Revision summary
William James held that changing attention and attitude can change a life. For an officer this means choosing service over cynicism in daily work. It does not mean blaming citizens for poverty or withdrawing welfare.
Model answer
Introduction
William James said the great discovery of his age was that a person can change life by changing attitude. He meant the way we attend, judge, and habitually respond. He did not mean a magic wish that ignores real hardship.
Body
- Attitude here means the habit of mind with which we meet work, people, and failure.
- James argued that if we change that habit, our choices and our outcomes can change too.
- Attention matters: what we notice every day slowly shapes what we become.
- A bitter officer who treats every citizen as a cheat will miss honest need and create harsh files.
- An officer who chooses a service attitude looks for a fair path inside the same rules.
- The same desk can be a place of seva or a small throne; attitude decides which one it becomes.
- The quote must not be twisted to say that poverty is only an attitude problem; hunger and injustice are real.
- A State cannot tell a hungry person to think positive and then walk away from welfare.
- For the civil servant, the useful reading is inner freedom at the desk: choose learning over cynicism.
- Small daily habits — listening fully, writing reasons, admitting a mistake — are how attitude becomes character.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD A[Attitude habit] --> C[Choices at the desk] C --> L[Life and public outcomes] A2[Change attitude] --> C2[Fairer choices] C2 --> L2[Better service]
Conclusion
James points to the power of a chosen professional attitude. Use it to improve your conduct and service, never to deny another person's material hardship.
Quick related
Students also ask
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(a) Attitude is an important component that goes as input in the development of human beings. How to build a suitable attitude needed for a public servant? (b) In case of a crisis of conscience does emotional intelligence help to overcome the same without compromising the ethical and moral stand that you are likely to follow? Critically examine.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2021 · Q4). View answer →
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Is James saying the poor should only think positive?
No. That would misuse him. He spoke of the agent's inner change, not of denying injustice.
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What attitude should a civil servant practise?
Treat the desk as service, treat rules as tools for fairness, and treat every person as an end, not a nuisance.
PYQ trend
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Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
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2021 · Q4 · GS IV · 10 marks
(a) Attitude is an important component that goes as input in the development of human beings. How to build a suitable attitude needed for a public servant? (b) In case of a crisis of conscience does emotional intelligence help to overcome the same without compromising the ethical and moral stand that you are likely to follow? Critically examine. -
2020 · Q4 · GS IV · 10 marks
(a) Distinguish between laws and rules. Discuss the role of ethics in formulating them (b) A positive attitude is considered to be an essential characteristic of a civil servant who is often required to function under extreme stress. What contributes to a positive attitude in a person? -
2016 · Q6(b) · GS IV · 10 marks
How can such undesirable attitudes be changed and socio-ethical values considered necessary in public services be cultivated in the aspiring and serving civil servants?Will be uploaded soon
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2015 · Q5 · GS IV · 12 marks
Two different kinds of attitudes exhibited by public servants towards their work have been identified as bureaucratic attitude and the democratic attitude. (10 Marks) (a) Distinguish between these two terms and write their merits and demerits. (b) Is it possible to balance the two to create a better administration for the faster development of our country?
More from this topic
Q4 · UPSC Mains 2021 · GS IV · 10 marks · Solution
(a) Attitude is an important component that goes as input in the development of human beings. How to build a suitable attitude needed for a public servant? (b) In case of a crisis of conscience does emotional intelligence help to overcome the same without compromising the ethical and moral stand that you are likely to follow? Critically examine.
Attitude
Attitude is a stable leaning that shapes how an officer sees the public and the rule. Build a citizen-centric, impartial attitude through family, academy, field, role models and 360 feedback. Unlearn contempt, rank-worship and cynicism. Crisis of conscience is a clash of duties or of duty and fear. Emotional intelligence helps if it names and regulates emotion so the moral stand holds; it harms if charm is used to justify a comfortable wrong.
Q4 · UPSC Mains 2020 · GS IV · 10 marks · Solution
(a) Distinguish between laws and rules. Discuss the role of ethics in formulating them (b) A positive attitude is considered to be an essential characteristic of a civil servant who is often required to function under extreme stress. What contributes to a positive attitude in a person?
Attitude
Laws are general norms from the Constitution or legislature; rules are usually subordinate procedure under a parent Act. Rules cannot lawfully eat the Act; ethics forbids hiding policy in fine print that the poor cannot meet. Drafting ethics is equality, consultation, non-retrospectivity of pain, and proportionate means. Positive attitude under stress is realistic, duty-centred energy, not denial. It grows from character, EI, drills, team support and institutions that do not punish honesty.
UPSC Mains 2016 · GS IV · 12 marks · Solution
Our attitudes towards life, work, other people and society are generally shaped unconsciously by the family and the social surroundings in which we grow up. Some of these unconsciously acquired attitudes and values are often undesirable in the citizens of a modern democratic and egalitarian society. (a) Discuss such undesirable values prevalent in Today's educated Indians. (b) How can such undesirable attitudes be changed and socio-ethical values considered necessary in public services be cultivated in the aspiring and serving civil servants?
Attitude
Attitudes are first learned at home and often survive a degree. Undesirable patterns include status contempt, kin and caste preference, gender hierarchy, queue-jumping as cleverness, civic indifference and communal stereotype. Public service needs integrity, impartiality, empathy, objectivity and constitutional morality. Cultivate them through hard selection, case-based academies, upright mentors, mixed living, RTI and e-systems, mid-career ethics, and leadership example. Slogans and cultural excuses do not delete the old software.
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