Attitude is a psychological construct, a mental and emotional entity that inheres in, or characterizes a person. They are complex and are an acquired state through experiences. It is an individual's predisposed state of mind regarding a value and it is precipitated through a responsive expression towards oneself, a person, place, thing, or event (the attitude object) which in turn influences the individual's thought and action. Most simply understood attitudes in psychology are the feelings individuals have about themselves and the world. Prominent psychologist Gordon Allport described this latent psychological construct as "the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology." Attitude can be formed from a person's past and present. Key topics in the study of attitudes include attitude strength, attitude change, consumer behavior, and attitude-behavior relationships.
An attitude is an evaluation of an attitude object, ranging from extremely negative to extremely positive. Most contemporary perspectives on attitudes permit that people can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object by simultaneously holding both positive and negative attitudes toward the same object. This has led to some discussion of whether the individual can hold multiple attitudes toward the same object.
An attitude can be a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, events, activities, and ideas. It could be concrete, abstract or just about anything in your environment, but there is a debate about precise definitions. Eagly and Chaiken, for example, define an attitude as "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor." Though it is sometimes common to define an attitude as affect toward an object, affect (i.e., discrete emotions or overall arousal) is generally understood as an evaluative structure used to form attitude object. Attitude may influence the attention to attitude objects, the use of categories for encoding information and the interpretation, judgement and recall of attitude-relevant information.These influences tend to be more powerful for strong attitudes which are accessible and based on elaborate supportive knowledge structure. The durability and impact of influence depend upon the strength formed from consistency of heuristics.Attitudes can guide encoding information, attention and behaviors, even if the individual is pursuing unrelated goals.
Jung's definition :
Attitude is one of Jung's 57 definitions in Chapter XI of Psychological Types. Jung's definition of attitude is a "readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way". Attitudes very often come in pairs, one conscious and the other unconscious. Within this broad definition, Jung defines several attitudes.
The main attitude dualities that Jung defines are the following.
Consciousness and the unconscious. The "presence of two attitudes is extremely frequent, one conscious and the other unconscious. This means that consciousness has a constellation of contents different from that of the unconscious, a duality particularly evident in neurosis".
Extraversion and introversion. This pair is so elementary to Jung's theory of types that he labeled them the "attitude-types".
Rational and irrational attitudes. "I conceive reason as an attitude".
The rational attitude subdivides into the thinking and feeling psychological functions, each with it's attitude.
The irrational attitude subdivides into the sensing and intuition psychological functions, each with it's attitude. "There is thus a typical thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuitive attitude".
Individual and social attitudes. Many of the latter are "isms".
In addition, Jung discusses the abstract attitude.
"When I take an abstract attitude...". Abstraction is contrasted with concretism. By this I mean a peculiarity of thinking and feeling which is the antithesis of abstraction".[10]
Answers & Comments
a settled thinking about anyone is called as attitude
Jung's definition :
Attitude is one of Jung's 57 definitions in Chapter XI of Psychological Types. Jung's definition of attitude is a "readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way". Attitudes very often come in pairs, one conscious and the other unconscious. Within this broad definition, Jung defines several attitudes.
The main attitude dualities that Jung defines are the following.
Individual and social attitudes. Many of the latter are "isms".
In addition, Jung discusses the abstract attitude.
"When I take an abstract attitude...". Abstraction is contrasted with concretism. By this I mean a peculiarity of thinking and feeling which is the antithesis of abstraction".[10]