Revision summary
An attitude is a lasting liking or disliking with thought, feeling, and readiness. Knowledge function: it organises the world and can freeze a stereotype. Utilitarian function: it chases reward; office incentives can make it honest or crooked. Ego-defensive function: it protects shame; shaming campaigns may harden it. Value-expressive and social functions: it announces identity and belonging, for a Constitution or a clique.
Model answer
Introduction
An attitude is a relatively lasting liking or disliking of a person, group, object, or policy, with a thought, a feeling, and a readiness to act. Its functions are the work it does for the self and for social life — which is why an officer must know them, not only name them.
Body
What an attitude is, for the sake of function
- Allport’s classic sense: a mental and neural state of readiness, organised through experience, exerting a directive influence upon response.
- ABC: affect, behaviour, cognition. Functions explain why that triad is kept even when it is costly or false.
Knowledge (or schematic) function
- Attitudes organise a messy world: ‘this scheme helps the poor’, ‘this caste is X’. They reduce cognitive load so a person can decide quickly.
- Use: a citizen’s attitude to vaccination or a clerk’s attitude to e-office is a map. Abuse: a stereotype that closes the file before the fact arrives.
- Katz named this the knowledge function; it is why propaganda fights for the first map.
Utilitarian (adjustive) function
- Attitudes that maximise reward and minimise punishment: liking the party that gives a ticket, disliking the vigilance wing that bites.
- In office, a utilitarian attitude to ‘keep the superior happy’ can wreck a truthful noting. The function is real; the ethical task is to change the reward so that honesty pays.
Ego-defensive function
- Attitudes that protect the self from threat or shame: blaming ‘outsiders’ for one’s failure, contempt for the poor so that inequality need not be faced.
- Freud’s shadow in civic dress: prejudice often defends a bruised identity. A public campaign that only shames may harden this function instead of changing it.
Value-expressive function
- Attitudes that announce who I am: a badge, a language, a stand on a temple or a book. They join the person to a moral community.
- Relevance to civil service: an officer may express constitutional values through a speaking order; the same function, captured by a faction, becomes a partisan desk.
Social-adjustive and identity functions (beyond Katz)
- Smith, Bruner, and White, and later social-identity work: attitudes help a person belong, be liked, and keep a group distinct. A canteen joke can be this function doing harm.
- Case-ready: a staff’s attitude that ‘grievances are nuisance’ serves ego-defence and utilitarian ease; changing it needs new knowledge, new rewards, and a leader who expresses a different value.
Why the functions matter to administration
- To change an attitude one must know which function it is serving. A fact sheet will not move an ego-defensive prejudice; a transfer of a toxic peer group might.
- Functions also warn: a ‘positive attitude’ planted only by fear is brittle; one planted by value-expression and fair reward is more stable.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD K[Knowledge map] --> A[Attitude] U[Reward and cost] --> A E[Ego defence] --> A V[Value and belonging] --> A A --> C[Ready response]
Conclusion
Attitudes function as knowledge maps, as tools of reward and punishment, as shields of the ego, as badges of value, and as tickets of belonging. In public service they can organise a fair desk or a closed one. The officer’s craft is to see which function is at work before trying to change the staff or the public.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Differentiate between the following:
(a) Attitude and value.
(b) Attitude and opinion.
Next question in the 2018 paper (Q8). View answer →
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If I give staff more facts, will their attitude to the public change?
Only if the attitude is mainly a knowledge map. If it is ego-defence or a canteen identity, facts bounce; change the group reward and the example at the top.
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Is a strong attitude always bad for an officer?
A strong attitude for constitutional equality is a resource. A strong attitude for a caste or a party is a recusal waiting to happen.
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