PY5202 Applications of Psychobiology- Affective or Emotional Component

1. "Attitudes always involve an affective or emotional component". Critically evaluate this statement.
2. Using theory and research, critically evaluate the idea of emotions as lived experience.
3. "Self-efficacy is a significant factor in predicting health behaviours". Critically discuss this statement, using research and theory.
4. "Social constructions of health and illness can help us understand people's relationship to their own health or illness". Critically discuss this claim.
s. "How we remember or forget is linked to our social interactions". Critically discuss this statement, using research and theory.

Answer

Introduction

Attitude is defined as the tendency to react positively or negatively to the situation that are faced by all people. Attitude is related to the enduring organization of beliefs, feelings and the behavioral tendencies that are seen towards the socially significant objects. These are particularly involved in this form of the groups, events or the symbols which are indicated for the betterment of the enduring organizational belief. The expression regarding the attitude is also defined as a psychological tendency that is being expressed in an particular entity with constituting of some degree of favor or the disfavor.  The definition of the attitude provided above can be appropriately justified by depicting the justifications for the three components which are the affective component, behavioral component and the cognitive component (Fuscoe, Garside, & Prodromou, 2007). These three components are also defined as the ABC component. The assumptions that can be made for the attitude and the behavior seem to be reflecting the consistency. It also reflects the attitudes and the behavior which seems to be consistent with depicting the enhancement of the attitudes. Therefore the principle of the consistency is being defined as the reflection of the idea that represents the rational nature of the people and thereby the attempt is being made to depict that the behavior is being represented in an appropriate way. Therefore the enhancement of the principle can be made by the enhancement of the sound and the logical justifications that clearly explains the importance of the attitudes.  

Attitudes always involve an affective or emotional component

Attitude signifies the action or responds to an individual in diverse situations. It is a cumulative measure of how an individual manages the situations. The positive attitude helps in creating a favorable situation for the individual. On the other hand, the negative attitudes bring unfavorable situation. The attitude has mainly four components: Affective, cognitive, and behavior, and evaluative attitude. The affective attitude connected to the immediate or impulsive reactions of an individual to a certain situation. The affective attitude is led by the emotion of the individual as well as it is evaluative. The example can be given of Mr. X, suppose Mr. X has a horror of driving (Lowes, 2007). Therefore, whenever, he tries to drive, his fear attacks and dominates thus, he fails to drive.  The cognitive attitude connected to a set of trust or beliefs, which an individual holds in life and his responses or actions are mostly directed by these beliefs. For example, Mr. Y belief that his alertness or reflection is decreasing and probably he may get an accident if tries to drive a car thus he never try driving.  Behavior attitude is related to the previous experience of an individual. For example, Mr. Z had faced an accident on a car once earlier that keep away him from driving a car until today. The evaluative attitude is positive or negative responds to the stimuli. For example, the corrupt politicians are associated with negative perceptions, and the reputation of the corrupt politicians thus reduces as well as attention is not provided to the corrupt politicians.

All these four aspects are dynamic in characteristics and works in the bike at varying levels. Therefore, with these aspects only one overall judgment an individual behavior can be formed as because every individual is made to work in diverse ways with his major characteristics reflecting every time. The attitude is a tendency of responding positively or negatively to a certain situation (McMillan, & Rall, 2005). An individual attitude reflects his/ her tendency to react positively or negatively towards the certain object, person, idea, or situation. The attitude influences a person’s selection of activities and responses to face the threats, rewards, and incentive. The attitude provides shape and connects to the world inside as well as outside of work. The attitude supports in expressing an individual's feeling towards an event. The attitude gives meaning for life. The information and knowledge function refers to the requirement of our life for a society, which is consistent as well as relatively stable. This permits an individual to predict what will be going to happen and how it can be controlled. Therefore, the Attitude can support us in organizing as well as structuring an individual's experienced.

The emotional or affective components include the feelings of an individual. The feelings can be negative, positive or neutral. For example, a customer service representative shows positive feelings towards their customers, a bill collector or police officer exhibits negative feelings. Attitude is referred to as the overall approach of an individual regarding ideas, events or other items. The attitude of an individual is the outcome of an evaluation she or he has made about an object. Positive affectivity is referred to as the sense of being well which shows positive attitude of an individual. Optimism, positive thinking, and positive attitude are considered as the main cause or reason of positive life. Positive feelings help an individual to lead a good life. It is not possible for an individual to be happier and healthier without a positive attitude. Therefore, positive attitude helps an individual to achieve its goals and to become a successful person. With the help of positive thinking, an individual can also become a good leader who can appropriately direct its team members. The positive thinkers are not affected by any depression, tension or become panic in a difficult situation (Parrish, 2014). The positive feeling can be determined in the attitude of an individual. The power of positive thinking is much higher than the negative thinking as because the positive thinkers are much more motivated towards their goals.  Developing an optimistic thinking and positive attitude early in the life assist an individual to be happier and control all its situations. Therefore, it shows that positive thinking improves the skill of an individual and increases their efficiency.

The negative affectivity is referred to as the state of being tense, nervous, pessimistic and distressed. It reflects the differences of an individual in self-concept and negative emotion. The negative feelings decrease the confidence and thinking the power of an individual. A person with negative feelings suffers from many diseases. It has been founded that negative affectivity affects the perceived stress by is influencing the perception of the environment or self (Stevens, 2013).  An individual with high negative affectivity possesses a high level of perceived stress and dissatisfaction level when compared with the individuals with lower negative affectivity level. Thus, negative affectivity imposes a significant impact on the attitude of an individual.

The positive, neutral or negative feeling imposes a significant impact on the behavior and attitude of an individual. Attitude helps employees in an organization to adjust to the working environment. It defends and defines the self-image (Shaw, & Nicholls, 2010). Attitude towards anything helps to express the possessed values. A person who makes poor decision shows negative attitude and who makes good decision shows a positive attitude. However, it can also be said that there should be a balance between positive feeling and negative feeling to become a perfect person. Attitude helps an individual to understand the rules and regulation of the world. Thus, changing feelings affects the attitude of an individual. The positive, neutral and negative feelings play a significant role in the life of an individual. The skill, knowledge, and thinking of an individual depend on his or her attitude (Riley, 2008). Attitudes are based on the experiences that are strong influences the behavior of an individual.

Conclusion

The explanations provide the justification to the statement that “Attitudes always involve an affective or emotional component” and thereby the explanations seemed to be fruitfully defining the justification for the statement. Although the component is seemed to be viable to the outside world, the outcomes seem to be in the form of the fruitful characteristics that are supportive in nature.  If all the components are considered to be in the state of harmony, then the behavior is dependent on the attitude and is also considered to be the consistent component (Zheng, Huang, & Zhang, 2013). Therefore the attitude is depicted to be directly proportional to the behavior of the person which is being appropriately explained by the help of the justifications provided to the statement. Though the attitude is depicted to be the vital component, the functioning of the knowledge can be appropriately undertaken with depicting the vital nature of the self-expression function.   

References

Fuscoe, K., Garside, B., & Prodromou, L. (2007). Attitude. Mexico City: Macmillan.

Lowes, R. (2007). Attitude. Mexico City: Macmillan Education.

McMillan, S., & Rall, T. (2005). Attitude. New York: NBM.

Parrish, M. (2014). Social Work Perspectives On Human Behaviour. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education.

Riley, D. (2008). Social and emotional development. St. Paul, Minn.: Redleaf Press.

Shaw, T., & Nicholls, K. (2010). Using Affective Attitudes to Identify Christian Fundamentalism: The Ten Commandments Judge and Alabama Politics. Politics & Policy, 38(5), 939-963.

Stevens, M. (2013). Sensory ecology, behaviour, and evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Zheng, Z., Huang, X., & Zhang, Q. (2013). Emotional Prosody Modulates the Recognition of Affective Word: An ERP Study. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 45(4), 427-437.