rule to
ban on brining mobile phones to college.
Students collecting signatures of students to
remove the ban. If I sign it will go against my
own opinion but if I don’t sign it disturbs
student’s unity.
 

 Social Influence
o Social Facilitation
o Social Loafing
 
The nature of influence on Individual
can be defined from two perspectives:

Social Facilitation – Behaviour in the

Presence of others

Performance of specific actions or tasks is

influenced by the mere presence of
others. This is Called Social facilitation.

Example:
1.      Public speech Vs speech practice at
home alone

2.      Writing UPSC prelims on exam day Vs

Giving mock test at home

 
As early as 1897, Norman
Triplett observed that individuals show
better performance in the presence of
others, than when they are performing
the same task alone. For instance, cyclists
racing with each other perform better
than when they cycle alone.

Why Such Behaviour?

 Arousal: Person experiences arousal,

which makes the person react in a
more intense manner. Arousal
because person feels he or she being
evaluated.
 Nature of Task: The nature of the
task to be performed also affects the
performance in the presence of
 others. A simple or familiar task, the
person is surer of performing well,
and the eagerness to get praise or
reward is stronger. So, the individual
performs better in the presence of
others than s/he does when alone.
But in the case of a complex or new
task, the person may be afraid of
making mistakes. The fear of criticism
or punishment is stronger. So, the
individual performs worse in the
presence of others than s/he does
when alone.
 Co-Action: If the others present are
also performing the same task, this is
called a situation of co-action. In this
situation, there is social comparison
and competition.
 
Social Loafing:

 An individual performing an activity

along with the others as part of a
larger group. Task performance can
be facilitated and improved, or
inhibited and worsened by the
presence of others. Many other kinds
of social influence have been noticed.
 Diffusion of responsibility, which is
often the basis of social loafing, can
also be frequently seen in situations
where people are expected to help.
We will look into this aspect and other
factors in helping behaviour in the
section that follows.
 

Why such behaviour?

  Efforts of an individual in a group
are pooled so that you look at the
performance of the group as a whole.
It has been found that individuals
work less hard in a group than they do
when performing alone.
 Social loafing is a reduction in
individual effort when working on a
collective task, i.e. one in which
outputs are pooled with those of
other group members.
 It is not possible for you to identify
how much force each member of the
team has been exerting. Such
situations give opportunities to group
members to relax and become a free
rider.
 
Example:

 If we are working together in a group,

the larger the group, the less effort
each member puts in
 Game of tug-of-war – Pulling rope
against each other
 Political parties promising freebies
during election campaign which will
make citizens free rider
 One of the strong criticisms against
Universal Basic Income is, it will make
people lazy attitude and free money
will spent on buying luxury items than
their capacity will eventually makes
people free rider.
 Social influence can be seen indirectly
by conformity with majority opinion
by compliance with request from
 others and obedience from the
direction/order/instruction of
person/institution in authority.
 

Example:
·        Corona Virus lockdown – PM/CM
addressing the nation/state directly on
importance of social distancing and stay
healthy by cooperating with lockdown instead
of assigning the task to some other Minister.

·        Cabinet meeting during lockdown –

Cabinet set an example by maintaining social
distance during the meeting. Frequent
addressing and campaigns helped India
successfully tackling the pandemic and
lockdown.

Nature of Social Influence:

 It can be Positive or Negative

  It can be consciousness or
Unconsciousness
 Nature of influence varies according
to the context and depends on the
person who getting influence and who
influencing. Example: ISIS influencing
youth across the world to choose the
militancy
 Influence getting exhibited when you
alone and when you are in public
 Nature of Influence can be varying
from shorter to longer duration.
Example: Most of the motivational
sessions generally lasted not more
than one day.
 

How to get Social Influence:

 By strong Leadership
 Political campaigns to influence our
attitudes
 Media
 Person in the authority – The person
who at higher hierarchy influences like
Boss subordinate relationship
 External Pressure
 Culture

PERSUASION

 Social influence and persuasion

both are interchangeable, so
whatever the concepts applicable to
social influence same applicable to
persuasion also.
 Persuasion is part of civil servants’ day
to day activities. He/she has to
 persuade various sections of people,
his/her subordinate officials in his/her
office, public he/she interacted on
daily basis and his/her superior
officers and persuade govt on any
particular scheme or policy etc.
 

APPLICATIONS IN
DAILY LIFE &
ADMINISTRATION
An attitude formation is very much
important towards any particular social
issue, political issue, environmental issue
or an economical issue. Its area of
applications ranging from personal life to
bringing good governance in the country.
Some of the applications are:
 

Making a Good Citizen: To create a good

citizen, it’s a two-way process:

 Rule of Law – Responsibility of the

govt to respect each and every
community and giving unbiased
attitude towards every individual.
 Social Responsibility – An individual,
instead of solely waiting for the govt
to things gets done better to take
initiation and solve their own
problems. A sense of social
responsibility creates a social
harmony in the society. Socially and
morally responsible as a first step
towards in making a good citizen.
 
A Good citizen makes the society a better
place to live in then we can find the
solutions to the challenges facing by the
society.

Aristotle – Mere residing in country, enjoying

a legal right does not make him a good citizen.
A good citizen is one who’s participation for
social cause and able to partake in decision
making process of the govt.
Creating a sense of Patriotism: A
standard dictionary defines patriotism as
reads “love of one’s country.” But in
wider sense it defined as:

 Special affection for one’s own

country
  A sense of personal identification with
the country
 Special concern for the well-being of
the country
 Willingness to sacrifice to promote the
country’s good
 

Accordingly, patriotism can be defined

as love of one’s country, identification
with it, and special concern for its
well-being. This is only a definition. A
fuller account of patriotism is having a
bigger scope. Such an account would say
something about the patriot’s:

 Beliefs about the merits of his country

 To be related to a past and a future
that transcend the narrow confines of
 an individual’s life and its mundane
concerns
 Social and political conditions that
affect the ebb and flow of patriotism,
its political and cultural influence.
 

Moral Standing of Patriotism:

 Many thinks of patriotism as a natural

and appropriate expression of
attachment to the country in which we
were born and raised and of gratitude
for the benefits of life on its soil,
among its people, and under its laws.
 They also consider patriotism
an important component of our
identity. Some go further, and argue
that patriotism is morally
 mandatory, or even that it is the
core of morality. There is, however, a
major tradition in moral philosophy
which understands morality as
essentially universal and impartial,
and seems to rule out local, partial
attachment and loyalty.
 Adherents of this tradition tend to
think of “one’s own” at odds with
demands of universal justice and
common human solidarity. There is
nothing wrong in Love of one’s own
country and loyal to it, but extreme
form of patriotism creating new kind
of social problems globally and
creating hostility towards other
countries. It tends to encourage
militarism, and makes for
international tension and conflict.
 

Normative issues:

 Patriotism has had a fair number of

critics. The harshest among them have
judged it deeply flawed in every
important respect.
 In the 19th century, Russian novelist
and thinker Leo Tolstoy found
patriotism both stupid and
immoral.
o It is stupid because every patriot
holds his own country to be the
best of all whereas, obviously, only
one country can qualify.
o It is immoral because it promotes
our country’s interests at the
expense of all other countries and
 by any means, including war, and is
thus at odds with the most basic
rule of morality, which tells us not
to do to others what we would not
want them to do to us.
 Some of these objections can easily be
countered. Even if full-fledged
patriotism does involve a belief in
one’s country’s merits, it need not
involve the belief that one’s country is
better than all others. And the fact
that a country is not a collection of
“discernible individuals” and that the
social ties among compatriots are
“largely invisible or impersonal,”
rather than palpable and face-to-face,
does not show that it is unreal or
imaginary.
  However, there is another, more
plausible line of criticism of patriotism
focusing on its intellectual, rather than
moral credentials. Moreover, Tolstoy’s
arguments questioning the moral
legitimacy of patriotic partiality and
those highlighting the connection of
patriotism with international tensions
and war cannot be so easily refuted.
 

Rousseau: “General will” is greater

than “Private will” so for any policy to be
successful administration should consider
general will. Here General will means social
will for greater good of society.
 

To solve social problems:

 Developing particular
attitude towards particular a social
issue helps in solving the social
problems.
 India is a developing country facing
many social issues. Poverty, Gender
inequality, well-being of vulnerable
sections of society, Sex ratio,
Corruption as a social issue instead of
looking it as an administration issue,
open defecation, racial discrimination
etc.
 A social problem can also look from
the perspective of Behavior to be
addressed. It has both objective and
subjective components.
The objective component involves
empirical evidence of the negative
consequences of a social condition or
 behavior, while the subjective
component involves the perception
that the condition or behavior is
indeed a problem that needs to be
addressed, belief that particular social
condition which is harmful to the
society.
 

Example:
·       Objective view: Climate change is real
and happening

·       Subjective view: Climate change is myth

·       Swachh Bharath Mission – Success of

this mission because of behavioral change and
govt campaigning

·       Poverty, Employment & Gender equality

should be treated as integrated social problem
 instead of looking independently.

 To eliminate prejudice and

discrimination:

 Prejudices are examples of attitudes

towards a particular group. They are
usually negative, and in many cases,
they are based on stereotypes (the
cognitive component) about the
specific group.
 Stereotype is a cluster of ideas
regarding the characteristics of a
specific group. Often, stereotypes
consist of undesirable characteristics
about the target group, and they lead
to negative attitudes or prejudices
towards members of specific groups.
  The cognitive component of
prejudice is frequently accompanied
by dislike or hatred, the affective
component.
 The behavioural component, when a
Prejudice get translated into
discrimination, whereby people
behave in a less positive way towards
a particular target group compared to
another group which they favour.
 

Example: The genocide

committed by the Nazis
in Germany against
Jewish people is an
extreme example of how
prejudice can lead to
hatred, discrimination
and mass killing of
innocent people.
Prejudices can exist without being shown
in the form of discrimination.
Similarly, discrimination can be shown
without prejudice. Yet, the two go
together very often. Wherever prejudice
and discrimination exist, conflicts are very
likely to arise between groups within the
same society. Our own society has
witnessed many deplorable instances of
discrimination, with and without
prejudice, based on gender, religion,
community, caste, physical handicap, and
illnesses such as AIDS. Moreover, in
many cases discriminatory behaviour can
be curbed by law. But, the cognitive and
emotional components of prejudice are
more difficult to change.
 

Prejudice has one or more of the

following sources:

 Learning: Like other attitudes,

prejudices can also be learned
through association, reward and
punishment, observing others, group
or cultural norms and exposure to
information that encourages
prejudice.
 The family, reference groups,
personal experiences and
the media may play a role in the
learning of prejudices
 

A strong social identity and in-group

bias:
Individuals who have a strong sense of
social identity and have a very positive
attitude towards their own group boost
this attitude by holding negative attitudes
towards other groups. These are shown
as prejudices.

 Scapegoating: This is a phenomenon

by which the majority group places
the blame on a minority
outgroup for its own social,
economic or political problems. The
minority is too weak or too small in
number to defend itself against such
accusations. Scapegoating is a group-
based way of expressing
frustration, and it often results in
negative attitudes or prejudice against
the weaker group.
 Kernel of truth concept: Sometimes
people may continue to hold
stereotypes because they think that,
after all, there must be some truth, or
‘kernel of truth’ in what everyone says
about the other group.
 Self-fulfilling prophecy: In some
cases, the group that is the target of
prejudice is itself responsible for
continuing the prejudice. The target
group may behave in ways that justify
the prejudice, that is, confirm the
negative expectations. For example, if
the target group is described as
‘dependent’ and therefore unable to
make progress, the members of this
target group may actually behave in a
way that proves this description to be
 true. In this way, they strengthen the
existing prejudice.
 

Strategies for handling prejudice:

Knowing about the causes or sources

would be the first step in handling
prejudice. Thus, the strategies for
handling prejudice would be effective if
they aim at:

 Minimising opportunities for learning

prejudices
 Changing such attitudes
 De-emphasising a narrow social
identity based on the ingroup
 Discouraging the tendency towards
self-fulfilling prophecy among the
victims of prejudice.
 

These strategies can be accomplished

through:

 Education and information

dissemination, for correcting
stereotypes related to specific target
groups, and tackling the problem of a
strong ingroup bias
 Increasing intergroup
contact allows for direct
communication, removal of mistrust
between the groups, and even
discovery of positive qualities in the
outgroup. However, these strategies
are successful only if the two groups
meet in a cooperative rather than
competitive context
  Highlighting individual
identity rather than group identity,
thus weakening the importance of
group (both ingroup and outgroup) as
a basis of evaluating the other person.
 

Ethical & Good Governance:

 According to World bank Good

governance defined as “the manner
in which power is exercised in the
management of a country’s
economic and social resources for
development”.
 Good Attitudes and Morally social
behaviour towards public institutions
and social institutions makes a
governance a good governance.
 The objectives of good governance
can be achieved only through Ethical
governance, which is a governance
carrying out according established
standards. In India initiatives like
citizen charter, RTI etc failed because
there is a missing component of
ethical governance in the governance
or public administration. Bureaucracy
with Colonial attitudes has failed to
understand the importance of this
revolutionary reforms in the public
administration.
 To achieve ethical governance, we
need a committed
bureaucracy which is committed to
the ideals of constitution, honesty and
integrity and behavioral reforms in the
bureaucracy.
 

Conflict Management:

 Attitudes and Behavioral norms play a

very important role in conflict
resolution either it is ethnic conflicts
or communal violence or caste
violence or son of soil theory. Sense of
love towards own community or land
creates “We Vs Others Feeling”.
 Nothing can be achieved unless and
until you believe in yourself and have
a positive attitude. An individual must
avoid finding faults in others.
Individuals tend to lose
control on their emotions and
overreact hurting the
sentiments of the other person.
 
Ways to solve conflicts:

 Intergroup meetings, deliberations

and consultations.
 Joint celebration of festivals
 Strict law and order enforcement and
harsh punishment for those who
disturbs social harmony with hidden
motives
 Peaceful talks and discussions at govt
level and civil society level
 Giving protection and protecting
minorities and Tribals and their
customs and traditions
 

Examples: Naga peace talks held by govt

to end decades old ethnic conflicts
among Naga tribes
 Previous Year Questions:
 

Ye
Theme Question
ar
Attitud Young 20
e people 17
formati with
on ethical
  conduct
are not
willing to
come
forward to
join active
politics.
Suggest
steps to
motivate
them to
 come
forward.
Attitud What 20
e factors 14
formati affect the
on formation
  of a
person’s
attitude
towards
social
problems?
In our
society,
contrasting
attitudes
are
prevalent
about
many
social
 problems.
What
contrasting
attitudes
do you
notice
about the
caste
system in
our
society?
How do
you
explain the
existence
of these
contrasting
attitudes?
Moral In the 20
and context of 14
politica defense
l services,
attitude ‘patriotism
s ’ demands
  readiness
to even lay
down
one’s life
in
protecting
the nation.
According
to you,
what does
patriotism
imply in
everyday
civil life?
Explain
with
illustration
s and
 justify
your
answer.
Moral It is often 20
and said that 13
politica ‘politics’
l and
attitude ‘ethics’ do
s not go
together.
What is
your
opinion in
this
regard?
Justify
your
answer
with
illustration
 s.
Conten Two 20
t, different 15
structu kinds of
re, attitudes
functio exhibited
n of by public
Attitud servants
e towards
  their work
have been
identified
as the
bureaucrat
ic attitude
and the
democratic
attitude.
A)
Distinguis
h between
 these two
terms and
write their
merits and
demerits.
B) Is it
possible to
balance
the two to
create a
better
administra
tion for the
faster
developme
nt of our
country?
Social How could 20
influen social 16
ce and influence
persuas and
 persuasion
contribute
to the
ion success of
Swatchh
Bharat
Abhiyan?
 

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