Social Attitudes and Sociological Enquiry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5636440 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Percy S Cohen (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1966 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 341 |
| Publication date | 1966-12-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0007-1315 • E-ISSN: 1468-4446 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/589181 |
| PMID | 5957409 |
| OpenAlex | W2317922755 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 1 |
The term 'attitude', both in colloquial as well as in scientific usage, refers to the dispositions of men to view things in certain ways and to act accordingly. Attitudes are complexes of ideas and sentiments. In reality, some of the elements which are contained, or are thought to be contained in attitudes, are also those which are contained in motives; but, analytically, attitudes and motives are different. When an observer imputes a motive to someone, he asserts the existence of a conscious or unconscious goal to be realized, even when its realization fails; when one imputes an attitude one refers only to that dispositional state of a person which is regularly directed towards particular categories of persons or objects, regardless of the particular goals which he may pursue. In many situations, particularly structured social situations, the same sets of motives and attitudes are regularly mobilized together. In everyday life one infers attitudes from ordinary conduct, not from specially designed enquiries. One usually uses an attitudinal concept to cover a complex of acts and expressions, both verbal and non-verbal. From a parent's punitive reaction to a range of misdemeanours on the part of his child, from facial expressions, and scolding manner and content of speech, one infers the attitude of authoritarianism or, in layman's terms, of 'strictness'. From the reaction of an employer to the demands of his employees and from other expressions which one can observe, one infers an attitude of contempt, or consideration, superiority or relative equality. To refer to such attitudes is to impute to someone a stable disposition; and such imputation may have the role of providing a short-hand label for a complex of interrelated acts and expressions; or, it may have the additional role of providing an hypothesis for the explanation or prediction of conduct. Sociologists, one assumes, are never interested in attitudes as a final object of enquiry but always as part of an ultimate aim of studying the structure of social conduct; for them, an enquiry into attitudes must be justified by the assumptions that attitudes are predictive of conduct. A study of attitudes towards foremen, managers, workers, doctors, patients or God himself, must be presumed to enable one to predict or explain the conduct of men in their dealings with foremen, workers
Social science · Sociological research · Sociology · Innovative Teaching Methodologies in Social Sciences
Attitudes of the Elderly Toward Religion
A Sociological View on Marital Satisfaction
Secondary Analysis of Social Attitudes Towards Consensual Nonmonogamy (CNM) in Spain
Adolescent Summer Camp Volunteers' Attitudes Toward Peers with Disabilities
Attitudes to prescriptivism
Attitudinal variables as estimates of behavior
Of What Value is a Job Attitude? A Socio-Cognitive Analysis
Introduction for Special Section
How Buddhists and Catholies of Sri Lanka See Each Other- A factor analytic approach
| Citations per year | 0.17 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1973 - 2025 (53) |
| Highly cited | No |