Attitude (psychology)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In psychology, attitude is a psychological construct, a mental and emotional entity that inheres in, or characterizes a person. They are complex and an acquired state through experiences. It is an individual's predisposed state of mind regarding a value and it is precipitated through a responsive expression toward a person, place, thing, or event (the attitude object) which in turn influences the individual's thought and action. Prominent psychologist Gordon Allport described this latent psychological construct as "the most distinctive and indispensable concept in contemporary social psychology." Attitude can be formed from a person's past and present. Key topics in the study of attitudes include attitude strength, attitude change, consumer behavior, and attitude-behavior relationships.

Definitions

Social psychology

An attitude is an evaluation of an attitude object, ranging from extremely negative to extremely positive. Most contemporary perspectives on attitudes also permit that people can also be conflicted or ambivalent toward an object by simultaneously holding both positive and negative attitudes toward the same object. This has led to some discussion of whether individual can hold multiple attitudes toward the same object.

An attitude can be as a positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, events, activities, and ideas. It could be concrete, abstract or just about anything in your environment, but there is a debate about precise definitions. Eagly and Chaiken, for example, define an attitude as "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor." Though it is sometimes common to define an attitude as affect toward an object, affect (i.e., discrete emotions or overall arousal) is generally understood as an evaluative structure used to form attitude object. Attitude may influence the attention to attitude objects, the use of categories for encoding information and the interpretation, judgement and recall of attitude-relevant information. These influences tend to be more powerful for strong attitudes which are accessible and based on elaborate supportive knowledge structure. The durability and impact of influence depend upon the strength formed from consistency of heuristics. Attitudes can guide encoding information, attention and behaviors, even if the individual is pursuing unrelated goals.

Jung's definition

Attitude is one of Jung's 57 definitions in Chapter XI of Psychological Types. Jung's definition of attitude is a "readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way". Attitudes very often come in pairs, one conscious and the other unconscious. Within this broad definition Jung defines several attitudes. 

The main (but not only) attitude dualities that Jung defines are the following.

• Consciousness and the unconscious. The "presence of two attitudes is extremely frequent, one conscious and the other unconscious. This means that consciousness has a constellation of contents different from that of the unconscious, a duality particularly evident in neurosis".
• Extraversion and introversion. This pair is so elementary to Jung's theory of types that he labeled them the "attitude-types".
• Rational and irrational attitudes. "I conceive reason as an attitude".
• The rational attitude subdivides into the thinking and feeling psychological functions, each with its attitude.
• The irrational attitude subdivides into the sensing and intuition psychological functions, each with its attitude. "There is thus a typical thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuitive attitude".
• Individual and social attitudes. Many of the latter are "isms".

In addition, Jung discusses the abstract attitude. “When I take an abstract attitude...”. Abstraction is contrasted with creationism “CREATIONISM. By this I mean a peculiarity of thinking and feeling which is the antithesis of abstraction”.

Factors

Psychological

The attitude of a person is determined by psychological factors like ideas, values, beliefs, perception, etc. All these have a complex role in determining a person's attitude. Values are ideals, guiding principles in one’s life, or overarching goals that people strive to obtain (Maio & Olson, 1998). Beliefs are cognitions about the world—subjective probabilities that an object has a particular attribute or that an action will lead to a particular outcome (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Beliefs can be patently and unequivocally false. For example, surveys show that a third of U.S. adults think that vaccines cause autism, despite the preponderance of scientific research to the contrary (Dixon et al., 2015). It was found that beliefs like these are tenaciously held and highly resistant to change. Another important factor that affects attitude is symbolic interactionism, these are rife with powerful symbols and charged with affect which can lead to a selective perception. Persuasion theories says that in politics, successful persuaders convince its message recipients into a selective perception or attitude polarization for turning against the opposite candidate through a repetitive process that they are in a noncommittal state and it is unacceptable and doesn't have any moral basis for it and for this they only require to chain the persuading message into a realm of plausibility (Gopnik, 2015 & O’Keefe, 2016).

Family

Family plays a significant role in the primary stage of attitudes held by individuals. Initially, a person develops certain attitudes from his parents, brothers, sister, and elders in the family. There is a high degree of relationship between parent and children in attitudes found in them.

Society

Societies play an important role in formatting the attitudes of an individual. The culture, the tradition, the language, etc., influence a person's attitudes. Society, tradition, and the culture teach individuals what is and what is not acceptable.

Economic

A person's attitude also depends on issues such as his salary, status, work environment, work as such, etc.

Structure

The classic, tripartite view offered by Rosenberg and Hovland is that an attitude contains cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. Empirical research, however, fails to support clear distinctions between thoughts, emotions, and behavioral intentions associated with a particular attitude. A criticism of the tripartite view of attitudes is that it requires cognitive, affective, and behavioral associations of an attitude to be consistent, but this may be implausible. Thus some views of attitude structure see the cognitive and behavioral components as derivative of affect or affect and behavior as derivative of underlying beliefs.

Despite debate about the particular structure of attitudes, there is considerable evidence that attitudes reflect more than evaluations of a particular object that vary from positive to negative. Among numerous attitudes, one example is people's money attitudes which may help people understand their affective love of money motive, stewardship behavior, and money cognition. These ABC components of attitudes formulate, define, and contribute to an overall construct of Monetary Intelligence which, in turn, may be related to many theoretical work-related constructs.

There is also a considerable interest in intra-attitudinal and inter-attitudinal structure, which is how an attitude is made (expectancy and value) and how different attitudes relate to one another. Which connects different attitudes to one another and to more underlying psychological structures, such as values or ideology.

Attitude component models

An influential model of attitude is the multicomponent model, where attitudes are evaluations of an object that have affective, behavioral, and cognitive components (the ABC model):

• Affective component The affective component of attitudes refer to your feelings or emotions linked to an attitude object. Affective responses influence attitudes in a number of ways. For example, many people are afraid/scared of spiders. So this negative affective response is likely to cause you to have a negative attitude towards spiders.
• Behavioural component The behavioral component of attitudes refer to past behaviours or experiences regarding an attitude object. The idea that people might infer their attitudes from their previous actions.
• Cognitive component The cognitive component of attitudes refer to the beliefs, thoughts, and attributes that we would associate with an object. Many times a person's attitude might be based on the negative and positive attributes they associate with an object.

MODE model

This is the theory of attitude evaluation (motivation and opportunity as determinants of the attitude - behavior relation). When both are present, behavior will be deliberate. When one is absent, impact on behavior will be spontaneous. The MODE model was developed by Fazio. A person's attitude can be measured in two different ways:

• Explicit measure
• Implicit measure

Explicit measure are attitudes at the conscious level, that are deliberately formed and easy to self-report. Implicit measures are attitudes that are at an unconscious level, that are involuntarily formed and are typically unknown to us. Both explicit and implicit attitudes can shape an individual's behavior. Implicit attitudes, however, are most likely to affect behavior when the demands are steep and an individual feels stressed or distracted.

Function

Another classic view of attitudes is that attitudes serve particular functions for individuals. That is, researchers have tried to understand why individuals hold particular attitudes or why they hold attitudes in general by considering how attitudes affect the individuals who hold them. Daniel Katz, for example, writes that attitudes can serve "instrumental, adjustive or utilitarian," "ego-defensive," "value-expressive," or "knowledge" functions. This functional attitude theory suggests that in order for attitudes to change (e.g., via persuasion), appeals must be made to the function(s) that a particular attitude serves for the individual. As an example, the "ego-defensive" function might be used to influence the racially prejudicial attitudes of an individual who sees themselves as open-minded and tolerant. By appealing to that individual's image of themselves as tolerant and open-minded, it may be possible to change their prejudicial attitudes to be more consistent with their self-concept. Similarly, a persuasive message that threatens self-image is much more likely to be rejected.

Daniel Katz classified attitudes into four different groups based on their functions:

1. Utilitarian: provides us with general approach or avoidance tendencies:
2. Knowledge: help people organize and interpret new information:
3. Ego-defensive: attitudes can help people protect their self-esteem;
4. Value-expressive: used to express central values or beliefs.

Utilitarian People adopt attitudes that are rewarding and that help them avoid punishment. In other words, any attitude that is adopted in a person's own self-interest is considered to serve a utilitarian function. Consider you have a condo, people with condos pay property taxes, and as a result you don't want to pay more taxes. If those factors lead to your attitude that "increases in property taxes are bad" your attitude is serving a utilitarian function. 

Knowledge People need to maintain an organized, meaningful, and stable view of the world. That being said important values and general principles can provide a framework for our knowledge. Attitudes achieve this goal by making things fit together and make sense. Example:

• I believe that I am a good person.
• I believe that good things happen to good people.
• Something bad happens to Bob.
• So I believe Bob must not be a good person.

Ego-Defensive This function involves psychoanalytic principles where people use defense mechanisms to protect themselves from psychological harm. Mechanisms include:

• Denial
• Repression
• Projection
• Rationalization

The ego-defensive notion correlates nicely with Downward Comparison Theory which holds the view that derogating a less fortunate other increases our own subjective well-being. We are more likely to use the ego-defensive function when we suffer a frustration or misfortune.

Value-Expressive

• Serves to express one's central values and self-concept.
• Central values tend to establish our identity and gain us social approval thereby showing us who we are, and what we stand for.

An example would concern attitudes toward a controversial political issue.

Formation

According to Doob (1947), learning can account for most of the attitudes we hold. The study of attitude formation is the study of how people form evaluations of persons, places or things. Theories of classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning and social learning are mainly responsible for formation of attitude. Unlike personality, attitudes are expected to change as a function of experience. In addition, exposure to the 'attitude' objects may have an effect on how a person forms his or her attitude. This concept was seen as the "Mere-Exposure Effect". Robert Zajonc showed that people were more likely to have a positive attitude on 'attitude objects' when they were exposed to it frequently than if they were not. Mere repeated exposure of the individual to a stimulus is a sufficient condition for the enhancement of his attitude toward it. Tesser (1993) has argued that hereditary variables may affect attitudes - but believes that they may do so indirectly. For example, consistency theories, which imply that we must be consistent in our beliefs and values. As with any type of heritability, to determine if a particular trait has a basis in our genes, twin studies are used. The most famous example of such a theory is Dissonance-reduction theory, associated with Leon Festinger, which explains that when the components of an attitude (including belief and behavior) are at odds an individual may adjust one to match the other (for example, adjusting a belief to match a behavior). Other theories include balance theory, originally proposed by Heider (1958), and the self-perception theory, originally proposed by Daryl Bem.

Change

Attitudes can be changed through persuasion and an important domain of research on attitude change focuses on responses to communication. Experimental research into the factors that can affect the persuasiveness of a message include:

• Target characteristics: These are characteristics that refer to the person who receives and processes a message. One such trait is intelligence - it seems that more intelligent people are less easily persuaded by one-sided messages. Another variable that has been studied in this category is self-esteem. Although it is sometimes thought that those higher in self-esteem are less easily persuaded, there is some evidence that the relationship between self-esteem and persuasibility is actually curvilinear, with people of moderate self-esteem being more easily persuaded than both those of high and low self-esteem levels (Rhodes & Woods, 1992). The mind frame and mood of the target also plays a role in this process.

• Source characteristics: The major source characteristics are expertise, trustworthiness and interpersonal attraction or attractiveness. The credibility of a perceived message has been found to be a key variable here; if one reads a report about health and believes it came from a professional medical journal, one may be more easily persuaded than if one believes it is from a popular newspaper. Some psychologists have debated whether this is a long-lasting effect and Hovland and Weiss (1951) found the effect of telling people that a message came from a credible source disappeared after several weeks (the so-called "sleeper effect"). Whether there is a sleeper effect is controversial. Perceived wisdom is that if people are informed of the source of a message before hearing it, there is less likelihood of a sleeper effect than if they are told a message and then told its source.

• Message Characteristics: The nature of the message plays a role in persuasion. Sometimes presenting both sides of a story is useful to help change attitudes. When people are not motivated to process the message, simply the number of arguments presented in a persuasive message will influence attitude change, such that a greater number of arguments will produce greater attitude change.

• Cognitive routes: A message can appeal to an individual's cognitive evaluation to help change an attitude. In the central route to persuasion the individual is presented with the data and motivated to evaluate the data and arrive at an attitude changing conclusion. In the peripheral route to attitude change, the individual is encouraged to not look at the content but at the source. This is commonly seen in modern advertisements that feature celebrities. In some cases, physician, doctors or experts are used. In other cases film stars are used for their attractiveness.

Emotion and attitude change

Emotion is a common component in persuasion, social influence, and attitude change. Much of attitude research emphasized the importance of affective or emotion components. Emotion works hand-in-hand with the cognitive process, or the way we think, about an issue or situation. Emotional appeals are commonly found in advertising, health campaigns and political messages. Recent examples include no-smoking health campaigns and political campaign advertising emphasizing the fear of terrorism. Attitudes and attitude objects are functions of cognitive, affective, and conative components. Attitudes are part of the brain’s associative networks, the spider-like structures residing in long term memory that consist of affective and cognitive nodes. 

By activating an affective or emotion node, attitude change may be possible, though affective and cognitive components tend to be intertwined. In primarily affective networks, it is more difficult to produce cognitive counterarguments in the resistance to persuasion and attitude change. 

Affective forecasting, otherwise known as intuition or the prediction of emotion, also impacts attitude change. Research suggests that predicting emotions is an important component of decision making, in addition to the cognitive processes. How we feel about an outcome may override purely cognitive rationales. 

In terms of research methodology, the challenge for researchers is measuring emotion and subsequent impacts on attitude. Since we cannot see into the brain, various models and measurement tools have been constructed to obtain emotion and attitude information. Measures may include the use of physiological cues like facial expressions, vocal changes, and other body rate measures. For instance, fear is associated with raised eyebrows, increased heart rate and increase body tension (Dillard, 1994). Other methods include concept or network mapping, and using primes or word cues in the era.

Components of emotion appeals

Any discrete emotion can be used in a persuasive appeal; this may include jealousy, disgust, indignation, fear, blue, disturbed, haunted, and anger. Fear is one of the most studied emotional appeals in communication and social influence research.

Important consequences of fear appeals and other emotion appeals include the possibility of reactance which may lead to either message rejections or source rejection and the absence of attitude change. As the EPPM suggests, there is an optimal emotion level in motivating attitude change. If there is not enough motivation, an attitude will not change; if the emotional appeal is overdone, the motivation can be paralyzed thereby preventing attitude change. 

Emotions perceived as negative or containing threat are often studied more than perceived positive emotions like humor. Though the inner-workings of humor are not agreed upon, humor appeals may work by creating incongruities in the mind. Recent research has looked at the impact of humor on the processing of political messages. While evidence is inconclusive, there appears to be potential for targeted attitude change is receivers with low political message involvement.

Important factors that influence the impact of emotion appeals include self efficacy, attitude accessibility, issue involvement, and message/source features. Self efficacy is a perception of one’s own human agency; in other words, it is the perception of our own ability to deal with a situation. It is an important variable in emotion appeal messages because it dictates a person’s ability to deal with both the emotion and the situation. For example, if a person is not self-efficacious about their ability to impact the global environment, they are not likely to change their attitude or behavior about global warming. 

Dillard (1994) suggests that message features such as source non-verbal communication, message content, and receiver differences can impact the emotion impact of fear appeals. The characteristics of a message are important because one message can elicit different levels of emotion for different people. Thus, in terms of emotion appeals messages, one size does not fit all. 

Attitude accessibility refers to the activation of an attitude from memory in other words, how readily available is an attitude about an object, issue, or situation. Issue involvement is the relevance and salience of an issue or situation to an individual. Issue involvement has been correlated with both attitude access and attitude strength. Past studies conclude accessible attitudes are more resistant to change.

Attitude-behavior relationship

The effects of attitudes on behaviors is a growing research enterprise within psychology. Icek Ajzen has led research and helped develop two prominent theoretical approaches within this field: the theory of reasoned action and, its theoretical descendant, the theory of planned behavior. Both theories help explain the link between attitude and behavior as a controlled and deliberative process.

Theory of reasoned action

The theory of reasoned action (TRA) is a model for the prediction of behavioral intention, spanning predictions of attitude and predictions of behavior. The subsequent separation of behavioral intention from behavior allows for explanation of limiting factors on attitudinal influence (Ajzen, 1980). The theory of reasoned action was developed by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen (1975, 1980), derived from previous research that started out as the theory of attitude, which led to the study of attitude and behavior. The theory was "born largely out of frustration with traditional attitude–behavior research, much of which found weak correlations between attitude measures and performance of volitional behaviors" (Hale, Householder & Greene, 2003, p. 259).

Theory of planned behavior

The theory of planned behavior was proposed by Icek Ajzen in 1985 through his article "From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior." The theory was developed from the theory of reasoned action, which was proposed by Martin Fishbein together with Icek Ajzen in 1975. The theory of reasoned action was in turn grounded in various theories of attitude such as learning theories, expectancy-value theories, consistency theories, and attribution theory. According to the theory of reasoned action, if people evaluate the suggested behavior as positive (attitude), and if they think their significant others want them to perform the behavior (subjective norm), this results in a higher intention (motivation) and they are more likely to do so. A high correlation of attitudes and subjective norms to behavioral intention, and subsequently to behavior, has been confirmed in many studies. The theory of planned behavior contains the same component as the theory of reasoned action, but adds the component of perceived behavioral control to account for barriers outside one's own control.

Motivation and Opportunity as Determinants (MODE)

Russell H. Fazio proposed an alternative theory called "Motivation and Opportunity as Determinants" or MODE. Fazio believes that because there is deliberative process happening, individuals must be motivated to reflect on their attitudes and subsequent behaviors. Simply put, when an attitude is automatically activated, the individual must be motivated to avoid making an invalid judgement as well as have the opportunity to reflect on their attitude and behavior. 

A counter-argument against the high relationship between behavioral intention and actual behavior has also been proposed, as the results of some studies show that, because of circumstantial limitations, behavioral intention does not always lead to actual behavior. Namely, since behavioral intention cannot be the exclusive determinant of behavior where an individual's control over the behavior is incomplete, Ajzen introduced the theory of planned behavior by adding a new component, "perceived behavioral control." By this, he extended the theory of reasoned action to cover non-volitional behaviors for predicting behavioral intention and actual behavior.

Measurement

In 1928 Louis Leon Thurstone published an article titled "Attitudes Can Be Measured" in it he proposed an elaborate procedure to assess people’s views on social issues. Attitudes can be difficult to measure because measurement is arbitrary, because attitudes are ultimately a hypothetical construct that cannot be observed directly. 

But many measurements and evidence proofed scales are used to examine attitudes. A Likert scale taps agreement or disagreement with a series of belief statements. The Guttman scale focuses on items that vary in their degree of psychological difficulty. The semantic differential uses bipolar adjectives to measure the meaning associated with attitude objects. Supplementing these are several indirect techniques such as unobtrusive, standard physiological, and neuroscientific measures. Following the explicit-implicit dichotomy, attitudes can be examined through direct and indirect measures. 

Whether attitudes are explicit (i.e., deliberately formed) versus implicit (i.e., subconscious) has been a topic of considerable research. Research on implicit attitudes, which are generally unacknowledged or outside of awareness, uses sophisticated methods involving people's response times to stimuli to show that implicit attitudes exist (perhaps in tandem with explicit attitudes of the same object). Implicit and explicit attitudes seem to affect people's behavior, though in different ways. They tend not to be strongly associated with each other, although in some cases they are. The relationship between them is poorly understood.

Explicit

Explicit measures tend to rely on self-reports or easily observed behaviors. These tend to involve bipolar scales (e.g., good-bad, favorable-unfavorable, support-oppose, etc.). Explicit measures can also be used by measuring the straightforward attribution of characteristics to nominate groups. Explicit attitudes that develop in response to recent information, automatic evaluation were thought to reflect mental associations through early socialization experiences. Once formed, these associations are highly robust and resistant to change, as well as stable across both context and time. Hence the impact of contextual influences was assumed to be obfuscate assessment of a person's "true" and enduring evaluative disposition as well as limit the capacity to predict subsequent behavior. Likert scales and other self-reports are also commonly used.

Implicit

Implicit measures are not consciously directed and are assumed to be automatic, which may make implicit measures more valid and reliable than explicit measures (such as self-reports). For example, people can be motivated such that they find it socially desirable to appear to have certain attitudes. An example of this is that people can hold implicit prejudicial attitudes, but express explicit attitudes that report little prejudice. Implicit measures help account for these situations and look at attitudes that a person may not be aware of or want to show. Implicit measures therefore usually rely on an indirect measure of attitude. For example, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) examines the strength between the target concept and an attribute element by considering the latency in which a person can examine two response keys when each has two meanings. With little time to carefully examine what the participant is doing they respond according to internal keys. This priming can show attitudes the person has about a particular object. People are often unwilling to provide responses perceived as socially undesirable and therefore tend to report what they think their attitudes should be rather than what they know them to be. More complicated still, people may not even be consciously aware that they hold biased attitudes. Over the past few decades, scientists have developed new measures to identify these unconscious biases.

Optimism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Berlin Wall Monument (west view). The west side of the wall is covered with graffiti that reflects hope and optimism.

 

Optimism is a mental attitude reflecting a belief or hope that the outcome of some specific endeavor, or outcomes in general, will be positive, favorable, and desirable. A common idiom used to illustrate optimism versus pessimism is a glass filled with water to the halfway point: an optimist is said to see the glass as half full, while a pessimist sees the glass as half empty. 

The term derives from the Latin optimum, meaning "best". Being optimistic, in the typical sense of the word, is defined as expecting the best possible outcome from any given situation. This is usually referred to in psychology as dispositional optimism. It thus reflects a belief that future conditions will work out for the best.

Theories of optimism include dispositional models, and models of explanatory style. Methods to measure optimism have been developed within both theoretical systems, such as various forms of the Life Orientation Test, for the original definition of optimism, or the Attributional Style Questionnaire designed to test optimism in terms of explanatory style. 

Variation in optimism and pessimism is somewhat heritable and reflects biological trait systems to some degree. It is also influenced by environmental factors, including family environment, with some suggesting it can be learned. Optimism may also be linked to health.

Psychological optimism

Dispositional optimism

An optimist and a pessimist, Vladimir Makovsky, 1893

 

Researchers operationalize the term differently depending on their research. As with any trait characteristic, there are several ways to evaluate optimism, such as the Life Orientation Test (LOT).

Dispositional optimism and pessimism are typically assessed by asking people whether they expect future outcomes to be beneficial or negative (see below). The LOT returns separate optimism and pessimism scores for each individual. Behaviourally, these two scores correlate around r = 0.5. Optimistic scores on this scale predict better outcomes in relationships, higher social status, and reduced loss of well-being following adversity. Health preserving behaviors are associated with optimism while health-damaging behaviors are associated with pessimism.

Some have argued that pessimism and optimism are ends of a single dimension, with any distinction between them reflecting factors such as social desirability. Confirmatory modelling, however, supports a two-dimensional model and the two dimensions predict different outcomes. Genetic modelling confirms this independence, showing that pessimism and optimism are inherited as independent traits, with the typical correlation between them emerging as a result of a general well-being factor and family environment influences.

Explanatory style

Explanatory style is distinct from dispositional theories of optimism. While related to life-orientation measures of optimism, attributional style theory suggests that dispositional optimism and pessimism are reflections of the ways people explain events, i.e., that attributions cause these dispositions. Measures of attributional style distinguish three dimensions among explanations for events: Whether these explanations draw on internal versus external causes; whether the causes are viewed as stable versus unstable; and whether explanations apply globally versus being situationally specific. In addition, the measures distinguish attributions for positive and for negative events.

An optimistic person attributes internal, stable, and global explanations to good things. Pessimistic explanations attribute these traits of stability, globality, and internality to negative events, such as difficulty in relationships. Models of Optimistic and Pessimistic attributions show that attributions themselves are a cognitive style – individuals who tend to focus on the global explanations do so for all types of events, and the styles correlate among each other. In addition to this, individuals vary in how optimistic their attributions are for good events, and on how pessimistic their attributions are for bad events, but these two traits of optimism and pessimism are un-correlated.

There is much debate about the relationship between explanatory style and optimism. Some researchers argue that optimism is simply the lay-term for what researchers know as explanatory style. More commonly, it is found that explanatory style is quite distinct from dispositional optimism, and the two should not be used interchangeably as they are marginally correlated at best. More research is required to "bridge" or further differentiate these concepts.

Origins

Optimistic Personality (modified from)

As with all psychological traits, differences in both dispositional optimism and pessimism  and in attributional style are heritable. Both optimism and pessimism are strongly influenced by environmental factors, including family environment. It has been suggested that optimism may be indirectly inherited as a reflection of underlying heritable traits such as intelligence, temperament and alcoholism. Many theories assume optimism can be learned, and research supports a modest role of family-environment acting to raise (or lower) optimism and lower (or raise) neuroticism and pessimism.

Work utilising brain imaging and biochemistry suggests that at a biological trait level, optimism and pessimism reflect brain systems specialized for the tasks of processing and incorporating beliefs regarding good and bad information respectively.

Assessment

Life Orientation Test

The Life Orientation Test (LOT) was designed by Scheier and Carver (1985) to assess dispositional optimism – expecting positive or negative outcomes, and is one of the more popular tests of optimism and pessimism. There are eight items and four filler items. Four are positive items (e.g. "In uncertain times, I usually expect the best") and four are negative items e.g. "If something can go wrong for me, it will." The LOT has been revised twice—once by the original creators (LOT-R) and also by Chang, Maydeu-Olivares, and D'Zurilla as the Extended Life Orientation Test (ELOT). The Revised Life Orientation Test (LOT-R: Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994) consists of 6 items, each scored on a 5-point scale from "Strongly disagree" to "Strongly agree".

Attributional Style Questionnaire

This Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ: Peterson et al. 1982) is based on the explanatory style model of optimism. Subjects read a list of six positive and negative events (e.g. "you have been looking for a job unsuccessfully for some time"), and are asked to record a possible cause for the event. They then rate whether this is internal or external, stable or changeable, and global or local to the event. There are several modified versions of the ASQ including the Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire (EASQ), the Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations (CAVE), and the ASQ designed for testing the optimism of children.

Associations with health

Optimism and health are correlated moderately. Optimism has been shown to explain between 5–10% of the variation in the likelihood of developing some health conditions (correlation coefficients between .20 and .30), notably including cardiovascular disease, stroke, and depression.

The relationship between optimism and health has also been studied with regards to physical symptoms, coping strategies and negative affect for those suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and fibromyalgia. 

It has been found that among individuals with these diseases, optimists are not more likely than pessimists to report pain alleviation due to coping strategies, despite differences in psychological well-being between the two groups. A meta-analysis has confirmed the assumption that optimism is related to psychological well-being: "Put simply, optimists emerge from difficult circumstances with less distress than do pessimists." Furthermore, the correlation appears to be attributable to coping style: "That is, optimists seem intent on facing problems head-on, taking active and constructive steps to solve their problems; pessimists are more likely to abandon their effort to attain their goals."

Optimists may respond better to stress: pessimists have shown higher levels of cortisol (the "stress hormone") and trouble regulating cortisol in response to stressors. Another study by Scheier examined the recovery process for a number of patients that had undergone surgery. The study showed that optimism was a strong predictor of the rate of recovery. Optimists achieved faster results in "behavioral milestones" such as sitting in bed, walking around, etc. They also were rated by staff as having a more favorable physical recovery. In a 6-month later follow-up, it was found that optimists were quicker to resume normal activities.

Optimism and well-being

A number of studies have been done on optimism and psychological well-being. One study conducted by Aspinwall and Taylor (1990) assessed incoming freshmen on a range of personality factors such as optimism, self-esteem, locus of self-control, etc. It was found that freshmen who scored high on optimism before entering college were reported to have lower levels of psychological distress than their more pessimistic peers, while controlling for the other personality factors. Over time, the more optimistic students were less stressed, less lonely, and less depressed than their pessimistic counterparts. Thus, this study suggests a strong link between optimism and psychological well-being. 

In addition low optimism may help explain the association between caregivers' anger and reduced sense of vitality.

A recent meta-analysis of optimism supported past findings that optimism is positively correlated with life satisfaction, happiness, psychological and physical well-being and negatively correlated with depression and anxiety.

Seeking to explain the correlation, researchers find that optimists choose healthier lifestyles. For example, optimists smoke less, are more physically active, consume more fruit, vegetables and whole-grain bread, and are more moderate in alcohol consumption.

Translating association into modifiability

Research to date has demonstrated that optimists are less likely to have certain diseases or develop certain diseases over time. By comparison, research has not yet been able to demonstrate the ability to change an individual's level of optimism through psychological interventions, and thereby alter the course of disease or likelihood for development of disease. Though in that same vein, an article by Mayo Clinic argues steps to change self-talk from negative to positive may shift individuals from a negative to a more positive/optimistic outlook. Strategies claimed to be of value include surrounding oneself with positive people, identifying areas of change, practicing positive self-talk, being open to humor, and following a healthy lifestyle. There is also the notion of "learned optimism" in positive psychology, which holds that joy is a talent that can be cultivated and can be achieved through specific actions such as the challenging negative self talk or overcoming "learned helplessness".

There are researchers in a study involving twins found that optimism is largely inherited at birth. Along with the recognition that childhood experiences determines an individual's outlook, such study demonstrating the genetic basis for optimism reinforces the recognized difficulty in changing or manipulating the direction of an adult's disposition from pessimist to optimist.

Philosophical optimism

Distinct from a disposition to believe that things will work out, there is a philosophical idea that, perhaps in ways that may not be fully comprehended, the present moment is in an optimum state. This view that all of nature - past, present, and future - operates by laws of optimization along the lines of Hamilton's principle in the realm of physics is countered by views such as idealism, realism, and philosophical pessimism. Philosophers often link the concept of optimism with the name of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who held that we live in the best of all possible worlds (le meilleur des mondes possibles), or that God created a physical universe that applies the laws of physics. 

Leibniz proposed that it was not in God's power to create a perfect world, but among possible worlds, he created the best. In one of his writings, he responded to the Blaise Pascal's philosophy of awe and desperation in the face of the infinite by claiming that infinity should be celebrated. While Pascal advocated for making man's rational aspirations more humble, Leibniz was optimistic about the capacity of human reason to further extend itself. This idea was famously mocked by Voltaire in his satirical novel Candide as baseless optimism of the sort exemplified by the beliefs of one of its characters Dr. Pangloss, which are the opposite of his fellow traveller Martin's pessimism and emphasis on free will. The optimistic position is also called Panglossianism and became an adjective for excessive, even stupendous, optimism. The phrase "panglossian pessimism" has been used to describe the pessimistic position that, since this is the best of all possible worlds, it is impossible for anything to get any better. Conversely, philosophical pessimism might be associated with an optimistic long-term view because it implies that no change for the worse is possible.

Optimalism

Philosophical optimalism, as defined by Nicholas Rescher, holds that this universe exists because it is better than the alternatives. While this philosophy does not exclude the possibility of a deity, it also doesn't require one, and is compatible with atheism. Rescher explained that the concept can stand on its own feet, arguing that there is no necessity to seeing optimalism realization as divinely instituted because it is a naturalistic theory in principle.

Psychological optimalism, as defined by the positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar, means willingness to accept failure while remaining confident that success will follow, a positive attitude he contrasts with negative perfectionism. Perfectionism can be defined as a persistent compulsive drive toward unattainable goals and valuation based solely in terms of accomplishment. Perfectionists reject the realities and constraints of human ability. They cannot accept failures, delaying any ambitious and productive behavior in fear of failure again. This neuroticism can even lead to clinical depression and low productivity. As an alternative to negative perfectionism, Ben-Shahar suggests the adoption of optimalism. Optimalism allows for failure in pursuit of a goal, and expects that while the trend of activity is towards the positive, it is not necessary to always succeed while striving towards goals. This basis in reality prevents the optimalist from being overwhelmed in the face of failure.

Optimalists accept failures and also learn from them, which encourages further pursuit of achievement. Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar believes that Optimalists and Perfectionists show distinct different motives. Optimalists tend to have more intrinsic, inward desires, with a motivation to learn, while perfectionists are highly motivated by a need to consistently prove themselves worthy.

Progressive tax

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

A progressive tax is a tax in which the tax rate increases as the taxable amount increases. The term "progressive" refers to the way the tax rate progresses from low to high, with the result that a taxpayer's average tax rate is less than the person's marginal tax rate. The term can be applied to individual taxes or to a tax system as a whole; a year, multi-year, or lifetime. Progressive taxes are imposed in an attempt to reduce the tax incidence of people with a lower ability to pay, as such taxes shift the incidence increasingly to those with a higher ability-to-pay. The opposite of a progressive tax is a regressive tax, where the relative tax rate or burden decreases as an individual's ability to pay increases.

 

The term is frequently applied in reference to personal income taxes, in which people with lower income pay a lower percentage of that income in tax than do those with higher income. It can also apply to adjustments of the tax base by using tax exemptions, tax credits, or selective taxation that creates progressive distribution effects. For example, a wealth or property tax, a sales tax on luxury goods, or the exemption of sales taxes on basic necessities, may be described as having progressive effects as it increases the tax burden of higher income families and reduces it on lower income families.

Progressive taxation is often suggested as a way to mitigate the societal ills associated with higher income inequality, as the tax structure reduces inequality, but economists disagree on the tax policy's economic and long-term effects. One study suggests progressive taxation can be positively associated with happiness, the subjective well-being of nations and citizen satisfaction with public goods, such as education and transportation.

Early examples

In the early days of the Roman Republic, public taxes consisted of assessments on owned wealth and property. The tax rate under normal circumstances was 1% of property value, and could sometimes climb as high as 3% in situations such as war. These taxes were levied against land, homes and other real estate, slaves, animals, personal items and monetary wealth. By 167 BC, Rome no longer needed to levy a tax against its citizens in the Italian peninsula, due to the riches acquired from conquered provinces. After considerable Roman expansion in the 1st century, Augustus Caesar introduced a wealth tax of about 1% and a flat poll tax on each adult, this made the tax system less progressive (as it no longer only taxed wealth).

Modern era

A caricature of William Pitt the Younger collecting the newly introduced income tax.

 

The first modern income tax was introduced in Britain by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger in his budget of December 1798, to pay for weapons and equipment for the French Revolutionary War. Pitt's new graduated (progressive) income tax began at a levy of 2 old pence in the pound (1/120) on incomes over £60 and increased up to a maximum of 2 shillings (10%) on incomes of over £200. Pitt hoped that the new income tax would raise £10 million, but actual receipts for 1799 totalled just over £6 million.

Pitt's progressive income tax was levied from 1799 to 1802, when it was abolished by Henry Addington during the Peace of Amiens. Addington had taken over as prime minister in 1801, after Pitt's resignation over Catholic Emancipation. The income tax was reintroduced by Addington in 1803 when hostilities recommenced, but it was again abolished in 1816, one year after the Battle of Waterloo.

The United Kingdom income tax was reintroduced by Sir Robert Peel in the Income Tax Act 1842. Peel, as a Conservative, had opposed income tax in the 1841 general election, but a growing budget deficit required a new source of funds. The new income tax, based on Addington's model, was imposed on incomes above £150. Although this measure was initially intended to be temporary, it soon became a fixture of the British taxation system. A committee was formed in 1851 under Joseph Hume to investigate the matter, but failed to reach a clear recommendation. Despite the vociferous objection, William Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1852, kept the progressive income tax, and extended it to cover the costs of the Crimean War. By the 1860s, the progressive tax had become a grudgingly accepted element of the English fiscal system.

In the United States, the first progressive income tax was established by the Revenue Act of 1862. The act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln, and replaced the Revenue Act of 1861, which had imposed a flat income tax of 3% on incomes above $800. The Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1913, permitted Congress to levy all income taxes without any apportionment requirement. By the mid-20th century, most countries had implemented some form of progressive income tax.

Measuring progressivity

Indices such as the Suits index, Gini coefficient, Kakwani index, Theil index, Atkinson index, and Hoover index have been created to measure the progressivity of taxation, using measures derived from income distribution and wealth distribution.

Marginal and effective tax rates

German marginal and average income tax rates display a progressive structure.

The rate of tax can be expressed in two different ways; the marginal rate expressed as the rate on each additional unit of income or expenditure (or last dollar spent) and the effective (average) rate expressed as the total tax paid divided by total income or expenditure. In most progressive tax systems, both rates will rise as the amount subject to taxation rises, though there may be ranges where the marginal rate will be constant. Usually, the average tax rate of a tax payer will be lower than the marginal tax rate. In a system with refundable tax credits, or income-tested welfare benefits, it is possible for marginal rates to fall as income rises, at lower levels of income.

Inflation and tax brackets

Tax laws might not be accurately indexed to inflation. For example, some tax laws may ignore inflation completely. In a progressive tax system, failure to index the brackets to inflation will eventually result in effective tax increases (if inflation is sustained), as inflation in wages will increase individual income and move individuals into higher tax brackets with higher percentage rates. This phenomenon is known as bracket creep and can cause fiscal drag.

Economic effects

There is debate between politicians and economists over the role of tax policy in mitigating or exacerbating wealth inequality and the effects on economic growth.

Income equality

Progressive taxation has a direct effect on reducing income inequality. This is especially true if taxation is used to fund progressive government spending such as transfer payments and social safety nets. However, the effect may be muted if the higher rates cause increased tax evasion. When income inequality is low, aggregate demand will be relatively high, because more people who want ordinary consumer goods and services will be able to afford them, while the labor force will not be as relatively monopolized by the wealthy. High levels of income inequality can have negative effects on long-term economic growth, employment, and class conflict. Progressive taxation is often suggested as a way to mitigate the societal ills associated with higher income inequality. The difference between the Gini index for an income distribution before taxation and the Gini index after taxation is an indicator for the effects of such taxation.

The economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez wrote that decreased progressiveness in US tax policy in the post World War II era has increased income inequality by enabling the wealthy greater access to capital.

According to economist Robert H. Frank, tax cuts for the wealthy are largely spent on positional goods such as larger houses and more expensive cars. Frank argues that these funds could instead pay for things like improving public education and conducting medical research, and suggests progressive taxation as an instrument for attacking positional externalities.

Economic growth

A report published by the OECD in 2008 presented empirical research showing a negative relationship between the progressivity of taxes and economic growth. Describing the research, William McBride, a staff writer with the Tax Foundation, stated that progressivity can undermine investment, risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and productivity because high-income earners tend to do much of the saving, investing, risk-taking, and high-productivity labor. According to IMF, some advanced economies could increase progressivity in taxation for tackling inequality, without hampering growth, as long as progressivity is not excessive. Fund also states that the average top income tax rate for OECD member countries fell from 62 percent in 1981 to 35 percent in 2015, and that in addition, tax systems are less progressive than indicated by the statutory rates, because wealthy individuals have more access to tax relief.

Educational attainment

Economist Gary Becker has described educational attainment as the root of economic mobility. Progressive tax rates, while raising taxes on high income, have the goal and corresponding effect of reducing the burden on low income, improving income equality. Educational attainment is often conditional on cost and family income, which for the poor, reduces their opportunity for educational attainment. Increases in income for the poor and economic equality reduces the inequality of educational attainment. Tax policy can also include progressive features that provide tax incentives for education, such as tax credits and tax exemptions for scholarships and grants.

A potentially adverse effect of progressive tax schedules is that they may reduce the incentives for educational attainment. By reducing the after-tax income of highly educated workers, progressive taxes can reduce the incentives for citizens to attain education, thereby lowering the overall level of human capital in an economy. However, this effect can be mitigated by an education subsidy funded by the progressive tax. Theoretically, public support for government spending on higher education increases when taxation is progressive, especially when income distribution is unequal.

Psychological factors

"Tax The Rich" banner at an International Union of Socialist Youth campaign for a financial transaction tax.

 

A 2011 study psychologists Shigehiro Oishi, Ulrich Schimmack, and Ed Diener, using data from 54 countries, found that progressive taxation was positively associated with the subjective well-being, while overall tax rates and government spending were not. The authors added, "We found that the association between more-progressive taxation and higher levels of subjective well-being was mediated by citizens’ satisfaction with public goods, such as education and public transportation." Tax law professor Thomas D. Griffith, summarizing research on human happiness, has argued that because inequality in a society significantly reduces happiness, a progressive tax structure which redistributes income would increase welfare and happiness in a society. Since progressive taxation reduces the income of high earners and is often used as a method to fund government social programs for low income earners, calls for increasing tax progressivity have sometimes been labeled as envy or class warfare, while others may describe such actions as fair or a form of social justice.

Computation

The function which defines the progressive approach to an income tax, may be mathematically defined as a piecewise function. In every piece (tax bracket), it must be computed cumulatively, considering the taxes which had already been computed to the previous tax brackets. Pictured is the effective income tax for Portugal in 2012 and 2013.

 

There are two common ways of computing a progressive tax, corresponding to point–slope form and slope–intercept form of the equation for the applicable bracket. These compute the tax either as the tax on the bottom amount of the bracket plus the tax on the marginal amount within the bracket; or the tax on the entire amount (at the marginal rate), minus the amount that this overstates tax on the bottom end of the bracket. 

For example, suppose there are tax brackets of 10%, 20%, and 30%, where the 10% rate applies to income from $1 to $10,000; the 20% rate applies to income from $10,001 to $20,000; and the 30% rate applies to all income above $20,000. In that case the tax on $20,000 of income (computed by adding up tax in each bracket) is 10% × $10,000 + 20% × $10,000 = $1,000 + $2,000 = $3,000. The tax on $25,000 of income could then be computed two ways. Using point–slope form (tax on bottom amount plus tax on marginal amount) yields:

${\displaystyle \$3\,000+(\$25\,000-\$20\,000)\times 30\%=\$1\,500+\$3\,000=\$4\,500.}$

Geometrically, the line for tax on the top bracket passes through the point ($20,000, $3,000) and has a slope of 0.3 (30%).

Alternatively, 30% tax on $20,000 yields 30% × $20,000 = $6,000, which overstates tax on the bottom end of the top bracket by $6,000 − $3,000 = $3,000, so using slope–intercept form yields:

${\displaystyle \$25\,000\times 30\%-\$3\,000=\$7\,500-\$3\,000=\$4\,500.}$

Geometrically, the line for tax on the top bracket intercepts the y-axis at −$3,000 – it passes through the point (0, −$3,000) – and has a slope of 0.3 (30%). 

In the United States, the first form was used through 2003, for example (for the 2003 15% Single bracket):

• If the amount on Form 1040, line 40 [Taxable Income], is: Over— 7,000
• But not over— 28,400
• Enter on Form 1040, line 41 [Tax] $700.00 + 15%
• of the amount over— 7,000

From 2004, this changed to the second form, for example (for the 2004 28% Single bracket):

• Taxable income. If line 42 is— At least $100,000 but not over $146,750
• (a) Enter the amount from line 42
• (b) Multiplication amount × 28% (.28)
• (c) Multiply (a) by (b)
• (d) Subtraction amount $5,373.00
• Tax. Subtract (d) from (c). Enter the result here and on Form 1040, line 43

Examples

Distribution of US federal taxes from 1979 to 2013, based on CBO Estimates.

Most systems around the world contain progressive aspects. When taxable income falls within a particular tax bracket, the individual pays the listed percentage of tax on each dollar that falls within that monetary range. For example, a person in the U.S. who earned $10,000 US of taxable income (income after adjustments, deductions, and exemptions) would be liable for 10% of each dollar earned from the 1st dollar to the 7,550th dollar, and then for 15% of each dollar earned from the 7,551st dollar to the 10,000th dollar, for a total of $1,122.50.

In the United States, there are seven income tax brackets ranging from 10% to 39.6% above an untaxed level of income based on the personal exemption and usually various other tax exemptions, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and home mortgage payments. The US federal tax system also includes deductions for state and local taxes for lower income households which mitigates what are sometimes regressive taxes, particularly property taxes. Higher income households are subject to the alternative minimum tax that limits deductions and sets a flat tax rate of 26% to 28% with the higher rate commencing at $175,000 in income. There are also deduction phaseouts starting at $112,500 for single filers. The net effect is increased progressivity that completely limits deductions for state and local taxes and certain other credits for individuals earning more than $306,300.

New Zealand has the following income tax brackets (for the 2012–2013 financial year): 10.5% up to NZ$14,000; 17.5% from $14,001 to $48,000; 30% from $48,001 to $70,000; 33% over $70,001; and 45% when the employee does not complete a declaration form. All values are in New Zealand dollars and exclude the earner levy.

Australia has the following progressive income tax rates (for the 2012–2013 financial year): 0% effective up to A$18,200; 19% from $18,201 to $37,000; 32.5% from $37,001 to $80,000; 37% from $80,001 to $180,000; and 45% for any amount over $180,000.