To describe and explain the behavior of an individual, the term “attitudes” is often used, the totality of which is considered as an integral component of the inner essence of the individual. Attitudes dictate guidelines for a person in the world around him, contribute to the direction of the process of cognition of the world to improve adaptation to its conditions, optimal organization of behavior and actions in it. They provide a connection between cognition and emotions, between cognition and behavior, “explain” to a person what to “expect”, and expectations are an important guide in obtaining information. Attitudes help predict human behavior in the workplace and help the employee adapt to the work environment. Thus, they play an important role in creating organizational behavior.
For translate English word "attitude"(“attitude”, sometimes they write “attitude”, – verbal assessment a person of a certain subject, object or phenomenon) in the OP they use Russian terms that are similar in meaning (but not synonyms): location, position, disposition, attitude, attitude, social attitude. For brevity we will use the terms "social attitude" or "attitude". Installation - This is the constant readiness of an individual to feel and behave in a certain way in relation to something or someone.
Most modern researchers highlight the following installation components:
affective component(feelings, emotions: love and hate, sympathy and antipathy) forms the attitude towards the object, prejudice (negative feelings), attractiveness (positive feelings) and neutral emotions. This is the core component of the installation. The emotional state precedes the organization of the cognitive component;
cognitive (informational, stereotypical) component(perception, knowledge, belief, opinion about an object) forms a certain stereotype, model. It can be reflected, for example, by factors of strength, activity;
conative component(effective, behavioral, requiring the application of volitional efforts) determines the way behavior is included in the process of activity. This component includes the motives and goals of behavior, the tendency to certain actions. This is a directly observable component that may not coincide with a verbally expressed willingness to behave in a certain way in relation to a specific object, subject or event.
The following can be distinguished settings properties.
Acquisitions. The overwhelming majority of personality attitudes are not innate. They are formed (by family, peers, society, work, culture, language, customs, media) and acquired by the individual on the basis of his own experience (family, work, etc.).
Relative stability. Settings exist until something is done to change them.
Variability. Attitudes can range from very favorable to unfavorable.
Directions. Attitudes are directed towards a specific object towards which a person may experience certain feelings, emotions or have certain beliefs.
Behavioral component – this is the intention to behave in a certain way in response to a feeling, the result of an attitude, a tendency to characteristic actions (Fig. 3.5.1).
Rice. 3.5.1. Communication between installation components
Attitude is a variable that lies between prior expectations, values, and the intention to behave in a certain way. It is important to recognize that there may not be a consistent relationship between attitudes and behavior. An attitude leads to the intention to behave in some way. This intention may or may not be fulfilled under the circumstances. Although attitudes do not always clearly determine behavior, the relationship between attitudes and the intention to behave in some way is very important for a manager. Think about your work experience or talking to other people about their work. It is not uncommon to hear complaints about someone's “bad attitude.” These complaints are made due to dissatisfaction with behavior that is associated with a bad attitude. Unfavorable attitude in the form of job dissatisfaction leads to turnover work force(which is costly), absenteeism, tardiness, poor productivity and even poor physical or mental health. Therefore, one of the manager's responsibilities is to recognize attitudes as well as antecedent conditions (expectations and values) and predict the possible outcome.
Setting functions
What are the consequences of people having attitudes? This question is answered by functional theories of attitude, formulated by such researchers as V. Katz (1967), V. McGuire (1969), M. Smith, J. Bruner. These researchers formulated four functions of personality attitudes.
1. Ego-protective function through defense mechanisms rationalization or projection allows the subject: a) to cope with his internal conflict and protect his Self-image, his Self-concept; b) resist negative information about oneself or objects that are significant to oneself (for example, a minority group); c) maintain high (low) self-esteem; d) defend against criticism (or use it against the critic). These attitudes arise from the internal needs of the individual, and the object to which they are directed may be random. Such attitudes cannot be changed through standard approaches such as ensuring identity additional information about the object to which the installation is directed.
2. Value-expressive function and self-realization function includes emotional satisfaction and self-affirmation and is associated with the identity that is most comfortable for the individual, being also a means of subjective self-realization. This function allows a person to determine: a) his value orientations; b) what type of personality he belongs to; c) what it is; d) what he likes and what he dislikes; e) his attitude towards other people; f) attitude to social phenomena. This type of expression of attitude is aimed mainly at asserting the validity of self-understanding and is less focused on the opinions of others. The personality accepts attitudes in order to support or justify one's behavior. Researchers cognitive dissonance They believe that a person himself forms attitudes to justify his behavior.
3. Instrumental, adaptive or utilitarian function helps a person: a) achieve desired goals (for example, rewards) and avoid undesirable results (for example, punishment); b) based on previous experience, develop an idea of the relationship between these goals and ways to achieve them; c) adapt to the environment, which is the basis for his behavior at work in the future. People express positive attitudes towards those objects that satisfy their desires, and negative attitudes- in relation to those objects that are associated with frustration or negative reinforcement.
4. Function of systematization and organization of knowledge (cognition) or economy helps a person to find those norms and reference points, according to which he simplifies (schematizes), organizes, tries to understand and structure his subjective ideas about the chaotic world around him, i.e. constructs his own picture(image, one’s perception) of the environment.
Controlling the distribution of information seems to be the main function of almost all human installations and consists of creating a simplified view and clear practical guide regarding behavior in relation to certain objects. There are too many complex and not entirely clear phenomena in life; it is impossible to take into account all their features. What a theory is for a scientist, what an attitude is for a person in his social life. It can be said that the installation is an adaptive simplification that emphasizes aspects social object, important for shaping human behavior.
Attitudes provide the individual with a great service in the expedient execution of intended behavior and in satisfying his needs. Installation creates psychological basis human adaptation to environment and transforming it depending on specific needs.
Changing settings
Employee attitudes can sometimes be changed if the manager is very interested in such changes. It is necessary to take into account the obstacles along the way. Barriers to attitude change: 1) escalation of commitment, the presence of a stable preference for a certain course of action without the desire to change anything. This also applies to the erroneous decision that the manager continues to insist on; 2) the employee lacks sufficient information (including feedback in the form of an assessment of the consequences of his behavior by the manager), which can serve as a basis for changing the attitude.
How can a manager change the attitudes of his employees? Suppose that employees are sharply dissatisfied with the level of their wages and, most likely, it is necessary to change these settings in order to avoid mass layoffs employees. One approach might be to inform workers that the organization is paying them all it can, but hopes to increase wages in the near future. Another method is to demonstrate that no other similar organization pays its workers more. And finally, the third way is to accept the guidelines, that is, directly increase the level of wages and thus eliminate the very cause of such dissatisfaction. Changing employee attitudes is the goal of many organizational changes and development methods.
Changes in personality attitudes are influenced by many factors, including: three groups of common factors: 1) faith in the speaker(depends on his prestige and location, respect, trust in him); 2) faith in the message itself(his persuasiveness and commitment to the publicly expressed position of the individual); 3) situation(distraction and pleasant surroundings).
Most effective ways to change personality attitudes:
providing new information. IN in some cases information about other aspects or goals of an activity will change a person’s beliefs, and ultimately his attitudes;
impact of fear. Fear can make people change their attitudes. However, for the final result great importance It has average level experienced fear;
eliminating the discrepancy between attitude and behavior. Cognitive dissonance theory states that a person tries to actively eliminate dissonance by changing attitudes or behavior;
influence of friends or colleagues. If a person is personally interested in something specific, he will try to prevent extreme discrepancies between his own behavior and the behavior of other people. On the other hand, if a person is influenced by friends or colleagues, then he will easily change his attitudes;
attraction to cooperation. People dissatisfied with the existing state of affairs are attracted to active work to change the situation;
appropriate compensation, compensating and drowning out the state of discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance.
Changing employee attitudes is quite difficult task, however, the potential benefits outweigh the costs.
The cognitive dissonance
All components of the attitude must be in a certain correspondence, otherwise the person will experience a state of psychological discomfort (tension), which L. Festinger called cognitive dissonance and which a person seeks to get rid of different ways, achieving agreement among the components – cognitive consonance. The cognitive dissonance is a negative incentive state that arises in a situation when a subject simultaneously has two psychologically contradictory “knowledge” (cognitions - opinions, concepts) about one object. The state of dissonance is subjectively experienced as discomfort, from which one strives to get rid of either by changing one of the elements of dissonant knowledge, or by introducing a new element.
Sources of cognitive dissonance can be: a) logical inconsistency; b) discrepancy between cognitive elements and cultural patterns; c) inconsistency of a given cognitive element with any broader system of ideas; d) inconsistency with past experience.
Ways to reduce the magnitude of dissonance are as follows: changing the behavioral elements of the cognitive structure; change in cognitive elements related to the environment, including refusal to perceive part of the information about the external environment (so-called perceptual defense); the addition of new elements to the cognitive structure and, above all, the updated representation of old elements.
L. Festinger also defined dissonance as a consequence of insufficient justification of choice. In an effort to strengthen the justification of an action, a person changes his attitude or his behavior, or changes his attitude towards the objects with which the action is associated, or devalues the meaning of the action for himself and others. When applying dissonance theory, there is usually no distinction made between beliefs, attitudes, intentions, behavior and their cognitive representation.
Cognitive dissonance affects people in different ways. We often encounter situations where our attitudes and views conflict with our behavior. Reducing Dissonance- This is the way we cope with feelings of discomfort and tension. In the context of an organization, people who are looking to find another job wonder why they continue to stay and work so hard. And as a result of dissonance, they can draw different conclusions: for example, the company is not so bad, what this moment they have no other alternatives, or that they will still quickly find another job and leave.
Job satisfaction
The most important attitudes at work are: job satisfaction, commitment to the organization, involvement in work, attitude towards joint activities(on oneself, on others, on competition, on cooperation, on confrontation). Let us dwell in more detail on job satisfaction and the attitude of employees towards their work.
Job satisfaction is a pleasant, positive emotional state arising from an evaluation of one's work or work experience, which is the result of the employees' own perception of how well the work provides important needs from their point of view. In OP, job satisfaction is considered the most important and often studied installation. Job satisfaction in to a greater extent is inherent in people who feel an incentive to work, whose psychological contract is fulfilled and the effort expended corresponds to the reward received.
Obviously, managers should be concerned about the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of their employees with work in a given organization. Satisfaction is influenced by organizational factors, group factors (especially the social environment at work), and personal factors (traits and dispositions). The two main consequences of satisfaction or dissatisfaction are absenteeism and turnover.
An individual’s perception of work is influenced by the internal organizational environment: the style of the leader, the nature of communications and domestic politics companies, technological processes, work planning, working conditions and additional payments, group norms and also the state of the market as a whole. A positive attitude determines a person’s constructive behavior at work, while a negative attitude towards work most likely predicts undesirable actions by an employee (irresponsibility, decreased level of involvement in work, absenteeism, dismissal, theft, etc.).
A significant part of the factors that determine the degree of employee satisfaction with work is outside the control of management, since already established individuals come to the organization with a set of individual characteristics, with an initial predisposition to life satisfaction (people with positive affect– PA, i.e., an optimistic view of the world) or dissatisfaction (people with negative affect - ON, i.e. a pessimistic outlook on life). A person's predisposition to PA manifests itself in high self-efficacy, a feeling of inner comfort, a positive perception of people and a kind attitude towards them. A person's predisposition to ON is expressed in nervousness, self-doubt, internal tension, restlessness, anxiety, irritability and poor attitude towards others, low self-esteem.
Of greatest interest is knowledge of situational factors in an organization that determine an individual’s attitudes. Let's give main factors influencing job satisfaction.
1. Salary. Sum monetary reward(wages and benefits) for work that is perceived to be socially fair (relative to the rewards of other workers) and consistent with personal expectations.
2. Actually work. The measure in which work assignments are perceived as interesting, intellectual and provide the opportunity for successful learning and taking responsibility, give a certain status and do not lead to excessive psychophysical fatigue.
3. Personal interest in the work itself. Work as a conscious and desired form of human existence (for example, hard workers and lazy people, the workaholic “syndrome” or types of morbid addiction to work).
4. Opportunities for promotion. Opportunity for growth and various forms career advancement taking into account the subjective value of remuneration.
5. Leadership style. The ability of a manager to show interest and care for a subordinate, provide technical and moral support, help reduce role conflict and ambiguity of the situation, and create an atmosphere of employee involvement in the decision-making process.
6. Colleagues, work colleagues. The degree of competence of colleagues, the level of their readiness to provide social support (goodwill, help, advice, comfort, cooperation, morale), the degree of similarity of basic values.
7. Working conditions, comparable to individual physical needs, which facilitate the solution of assigned tasks. Good conditions (clean, bright, ergonomic) to a certain extent contribute to job satisfaction.
A person's levels of satisfaction with each of these factors vary. An employee may feel that he is underpaid (dissatisfaction with the amount of wages), but at the same time his attitude towards other organizational factors may be positive. On people's job satisfaction within working group can be influenced by both co-workers and a supervisor or manager. The leader can also be considered as one of the organizational factors.
Job satisfaction can also be considered as a single attitude when applied to various components of the work process (results, vacation time, work schedule, relationships with superiors, career, etc.). Attitudes are formed over a long period of time, therefore the feeling of satisfaction develops dynamically as information about the workplace becomes available; they may unexpectedly change the plus sign to a minus sign. It is impossible to create conditions in an organization that once and for all guarantee a high sense of job satisfaction, since it depends on the individual’s overall satisfaction with life.
Research has shown that most workers are not completely satisfied with their jobs, nor are they highly dissatisfied. However, opinions various groups people (young people and older people, men and women, workers and employees) regarding job satisfaction differ significantly (see sidebar “Interesting experience”).
Job satisfaction is positively correlated with age, work experience, job level and satisfaction with pay. An employee can only be satisfied with such payment for his work, which he perceives as fair and reflective of the productivity of his work. Evidence regarding the impact of gender on job satisfaction is inconsistent. Provided that the job provides the performer with sufficient opportunities to challenge himself, satisfaction with it does not depend on cognitive abilities. Job satisfaction is influenced by job congruence, organizational justice, ability to use skills and personal qualities person. Losing a job has a detrimental effect on a person's self-esteem and health. Large-scale layoffs also have a negative impact on those who remain employed.
Job satisfaction is key concept management and is associated with such factors as staff turnover and absenteeism
Interesting experience
Another issue in the study of personality in social space- This is a problem of social attitudes.
IN general theory personality, the question of the relationship between needs and motives is considered to clarify the mechanisms that motivate a person to action. D.N. Uznadze defines attitude as a holistic dynamic state of the subject, a state of readiness for a certain activity, a state that is determined by two factors: the need of the subject and the corresponding objective situation.
Social setting- this is a concept that to a certain extent explains the choice of motive .
IN Western psychology to denote the concept social attitude the term "attitude" is used
G. Allport [2] counted 17 definitions of attitude, however, despite the difference, attitude was understood by everyone as a certain state of consciousness and nervous system, readiness to react, arising on the basis of previous experience, exerting a guiding and dynamic influence on behavior.
One of the first methods for studying attitudes - the “social distance scale” - was proposed by E. Bogardus [2] in 1925. The scale was intended to determine the degree of acceptability of another person as a representative of a certain nationality: to close kinship through marriage; to membership in my club as a personal friend; to living on my street as a neighbor; before working in my profession; to citizenship in my country. This kind of “thermometer” made it possible to measure and compare attitudes towards different nationalities.
Large, well-structured and rich in empirical research section social psychology personalities are change in attitudes. Researchers have mainly focused on nationalist attitudes. It turned out that prejudices arise in childhood as the ability to differentiate stimuli develops. They manifest themselves in limited contact and subsequent rejection of “they” groups and their symbols. Only much later is the justification for prejudice that has developed in a particular culture acquired. The discovery of the described sequence made it possible to change the methods of prevention: instead of explaining to primary schoolchildren the unfoundedness of nationalist prejudices, the teacher demonstrated the harmfulness of discrimination.
Attitudes are a product of influences to which a person is exposed from the very beginning. early childhood, this is the result of it personal experience and interactions with other people. In childhood, many attitudes develop in accordance with the parental model. They acquire their final form between 12 and 30 years. Between 20 and 30 years, installations “crystallize.” After this, settings are changed with great difficulty.
Attitudes and approved behavior in society may differ. A long-studied problem related to attitudes is the question of the relationship between behavior and attitude.
To show how people will try to maintain their beliefs and harmony in their belief system, various theories have been proposed. These theories can explain what can serve as an incentive for a change in attitude - the individual’s need to restore cognitive consistency, that is, an orderly, “unambiguous” perception of the world.
1. F. Heider's theory of cognitive correspondence (structural balance)[by 1].
A person has a tendency to look for attitudes that could support his high level harmonious relationships and “balance” between them and other people, and, conversely, to avoid such attitudes that could lead to a violation of this harmony. Harmony in a person's belief system will be higher, the more common views he shares with another person to whom he feels affection.
The model consists of elements: “P” – individual, “O” – another person, “X” – object of attitude. The cognitive system can have a balanced structure (the individual’s social attitudes are in agreement with each other) and an unbalanced one. Heider argues that people tend to prefer balanced situations. This is confirmed by empirical research. For a situation of balance, all positive, or one positive and two negative attitudes are required. However, the theory does not explain which attitude an individual would prefer to change.
2. The theory of cognitive dissonance by L. Festinger[by 1].
If there is a discrepancy between what a person knows and what he does, then the person will try to explain this contradiction and present it as consistent in order to achieve internal consistency.
The main position of the theory indicates that the existence of dissonance in the cognitive system is experienced as discomfort and prompts the individual to the following actions:
1) or make such changes that would weaken the dissonance;
2) or avoid situations and information that could lead to increased dissonance.
These two tendencies are a direct function of the amount of dissonance in the system: the greater the dissonance, the greater the need for change. Dissonance depends on the importance of the cognitions and the number of elements included in the dissonant relationship.
There are the following methods for mitigating (weakening) emerging dissonances:
· change one or more cognitive elements;
· add new components in favor of one of the parties;
· give elements less important;
· look for information that can soften dissonance, that is, create consonance;
· distort or reorient existing information.
Researchers have identified interesting fact: actions inconsistent with the attitude can lead to a change in attitude. This occurs under the condition that a person does not have an external justification for his behavior and, in this case, he is forced to turn to internal justification.
Dissonance depends entirely on the individual's cognitive system; it is a subjective variable. The greatest influence is exerted by cognitive dissonance affecting the self-concept.
3. Dispositional concept of V.A. Yadova[2 each].
Personality dispositions– these are predispositions to perceive and evaluate the activities of others and one’s own activities in a certain way. As well as the predilection to act in certain conditions in a certain way.
Dispositions arise when “meeting” a certain level of needs and certain level of situations their satisfaction. On different levels needs and different levels of situations, different dispositional formations operate (Fig. 5).
In the hierarchy of needs in theory, the following four levels are distinguished:
1. the sphere where human needs are realized – the immediate family environment;
2. a sphere connected by a contact (small) group in which the individual operates;
3. area of activity related to specific area labor, leisure, or everyday life;
4. scope of activity understood as defined social class structure, into which the individual is included through the development of ideological and cultural values society.
Situations in theory are structured according to the duration of existence of these activity conditions and include the following levels:
1. rapidly changing subject situations;
2. situations of group communication, characteristic of human activity within small group. They are much longer than the previous ones;
3. stable conditions of activity that take place in various social spheres (family, work, leisure);
4. sustainable operating conditions within certain type society.
Certain disposition arises and operates at the intersection of a certain level of needs and situations of their satisfaction.
In this case, four levels of dispositions are distinguished.
1. Installation(fixed settings according to Uznadze). Attitudes are formed on the basis of vital needs and in the simplest situations. These attitudes are devoid of modality (for or against) and are not realized by the subject.
2. Social fixed attitudes(attitudes). These are more complex dispositions that are formed on the basis of a person’s needs for communication carried out in a small contact group. These attitudes are formed on the basis of an assessment of individual social objects (or their properties) and individual social situations (their properties).
3. Basic social attitudes(the general orientation of an individual’s interests in relation to a specific sphere of social activity). These attitudes relate more to some significant social areas. For example, one can detect a dominant orientation in the sphere professional activity(career and professional growth).
4. System value orientations personalities . This system influences the goals of human life, as well as the means of achieving them. This system is formed on the basis of higher social needs personality and determined by general social conditions, type of society, system of its economic, cultural, ideological principles.
The main function of the dispositional system is the mental regulation of social activity or human behavior in the social environment.
Rice. 5. Hierarchical scheme of dispositional regulation social behavior personality (V.A. Yadov)
Thus, the theory identifies several hierarchical levels of behavior:
1st level of behavior - regulates “behavioral acts” - the individual’s immediate reactions to an active objective situation at a given point in time;
2nd level of behavior – regulates the actions of the individual, this is an elementary socially significant unit of behavior;
3rd level of behavior – regulates the systems of actions that form behavior in various fields life activity, where a person pursues significantly more distant goals, the achievement of which is ensured by a system of actions;
4th level of behavior – regulates the integrity of behavior; this is a kind of life “plan”, individual life goals related to the main social spheres human activity.
In each specific situation, depending on the goal, the leading role belongs to a certain dispositional formation, while the remaining dispositions represent “background levels.”
The undoubted advantage of the concept is that behavior and activity are carried out by the individual not only in the immediate objective situation, but also in the conditions wide system social connections and relationships. Moreover, the situation itself in which the action takes place is considered as an internal formative of the disposition and as a stimulus for its actualization.
Social attitude is a person's predisposition to perceive something in a certain way and act in one way or another. An attitude encourages a person to perform a certain activity. If the process of socialization explains how a person assimilates social experience and at the same time actively reproduces it, then the formation of a person’s social attitudes answers the question: how the learned social experience is refracted by the person and specifically manifests itself in his actions and actions.
D. Uznadze defined the attitude as a holistic dynamic state of readiness for a certain activity. This state is determined by the factors of the subject’s needs and the corresponding objective situation. The attitude towards behavior to satisfy a given need and in a given situation can be reinforced if the situation is repeated. D. Uznadze believed that attitudes underlie a person’s selective activity, and therefore are an indicator possible directions activities. Knowing a person’s social attitudes, one can predict his actions.
At the everyday level, the concept of social attitude is used in a meaning close to the concept of “attitude”. V. N. Myasishchev in his concept of human relations notes that a relationship is understood “as a system of temporary connections of a person as a personality-subject with all of reality or with its individual aspects,” the relationship determines the direction of the individual’s future behavior. L. I. Bozhovich in the study of personality formation in childhood established that orientation develops as the internal position of the individual in relation to the social environment, to individual objects of the social environment. Although these positions may be different in relation to diverse situations and objects, they can capture some general trend, which dominates, as a result it is possible to predict the behavior of an individual in previously unknown situations in relation to previously unknown objects. Personality orientation is a predisposition to act in a certain way, covering the entire sphere of its life activity. The concept of “personality orientation” appears to be of the same order with the concept of social attitude. In activity theory, a social attitude is interpreted as a personal meaning “generated by the relationship between motive and goal” (A. G. Asmolov, A. B. Kovalchuk).
In Western social psychology, the term is used to denote social attitudes "attitude". For the first time in 1918 W. Thomas And F. Znaniecki introduced the concept of attitude into socio-psychological terminology, which was defined as " an individual’s psychological experience of the value, meaning, meaning of a social object,” or as a state of consciousness of an individual, a regulating attitude and normative (exemplary) behavior of a person in relation to a certain social object, which causes psychological experience in a person social value, the meaning of this social object. Individuals, groups, social norms, social phenomena, organizations, social institutions(law, economics, marriage, politics), countries, etc. Attitude was understood as a certain state of consciousness and nervous system, expressing readiness to react, organized on the basis of previous experience, exerting a guiding and dynamic influence on behavior. Thus, the dependence of attitude on previous experience and its important regulatory role in behavior were established. Attitudes represent a latent (hidden) attitude towards social situations and objects, characterized by modality (therefore they can be judged by a set of statements). Four were identified attitude functions.
- 1) adaptive(utilitarian, adaptive) – the attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals;
- 2) knowledge function– attitude gives simplified instructions regarding the method of behavior in relation to a specific object;
- 3) expression function (function of value, self-regulation)– attitude acts as a means of freeing the subject from internal tension, expressing oneself as an individual;
- 4) protection function– attitude promotes resolution internal conflicts personality.
In 1942 M. Smith a three-component structure of the attitude was defined, which distinguishes:
- – cognitive component(awareness of the object of social installation);
- – affective component(emotional assessment of an object, a feeling of sympathy or antipathy towards it);
- – behavioral (conative) component(habitual behavior towards the object).
Social attitude was defined as awareness, assessment, readiness to act. Settings are formed:
- a) under the influence of other people (parents, media) and “crystallize” between the ages of 20 and 30, and then change with difficulty;
- b) based on personal experience in repeated situations.
Settings – these are beliefs or feelings that can influence our reactions. If we are convinced that a certain person threatens us, we can feel towards him dislike and therefore act unfriendly. But dozens of studies conducted in the 1960s showed that what people think and feel often has very little to do with their actual behavior. In particular, it was found that students’ attitude towards cheat sheets is very weakly related to how often they use them. Experiments R. Lapiera showed that attitudes (a person’s attitude towards some object) may not coincide or contradict a person’s real behavior. M. Rokeach expressed the idea that a person has two attitudes simultaneously: towards the object and towards the situation. Either one or another attitude can “turn on.” In different situations, either the cognitive or the affective components of the attitude may manifest themselves, and the result of human behavior will therefore be different (D. Katz And E. Stotland). Subsequent studies in the 1970s and 80s found that our settings really influence our actions under the following conditions: When other influences, external influences on our words and actions are minimal when attitude is specifically related to specific actions and When it becomes potentially active because it is brought to our consciousness. In such cases we we will hold fast to what we believe in.
The attitude regulates activity at three hierarchical levels: semantic, target and operational. At the semantic level, attitudes determine the individual’s attitude towards objects that have personal significance for a person. Goals determine the relatively stable nature of the activity and are associated with specific actions and a person’s desire to complete the work he has started. If the action is interrupted, then the motivational tension still remains, providing the person with the appropriate readiness to continue it. The effect of unfinished action was discovered by K. Levin and thoroughly studied by V. Zeigarnik. At the operational level, an attitude determines decision-making in a specific situation, promotes the perception and interpretation of circumstances based on past experience of a person’s behavior in a similar situation and predicting the possibilities of adequate and effective behavior.
The concept of attitude in domestic and foreign psychology.
The structure of a person's social attitude.
Dispositional concept of social attitude V.A. Yadova.
The problem of attitude in social psychology actually occupies a very important place, since it is the formation of numerous individual attitudes that makes it possible to determine how the social experience acquired in the process of socialization is refracted by the individual and specifically manifests itself in his actions and actions. It is through this attitude that it is possible to resolve the issue of regulating human behavior and activity.
Formation of the concept social setting should be considered in the development of two traditions: domestic general psychology and Western social psychology.
Dmitry Nikolaevich Uznadze and his students consider installation as a primary holistic undifferentiated state that precedes conscious mental activity and underlies behavior. Individual acts of behavior, all mental activity, are phenomena of secondary origin. An attitude is a mediating formation between the influence of the environment and mental processes that explains human behavior, his emotional and volitional processes, i.e. acts as a determinant of any activity of the body. Thus, thinking (as well as creative imagination, work, etc.) arises in a situation of difficulty in acts of behavior caused by a certain attitude, when the complication of the situation makes it necessary to make this difficulty a special object of study.
Types of attitudes: diffuse, motor, sensory, mental, social - readiness to perceive and act in a certain way.
In Western social psychology, the term “ attitude ”, which in literature in Russian is translated either as “social attitude”, or is used as a tracing paper from the English attitude. For the term “installation” (in the sense that was given to it in the school of D.N. Uznadze) there is another designation in English language– “set”. The study of attitudes is a completely independent line of research that does not follow the development of set ideas and has become one of the most developed areas of social psychology. The current situation in American research on attitude issues is characterized by an abundance of mini-theories (Shikhirev) and the absence of any generalizing theoretical concept.
The term “attitude” was proposed in 1918 by the American sociologist and social psychologist William Isaac Thomas and the greatest sociologist of the 20th century, Florian Witold Znaniecki. Later, many definitions of this concept were developed; after 10-12 years there were more than 100 of them, but all researchers’ understanding of attitude included the following: attitude – an individual’s psychological experience of the value, significance, and meaning of a social object. Attitudes are an evaluative attitude because they contain a positive or negative reaction to something. This state is formed on the basis of previous experience; it necessarily has a guiding and dynamic influence on human behavior.
The attitude serves to satisfy some important needs of the subject, but it was necessary to establish which ones. Four functions of attitudes were identified:
1) adaptive (sometimes called utilitarian, adaptive) - the attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals;
2) knowledge function - attitude gives simplified instructions regarding the method of behavior in relation to a specific object;
3) the function of expression (sometimes called the function of value, self-regulation) - attitude acts as a means of freeing the subject from internal tension, expressing oneself as an individual;
4) protection function - attitude contributes to the resolution of internal conflicts of the individual.
The attitude is able to perform all these functions because it has a complex structure.
Later, in 1942, Brewster M. Smith finds three components in the structure of attitude: cognitive, affective and behavioral (conative). In his opinion, a social attitude is nothing more than awareness, evaluation and readiness to act.
Affective component of attitudes – prejudices . The essence of prejudice is a negative preconceived opinion about a group and its individual members. Although some definitions of prejudice also refer to positive bias, the term “prejudice” is almost always used to refer to negative tendencies. Gordon Allport, in his classic work The Nature of Prejudice, called prejudice "an antipathy based on an erroneous and inflexible generalization."
Racial and gender prejudices have been studied most thoroughly.
Thanks to the mobility of people and migration processes that have marked the last two centuries, the races inhabiting the world have mixed, and their relationships are sometimes hostile and sometimes friendly. However, surveys even today reveal people who are not without prejudices. Agreeing or disagreeing with the statement “I am likely to feel uncomfortable dancing with a black gentleman (a black lady) in a public place” provides a more accurate picture of a white person's racial attitudes than agreeing or disagreeing with the statement “I am likely to , I will feel awkward if a black person (black woman) is on the bus with me.” Many people who are quite supportive of “ethnic diversity” at work or in educational institution, however, carry out free time in the society of people of their own race, they choose their lovers and life partners among them. This helps explain why, according to a survey of students at 390 colleges and universities, 53% of African Americans feel excluded from “social contact.” (24% of Asian Americans, 16% of Mexican Americans, and 6% of European Americans reported this.) And the problem with this majority-minority relationship is not just that the majority is white and the minority is people of color. On NBA basketball teams, white players (and in this case they are the minority) feel a similar disconnect from their teammates.
Prejudice and discriminatory behavior can be not only overt, but also hidden behind some other motives. In France, Great Britain, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands, vulgar racism is being replaced by disguised racial prejudices in the form of exaggeration of ethnic differences, less favorable attitudes towards emigrants from national minorities and discrimination against them on supposedly non-racial grounds. Some researchers call this hidden racism "modern racism" or "cultural racism."
The cognitive component of attitudes is represented by stereotypes . The term is taken from printing - a stereotype literally means an imprint. The eminent journalist Walter Liepmann, who in 1922 first introduced the term stereotype and described the difference between reality and stereotypes, called them “the little pictures that we carry in our heads.”
Stereotypes can be both positive and negative; in fact, people often hold positive stereotypes about groups against which they have negative prejudices. For example, people who dislike fellow citizens of Asian descent may nevertheless consider them intelligent and well-mannered.
The reasons for the emergence of stereotypes are usually a lack of knowledge, dogmatic upbringing, underdevelopment of the individual, or a stop for some reason in the processes of its development.
Stereotypes are generalized ideas about a group of people and that, as such, they can be true, false, or overgeneralized relative to the rationale they contain. Stereotypes are useful and necessary as a form of economy of thinking and action in relation to fairly simple and stable objects and situations, adequate interaction with which is possible on the basis of familiar and experience-confirmed ideas.
According to gender stereotypes men and women differ in their socio-psychological characteristics. Most people are of the opinion that men are characterized by such qualities as independence, self-reliance, emotional restraint, efficiency and professionalism, while women are characterized by softness, emotionality, indecisiveness, helplessness, and dependence. The assessment of all these qualities included in gender stereotypes is ambiguous and depends on the ideological and attitudinal positions of a person.
Indeed, the average man and woman differ somewhat from each other in such parameters as sociability, empathy, social influence, aggressiveness and sexual initiative, but not in intelligence. However, individual differences between men and women vary widely, and it is not uncommon for stereotypes to be misused altogether. Moreover, gender stereotypes often exaggerate differences that are actually minor;
Less noticeable, but perhaps no less powerful, is the effect awareness a person is aware that others hold negative prejudices and stereotypes about the group to which he or she belongs. Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson hypothesized that stereotype threat - fear of confirming the negative stereotypes of others makes it difficult for a person to perform a task at the level of his or her true capabilities. In a series of experiments undertaken to test this idea, students were asked to answer difficult questions taken from the oral section of a final exam. Black students performed worse than their abilities on a task, but only if their race was made visible and they were convinced that a poor answer would confirm the cultural stereotype that blacks are inferior to whites in their intelligence.
The behavioral component of the attitude is manifested in discrimination. Under discrimination usually refers to unfair treatment of others based on their group membership. Prejudice and discrimination are processes that occur at the individual level. When similar processes occur at the group or organizational level, they are called various "-isms" and institutional discrimination.
Jane Eliot, an American educator and anti-racist, became world famous after she invented a psychological experiment showing the groundlessness and complete unfoundedness of racial discrimination. On April 5, 1968, she began the lesson by asking the children what they thought about blacks. The children began to respond, mostly citing various racial stereotypes, such as that all blacks were mentally retarded, or that they were unable to do any kind of work. Then Jane asked the children if they wanted to know what it was like to be black and they agreed. Eliot divided the students into two groups - children with light, blue eyes were placed in the privileged group, and children with dark, brown eyes were placed in the oppressed caste. On the day of the experiment, the Blue Eyes were allowed to play in the new gymnasium, they could get a second helping for lunch, their recess was extended by five minutes, and Eliot praised them for their diligence and good answers in class. The other group, on the contrary, was deprived of all these privileges and, in addition, Eliot tied ribbons around the necks of all brown-eyed students. On the very first day, the results of the experiment were stunning - the blue-eyed people began to behave arrogantly and arrogantly, treating representatives of the other group with disdain. The grades of blue-eyed students improved, even those students who had previously performed worse. With the brown-eyed people the situation was completely opposite - they became quiet and subordinate, even those who had previously shown dominant positions in the class. They couldn't cope with simple tasks that previously didn't cause any difficulties. The next day, Jane conducted the same experiment, but switched the groups' roles. And the same situation repeated again - the previously servile and quiet brown-eyed people now began to be caustic and mocking towards the blue-eyed ones, and they, in turn, no longer showed the arrogance that they had shown the day before, having become humiliated and depressed. At 14:30 Jane stopped the experiment - she allowed the blue-eyed ones to remove the ribbons from their necks and the children rushed into each other's arms crying.
Jane then conducted a series of similar experiments in subsequent years with other children. Her experiments caused heated debate among educators and psychologists and brought understanding of the racial problem to a new level. The experiment showed that the backwardness, failure and other unfavorable characteristics of dark-skinned racial groups are caused not by their original origin, but by their oppression by the dominant race.
Racism, sexism, ageism are just a few examples of the many prejudicial thoughts and feelings that large groups of people may harbor towards other groups based on their biological, sociological or psychological characteristics
Institutional discrimination is discrimination that occurs at the level large group, society, organization or institution. These are unequal or unfair patterns of behavior or preferential treatment of people by a large group or organization solely on the basis of group membership. These patterns may or may not be conscious and intentional. We see daily reports of similar institutional discrimination occurring in the education system, commercial and industrial organizations, legal and judicial systems, and professional sports.
Three components have been identified in numerous experimental studies. Although they produced interesting results, many problems remained unresolved. Another difficulty arose regarding the connection between attitude and actual behavior. This difficulty was discovered after the famous experiment of Richard LaPierre in 1934.
LaPierre traveled around the United States with two Chinese students. They visited 252 hotels and in almost all cases (with the exception of one) they received a normal reception that met the service standards. No difference was found in the service provided by LaPierre himself and his Chinese students. After completing the trip (two years later), Lapierre contacted 251 hotels with letters asking them to answer whether he could hope for hospitality again if he visited the hotel accompanied by the same two Chinese, now his employees. The answer came from 128 hotels, and only one contained consent, 52% refused, and the rest were evasive. Lapierre interpreted these data to mean that there is a discrepancy between the attitude (attitudes towards people of Chinese nationality) and the actual behavior of hotel owners. From the responses to the letters, one could conclude that there was a negative attitude, while in actual behavior it was not manifested; on the contrary, the behavior was organized as if it were carried out on the basis of a positive attitude.
This finding was called “Lapierre's paradox” and gave rise to deep skepticism regarding the study of attitude. It turned out that real behavior is not built in accordance with the attitude. The decline in interest in attitudes was largely due to the discovery of this effect.
Thus, the attitude is a psychological mechanism for regulating both the unconscious and conscious activity of the subject; it “serves” both the simplest and most complex forms of social behavior. The mechanism of “triggering” of a social attitude depends not only on the needs, situation, their satisfaction, but also on the motivation for committing a specific act by an individual or a group of people. This depends on the so-called disposition in which the subject of activity finds himself.
Leningrad sociologist V.A. Yadov, developed his original dispositional concept of social attitude.
Disposition (or predisposition) - the readiness, predisposition of the subject to a behavioral act, action, deed, their sequence. In personalistic psychology (W. Stern), disposition denotes a causally unconditioned propensity to act; in G. Allport’s personality theory, it means numerous personality traits (from 18 to 5 thousand), forming a complex of predispositions to a certain reaction of the subject to external environment. In Russian psychology, the term “disposition” is used primarily to denote a person’s conscious readiness to assess a situation and behave, conditioned by its previous experience.
The concepts of “attitudes” or social attitudes also emphasize their direct connection with a specific (social) need and the conditions of activity in which the need can be satisfied. The change and consolidation (fixation) of a social attitude is also determined by the corresponding relationships between needs and situations in which they are satisfied.
Consequently, the general mechanism for the formation of a fixed attitude at one or another level is described by the formula P -> D<- С,
where P is a need, D is a disposition, C is a situation or conditions of activity.
Both needs, activity situations, and dispositions themselves form hierarchical systems. Concerning needs , then highlighting the needs of the first (lower) level as psychophysiological or vital, as well as more elevated, social ones, is generally accepted.
V.A. Within the framework of his concept, Yadov structured the needs according to the levels of inclusion of the individual in various spheres of social communication and social activity. These levels of human inclusion in various spheres of social communication can be designated as
initial inclusion in the near future family environment ,
into numerous so-called contact groups or small groups ,
at one time or another field of work ,
inclusion through all these channels, as well as many others, into a holistic social class system through the development of ideological and cultural values of society.
The basis of the classification here is, as it were, a consistent expansion of the boundaries of the individual’s activity, the need or need for certain and expanding conditions for the full functioning of a person.
The conditions of activity or situations in which certain needs of an individual can be realized also form a certain hierarchical structure.
The basis for structuring is the length of time during which the main characteristics of these conditions are preserved (i.e., the activity situation can be accepted as stable or unchanged).
The lowest level of such a structure is formed by subject situations , the peculiarity of which is that they are created by a specific and rapidly changing subject environment. Over a short period of time, a person moves from one such “objective situation” to another.
Next level - conditions of group communication . The duration of such situations of activity is incomparably longer. For a considerable period of time, the main features of the group in which human activity takes place remain unchanged.
The conditions of activity in one or another are even more stable social sphere - in the areas of work, leisure, family life (in everyday life).
Finally, maximum stability in terms of time (and in comparison with those indicated above) is characteristic of the general social conditions of human life, which constitute the main features (economic, political, cultural) social "situation" » his activity.
In other words, the social situation undergoes significant changes within the framework of “historical” time; conditions of activity in a particular social sphere (for example, in the sphere of labor) can change several times during a person’s life; the conditions of a group situation change over the course of years or months, and the subject environment changes in a matter of minutes.
Let us now turn to the central member of our scheme P -> D<- С , i.e. to personality dispositions, these dispositional formations are also formed into a certain hierarchy.
1. Its lowest level apparently includes elementary fixed installations. They are formed on the basis of vital needs and in the simplest situations. These attitudes, as a readiness for action fixed by previous experience, lack modality (experience “for” or “against”) and are unconscious (there are no cognitive components). According to D.N. Uznadze, consciousness is involved in the development of an attitude when a habitual action encounters an obstacle and a person objectifies his own behavior, comprehends it, when the act of behavior becomes the subject of comprehension. Although not the content of consciousness, attitude “lies at the basis of these conscious processes.”
2. The second level of dispositional structure - social fixed attitudes , more precisely, a system of social attitudes. In contrast to elementary behavioral readiness, a social attitude has a complex structure. It contains three main components: emotional (or evaluative), cognitive and behavioral. In other words, it is an “attitude” or “attitude”. Social attitudes are formed on the basis of the assessment of individual social objects (or their properties) and individual social situations (or their properties).
3. The next dispositional level is the general orientation of the individual’s interests in one or another sphere of social activity, or basic social attitudes . With some simplification, we can assume that these attitudes are formed on the basis of complex social needs of familiarization with a certain field of activity and inclusion in this field. In this sense, the orientation of the individual represents identification with a particular area of social activity. For example, you can find a dominant focus on the sphere of professional activity, in the sphere of leisure, on the family (the main interests are concentrated on family life, raising children, creating home comfort, etc.). It is assumed that social attitudes at this level also contain three components: cognitive, emotional (evaluative) and behavioral. Moreover, the cognitive formations of such dispositions are much more complex than those of the lower level. At the same time, the general orientation of the individual is more stable than attitudes towards individual social objects or situations.
4. The highest level of the dispositional hierarchy is formed by the system value orientations for the goals of life and the means to achieve these goals. The system of value orientations is ideological in its essence. It is formed on the basis of the highest social needs of the individual (the need for inclusion in a given social environment in a broad sense as the internalization of general social, social and class conditions of life) and in accordance with general social conditions that provide opportunities for the realization of certain social and individual values.
The expediency of including in the regulation of activity a certain dispositional formation, fixed in past experience, directly depends
from the needs of the corresponding vital or social level and
on the level of the situation or operating conditions.
To regulate behavior at the level of an elementary behavioral act in a certain objective situation, one or another elementary fixed attitude may be adequate; to regulate a socially significant act in given circumstances, leading dispositions are most likely extracted from a system of fixed social attitudes; in the case of regulation of activity in a certain social sphere, “responsibility” for general readiness lies with basic social attitudes and the direction of an individual’s interests, and in the regulation of an individual’s social activity as a whole, his value orientations acquire dominant importance as the highest level of the dispositional hierarchy.
However, under certain conditions, a relatively elementary behavioral act can be regulated by a higher-level disposition, as is the case if this act is given unusual social significance due to prevailing circumstances.
Based on the concepts of dispositional regulation of behavior, the cognitive, emotional and behavioral components, reflecting the basic properties of the dispositional structure, form relatively independent subsystems within the framework of the general dispositional hierarchy. The basis for this assumption is the experimental data from “attitude” studies.
The development of the proposed concept eliminates the “isolation” of a social attitude from a broader context and assigns it a certain, important, but limited place in the regulation of the entire system of individual activity.
Now, from the point of view of dispositional regulation of behavior, the Lapierre paradox is easily explained: cases of inconsistency between a particular social attitude and an observed action can be explained by the fact that the leading role in the regulation of behavior belonged to a disposition of a different level. Thus, the value orientation towards the prestige of the establishment dictated a negative response regarding service to people of color. And the same orientation presupposes compliance with accepted rules of service if the client, as they say, is “standing on the threshold.”
One of the main problems that arises when studying social attitudes is the problem of changing them. Ordinary observations show that any of the dispositions possessed by a particular subject can change. Many different models have been put forward to explain the process of changing social attitudes. These explanatory models are constructed in accordance with the principles that are applied in a particular study.
A person, being a subject of communication in a group, occupying a certain position in the social environment, shows an evaluative, selective attitude towards the people that surround him.
She compares, evaluates, compares and selects individuals for interaction and communication, taking into account the capabilities of a particular group, her own needs, interests, attitudes, experience, which together constitute a specific situation of a person’s life, appearing as a socio-psychological stereotype of her behavior.
The essence of a social attitude
The characteristics of an individual’s response to the environment and the situations in which he finds himself are associated with the action of phenomena that are designated by the concepts of “attitude,” “attitude,” “social attitude,” and so on.
The personality’s attitude indicates its readiness to act in a certain way, which determines the speed of its response to the situation and some illusions of perception.
Attitude is a holistic state of the individual, a readiness developed on the basis of experience to firmly respond to perceived objects or situations, selective activity aimed at satisfying a need.
Traditionally, attitude is viewed as readiness for a certain activity. This readiness is determined by the interaction of a specific need with the situation, its pleasure. Accordingly, attitudes are divided into actual (undifferentiated) and fixed (differentiated, produced as a result of repeated exposure to the situation, that is, based on experience).
An important form of attitude is social attitude.
Attitude (English attitude - attitude, attitude) - the internal state of a person’s readiness for action, precedes behavior.
Attitude is formed on the basis of preliminary socio-psychological experience, unfolds at conscious and unconscious levels and regulates (directs, controls) the behavior of the individual. Vel predetermines stable, consistent, purposeful behavior in situations that change, and also frees the subject from the need to make decisions and voluntarily control behavior in standard situations; it can be a factor that causes inertia in action and inhibits adaptation to new situations that require changes in the behavior program .
American sociologists William Isaac Thomas and Florian-Witold Znaniecki turned to the study of this problem in 1918, who considered attitude as a phenomenon of social psychology. They interpreted a social attitude as a certain mental state of an individual’s experience of the value, meaning or meaning of a social object. The content of such an experience is predetermined by external, that is, localized in society, objects.
Social attitude is an individual’s psychological readiness, determined by past experience, for certain behavior in relation to specific objects, for the development of his subjective orientations as a member of a group (society) regarding social values, objects, etc.
Such orientations determine socially acceptable ways of behavior of an individual. Social attitude is an element of the personality structure and at the same time an element of the social structure. From the point of view of social psychology, it is a factor capable of overcoming the dualism of the social and the individual, considering socio-psychological reality in its integrity.
Its most important functions are anticipatory and regulatory (readiness for action, a prerequisite for action).
According to G. Allport, an attitude is an individual’s psycho-nervous readiness to react to all objects and situations with which he is associated. Producing a directing and dynamic influence on behavior, it is always dependent on past experience. Allport's idea of a social attitude as an individual formation differs significantly from V.-A.'s interpretation of it. Thomas and F.-W. Znnetsky, who considered this phenomenon close to collective ideas.
Important signs of an attitude are the intensity of affect (positive or negative) - the attitude towards the psychological object, its latency, accessibility for direct observation. It is measured on the basis of verbal self-reports of respondents, which are a generalized assessment of the individual’s own feeling of inclination or disinclination towards a specific object. So, attitude is a measure of the sensation caused by a specific object ("for" or "against"). The scales of attitudes of the American psychologist Louis Thurstone (1887-1955) were built on this principle, which is a bipolar continuum (set) with poles: “very good” - “very bad”, “completely agree” - “disagree” and the like.
The structure of the attitude is formed by cognitive (cognitive), affective (emotional) and conative (behavioral) components (Fig. 5). This gives grounds to consider a social attitude simultaneously as the subject’s knowledge about an object and as an emotional assessment and program of action regarding a specific object. Many scientists see a contradiction between affective and its other components - cognitive and behavioral, arguing that the cognitive component (knowledge about an object) includes a certain assessment of the object as useful
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or harmful, good or bad, and conative - includes an assessment of the action in relation to the subject of the attitude. In real life, it is very difficult to separate the cognitive and conative components from the affective one.
This contradiction was clarified during the study of the so-called “G. Lapierre paradox” - the problem of the relationship between attitudes and real behavior, which proved the groundlessness of statements about their coincidence.
In the second half of the 20th century. individual psychological and socio-psychological lines emerged in the understanding of social attitudes. Within the framework of the first, behavioral and cognitive studies are developed, the second is associated primarily with the interactionist orientation and is focused on the study of socio-psychological mechanisms and factors regulating the process of emergence and change in the social attitudes of the individual.
The understanding of social attitudes by interactionist psychologists was influenced by the position of the American psychologist George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) on the symbolic mediation of interaction between a person and the world around him. In accordance with it, the individual, who has symbolic means at his disposal (primarily language), explains external influences for himself and then interacts with the situation in its symbolically expressed quality. Accordingly, social attitudes are considered as certain mental formations that arise on the basis of assimilation of the attitudes of others, reference groups and individuals. Structurally, they are elements of a person’s “I-concept”, defined definitions of socially desirable behavior. This gives grounds to interpret them as a conscious type of behavior fixed in a symbolic form, which is given an advantage. The basis of social attitudes is the consent of the subject to consider certain objects and situations through the prism of social norms and values.
Other approaches interpreted a social attitude as a stable system of views and ideas associated with the individual’s need to maintain or break relationships with other people. its stability is ensured either by external control, which manifests itself in the need to obey others, or by the process of identification with the environment, or by its important personal meaning for the individual. This understanding only partially took into account the social, since the analysis of the attitude unfolded not from society, but from the individual. In addition, the emphasis on the cognitive component of the structure of the attitude leaves out of sight its objective aspect - value (value attitude). This fundamentally contradicts the statement of V.-A. Thomas and F.-W. Znavetsky about value as an objective aspect of an attitude, respectively, about the attitude itself as an individual (subjective) aspect of value.
Of all the components of an attitude, the leading role in the regulatory function is played by the value (emotional, subjective) component, which permeates the cognitive and behavioral components. The concept of “social position of the individual,” which unites these components, helps to overcome the discrepancy between the social and the individual, attitudes and value orientations. Value orientation is the basis for the emergence of a position, as a component of the personality structure; it forms a certain axis of consciousness around which a person’s thoughts and feelings revolve, and taking into account which many life issues are resolved. The property of a value orientation to be an attitude (a system of attitudes) is realized at the level of the individual’s position, when the value approach is perceived as attitudinal, and the constituent approach as value-based. In this sense, a position is a system of value orientations and attitudes that reflect the active selective relationships of an individual.
Even more integral than the attitude, the equivalent of the dynamic structure of the personality is the mental disposition of the individual, which includes objectively oriented and nonobjective mental states. Like value orientation, it precedes the emergence of a position. The condition for the emergence of a person’s position and its evaluative attitude and a certain mental state (mood), which provides positions of different emotional tones - from deep pessimism, depression to life-affirming optimism and enthusiasm.
The constituent-positional, dispositional approach to personality structure interprets disposition as a complex of inclinations, readiness for a certain perception of the conditions of activity and for a certain behavior in these conditions (V. Yadov). In this understanding, it is very close to the concept of “installation”. According to this concept, personality disposition is a hierarchically organized system with several levels (Fig. 6):
Elementary fixed attitudes without modality (experiences for or against) and cognitive components;
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Social fixed attitudes (attitudes);
Basic social attitudes, or the general orientation of an individual’s interests towards a specific area of social activity;
A system of orientations towards the goals of life and the means of achieving these goals.
This hierarchical system is the result of previous experience and the influence of social conditions. In it, the higher levels carry out general self-regulation of behavior, the lower ones are relatively independent, they ensure the adaptation of the individual to changing conditions. The dispositional concept is an attempt to establish the relationship between dispositions, needs and situations, which also form hierarchical systems.
Depending on what objective factor of activity the attitude is directed at, three levels of behavior regulation are distinguished: semantic, target and operational attitudes. Semantic attitudes contain informational (a person’s worldview), emotional (likes, dislikes in relation to another object), and regulatory (readiness to act) components. They help to perceive the system of norms and values in the group, maintain the integrity of the individual’s behavior in situations of conflict, determine the individual’s line of behavior, and the like. Target attitudes are determined by goals and determine the sustainability of a certain human action. In the process of solving specific problems based on taking into account the conditions of the situation and predicting their development, operational attitudes appear that manifest themselves in stereotypical thinking, conformal behavior of the individual, and the like.
Consequently, a social attitude is a stable, fixed, rigid (inflexible) formation of a person, which stabilizes the direction of his activity, behavior, ideas about himself and the world. According to some statements, they form the structure of the personality, according to others, they only occupy a certain place among the qualitative levels of the personal hierarchy.
