Revision summary
Value: general, stable, public criterion of the worthy; judges many targets. Attitude: specific liking or disliking with affect and readiness to act. Opinion: often cooler, verbal, issue-bound, cheaper to change with a fact. One value can overrule a hostile attitude on the file. An opinion that punctuality matters is not yet an attitude that arrives on time.
Model answer
Introduction
Attitude, value, and opinion sit on one psychological shelf and are not the same object. Civil service needs the difference because a posting can change an opinion overnight, while a value should still rank the file, and an attitude may still slam the counter.
Body
(a) Attitude and value
- Definitional difference: an attitude is a relatively specific, lasting liking or disliking of an object — a party, a scheme, a community, e-office. A value is a more general, more stable standard of the worthy — truth, dignity, equality — that can judge many attitudes.
- Scope: one value (fairness) can generate attitudes to many objects (a tender, a relief list, a colleague). An attitude is tied to a target; a value is a criterion.
- Stability: values change slowly, if at all, across a career; attitudes can shift with a scandal, a transfer, or Festinger’s dissonance after a new act.
- Depth: Rokeach placed values at the core of the self; attitudes are closer to the surface, though a strong attitude can feel like a value and do equal harm.
- Function: values rank ends when goods collide; attitudes ready a response to a particular object. An officer may dislike a noisy petitioner (attitude) and still owe him equality (value).
- Moral rank: a value claims public justification; an attitude may be a mere taste (‘I hate computers’) without a civic claim.
- Case-ready: ‘I do not like this caste’ is an attitude; ‘dignity is due to every citizen’ is a value that must overrule it on the file.
(b) Attitude and opinion
- Definitional difference: an opinion is a cognitive, often verbal, judgement on an issue — ‘this tax is too high’, ‘this officer is corrupt’ — that may be lightly held. An attitude includes affect and a readiness to act, not only a sentence.
- Affect: an opinion can be cool and revisable with one fact; an attitude is warmer and resists a single memo. Allport’s readiness is the extra that opinion may lack.
- Behavioural implication: an attitude predicts approach or avoidance (a boycott, a delayed file, a smile). An opinion may stay in the canteen and never reach the stamp.
- Specificity: opinions are often issue-bound and current; attitudes can generalise to a whole group or institution.
- Measurement: surveys harvest opinions; the desk reveals attitudes. A staff that ‘opines’ that punctuality matters and still arrives late has an opinion without the attitude.
- Change: persuasion, a newspaper, and a training slide can move an opinion; an attitude often needs new experience, new peers, and a new reward, as Katz’s functions warn.
- Case-ready: ‘In my opinion the grievance portal is useful’ is cheap; an attitude that treats the portal as the day’s work is what the organisation in Q10 actually needs.
Joint caution
- People use the three words as synonyms in speech. The ethical officer does not: a wrong opinion is corrected with fact; a wrong attitude is trained and incentivised; a wrong value is a recusal and a constitutional reminder.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD V[Value as general standard] --> J[Judges many attitudes] A[Attitude as liking with readiness] --> B[Approach or delay] O[Opinion as verbal judgement] --> F[Open to fact] V[V] --> A[A]
Conclusion
A value is a general standard of the worthy; an attitude is a specific liking or disliking with feeling and readiness; an opinion is a lighter cognitive judgement. Values should rule the file, attitudes must be trained toward the citizen, and opinions should remain open to fact.
Quick related
Students also ask
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“Effective administration requires dedication towards Public Service.” Explain.
Next question in the 2018 paper (Q9). View answer →
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Can an officer keep a private attitude against a community if the file is fair?
The file must be fair. A strong private attitude still leaks in delay and tone. Recuse where you cannot trust yourself, and train the attitude; do not rent the Constitution to a canteen feeling.
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If a citizen’s opinion of my office is bad, is that an attitude?
It may be only a sentence from one rumour. If it is warm, stable, and they avoid the office, it has become an attitude — which sunlight and a better counter must repair.
Same topic · past papers
UPPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2022 · Q1 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
Differentiate between democratic attitude and bureaucratic attitude of public servants. -
2019 · Q6 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
Differentiate between democratic attitude and bureaucratic attitude of public servants. -
2022 · Q10 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
Differentiate between (a) Code of ethics and code of conduct (b) Tolerance and compassion. -
2021 · Q10 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
Differentiate between: (i) Objectivity and Dedication (ii) Structure and Functions of Attitudes. -
2020 · Q8 · UPGS4 · 8 marks
Differentiate between the following.
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