"A person's real behaviour may be contrary to the person's attitude towards a specific subject." Do you agree with this statement? Answer with suitable arguments.

Why I agree

• Attitude is inner and often socially desirable; behaviour meets cost, fear, and a watching crowd.
• LaPiere’s classic finding was that innkeepers who wrote prejudice still served a Chinese couple; the questionnaire was not the door.
• Festinger’s dissonance shows people also change a story after a contrary act, so the split can run both ways.
• Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour adds perceived control and norms: a pro-environment attitude dies if the office has no dustbin and a boss who mocks sorting.
• Example: an officer who praises gender equality in a training hall and then sits on a woman constable’s transfer is contrary behaviour.

Mechanisms of the gap

• Social desirability: people report a clean attitude to look moral.
• Situational pressure: a bribe queue, a riot, or a family threat can overpower a sincere attitude.
• Weak attitude: a slogan learned for an exam is not a deep evaluation.
• Competing attitudes: honesty toward the department and loyalty toward a caste association can collide in one file.
• Hypocrisy and impression management: the attitude was never real; the speech was a mask.
• Example: a citizen who “supports” Swachh Bharat and still dumps construction debris at night.

Arguments that seem to disagree

• Strong, specific, experience-based attitudes do predict better, as later attitude research showed.
• The statement is not a claim that attitude never matters; it is a claim that it may be contrary, which is enough for ethics.

Administrative implication

• Do not staff a sensitive post on a speech or a social-media bio.
• Watch the file: who got the licence, who waited, who was shouted at.
• Reduce the situations that force contrary behaviour: enough staff, a safe whistle path, a working grievance clock.
• Training should rehearse the hard minute, not only the value poster.
• Example: a “zero tolerance” circular fails if the clerk’s contrary behaviour is the only way the citizen’s work is done.

Ethics

• The person remains responsible for the act; a noble attitude is not a defence.
• Closing the gap is integrity: the same evaluation in the mouth and in the hand.