Attitude > Perception > Serenity, WOMEN in RECOVERY

The Journey to Serenity is a process, one with constant change involved.

Perception (from the Latin perceptio, percipio) is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to fabricate a mental representation through the process of transduction, which sensors in the body transform signals from the environment into encoded neural signals.

All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs. For example, vision involves light striking the retinas of the eyes, smell is mediated by odor molecules and hearing involves pressure waves. Perception is not the passive receipt of these signals, but can be shaped by learning, memory and expectation.

Perception involves these “top-down” effects as well as the “bottom-up” process of processing sensory input. The “bottom-up” processing is basically low-level information that’s used to build up higher-level information (i.e. – shapes for object recognition). The “top-down” processing refers to a person’s concept and expectations (knowledge) that influence perception. Perception depends on complex functions of the nervous system, but subjectively seems mostly effortless because this processing happens outside conscious awareness.

Is your glass ‘half full’ or ‘half empty’?

The answer of course is yes in both cases. However, how you look at things in life can subtly have a dramatic effect. This is where having a positive thinking attitude or a negative attitude come into play.
 
Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event— this is often referred to as the attitude object. People can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object, meaning that they simultaneously possess both positive and negative attitudes toward the item in question.

An attitude can be defined as a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, event, activities, ideas, or just about anything in your environment (Zimbardo et al., 1999) In the opinion of Bain (1927), an attitude is “the relatively stable overt behavior of a person which affects his status.” “Attitudes which are different to a group are thus social attitudes or `values’ in the Thomasonian sense. The attitude is the status-fixing behavior. This differentiates it from habit and vegetative processes as such, and totally ignores the hypothetical ‘subjective states’ which have formerly been emphasized.It is how one judges any person,situation or object.

North (1932) has defined attitude as “the totality of those states that lead to or point toward some particular activity of the organism. The attitude is, therefore, the dynamic element in human behavior, the motive for activity.” For Lumley (1928) an attitude is “a susceptibility to certain kinds of stimuli and readiness to respond repeatedly in a given way—which are possible toward our world and the parts of it which impinge upon us.”

What Is an Attitude?

Psychologists define attitudes as a learned tendency to evaluate things in a certain way. This can include evaluations of people, issues, objects or events. Such evaluations are often positive or negative, but they can also be uncertain at times. For example, you might have mixed feelings about a particular person or issue.

Researchers also suggest that there are several different components that make up attitudes.

• An Emotional Component: How the object, person, issue or event makes you feel.
• A Cognitive Component: Your thoughts and beliefs about the subject.
• A Behavioral Component: How the attitude influences your behavior.

Attitudes can also be explicit and implicit. Explicit attitudes are those that we are consciously aware of and that clearly influence our behaviors and beliefs. Implicit attitudes are unconscious, but still have an effect on our beliefs and behaviors.

How Do Attitudes Form?

Attitudes form directly as a result of experience. They may emerge due to direct personal experience, or they may result from observation. Social roles and social norms can have a strong influence on attitudes. Social roles relate to how people are expected to behave in a particular role or context. Social norms involve society’s rules for what behaviors are considered appropriate.

Attitudes can be learned in a variety of ways. Consider how advertisers use classical conditioning to influence your attitude toward a particular product. In a television commercial, you see young, beautiful people having fun in on a tropical beach while enjoying a sport drink. This attractive and appealing imagery causes you to develop a positive association with this particular beverage.

Operant conditioning can also be used to influence how attitudes develop. Imagine a young man who has just started smoking. Whenever he lights up a cigarette, people complain, chastise him and ask him to leave their vicinity. This negative feedback from those around him eventually causes him to develop an unfavorable opinion of smoking and he decides to give up the habit.

Do you have a any of the following habits that affect your attitude, your perceptions:

• Do you always see the negative in a situation?
• Do you always feel attacked or in danger?
• Do you always think that the worse will happen, regardless of the situation?
• Do you always feel a need to control every situation?
• Do you always find it difficult to ‘just’ let things happen?
• Do you always live in a fight or flight experience?
• Do you always think that possibilities in life are ‘too good to be true’?

Attitude Change

While attitudes can have a powerful effect on behavior, they are not set in stone. The same influences that lead to attitude formation can also create attitude change.

Learning Theory of Attitude Change: Classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning can be used to bring about attitude change. Classical conditioning can be used to create positive emotional reactions to an object, person or event by associating positive feelings with the target object. Operant conditioning can be used to strengthen desirable attitudes and weaken undesirable ones. People can also change their attitudes after observing the behavior of others.

Elaboration Likelihood Theory of Attitude Change: This theory of persuasion suggests that people can alter their attitudes in two ways. First, they can be motivated to listen and think about the message, thus leading to an attitude shift. Or, they might be influenced by characteristics of the speaker, leading to a temporary or surface shift in attitude. Messages that are thought-provoking and that appeal to logic are more likely to lead to permanent changes in attitudes.

Dissonance Theory of Attitude Change: As mentioned earlier, people can also change their attitudes when they have conflicting beliefs about a topic. In order to reduce the tension created by these incompatible beliefs, people often shift their attitudes.

What is an ‘attitude perception’? 

Your attitude perception can have such a dramatic effect on how you make choices in your life. I do hope you can see and take on this different way of thinking. Yes you can make changes in attitude.

To do this will involve a process of change. You also need to know that any changes come at the expense of pain. That is why so few people ever really change. But I would like to challenge you to that change to improve your attitude as the results can totally overturn your life for the better.

The next important issue in changing your attitude perception is to find a way of blocking all negative incoming thoughts. Think of them as the weeds in your garden. They need plucking out and throwing away.

As you know we are bombarded with negative thoughts from all directions, every day. You need to find your own technique to block out these bad thoughts before they effect the way you think.

The way I found was to have an imaginary garbage can. When a bad thought comes my way I quickly take off the imaginary lid, throw the bad thought in and quickly put the lid back on before it effects me. You must find your own way that works for you.

To be even more effective you might consider cutting out all newspapers. After all you know that only bad and negative news sells papers. Also cutting out TV soaps that are too close to life but paint a bad picture that can subconsciously effect your attitude perception.

Now you may ask, what about all the negative thoughts that have already entered your mind. I am sorry to say that you can not get rid of them but you can dilute them.

Think of a field of freshly sown wheat where the shoots are growing but all you can see are weeds and wild poppies. But as the wheat grows and gets stronger, it over powers the weeds and poppies. They are still there but cannot be seen for the matured field of wheat. You can also dilute the negatives by only letting in positive thoughts.

So by now I hope you are beginning to see how your attitude perception can effect how you think and what you do and the choices you make. It is important to understand that changes that I hope you will start to make will take time. It will not be easy but it will be worth it.

 

Celebrate the Positives – Take Action !!!

 

 
References

Hockenbury, D., & Hockenbury, S. E. (2007). Discovering Psychology. New York, NY: Worth Publishers. {http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/a/attitudes.htm}

Myers, D. G. (1999). Social Psychology. McGraw-Hill College.

Smith, E. R. & Mackie, D. M. (2007). Social Psychology. London: Psychology Press.