To describe and explain the behavior of an individual, the term “attitudes” is often used, the totality of which is considered as an integral component of the inner essence of the individual. Attitudes dictate guidelines for a person in the world around him, contribute to the direction of the process of cognition of the world to improve adaptation to its conditions, optimal organization of behavior and actions in it. They provide a connection between cognition and emotions, between cognition and behavior, “explain” to a person what to “expect”, and expectations are an important guide in obtaining information. Attitudes help predict human behavior in the workplace and help the employee adapt to the work environment. Thus, they play an important role in creating organizational behavior.

For translate English word "attitude"(“attitude”, sometimes they write “attitude”, – verbal assessment a person of a certain subject, object or phenomenon) in the OP they use Russian terms that are similar in meaning (but not synonyms): location, position, disposition, attitude, attitude, social attitude. For brevity we will use the terms "social attitude" or "attitude". Installation - This is the constant readiness of an individual to feel and behave in a certain way in relation to something or someone.

Most modern researchers highlight the following installation components:

affective component(feelings, emotions: love and hate, sympathy and antipathy) forms the attitude towards the object, prejudice (negative feelings), attractiveness (positive feelings) and neutral emotions. This is the core component of the installation. The emotional state precedes the organization of the cognitive component;

cognitive (informational, stereotypical) component(perception, knowledge, belief, opinion about an object) forms a certain stereotype, model. It can be reflected, for example, by factors of strength, activity;

conative component(effective, behavioral, requiring the application of volitional efforts) determines the way behavior is included in the process of activity. This component includes the motives and goals of behavior, the tendency to certain actions. This is a directly observable component that may not coincide with a verbally expressed willingness to behave in a certain way in relation to a specific object, subject or event.

The following can be distinguished settings properties.

Acquisitions. The overwhelming majority of personality attitudes are not innate. They are formed (by family, peers, society, work, culture, language, customs, media) and acquired by the individual on the basis of his own experience (family, work, etc.).

Relative stability. Settings exist until something is done to change them.

Variability. Attitudes can range from very favorable to unfavorable.

Directions. Attitudes are directed towards a specific object towards which a person may experience certain feelings, emotions or have certain beliefs.

Behavioral component – this is the intention to behave in a certain way in response to a feeling, the result of an attitude, a tendency to characteristic actions (Fig. 3.5.1).

Rice. 3.5.1. Communication between installation components

Attitude is a variable that lies between prior expectations, values, and the intention to behave in a certain way. It is important to recognize that there may not be a consistent relationship between attitudes and behavior. An attitude leads to the intention to behave in some way. This intention may or may not be fulfilled under the circumstances. Although attitudes do not always clearly determine behavior, the relationship between attitudes and the intention to behave in some way is very important for a manager. Think about your work experience or talking to other people about their work. It is not uncommon to hear complaints about someone's “bad attitude.” These complaints are made due to dissatisfaction with behavior that is associated with a bad attitude. Unfavorable attitudes in the form of job dissatisfaction lead to labor turnover (which is costly), absenteeism, tardiness, low productivity, and even poor physical or mental health. Therefore, one of the manager's responsibilities is to recognize attitudes as well as antecedent conditions (expectations and values) and predict the possible outcome.

Setting functions

What are the consequences of people having attitudes? This question is answered by functional theories of attitude, formulated by such researchers as V. Katz (1967), V. McGuire (1969), M. Smith, J. Bruner. These researchers formulated four functions of personality attitudes.

1. Ego-protective function through defense mechanisms rationalization or projection allows the subject: a) to cope with his internal conflict and protect his Self-image, his Self-concept; b) resist negative information about oneself or objects that are significant to oneself (for example, a minority group); c) maintain high (low) self-esteem; d) defend against criticism (or use it against the critic). These attitudes arise from the internal needs of the individual, and the object to which they are directed may be random. Such attitudes cannot be changed through standard approaches such as ensuring identity additional information about the object to which the installation is directed.

2. Value-expressive function and self-realization function includes emotional satisfaction and self-affirmation and is associated with the identity that is most comfortable for the individual, being also a means of subjective self-realization. This function allows a person to determine: a) his value orientations; b) what type of personality he belongs to; c) what it is; d) what he likes and what he dislikes; e) his attitude towards other people; f) attitude to social phenomena. This type of expression of attitude is aimed mainly at asserting the validity of self-understanding and is less focused on the opinions of others. The personality accepts attitudes in order to support or justify one's behavior. Researchers cognitive dissonance They believe that a person himself forms attitudes to justify his behavior.

3. Instrumental, adaptive or utilitarian function helps a person: a) achieve desired goals (for example, rewards) and avoid undesirable results (for example, punishment); b) based on previous experience, develop an idea of ​​the relationship between these goals and ways to achieve them; c) adapt to the environment, which is the basis for his behavior at work in the future. People express positive attitudes towards those objects that satisfy their desires, and negative attitudes towards those objects that are associated with frustration or negative reinforcement.

4. Function of systematization and organization of knowledge (cognition) or economy helps a person to find those norms and reference points, according to which he simplifies (schematizes), organizes, tries to understand and structure his subjective ideas about the environment chaotic world, i.e., constructs his own picture (image, his own vision) of the environment.

Controlling the distribution of information seems to be the main function of almost all human installations and consists of creating a simplified view and clear practical guidance regarding behavior in relation to certain objects. There are too many complex and not entirely clear phenomena in life; it is impossible to take into account all their features. What a theory is for a scientist, what an attitude is for a person in his social life. We can say that an attitude is an adaptive simplification that emphasizes aspects of a social object that are important for shaping human behavior.

Attitudes provide the individual with a great service in the expedient execution of intended behavior and in satisfying his needs. Installation creates psychological basis human adaptation to the environment and its transformation depending on specific needs.

Changing settings

Employee attitudes can sometimes be changed if the manager is very interested in such changes. It is necessary to take into account the obstacles along the way. Barriers to attitude change: 1) escalation of commitment, the presence of a stable preference for a certain course of action without the desire to change anything. This also applies to the erroneous decision that the manager continues to insist on; 2) the employee lacks sufficient information (including feedback in the form of an assessment of the consequences of his behavior by the manager), which can serve as a basis for changing the attitude.

How can a manager change the attitudes of his employees? Suppose that employees are sharply dissatisfied with the level of their wages and, most likely, it is necessary to change these settings in order to avoid mass layoffs employees. One approach might be to inform workers that the organization is paying them all it can, but hopes to increase wages in the near future. Another method is to demonstrate that no other similar organization pays its workers more. And finally, the third way is to accept the guidelines, that is, directly increase the level of wages and thus eliminate the very cause of such dissatisfaction. Changing employee attitudes is the goal of many organizational changes and development methods.

Changes in personality attitudes are influenced by many factors, including: three groups of common factors: 1) faith in the speaker(depends on his prestige and location, respect, trust in him); 2) faith in the message itself(his persuasiveness and commitment to the publicly expressed position of the individual); 3) situation(distraction and pleasant surroundings).

Most effective ways to change personality attitudes:

providing new information. In some cases, information about other aspects or goals of an activity will change a person’s beliefs, and ultimately his attitudes;

impact of fear. Fear can make people change their attitudes. However, for the final result great importance It has average level experienced fear;

eliminating the discrepancy between attitude and behavior. Cognitive dissonance theory states that a person tries to actively eliminate dissonance by changing attitudes or behavior;

influence of friends or colleagues. If a person is personally interested in something specific, he will try to prevent extreme discrepancies between his own behavior and the behavior of other people. On the other hand, if a person is influenced by friends or colleagues, then he will easily change his attitudes;

attraction to cooperation. People who are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs are involved in active work to change the situation;

appropriate compensation, compensating and drowning out the state of discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance.

Changing employee attitudes is challenging, but the potential benefits outweigh the costs.

The cognitive dissonance

All components of the attitude must be in a certain correspondence, otherwise the person will experience a state of psychological discomfort (tension), which L. Festinger called cognitive dissonance and from which a person seeks to get rid of in various ways, achieving agreement between the components - cognitive consonance. The cognitive dissonance is a negative incentive state that arises in a situation when a subject simultaneously has two psychologically contradictory “knowledge” (cognitions - opinions, concepts) about one object. The state of dissonance is subjectively experienced as discomfort, from which one strives to get rid of either by changing one of the elements of dissonant knowledge, or by introducing a new element.

Sources of cognitive dissonance can be: a) logical inconsistency; b) discrepancy between cognitive elements and cultural patterns; c) inconsistency of a given cognitive element with any broader system of ideas; d) inconsistency with past experience.

Ways to reduce the magnitude of dissonance are as follows: changing the behavioral elements of the cognitive structure; change in cognitive elements related to the environment, including refusal to perceive part of the information about the external environment (so-called perceptual defense); the addition of new elements to the cognitive structure and, above all, the updated representation of old elements.

L. Festinger also defined dissonance as a consequence of insufficient justification of choice. In an effort to strengthen the justification of an action, a person changes his attitude or his behavior, or changes his attitude towards the objects with which the action is associated, or devalues ​​the meaning of the action for himself and others. When applying dissonance theory, there is usually no distinction made between beliefs, attitudes, intentions, behavior and their cognitive representation.

Cognitive dissonance affects people in different ways. We often encounter situations where our attitudes and views conflict with our behavior. Reducing Dissonance- This is the way we cope with feelings of discomfort and tension. In the context of an organization, people who are looking to find another job wonder why they continue to stay and work so hard. And as a result of dissonance, they can draw various conclusions: for example, the company is not so bad, that at the moment they have no other alternatives, or that they will still quickly find another job and leave.

Job satisfaction

The most important attitudes at work are: job satisfaction, commitment to the organization, involvement in work, attitude towards joint activities(on oneself, on others, on competition, on cooperation, on confrontation). Let us dwell in more detail on job satisfaction and the attitude of employees towards their work.

Job satisfaction- this is a pleasant positive emotional condition resulting from evaluation of one’s work or production experience, which is the result of workers' own perceptions of how well the job meets what they consider important needs. In OP, job satisfaction is considered the most important and often studied installation. Job satisfaction is more characteristic of people who feel motivated to work, whose psychological contract is fulfilled and the effort expended corresponds to the reward received.

Obviously, managers should be concerned about the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of their employees with work in a given organization. Satisfaction is influenced by organizational factors, group factors (especially the social environment at work), and personal factors (traits and dispositions). The two main consequences of satisfaction or dissatisfaction are absenteeism and turnover.

An individual’s perception of work is influenced by the internal organizational environment: the style of the leader, the nature of communications and domestic politics companies, technological processes, work planning, working conditions and additional payments, group norms and also the state of the market as a whole. A positive attitude determines a person’s constructive behavior at work, while a negative attitude towards work most likely predicts undesirable actions by an employee (irresponsibility, decreased level of involvement in work, absenteeism, dismissal, theft, etc.).

A significant part of the factors that determine the degree of employee satisfaction with work are outside the control of management, since already established individuals with a set of individual characteristics come to the organization, with an initial predisposition to life satisfaction (people with positive affect– PA, i.e., an optimistic view of the world) or dissatisfaction (people with negative affect - ON, i.e. a pessimistic outlook on life). A person's predisposition to PA manifests itself in high self-efficacy, a feeling of inner comfort, a positive perception of people and a kind attitude towards them. A person's predisposition to ON is expressed in nervousness, self-doubt, internal tension, restlessness, anxiety, irritability and poor attitude towards others, low self-esteem.

Of greatest interest is knowledge of situational factors in an organization that determine an individual’s attitudes. Let's give main factors influencing job satisfaction.

1. Salary. The amount of monetary reward (wages and benefits) for a job that is perceived to be socially just (relative to the rewards of other workers) and consistent with personal expectations.

2. Actually work. The extent to which work tasks are perceived as interesting, intellectual and provide opportunities for successful learning and taking responsibility, provide a certain status and do not lead to excessive psychophysical fatigue.

3. Personal interest in the work itself. Work as a conscious and desired form of human existence (for example, hard workers and lazy people, the workaholic “syndrome” or types of morbid addiction to work).

4. Opportunities for promotion. Opportunity for growth and various forms career advancement taking into account the subjective value of remuneration.

5. Leadership style. The ability of a manager to show interest and care for a subordinate, provide technical and moral support, help reduce role conflict and ambiguity of the situation, and create an atmosphere of employee involvement in the decision-making process.

6. Colleagues, work colleagues. The degree of competence of colleagues, the level of their willingness to provide social support(goodwill, help, advice, comfort, cooperation, morale), the degree of similarity of basic values.

7. Working conditions, comparable to individual physical needs, which facilitate the solution of assigned tasks. Good conditions(clean, bright, ergonomic) to a certain extent contribute to job satisfaction.

A person's levels of satisfaction with each of these factors vary. An employee may feel that he is underpaid (dissatisfaction with the amount of wages), but at the same time his attitude towards other organizational factors may be positive. On people's job satisfaction within working group can be influenced by both co-workers and a supervisor or manager. The leader can also be considered as one of the organizational factors.

Job satisfaction can also be considered as a single attitude when applied to various components of the work process (results, vacation time, work schedule, relationships with superiors, career, etc.). Attitudes are formed over a long period of time, therefore the feeling of satisfaction develops dynamically as information about the workplace becomes available; they may unexpectedly change the plus sign to a minus sign. It is impossible to create conditions in an organization that once and for all guarantee a high sense of job satisfaction, since it depends on the individual’s overall satisfaction with life.

Research has shown that most workers are not completely satisfied with their jobs, nor are they highly dissatisfied. However, opinions various groups people (young people and older people, men and women, workers and employees) regarding job satisfaction differ significantly (see sidebar “Interesting experience”).

Job satisfaction is positively correlated with age, work experience, job level and satisfaction with pay. An employee can only be satisfied with such payment for his work, which he perceives as fair and reflective of the productivity of his work. Evidence regarding the impact of gender on job satisfaction is inconsistent. Provided that the job provides the performer with sufficient opportunities to challenge himself, satisfaction with it does not depend on cognitive abilities. Job satisfaction is influenced by job congruence, organizational justice, ability to use skills, and an individual's personality traits. Losing a job has a detrimental effect on a person's self-esteem and health. Large-scale layoffs also have a negative impact on those who remain employed.

Job satisfaction is a key concept in management and is associated with factors such as employee turnover and absenteeism.

Interesting experience

From the point of view of significance for society and for the individual, individual social attitudes occupy an “unequal” position in the system and form a kind of hierarchy. This fact is reflected in the well-known dispositional concept of regulation of social behavior of the individual V.A. Yadova (1975). It identifies four levels of dispositions as formations that regulate the behavior and activities of an individual. The first level includes simply attitudes (in the understanding of D.N. Uznadze) that regulate behavior at the simplest, mainly everyday level; the second - social attitudes, which, according to V. A. Yadov, come into play at the level of small groups; the third level includes the general orientation of the individual’s interests (or basic social attitudes), reflecting the individual’s attitude to his main areas of life (profession, social activities, hobbies, etc.); at the fourth, highest level there is a system of value orientations of the individual.

Despite the fact that V. A. Yadov uses such concepts as disposition, the direction of an individual’s interests and value orientations, his concept does not conflict with the theory of social attitudes. The only thing that raises doubt is the limitation of the role of social attitudes to the second and third levels. The fact is that, in their psychological functions and structure, value orientations are also social attitudes. They include knowledge and appreciation of the values ​​of a particular society and behavior corresponding to them. They really differ from other social attitudes, but only in the highest social and personal significance of their objects, and in their psychological nature they do not stand out in any way from common system social attitudes.

For each individual there is also his own, subjective hierarchy of social attitudes based on the criterion of their psychological significance only for him, which does not always coincide with the socially recognized hierarchy.

For some people, the meaning of life and the highest value is creating a family and raising children; and for another, in the foreground is building a career at any cost, which for him constitutes the main value orientation in life.

According to the concept of V. A. Yadov, such dispositions rightly belong to the second and third levels, and according to subjective personal criteria they turn out to be of the highest importance for the individual. An explanation and confirmation of this approach to the problem of the hierarchy of social attitudes can be found in the concept general values and personal meanings social facilities A.N. Leontyev (1972).

From this concept it is clear that the same social object (event, process, phenomenon, etc.), which has an unambiguous interpretation from the standpoint of values ​​and norms of society, acquires different personal meaning for individual individuals.

Consequently, in addition to the dispositional concept of V. A. Yadov, the criterion of which is the social significance of objects of social attitudes at various levels, we can recognize the existence of subjective hierarchies of social attitudes, built according to the criterion of their psychological and personal significance for each specific individual.

Thus, the social attitude, being itself a systemic formation, is included in other, more complex systems, folding according different signs, and the final regulator of the behavior and activity of the individual is the interaction of these complex systems.

A concept that to a certain extent explains the choice of motive that prompts a person to act is the concept social attitude.

The installation problem was the subject of research at the school of D. N. Uznadze.

D. Uznadze defined the installation as a holistic dynamic state of an object, a state of readiness for a certain activity.

This state is determined by the factors of the subject’s needs and the corresponding objective situation.

The disposition to behave in order to satisfy a given need and in a given situation can be reinforced if the situation is repeated, then a fixed installation as opposed to situational.

The installation in the context of D. Uznadze’s concept concerns the issue of implementing the simplest physiological needs person.

The idea of ​​identifying special conditions personality preceding its real behavior is present among many researchers.

This range of issues was considered I. N. Myasishchev in his human relationship concept.

The relationship, understood “as a system of temporary connections of a person as a subject’s personality with all of reality or with its individual aspects,” explains the direction of the individual’s future behavior.

The tradition of studying social attitudes has developed in Western social psychology and sociology.

The term “attitude” is used to denote social attitudes.

In 1918 W. Thomas And F. Znaniecki established two dependencies, without which it was impossible to describe the adaptation process: the interdependence of the individual and social organization.

They proposed to characterize both sides of the above relationship using the concepts of “social value” (to characterize a social organization) and “social attitude” (to characterize an individual).

For the first time, the concept of attitude was introduced - “the state of consciousness of an individual regarding some social value.”

After the discovery of the attitude phenomenon, a boom in its research began.

Several different interpretations attitude: a certain state of consciousness and nervous system, expressing readiness to react, organized on the basis of previous experience, exerting a guiding and dynamic influence on behavior.

The main method used was various scales proposed L. Turnstone .

Attitude functions:

1) adaptive (adaptive)– the attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals;

2) knowledge function– attitude gives simplified instructions regarding the method of behavior in relation to a specific object;

3) expression function (self-regulation function)– attitude acts as a means of freeing the subject from internal tension, expressing oneself as an individual;

4) protection function– attitude contributes to the resolution of internal conflicts of the individual.

In 1942 M. Smith the structure of the attitude is defined:

1) cognitive component (awareness of the object of social installation);

2) affective component (emotional assessment of the object);

3) behavioral component (sequential behavior in relation to an object).

Stereotype- this is an excessive generalization of a phenomenon that turns into a stable belief and influences a person’s system of relationships, methods of behavior, thought processes, judgments, etc.

The process of forming stereotypes is called stereotyping.

As a result of stereotyping, a social attitude is formed - a person’s predisposition to perceive something in a certain way and act in one way or another.

Features of the formation of social attitudes are associated with the fact that they have some stability and carry the functions of facilitation, algorithmization, cognition, as well as an instrumental function (introducing the individual to the system of norms and values ​​of a given social environment).

An installation can help to perceive the image of another person more correctly, acting on the principle of a magnifying glass during attraction, or it can block normal perception, obeying the principle of a distorting mirror.

D. N. Uznadze believed that attitude is the basis electoral activity person, and therefore is an indicator possible directions activities.

Knowing a person's social attitudes, one can predict his actions.

Changes in attitudes depend on the novelty of information, the individual characteristics of the subject, the order in which information is received and the system of attitudes that the subject already has.

Since the attitude determines the selective directions of an individual’s behavior, it regulates activity at three hierarchical levels: semantic, target and operational.

On semantic At the level of attitudes, they are of the most general nature and determine the relationship of the individual to objects that have personal significance for the individual.

Target Attitudes are associated with specific actions and a person’s desire to complete the work he has begun.

They determine the relatively stable nature of the activity.

If the action is interrupted, then the motivational tension still remains, providing the person with the appropriate readiness to continue it.

The unfinished action effect has been discovered K. Levin and more thoroughly studied in the studies of V. Zeigarnik (Zeigarnik effect).

At the operational level, the attitude determines decision-making in specific situation, promotes the perception and interpretation of circumstances based on the past experience of the subject’s behavior in a similar situation and the corresponding prediction of the possibilities of adequate and effective behavior.

J. Godefroy identified three main stages in the formation of social attitudes in a person in the process of socialization.

The first stage covers the period of childhood up to 12 years.

The attitudes that develop during this period correspond to the parental models.

From 12 to 20 years of age, attitudes take on a more specific form; their formation is associated with the assimilation of social roles.

The third stage covers a period from 20 to 30 years and is characterized by the crystallization of social attitudes, the formation on their basis of a system of beliefs, which is a very stable mental new formation.

By the age of 30, attitudes are highly stable and it is extremely difficult to change them.

Any of the dispositions possessed by a particular subject can change.

The degree of their changeability and mobility depends on the level of a particular disposition: the more complex the social object in relation to which a person has a certain disposition, the more stable it is.

Many different models have been put forward to explain the processes of change in social attitudes.

Most studies of social attitudes are carried out in line with two main theoretical orientations - behaviorist And cognitivist.

In behaviorist-oriented social psychology (research on social attitudes by K. Hovland as an explanatory principle for understanding the fact of changes in attitudes (the designation of “social attitude” in Western social psychology)) the principle of learning is used: a person’s attitudes change depending on how the reinforcement of that attitude is organized or other social attitude.

By changing the system of rewards and punishments, you can influence the nature of the social attitude.

If the attitude is formed on the basis of previous life experience, then change is possible only under the condition of “inclusion” social factors.

The subordination of the social attitude itself to higher levels of dispositions justifies the need, when studying the problem of changing attitudes, to turn to the entire system of social factors, and not just to “reinforcement”.

In the cognitivist tradition, an explanation for changes in social attitudes is given in terms of the so-called correspondence theories of F. Heider, G. Newcomb, L. Festinger, and C. Osgood.

A change in attitude occurs when a discrepancy arises in the cognitive structure of an individual, for example, a negative attitude towards an object collides with a positive attitude towards a person who gives this object a positive characteristic.

The incentive to change the attitude is the individual’s need to restore cognitive conformity and orderly perception of the external world.

The phenomenon of social attitudes is determined both by the fact of its functioning in the social system and by the property of regulating human behavior as a being capable of active, conscious, transformative production activities, included in a complex interweaving of connections with other people.

Therefore, in contrast to the sociological description of changes in social attitudes, it is not enough to identify only the totality of social changes that precede and explain the change in attitudes.

Changes in social attitudes should be analyzed both from the point of view of the content of objective social changes affecting a given level of dispositions, and from the point of view of changes in the active position of the individual, caused not simply in response to the situation, but due to circumstances generated by the development of the individual himself.

These analysis requirements can be met under one condition: when considering the installation in the context of the activity. If a social attitude arises in a certain area human activity, then you can understand its change by analyzing changes in the activity itself.

2. Varieties of social attitudes existing in society

Prejudice– a special type of attitude (mainly negative) towards members of a certain social group.

Discrimination– negative actions directed against these people, attitudes translated into actions.

Prejudice- this is an attitude (usually negative) towards representatives of a social group, based only on their membership in this group.

A person who is prejudiced against a particular social group evaluates its members in a special (usually negative) way based on their membership in this group.

Their personality traits or behavior do not matter.

People who are prejudiced against certain groups often process information about those groups differently than information about other groups.

They pay more attention to information that is consistent with their preconceived views, it is repeated more often, and as a result is remembered more accurately than information that is inconsistent with these views.

If prejudice is a special type of attitude, then it may not only involve a negative evaluation of the group against which it is directed, but also contain the negative feelings or emotions of the people expressing it when they find themselves in the presence of or thinking about members of the group they like. I do not like.

Prejudice may include opinions and expectations about members of different social groups – stereotypes, which assume that all members of these groups exhibit the same traits and behave in the same way.

When people think about prejudice, they usually focus on its emotional or evaluative aspects.

Prejudice is associated with certain aspects social cognition– the ways in which we extract, store, recall, and later use information about other people.

In his attempts to find explanations for various phenomena social world We often use cognitive shortcuts.

This is usually done when our ability to cope with social information reaches its limit; then we are most likely to rely on stereotypes as mental shortcuts for understanding or forming judgments about other people.

Social attitudes are not always reflected in external actions.

In many cases, people who have negative views of members of various groups may not express these views openly.

Laws, social pressure, fear of retribution - these keep people from open expression your prejudices.

Many people who have prejudices feel that overt discrimination is bad and perceive such actions as a violation of personal behavioral standards.

When they notice that they have been discriminated against, they feel a great deal of discomfort.

IN last years flagrant forms of discrimination – negative actions towards targets of racial, ethnic or religious prejudice - are rarely observed.

The new racism is more subtle, but just as brutal.

Social control is the influence of society on a person’s attitudes, ideas, values, ideals and behavior.

Social control includes expectations, norms And sanctions. Expectations- the requirements of others in relation to a given person, appearing in the form of expectations.

Social norms- patterns that prescribe what people should say, think, feel, do in specific situations.

Social sanction- measure of influence, the most important means social control.

Forms of social control– diverse ways of regulating human life in society, which are determined by various social (group) processes.

They predetermine the transition of external social regulation to intrapersonal regulation.

This occurs due to the internalization of social norms.

In the process of internalization, social ideas are transferred into the consciousness of an individual.

The most common forms of social control are:

1) law– a set of regulations that have legal force and regulating formal relations of people throughout the state;

2) taboo include a system of prohibitions on the commission of any human actions or thoughts.

Social control is exercised through repetitive, habitual ways of behavior of people common in a given society - customs.

Customs are learned from childhood and have the character of social habit.

The main feature of a custom is its prevalence.

A custom is determined by the conditions of society at a given moment in time and is therefore different from a tradition, which is timeless and exists for quite a long time, passed on from generation to generation.

Traditions– such customs that have developed historically in connection with the culture of a given ethnic group; passed on from generation to generation; determined by the mentality of the people.

Customs and traditions cover mass forms of behavior and play a huge role in the integration of society.

There are special customs that have moral significance and are associated with the understanding of good and evil in a given social group or society - morality.

Category morals serves to designate customs that have moral significance and characterize all those forms of behavior of people in a particular social stratum that can be subjected to moral assessment.

At the individual level, morals are manifested in a person’s manners and the characteristics of his behavior.

Manners include a set of behavioral habits namely this person or a specific social group.

Habit- an unconscious action that has been repeated so many times in a person’s life that it has become automated.

Etiquette- an established order of behavior, forms of treatment, or a set of rules of conduct relating to external manifestation relationships with people.

Any member of society is under the strongest psychological influence social control, which is not always recognized by the individual due to the processes and results of internalization.

Social norms are certain patterns that prescribe what people should say, think, feel, and do in specific situations.

Most often, norms are established models, standards of behavior from the point of view of not only society as a whole, but also specific social groups.

Norms perform a regulatory function both in relation to a specific person and in relation to a group.

A social norm acts as a social phenomenon that does not depend on individual variations.

Most social norms are unwritten rules. Signs of social norms:

1) general significance. Norms cannot apply to only one or a few members of a group or society without affecting the behavior of the majority.

If norms are social, then they are generally valid within the entire society, but if they are group norms, then their general significance is limited to the framework of this group;

2) the possibility of a group or society applying sanctions, rewards or punishments, approval or blame;

3) the presence of a subjective side.

It manifests itself in two aspects: a person has the right to decide for himself whether to accept or not accept the norms of a group or society, to fulfill them or not to fulfill them;

4) interdependence. In society, norms are interconnected and interdependent; they form complex systems that regulate people's actions.

Normative systems can be different, and this difference sometimes contains the possibility of conflict, both social and intrapersonal.

Some social norms contradict each other, putting a person in a situation of having to choose;

5) scale. Norms differ in scale into social and group norms.

Social norms operate throughout society and represent forms of social control such as customs, traditions, laws, etiquette, etc.

The effect of group norms is limited to the framework of a specific group and is determined by how it is customary to behave here (mores, manners, group and individual habits).

All procedures by which an individual’s behavior is brought to the norm of a social group are called sanctions. Social sanction is a measure of influence, the most important means of social control.

Types of sanctions: negative And positive e, formal And informal.

Negative sanctions directed against a person who has deviated from social norms.

Positive sanctions are aimed at supporting and approving a person who follows these norms.

Formal sanctions imposed by official, public or government agency or their representative.

Informal usually involve the reaction of group members, friends, colleagues, relatives, etc.

Positive sanctions are usually more influential than negative ones. The impact of sanctions depends on many circumstances, the most important of which is agreement on their application.

Social attitude is a person's predisposition to perceive something in a certain way and act in one way or another. An attitude encourages a person to perform a certain activity. If the process of socialization explains how a person assimilates social experience and at the same time actively reproduces it, then the formation of a person’s social attitudes answers the question: how the learned social experience is refracted by the person and specifically manifests itself in his actions and actions.

D. Uznadze defined the attitude as a holistic dynamic state of readiness for a certain activity. This state is determined by the factors of the subject’s needs and the corresponding objective situation. The attitude towards behavior to satisfy a given need and in a given situation can be reinforced if the situation is repeated. D. Uznadze believed that attitudes underlie a person’s selective activity, and therefore are an indicator of possible directions of activity. Knowing a person's social attitudes, one can predict his actions.

At the everyday level, the concept of social attitude is used in a meaning close to the concept of “attitude”. V. N. Myasishchev in his concept of human relations notes that a relationship is understood “as a system of temporary connections of a person as a personality-subject with all of reality or with its individual aspects,” the relationship determines the direction of the individual’s future behavior. L. I. Bozhovich in the study of personality formation in childhood established that orientation develops as the internal position of the individual in relation to the social environment, to individual objects of the social environment. Although these positions may be different in relation to diverse situations and objects, they can capture some general trend, which dominates, as a result it is possible to predict the behavior of an individual in previously unknown situations in relation to previously unknown objects. Personality orientation is a predisposition to act in a certain way, covering the entire sphere of its life activity. The concept of “personality orientation” appears to be of the same order with the concept of social attitude. In activity theory, a social attitude is interpreted as a personal meaning “generated by the relationship between motive and goal” (A. G. Asmolov, A. B. Kovalchuk).

In Western social psychology, the term is used to denote social attitudes "attitude". For the first time in 1918 W. Thomas And F. Znaniecki introduced the concept of attitude into socio-psychological terminology, which was defined as " an individual’s psychological experience of the value, meaning, meaning of a social object,” or as a state of consciousness of an individual, a regulating attitude and normative (exemplary) behavior of a person in relation to a certain social object, which causes a person’s psychological experience of social value, the meaning of this social object. The social object can be individuals, groups, social norms, social phenomena, organizations, social institutions(law, economics, marriage, politics), countries, etc. Attitude was understood as a certain state of consciousness and nervous system, expressing readiness to react, organized on the basis of previous experience, exerting a guiding and dynamic influence on behavior. Thus, the dependence of attitude on previous experience and its important regulatory role in behavior were established. Attitudes represent a latent (hidden) attitude towards social situations and objects, characterized by modality (therefore they can be judged by a set of statements). Four were identified attitude functions.

• 1) adaptive(utilitarian, adaptive) – the attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals;
• 2) knowledge function– attitude gives simplified instructions regarding the method of behavior in relation to a specific object;
• 3) expression function (function of value, self-regulation)– attitude acts as a means of freeing the subject from internal tension, expressing oneself as an individual;
• 4) protection function– attitude contributes to the resolution of internal conflicts of the individual.

In 1942 M. Smith a three-component structure of the attitude was defined, which distinguishes:

• – cognitive component(awareness of the object of social installation);
• – affective component(emotional assessment of an object, a feeling of sympathy or antipathy towards it);
• – behavioral (conative) component(habitual behavior towards the object).

Social attitude was defined as awareness, assessment, readiness to act. Settings are formed:

• a) under the influence of other people (parents, media) and “crystallize” between the ages of 20 and 30, and then change with difficulty;
• b) based on personal experience in repeated situations.

Settings – these are beliefs or feelings that can influence our reactions. If we are convinced that a certain person threatens us, we can feel towards him dislike and therefore act unfriendly. But dozens of studies dating back to the 1960s showed that what people think and feel often has little to do with their actual behavior. In particular, it was found that students’ attitude towards cheat sheets is very weakly related to how often they use them. Experiments R. Lapiera showed that attitudes (a person’s attitude towards some object) may not coincide or contradict a person’s real behavior. M. Rokeach expressed the idea that a person has two attitudes simultaneously: towards the object and towards the situation. Either one or another attitude can “turn on.” IN different situations Either cognitive or affective components of attitude may manifest themselves, and the result of human behavior will therefore be different (D. Katz And E. Stotland). Subsequent studies in the 1970s and 80s found that our settings really influence our actions under the following conditions: When other influences, external influences on our words and actions are minimal when attitude is specifically related to specific actions and When it becomes potentially active because it is brought to our consciousness. In such cases we we will hold fast to what we believe in.

The attitude regulates activity at three hierarchical levels: semantic, target and operational. At the semantic level, attitudes determine the individual’s attitude towards objects that have personal significance for a person. Goals determine the relatively stable nature of the activity and are associated with specific actions and a person’s desire to complete the work he has started. If the action is interrupted, then the motivational tension still remains, providing the person with the appropriate readiness to continue it. The effect of unfinished action was discovered by K. Levin and thoroughly studied by V. Zeigarnik. At the operational level, an attitude determines decision-making in a specific situation, promotes the perception and interpretation of circumstances based on past experience of a person’s behavior in a similar situation and predicting the possibilities of adequate and effective behavior.

It should be noted that despite the abundance of empirical material about the social attitude, many of the problems associated with the peculiarities of its functioning as a mechanism for regulating human behavior have not yet been resolved. One of the most profound reasons for the current situation is, according to P. N. Shikhirev, that the term “attitude” is a “flexible product” of the concept systems of two sciences - psychology and sociology, does not have a clearly defined scope of socio-psychological content and in each individual case, depending on the purpose or methodology of the study, it is interpreted with an emphasis on either its sociological or psychological aspect.

For American social science, the second approach, enshrined in G. Allport’s definition, is more typical: “Attitude is a compilation of psycho-nervous readiness, formed on the basis of experience and exerting a guiding and (or) dynamic influence on the individual’s reactions regarding objects or situations with which he is associated” [ With. 279]

A social attitude cannot, in fact, be considered outside the individual; it is indeed a real phenomenon present in the functional structure of any purposeful human action, namely a special internal state of the bearer of a social attitude, which precedes the deployment of the actual action and regulates and controls it.

Therefore, the need to study the patterns of functioning of social attitudes in a person’s psychological structure is obvious. However, P. N. Shikhirev believes that this is not enough to create an adequate idea of ​​the phenomenon of social attitudes as a specifically social formation.

Research on social attitudes in its psychological aspect cannot and does not identify other than dynamic, psychological characteristics, intensity, speed, speed of formation, bipolarity, rigidity - lability, etc., that is, only those patterns that are common to both the perception set and the social set.

After the discovery of the attitude phenomenon, rapid growth in the study of this problem began. In 1935, G. Allport wrote an article on the interpretation of attitude, where 17 definitions of this concept were considered. Allport identified only those features that differed in all definitions. Attitude is understood as:

1) a certain state of consciousness and nervous system,

2) expressing readiness to react,

3) organized,

4) based on previous experience,

5) exerting a guiding and dynamic influence on behavior.

Let's move on to the definition of the concept “social attitude”. D. Myers proposes that a social attitude is understood as “a favorable or unfavorable evaluative reaction to something or someone, which is expressed in opinions, feelings and purposeful behavior.” Those. social attitude is an effective way to evaluate the world around us. When we need to react quickly or demonstrate how we feel or think, our attitude can determine our response.

This definition demonstrates the three-component structure of attitude, defined in 1942 by M. Smith. The structure of the attitude includes the following components:

1) cognitive, or knowledge about an object. It is associated with the formation of a stereotype, a constructor, with the assignment of an object of knowledge to a certain category.

2) affective, which is responsible for the formation of prejudice towards an object or, on the contrary, its attractiveness.

3) conative, responsible for behavior.

Therefore, attitude can be defined as awareness, evaluation and readiness to act in a certain way.

Since it is obvious that the attitude serves to satisfy some needs of the individual, it is necessary to indicate the main functions of the attitude. 4 functions have been identified and studied:

1. The ego-protective function allows the subject to resist negative information about himself or about objects that are significant to him, maintain high self-esteem and protect himself from criticism. Also, the subject can turn this criticism against the person from whom it comes. The ego-protective function does not guarantee the accuracy of self-assessment, but it maintains faith in one’s abilities.

2. the function of self-realization (the function of expressing values) helps the subject determine what type of personality he belongs to, what he is like, what he likes/dislikes. The same function determines the attitude towards other people and social phenomena.

3. The adaptive or accommodative function helps a person achieve desired results and avoid undesirable goals. Ideas about these goals and ways to achieve them are usually formed in previous experience, and it is on this basis that the attitude is formed.

4. The knowledge function helps a person organize his ideas about the world around him, interpret those that arise in Everyday life events and phenomena. Knowledge is based on what is obtained using the three attitude functions described above, therefore the “knowledge” delivered by the attitude is extremely subjective and “knowledge” different people regarding the same objects are different.

Consequently, attitudes dictate guidelines for the individual in the world around him and help ensure that the process of cognition of this world is carried out more purposefully in order to better adapt to its conditions, optimal organization of behavior and actions in its structure. Social attitudes “explain” to a person what to expect, and expectation is an important guideline in obtaining information.