An attitude is a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events, or symbols. It is a learned tendency or predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner for a given object.

 

Attitudes can be of various types like explicit and implicit attitudes, positive and negative attitudes. Though we are having many types of attitudes but mainly we deal with four types of attitudes. They are:

1. Moral Attitudes
2. Political Attitudes
3. Bureaucratic Attitudes
4. Democratic Attitudes

 

MORAL ATTITUDES

Morality refers to righteousness. An action is regarded as right by the society is a moral action. Thus moral attitudes are the attitudes concerned with righteous manners. Therefore Moral Attitudes are attitudes of individuals towards moral issues. Moral attitudes are often shaped by the moral values an individual possesses.

 

There are a lot of moral issues currently – Reproductive cloning, surrogate motherhood, abortion, sex selection, euthanasia, cap­ital punishment, homosexuality, porn, sexual orientation, abortion, honour killing, consumerism, owning per­sonal weapons, gambling, prohibition etc. being some of them. Your attitude towards these issues comes under the broad category of moral attitude.

 

Moral attitudes are stronger than moral beliefs. Moral attitudes give a basis to the whole of moral life. Human values such as truthfulness, sincerity, forgiveness and compassion, along with the natural predispositions of a human being, should be cultivated for leading a moral life.

 

• Moral Attitudes: Moral Attitudes are attitudes of individuals towards moral issues. ones attitudes towards the moral issues like Euthanasia, Right to Abortion, surrogacy, eating habits, capital punishment etc. comes under the ambit of Moral attitudes.
• Moral attitudes are grounded in moral beliefs of “Right” and “wrong” action. Moral attitudes are stronger than moral principles.
• Role of family and society in formation of Moral attitudes: Family, society, religion and education contribute a lot in shaping those moral convictions.
• Moral Attitude & Emotions: Moral attitudes are tied up with strong emotions. Hence prevents deviant behaviors among normal folks due to fear of social Ostracisation. For Instance: child molestation, incest etc.  Apart from these, People with good moral attitudes will possess the qualities like goodness, reverence, faithfulness, tolerance etc.
• The positive impact of Moral attitude is that it will encourage a person towards Altruism, volunteerism, social service.
• The Negative impact of moral attitude is that person can use such attitude to defend violence behaviour and insanity and still society will accept it because moral attitude is a strong emotion. It motivates a person towards riots, massacre and terrorism. Since moral attitude is tied with strong sentiments, people do not get along with those who do not share their moral attitude.

 

Moral attitudes are traits that eventually lead to a peaceful world. These are behavioral patterns that strive for a better society, welfare of every individual and peaceful co-existence. They shape the world which we live in. These help in sustaining families. These help in building a nation. These are shaped by conviction and one's religious beliefs. Therefore moral attitudes encourage a person towards Altruism, volunteerism, social service

 

POLITICAL ATTITUDES

Political attitude means qualitative evaluation of a political ideology and the ways of implementation of the same. The process of politics is guided by various political ideologies. These ideologies can be broadly categorized as Leftist ideology, Centrist ideology and Rightist ideology.

 

 

• Political Attitudes: The political attitudes are attitudes of individuals towards the political issues. Political attitudes fall on a range between extremely liberal and extremely conservative.
• Political attitude tells us which party someone vote for, what kind of political ideology someone prefer most, which social, economic, cultural, international policy someone prefer etc.
• Manifestations of Political attitudes: some of the manifestations of Political attitudes are as mentioned below:

1. Voting and Participation in elections from particular party
2. Articles and News published in Newspapers/ media channels.
3. Expressions on social media.
4. Sloganeering in public in support or against some issues.

• Attitude towards the political issues like Reservations in India, Opinion towards voting and reluctance to vote in elections, secularism, patriotism, corruption in governance etc. comes under the broad ambit of Political attitude.

 

Functions of Political attitude:

• Maintaining Political Culture: Maintaining of political culture is vital function of political attitude. This function is performed by having communication between political cultures from a generation to another generation. But in present situation, the political socialization does not always act for maintaining political culture.
• Alteration of Political Culture: Modification of political culture is an important function of political attitude formulation.
• Building Political Culture: Creating political culture is performed by means of process of political attitude formulation. Every society needs to create new political culture with the establishment of new political system.
• Foundation of Present Pattern of Political System: There is no scope for difference of opinions of opposition into totalitarian state whereas if we see there are in number of opportunities for difference of opinions and opposition in open societies
• Continuity and Change: There is continuity and change in attitude formulation and this is an important factor of the process of attitude formulation