An attitude is a learned, evaluative tendency towards a person, object, group or idea — the reason two officers given the same rule implement it so differently. This chapter draws on social psychology: what an attitude is made of, what it does for us, why it does not always predict behaviour, and how attitudes change through social influence and persuasion.

What UPSC asks. GS IV is a Mains-only paper. Questions on attitude ask you to define and illustrate its components, explain the attitude–behaviour gap, discuss the attitudes a civil servant needs (towards weaker sections, towards change, towards the public), and analyse how persuasion can change social behaviour — sanitation, gender norms, environmental habits.

Sub-topic	What to prepare
Content and structure	Object, valence, strength; the ABC (affect, behaviour, cognition) model
Functions	Katz’s four functions: utilitarian, ego-defensive, value-expressive, knowledge
Attitude and behaviour	Cognitive dissonance; theory of planned behaviour; the attitude–behaviour gap
Moral and political attitudes	Beliefs about right and wrong; the political spectrum
Social influence and persuasion	Conformity, compliance, obedience; source–message–audience; nudges

Start with Attitude: content, structure and function.