Attitude In Nursing

1. ATTITUDE
PRESENTED BY:-
Mr. Deepak Suwalka
Assistant Professor

4. The Iceberg phenomena is also applicable on human
beings …
especially in their behavior

5. Definition
 An attitude is a readiness to respond in
such a way that behavior is given a certain
direction. (Travers).
 According to Whittaker an attitude is defined
as a predisposition or readiness to respond in
a pre-determined manner to relevant stimuli.

6. Nature of Attitude
 Attitudes have a subject-object relationship.
It is related to specific objects, persons, groups, institutions, values etc.
 Attitude are learned. They are not inherent or innate in individual.
 It depend on the life training and circumstances.
 It is relatively enduring states of readiness.
 It helps us in making proper responses.
 It helps in motivation.
 It is different according to stimuli.
 It ranges from strongly positive to strongly negative.

7. Concept
 An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an
individual's degree of like or dislike for an item.
 Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a
person, place, thing, or event, this is often referred to as the
attitude object.
 Attitude which represent ones belief, feeling and ideas,
action, tendency towards object and ideas.
 When a person feels about something, about a place,
commodity and a situation or an idea is called attitude.

8. Components of Attitude
Cognitive Components
Emotional (Affective) Components
Behavioral Components

9.  Cognitive Components-
The Belief, Knowledge and information.
E.g.- If a Person does not like or negative attitude about the
nuclear bomb, In interview if he asked about the nuclear bomb he give
negative points only means he does not like the nuclear bomb that
means his belief and information is negative for that.
 Emotional (Affective) Components-
Feelings, Sentiments and moods of emotions towards a particular
object
E.g. -Wanted to go for a night shift job rather that a General Shift
Job
 Behavioral Components-
Way of thinking, Behaving and feelings.
E.g. -If some one like the Principal of the college his attitude is
made by feelings and behavioral aspects

10. Development of Attitude
Attitudes are learnt and acquired through the following sources.
1. Integration of experiences: acquired from different experiences of
different people from different sources. Attitude of Hindus towards
Muslims and vice versa.
2. Differentiation of experiences: when new experiences are
acquired they are differentiated or segregated from the old acquired
one and more specific attitude is formed.
3. Trauma or dramatic experience: After effect of any trauma or
incident. A shopkeeper may develop negative attitude towards
students if his shops were burnt by students during a strike.
4. Adoption of the available attitudes: a readymade approach.
Following friends, teachers, parents, community etc.

11. Factors Influencing Attitude Formation
A. Factors within the individual
Physical growth and development: Poor health, poor
adjustment may develop poor attitudes.
Intellectual Development: Factors such as memory,
understanding, thinking capacity, reasoning ability etc.
Emotional Development: Factors such as emotional
maturity, social adjustment, social approval etc.
Social Development: Factors such as Social interaction
may create social or antisocial attitudes.
Ethical and Moral Development: God is one or many.
Concept of values and ideals.

12. B. Factors in the Environment:
Home and Family: Values and concepts in the family, Attitude
of the family members, Faulty upbringing of the child unhealthy
family relationship.
Social environment: School, teachers, classmates, teaching
methods, curriculum and subjects etc.
It also include religious groups, social clubs, mass media,
celebrities, advertisements, newspaper etc.

13. Behavior and Attitude
Attitudes can be favorable or unfavorable or negative or
positive and represent predispositions to react or respond to
certain stimuli.
Negative attitude towards a religion will color the reactions
towards the religion.
Positive attitude towards a political party will appreciate its
policies, functions and governances.
Positive or negative attitude towards social evils such as
untouchability, dowry, child marriage, remarriage, population
control, environmental protection etc. will alter their behavior too.
A students listens to the teacher to whom she has a positive
attitude.

15. Behavior and Attitude
Positive attitude:
The predisposition that results in desirable
outcomes for individuals and organizations.
Negative attitude:
The tendency of a person that result in an
undesirable outcome for individuals and
organizations.

16. Attitudinal Change
 Providing proper education. Both curricular and co-curricular or
formal and informal education.
 Making use of propaganda machinery: It is an information,
especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a
political cause or point of view. Mainly used but organizations and
government to increase the rating.
Eg. Creation of violence in Kashmir makes the state always hotter
both for politics and religious purpose.
 Using fear inducing mechanism: Punishment, rules, legal
aspects.
Eg. The laws on atrocities against women make us to behave
properly with women.

17.  Use of modeling technique: Setting an example. Good
films, serials, social and political figures can set themselves
as an example for making attitudinal change in others.
 Direct personal experiences:
E.g. If you are helped by a person of another religion during
a communal violence then attitude towards that religion also
changes.
 Bringing desired changes in beliefs and values: Since the
attitudes are associated with beliefs and values, it is better to
educate a person to modify his beliefs and values in order to
change the attitude.
E.g. If a person possess a negative attitude towards
caste/religion because of his sheer ignorance and false beliefs,
he may be helped with proper education to change the attitude.

18. Barriers to Changing an Attitude
 Cognitive Dissonance(Lack of harmony)-
When a person behaves in a fashion that is inconsistent with
his or her attitude, it means he or she knows it is wrong but still
continue to inconsistency.
E.g. Belittling the evidence about smoking and cancer. Most
people think that human data are correlational.
 Prior Commitment-
Means the belief is unchanged and unwilling to change.
 Insufficient Information-
E.g. Two Way Communication is not possible from TOP
Management and Workers which creates a negative attitude.

19. Psychometric assessment
of
Attitude
This can be done in two ways.
Direct Method
Indirect Method.

20. Direct Method:
1. Questioning and interview technique:
asking the individual directly how he feels about a subject.
2. Check List:
asking to mark those statements from a list with which he is
in agreement.
3. Attitude Scale: These are described as the following:
 Thurston’s Attitude Scale
 Likert Attitude Scale

21. Thurston’s Attitude Scale
 These are also known as equal appearing intervals scale.
 A large number of statements representing a variety of
opinions on a subject are collected.
 These statements are given to a number of judges who will
sort the statements into two categories very favorable to very
unfavorable.
 The finished scale then consists of the clearly defined
opinions on the subject.
 Each of these are assigned a value based on the median
scale positions given by the judges. (order of arrangement i.e.
from 1 to 11)

24. Likert Attitude Scale
Likert (1932) developed the principle of measuring attitudes
by asking people to respond to a series of statements about a
topic, in terms of the extent to which they agree with them and
so tapping into the cognitive and affective components of
attitudes.
Respondents may be offered a choice of five to seven or even
nine pre-coded responses with the neutral point being neither
agree nor disagree.
In constructing such a scale a number of items concerning a
particular subject are collected.
The individual is asked to indicate the degree of his
agreement or disagreement with each item on a five point scale.

25. SA: Strong Agreement, A: Agreement, I:Undecided,
D: Disagreement, SD: Strong disagreement.
Scores are given from 1 to 5 depends on the type of
questions. Scores are analyzed
Below given one example:

26. Indirect Method:
 Assessment of Attitude
Verbal expression of attitude has limitations. One may conceal real
attitude.
Overt behavior is not always the true expression of their attitude
towards a thing.
In these circumstances we use projective techniques. These are
measurement methods in disguised manner.
The examinee may not know the real purpose of the test and may
blindly answer. An intelligent interpretation of these tests can
determine right attitude.
These techniques are mostly used also for personality assessment
and hence it will be discussed in the next unit.

27. The Choice is YOURS
With a Bad attitude,
you can never have a positive day!!
With a Positive attitude,
you can never have a bad day!!
“Things are the way you think they are,
because you think they are that way.”

28. THANK YOU !!