Topic: Attitude
- Attitude has a huge role to play in the personal as well as professional lives of individuals. Explain. (10 Marks)
Model structure
Introduction
- Attitude is a learned predisposition to think, feel, perceive and act in a particular way towards any external or internal object. That object may be tangible or intangible and include any individual, organisation, or social issue.
Main body
- Functions of attitude in personal life-
- Promotes positive thinking and a forward-looking mindset. Failures come and go, but rather than feeling defeated, one must learn from them and avoid repeating mistakes.
- Helps maintain acceptance, good behaviour, and understanding. It further helps in maintaining a balance between personal and professional life.
- Brings empathy and self-belief. Even with continuous rejections, one can make a comeback with a positive attitude.
- Functions in professional life-
- Important for courage and honesty in public life as it helps uphold the rule of law and take on violators of law and order.
- Helps prevent corruption as an attitude of accountability and impartiality helps to further organisational interests.
- Brings compassion and objectivity, which helps discharge duties properly.
- Emotional intelligence is developed, which helps balance personal and professional life and manage stress.
Conclusion
- The right attitude is indispensable for excellent growth of personality in professional life. To quote Thomas Jefferson, “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal, nothing on Earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
- Attitude is often described as a key determinant of an individual's behaviour. In light of this statement, analyse the relationship between attitude and behaviour. (10 Marks)
Model Solution:
Introduction
- Attitude is an evaluation people make towards persons, objects, ideas or events. On the other hand, behaviour is the conduct of an individual in response to their environment or stimuli. (Definition-based)
- John C. Maxwell once said, “People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude." (Quote-based)
Main Body
Relationship between attitude and behaviour
- Our attitudes, often shaped by our values and beliefs, play a crucial role in dictating our behaviours and, thereby, our lives.
- For example, an individual with a negative attitude towards women could manifest discrimination and inequality in their interactions and dealings with women.
- On the other hand, attitude does not always drive behaviour.
- For example, all of us have positive attitudes toward good health, but most of us do not exercise and frequently eat junk food. Similarly, one may have a healthy attitude towards the environment, but if he gets an opportunity to buy an AC or a car, he will definitely buy them.
- Behaviour also affects attitude because one’s behaviour forms habits.
- For example, children are taught to be punctual in school, and later, punctuality becomes their attitude.
Attitude and behaviour may go hand in hand or not, depending on the following factors:
- People aware of their feelings display greater attitude and behaviour consistency than those who rely on situational questions to decide how to behave.
- For example, a person who is aware of their passion for animal rights will consistently demonstrate their beliefs by attending protests, volunteering at shelters, and promoting veganism.
- People with a high level of integrity show a high correlation between Attitude and Behaviour.
- People in individual societies have more correlation compared to people in collective societies.
- For example, in individualistic societies like the USA, personal achievements and independence are often emphasised, leading to behaviours that align with personal beliefs. In collective societies like Japan, group harmony is prioritised, so an individual might suppress their personal beliefs to conform to group norms.
- Individuals who depend on their feelings and principles to judge act much more consistently with their attitudes towards moral issues than people who rely on external standards to determine what is moral.
- Qualities of attitude – Strong and weak attitudes show a high and low correlation between attitude and behaviour.
- For example, a strong attitude towards healthy living might lead a person to consistently exercise and eat well. A weak attitude, however, such as a mild preference for a political party, might not translate into consistent voting behaviour or political activism.
- Attitude accessibility – Attitudes which are acted upon regularly are more accessible from memory. Such attitudes show a higher correlation with behaviour.
- For example, if someone has a well-established attitude towards supporting local businesses, they will likely remember this preference easily and consistently choose local stores over big chains. This attitude is accessible and frequently guides their behaviour.
- Situation: Norms or beliefs 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.
Conclusion
- Understanding this relationship is crucial as it allows us to predict behaviours and initiate change, whether on an individual level or a societal one. Effective strategies for change need to consider not just attitudes but also the social, cultural, and situational factors that influence behaviour.
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- What does this quotation mean to you?
a) Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference. - Winston Churchill. Comment. (10 Marks)
Model Structure
Introduction:
- Attitude is a learned tendency to behave, think and feel in a specific way towards a group of people, place, culture, etc. It can be a positive, negative, neutral or ambivalent evaluation of stimuli present in our environment.
Main Body:
Importance of Attitude in Life:
- A regulating mechanism in an organisation: Attitude shapes organisational culture and behaviour. It further ensures that the behaviour of the public servants is aligned with the values of the organisation.
- For example, if the attitude towards corruption is negative in an organisation, the employees are unlikely to indulge in it as it is deemed unethical.
- Promotes efficiency: A collaborative attitude in the public service encourages the public servants to work diligently and inspires people to demonstrate the values of responsiveness and efficiency.
- For example, the Proactive Attitude of Mr O.P. Choudhary in the Naxal-affected Bastar region.
- Brings changes in societal values: Attitude of people determines the progression of a society.
- For example, attitudes towards homosexuality are responsible for discrimination against transgender individuals and the LGBTQ community in India.
- Acceptance of change and proactivity: The right attitude, which is built with the right knowledge, makes a society proactive in fighting challenges. However, a lethargic attitude towards change results in dogma.
- For example, the negative attitude of people towards the COVID-19 vaccine is leading to Vaccine hesitancy.
- Courage of conviction: A strong attitude towards goals helps an individual build courage of conviction.
- For example, Helen Keller, despite being physically weak in her childhood, became an Olympic athlete due to her right attitude.
- Shaping international relations: Attitude of political leaders also shapes the international relations of a country in the globalised world.
- For example, Pakistan’s weak Attitude towards terror combating has landed it on the FATF’s grey list.
Conclusion:
- Hence, Attitude plays an important role for individuals as well as society. As Ralph Marston had said, Excellence is not a skill, but an attitude.
- Responsibility and discipline are important traits for civil servants to discharge their duties without fear or favour. Discuss the attitudes which help develop these traits. (10 Marks)
Model Structure
Introduction
- Civil services are a service of vocation and a duty with the highest level of dedication. It requires attitudes like sincerity and ownership of public interest, which bring in a sense of responsibility and discipline.
Main Body
- To ensure traits like responsibility, dedication to public life and discipline are nurtured in civil servants, below mentioned attitudes are very important.
- Selflessness helps an officer become compassionate and full of empathy, which helps in working off the track to serve society and ensure public interest. Armstrong Pame built a road with crowdfunding to ensure ease of commuters in his native village of Manipur state. Prasanth Nair led his own operation Sulaimani in the Kozhikode district to fight hunger.
- Courageous attitude helps face adversities and challenges like corrupt systems, political pressure and an unruly mob. Bureaucrats like Ashok Khemka and Durga Shakti Nagpal have exhibited this character.
- A truthful attitude guarantees honest work and commitment to duty. This further translates into responsibility and discipline, which prevents the misuse of public funds.
- Compassion and empathy help develop an objective attitude, which is important to discharge duties impartially and ensure the welfare of marginalised sections of society.
Conclusion
- There has to be a wholesome atmosphere which must include role models like superiors and periodic training cum assessment to ensure the highest ethical standards are maintained in the civil services.
- What do you mean by conscience? Discuss whether conscience plays a role in shaping attitude, which further determines ethical behaviour. (10 Marks)
Model Structure
Introduction
- Conscience is a sense of moral goodness which comes from the inner voice passing a moral judgment about the righteousness or wickedness of something. For example, when we see hungry children around the streets, our conscience nudges us to do something for them.
Main Body
- Attitude is an innate way of believing, feeling or thinking about a particular situation. So both the terms are interlinked in a way that conscience provides stimulus to attitude by evoking a response. Conscience plays a role in forming attitude and ethical behaviour by
- Immoral attitudes generally evade the inner conscience, and it cannot determine which action is right or wrong. A person knows the right thing but cannot implement it. Conscience helps evade these kinds of situations.
- Sometimes there are two conflicting situations which result in attitude ambivalence. Many times, policymakers are caught between the welfare of the environment and the promotion of mining activities or other development work.
- There are some basic values like humanity, integrity, objectivity and truth which guarantee that our actions are conscientious. A judge recusing from a case just because a family member is one of the parties is a good example.
- Attitudes like scientific temper, tolerance, compassion, and optimism decide the strength of conscience.
Conclusion
- It is clear that attitude and conscience are intertwined and go hand in hand. To ensure that conscience helps not just know what is right but also execute it, there is a need to develop proper attitudes also.
