Tina
The summer of my freshman year of college I went to France and I bought a poster.* There was just something about it that I loved. It “spoke to me” as the people say. It hung in dorm rooms and apartments and somewhere along the way it disappeared (perhaps into the void that is my Mother’s basement?). I totally forgot it existed until I was going through some old pictures (below). Seeing that poster made me think, “Yep. That checks out.”
The poster is a photograph taken by a French photographer named Bernard Matussière in either 1984 or 1990 and from what I can tell the photo is titled, TINA. I don’t know Tina, and I don’t know why her name is in all capitals, but I love her. That complete and utter “fuck you” that she is giving that shadowy guy. Fantastic.
How great is that shirt? I no longer have it and looked it up online. Want to know how it was described? VINTAGE. Devastating. Please enjoy the cordless phone in the background sitting on my 6-disk CD player.
It checks out because even 26 years ago (how is that possible?!) I had a particular attitude that Tina embodied. She seemed completely no nonsense and willing to tell people to “fuck right off.” Additionally, she is rocking the hell out of a pencil skirt and that is a look I love. So Tina is my attitudinal muse. In the last blog post I was talking about how you can change your behavior which got me thinking about the parts of us that don’t change and it turns out attitudes (usually) fall into that category. Theoretically I think we all know what an attitude is but if we are going to get all social psychology up in here the official definition according to the American Psychological Association is that an attitude is:
A relatively enduring and general evaluation of an object, person, group, issue, or concept on a dimension ranging from negative to positive. Attitudes provide summary evaluations of target objects and are often assumed to be derived from specific beliefs, emotions, and past behaviors associated with those objects.
My attitude about how life should work and how I should be treated has not drastically changed since then. Fundamentally I am the same. Psychologists wanted to understand why attitudes don’t really change and they came up with the Tripartite Classification of Attitudes. They found that attitudes actually have three components and other researchers started describing this as the ABC Model. It explains that attitudes are created by a combination of these three components (in any order) directed at a certain “target.” The target can be a person, idea, place, object; we can form an attitude about anything. Once the attitude is formed our behavior aligns with it.
A = AFFECTIVE (feelings/emotions): I love sourdough bread. It makes me feel happy.
B = BEHAVIOR (actions): I eat sourdough bread any time the opportunity arises.
C = COGNITIVE (thoughts/knowledge): I like sourdough bread because it is delicious and doesn’t make my tummy hurt.
This relationship between attitude and behavior can be stronger in some cases than others, but generally speaking there is a great deal of consistency between our attitudes and what we do. When I was looking around for some examples that related to work one really struck me. The U.S. Department of Labor had an article about how attitudes impact the ability for people with disabilities to obtain jobs.** They discussed that attitudes from three groups (job seekers with disabilities, employers/co-workers, service providers) need to change in order to increase the job opportunities for people with disabilities. But how? If attitudes are fairly consistent this seems really challenging. The Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) approached this by creating informational campaigns. You might be thinking: WTF is that going to do? Well, if attitudes are based partially on our cognition, starting there makes sense. Perhaps people have negative attitudes about employing people with disabilities because they have the wrong information. The ODEP is combating that with useful information and facts to change cognition. They also created a video series. This gets at the feelings part of the equation. It’s possible that many people with these negative attitudes simply have not interacted with someone who has a disability. Seeing individuals tell their stories is likely to impact their feelings. Combine those two things and changing the behavior should follow. It’s not guaranteed but their approach is great and something I think companies could consider. An informational campaign to combat current (incorrect) cognitions may kick-start affective change. Worth a try!
If you have an attitude you want to change there is a specific thing you can do. You can change your behavior! Our brains like consistency. When you are doing something that is no longer in line with what you want to be doing you experience cognitive dissonance and that’s no fun. For example, your (original) attitude is that eating healthy is a waste of time but you realize that you haven’t been feeling great lately. You decide to start buying healthy snacks and stocking your fridge with fresh fruits and vegetables consistently (behavior). After a few weeks, you start to feel better. Your skin is glowing, you aren’t tired and the only change you made was the kind of food you were eating. You read some articles about the impacts of healthy diet changes (cognition). You eventually decide that eating healthy might not be a waste of time after all (new attitude). Added bonus: you feel happy (affect). I realize this is a simplistic example but it makes the point. If you can get yourself to change the behavior the attitude will likely follow. In no way am I saying this is an easy process but I think it is worthwhile. There are definitely attitudes I am working on changing at the moment but my Tina-ness is not one of them. In fact, to remind me of this I have a small framed copy of her next to my desk at home and at work. I’m glad she came back into my life. If you ever see the poster please buy it for me! I will Venmo, Zelle, or Paypal you!
*I did more than buy a poster. I went to Manchester and Paris and met friends and then spent several days in London alone. It was when I discovered just how awesome alone time can be. If Leo tried to fly to Europe alone at 18 I would lose my mind.
**Please note the Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990 and this is still an issue. The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963. We need to do better.