Introduction
The relationship between attitude and behaviour is reciprocal rather than strictly unidirectional. An individual helping a visually impaired person exemplifies this interplay, as actions can stem from pre-existing cognitive-affective predispositions or actively crystallize attitudes in retrospect. Furthermore, human social functioning encompasses both prosocial orientation and aggressive deviations from or enforcements of established normative structures.
Attitude Determining Behaviour: The Proactive View
This pathway posits that an antecedent positive attitude served as the primary affective and cognitive driver of the prosocial act:
- Fazio's MODE Model: Motivation and Opportunity as DEterminants model posits that if the individual had cognitive capacity and time, deliberative processing occurred as described by Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior. Conversely, if quick action was required, a chronically accessible positive attitude automatically activated prosocial behaviour without conscious rumination.
- Batson's Empathy-Altruism Hypothesis: The affective component of the positive attitude evoked empathic concern rather than personal distress, motivating purely altruistic helping rather than egoistic escape.
- Latané and Darley's Bystander Intervention Model: A favorable cognitive schema toward persons with disabilities allowed the individual to successfully notice the situation, interpret it as requiring assistance, and assume personal responsibility to act.
Behaviour Determining Attitude: The Retroactive View
This perspective suggests that the attitude was formulated or reinforced post-action through attributional processes:
- Bem's Self-Perception Theory: When an initial attitude is weak, ambiguous, or unformed, individuals infer their inner states by observing their own overt actions. Upon completing the act, the individual concluded, 'I helped her, therefore I must hold a positive attitude toward visually impaired persons.'
- Limitations of Cognitive Dissonance: Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory is less applicable here because helping is typically voluntary, socially approved, and non-discrepant with core self-concepts. It produces no adverse psychological arousal requiring defensive attitude shifts.
- Reciprocal Determinism: As Albert Bandura and Piliavin's Cost-Reward model highlight, situational cues first elicit the act under low perceived cost, after which self-perception solidifies the attitude, priming future prosocial consistency.
Why People Behave Aggressively Toward Social Norms
Aggression relative to norms operates in two distinct psychological dimensions:
- Counter-Normative Aggression (Violating Norms): Explained by Anderson and Bushman's General Aggression Model (GAM), where personal traits (such as hostile attribution bias) interact with environmental triggers (such as frustration or heat) to increase physiological arousal and hostile cognitions. Social Cognitive Theory further shows that recurring observation and reinforcement create stable pro-aggression normative beliefs.
- Moralistic Aggression (Enforcing Norms): People frequently display aggression against norm-violators through altruistic punishment (Fehr and Gächter) and in-group policing (Tajfel's Social Identity Theory), expending resources to deter deviance and protect group cohesion.
Mechanisms to Change Aggressive Behaviours
Modifying aggressive behavior requires interventions targeted across cognitive, normative, and systemic levels:
- Aggression Replacement Training (ART): A multi-modal cognitive-behavioral intervention combining social skills training (teaching prosocial alternatives), anger control training (restructuring cognitive triggers and automatic hostility), and moral reasoning education.
- Focus Theory of Normative Conduct (Cialdini): Interventions should realign descriptive norms (perceptions of what others do) and injunctive norms (what is socially approved) by publicly reinforcing collaborative conflict resolution rather than dominance.
- Restorative Justice Frameworks: Shifting from punitive retributive models to community-based mediation fosters perspective-taking, builds active empathy, and mitigates cyclical retaliatory aggression in institutional settings.
Conclusion
Attitudes and behaviours continuously inform and reshape one another across developmental contexts. Managing disruptive aggression similarly relies on breaking maladaptive cognitive loops through structured cognitive restructuring, positive normative reinforcement, and institutional empathy-building.