Define attitude. Discuss the components of an attitude.
Attitudes are state of the mind, set of views or thoughts or ideas regarding some topic which have an evaluative feature (positive, negative or neutral). These are relatively stable predispositions.
Various components of an attitude are as follows:
(i) The thought component is referred to as the cognitive aspect of attitude.
(ii) The emotional component is known as the affective aspect.
(iii) The tendency to act is called the behavioural (conative) aspect. These three aspects have been referred to as the A-B-C (affective-behavioural-cognitive) components of attitude. Attitudes are themselves not a tendency to behave or act in certain ways. They are part of cognition, along with an emotional component which cannot be observed from outside.
