What is Attitude and what are the components of Attitude?

What is attitude?
Attitude can be described as a tendency to react positively or negatively to a person or circumstances. Thus the two main elements of attitude are this tendency or predisposition and the direction of this predisposition. It has been defined as a mental state of readiness, organize to through experience which exerts a directive or dynamic influence on the responses on a individual to all objects and situations with which the individual is related. The encyclopedia of social sciences described attitude as a comparatively enduring organization of interrelated beliefs which describe and evaluate the action with respect to an object or a situation, with each belief having cognitive effect and behavioral components. Each of these beliefs is a predisposition that results in some preferential response towards the object or the situation. The concept of an attitude originated in the United States of America.

What are the components of Attitude?
Experts has pointed out three basic components of attitude. These are :

(i) Emotional : Emotional components include the feelings of a person about and object. These feeling could be positive, negative or neutral. While customer service representative displays positive feelings, a police officer or a bill collector would exhibit negative feelings. Similarly while discharging administrative duties public servants are required to show neutral feelings.

(ii) Informational : The beliefs and information that the individual has about the object are the informational component of attitude. Here it makes little difference if the information is correct or incorrect.

(iii) Behavioral : This components of attitude consist of a tendency of an individual to behave in a particular way towards and object. Only this components of attitude is visible as the other two can only be inferred.