ATTITUDE

What is attitude?
Attitude is the state of mind with which you approach a task, a challenge, a person, love, life in general. Where does an individual stand in the cosmos, universe and in the society determines his/her attitude. Attitude suggests how a person feels about something or perceives something.

Attitudes are enduring patterns of belief which it is believed are predictive of behavior.

Attitude definitions by world famous behavioral scientist/ psychologist and psychiatrist:

"Readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way" -Carl Gustav Jung Attitudes are a mediating process. Laws of attitude formation are formed parallel to laws of classical conditioning -Leonardo Doob Attitude is the motor behind everything -Skinner

Types of attitudeThere are basically three kinds of attitude:Positive: When an attitude towards a situation or subject is positive, then the
person tends to be receptive and he makes an effort to understand. He gathers data, analyses, relates, synthesizes, organizes, systematizes and integrates.

Neutral: The neutral attitude tends to be indifferent and though it accepts and
rejects according to whether things are compatible and consistent with each other, it leads to no great effort and allows incompatibilities and inconsistencies to exist.

Negative: If he is negative then he sets up barriers and filters, accepts data and
ideas selectively. He rejects, ignores, distorts, minimizes some things and exaggerates others, and criticizes destructively. This is generally done because of previously accepted ideas with which the new ideas are incompatible or thought to be incompatible, or accidentally acquired likes and dislikes, addictions and phobias

Factors affecting attitude.

Psychologist say that most of our attitudes are shaped during our formative years. While we are born with tendencies towards temperaments, there are three factors that largely determine our attitude formation. These are the triple Es of attitude: Environment. Experience. Education.

Environment:
-Home

: positive or negative influences. : peer pressure and environment. : supportive or over critical supervisor.

-School -Work

-Media
-Religion -Cultural background -Social environment -Political environment

: television, newspaper, magazines, radio, movies.

: teachings, beliefs etc : traditions, culture, customs. : rules, regulations, conduct, rights and wrongs. : corruption, honesty or dishonesty,
laws, constitution.

Experience:
Our behavior changes according to the experiences that we have with various people, situations and circumstances. Experiences serve as reference points in our life, every time we approach a situation or a person. Experiences can be broadly divided as:

positive experiences: in case, our experiences with people,

situations and circumstances are positive..we generally develop a positive and trusting outlook towards life.

negative experiences: if our encounters with people, circumstances

and situations remain negative, we tend to develop a negative and cautious approach towards life. Experience

Education:
Education is ought to teach us not only how to earn a living but also how to live and conduct ourselves. Education is basically of two types:

Formal Education: refers to the structured education that we get by going to schools, colleges, doing courses, degrees, attending training sessions etc.
Informal Education: refers to the informal education that we get through various informal sources, such as: education that we get through our family, friends, people we work with etc.

Benefits of positive attitude:

For an individual:
-adds to ones personality. -inspires others around you. -increases ones efficiency. -avoids bitterness towards people and life. -avoids resentment. -life seems purposeful. -positive attitude leads to a healthy mental, spiritual and physical life. -makes oneself attractive and drives people towards oneself. -a person tends to live a relaxed and stress free life. -life seems fun and people around the person also lead a less stressful life. -helps in dealing with problems and difficulties with determination. -helps a person to become a contributing member of the society, country and world.

For an organization:
-increases productivity. -fosters teamwork. -improves quality -develops a congenial environment -breeds loyalty -Increases profits -fosters better relations with employers, employees and customers

Interesting fact..
A study attributed to Harvard University found that when a person gets a job or promotion, 85% of the time it is because of his/her attitude. thus, the foundation of success, regardless of your chosen field is nothing but attitude.

Now that is attitude.

The Calgary Tower:

The Calgary tower stands at 190.8 meters. The total weight of the tower is 10,884 tons of which 6,394 tons of weight is below the ground, which means that approximately 60% of the tower remains below the ground as its foundation. This shows that some of the greatest buildings have the strongest foundations in order to stand tall and strong. The same principle applies to success as well. And the foundation of success is attitude.

David and Goliath:

We all know the story of David and Goliath. Goliath was a giant of a man. One day David came to meet his 17-year-old brother and asked: why dont you stand up and fight the giant? Davids brother was scared of the giant and replied:

dont you see he is too big to hit

But, David replied: No, he is not to big to hithe is to big to miss The rest is history. We all know what happened. David killed the giant. Thus, our attitude determines how we look at setbacks.

Thank You