Cross Cultural Variations in Attitude of Adolescents

Abstract

An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related” (Allport, 1935). A decade later Kretch & Crutchfield, 1948 defined Attitude as “Attitude is an enduring organisation of motivational, emotional, perceptual and cognitive process with respect to some aspect of the individual’s world”. The Attitude of a person is determined by psychological factors like ideas, values, beliefs, perception etc.  Adolescence is the shifting period from childhood to adulthood, marked with physical and mental changes. Though Adolescent is the stage of life, cultural differences can often lead to surprising differences in their way they think, feel and act. The primary aim of the study was to examine the cultural differences among North Indian and South Indian Adolescents based on their level of attitude. A total of 100 adolescents (50 North Indians + 50 South Indians) ages ranging from 13-19 years were taken as sample for the study. Sodhi’s Attitude scale (Sodhi, 1984) was used to assess the attitude of adolescents. The results exhibited a significant difference in the attitude of North Indian and South Indian Adolescents towards their parents, teachers, discipline, life and humanity and religion