ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to define an attitude and to distinguish it from other psychological entities, looks at how attitudes are formed, explores the functions of an attitude, and also explores how attitudes can be changed. That something is salient to understanding how attitudes can be changed. A manager senses things are not quite right with the workforce: 'right now one could do with an attitude survey'. Attitudes are formed by experience and organised in a coherent way within the self. Attitudes tend to be focused on an object, a person, groups, specific behaviour and particular ideas. The character of attitudes: they influence the formation of goals, they are learnt and endure, and they imply both evaluation and feeling. Attitudes are learnt – babies do not have attitudes! They are learnt by absorbing the culture, through experiences and through our own behaviour. Remember that attitudes can easily be confused with motivation – that person has a bad attitude or a good attitude.
