What is Attitude?

In the blog Measuring Discrimination it was understood that discrimination occurs based on attitudes. When for instance someone discriminates they act on stigma, prejudice or stereotype. Stigma, prejudice and stereotypes combine in complex ways and are expressed as attitude. If someone's attitude to a person or object was known it would be possible to predict how they would react. This blog explores attitudes.

Attitude is used by psychologists to describe how liking or disliking towards a person, thing, place or event is expressed by a someone. Gordon Allport, whose work on prejudice discussed in What is Prejudice? defines attitude as a (See New World Encyclopedia):

"mental and neural state of readiness … exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related."

Allport recognized attitude as a central concept of social psychology, Wikipedia says:

Allport once described attitudes "the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology." Attitude can be formed from a person's past and present. Key topics in the study of attitudes include attitude measurement, attitude change, consumer behavior, and attitude-behavior relationships...
Most contemporary perspectives on attitudes also permit that people can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object by simultaneously holding both positive and negative attitudes toward the same object. This has led to some discussion of whether individual can hold multiple attitudes toward the same object.

Attitudes can be either explicit or implicit. Explicit attitudes are self-reported on scales that measure like and dislike.  Implicit attitudes are hidden and may not be known to the person that holds them. They can only be measured by watching reactions or decisions the person makes.

Psychologists note that besides a strong like or dislike towards something, an attitude someone may have both liking and disliking at the same time. The liking or disliking may be ambivalent if the feelings are not very strong; or the liking and disliking can be conflicted if the feelings are both very strong.

Children with disabilities are often mistreated by other children. Some can’t walk the kilometres to and from school. Others can’t see the blackboard or hear the teacher.

In the post Visual Impairment in Uganda findings about the incidence of River Blindness were discussed. Cystic echinococcosis is a form of River Blindness. This dissertation Knowlege Attitude and Practices Towards Cystic Echinococcosis (CE) in Oastoral Communities in Kasese District Uganda, in part examines the attitudes and knowledge of pastoralists to CE. The results reported by the study are summarized as follows:

Results: Out of the 384 respondents, only 3.9% knew about CE, 10.7% and 6.7% had seen the disease in man and animals respectively, only 36.9% perceived themselves at risk of acquiring CE. Practices identified as potential risk factors for CE included dog ownership (64.0%), presence of stray dogs (99.2%), no de-worming of dogs (91.7%), home slaughtering (82.8%), no hand washing (89.3%), no water boiling (78.9%), and feeding uncooked infected organs to dogs (54.4%). Close association with dogs, home slaughtering of animals and education levels, were negatively associated with knowledge while religion, meat inspection water boiling and hand washing were positively associated with knowledge about CE. Focus group discussions (FGDs) revealed that people think CE is caused by witchcraft.

One of the stated objects of the study was to find out about knowledge and attitudes to CE. The dissertation continues:

Table 3 shows the assessment of people’s attitude towards CE. Attitude was assessed by asking relevant questions on how participants perceived the disease. Sixty three percent (243/384) of the participants did not perceive themselves at risk of being infected by CE whereas only 10 %( 38/384) think that they can get hydatidosis from close association with dogs. There was a lot of stigma on people who would develop this condition with 80.7 %( 310/384) of the participants reporting not to associate with CE patients. This was assessed by showing participants pictures of people infected by CE. Focused group discussions reveled that people think CE is caused by witchcraft and that the disease can only be treated using traditional means, how they could not reveal whether the people that were infected recovered after being treated by traditional healers. No one believed that they could get the disease from close association with dogs. “How can human beings become infected with a disease of dogs” wondered a middle aged lady.

Table 3: Attitudes towards CE 

Attitude variable	Frequency(n=384)	Percentage(%)
Think that they are at risk of acquiring CE	142	36.9
Think that can get infected with CE from close association with Dogs	38	9.9
Do not associate with People infected with CE	310	80.7

People were interviewed in FGDs to assess their knowledge and attitudes towards CE in qualitative way. The following results were obtained:

Perception about a disease can influence its epidemiology. If people perceive themselves at risk of acquiring the disease, they are more likely to guard against getting the disease and vice versa. Among 384 participants, 63% did not perceive themselves at risk of being infected by CE whereas only 10 % think that they can get hydatidosis from close association with dogs. There was a lot of stigma on people who would develop this condition with 80.7 %( n=384) of the participants reporting not to associate with CE patients. This one still show lack of sensitization on the dangers of CE in pastoral communities of Kasese district. People beliefs about acquiring CE was significant in a study done by Moro et al (2008) in Peru. Therefore, peoples’ attitudes should be changed to influence disease dynamics. According to this study, education was key determinant of perception about the disease (P<0.0000), however other factors that influenced attitude towards CE include people who have seen 32 the disease (OR=3.82), those who have knowledge about zoonoses (OR=4.7) and home slaughtering (OR=0.3). The rest of the factors were not significant where tested with perception about the disease. This was also documented by Hemachander (2008) who found out that people knew only rabies as a disease they can acquire from dogs. In this study as well, people had no idea of other zoonoses from dogs such as CE. 

This is the questionnaire that assessed knowledge and attitudes to CE. From this questionnaire it is possible to understand that attitudes are derived from factual knowledge and feelings:

C1. Do you know a disease called Echinococcosis or Hydatid disease (describe disease)
1. Yes 2. NO
C2 Do you know what zoonotic diseases are?
1. Yes 2. No
C3 If yes, can you briefly explain what they are……..............
C4 Have you ever been infected or treated with hydatid disease
1. Yes 2. No
C5 Do you think you can acquire Hydatid Disease from dogs’ feces?
1. Yes 2. No
C6 Have you ever seen hydatid disease in Slaughtered animals (Show the picture in animals )
1. Yes 2. No
C7 If yes which organ was affected………….
C8. Which place (village) did you see hydatid disease. ……………………………
C9 Have you ever seen hydatid disease in man (Show the picture in man)
1. Yes 2. No
C10 If yes, where……………………….
C11 Are you aware of dangers in eating raw/contaminated vegetables?
1. Yes 2. No
C12 If yes, what are the dangers?
1. Diseases 2. Worms 3. Diarrhoea 4. Fevers 5. Others (specify)
C13. Do you think you can acquire echinococcosis/ or be infected by echinococcus spp
1. Yes 2. No
C14 If yes why?…………………..
C15 If no why?...................................
C16 Do you associate with people infected with hydatid disease? 

Attitudes come from factual knowledge, opinions, prejudices, stigma and stereotypes. These all go together to make an attitude strong or weak. Attitudes are of great importance for measuring peoples feelings about an outgroup. If the strength of an attitude is known, it is possible to assess the likelihood of someone acting on that attitude. Attitudes can be changed by changing factual knowledge. The next post will look at other ways attitudes can be changed.