The ABCs to Changing Bad Attitudes

Another great post from our student contributor Samantha Ege...

We’ve all heard that phrase, “I’m sick and tired of your attitude!” I know I did growing up; it’s not pleasant to hear when sometimes you can’t control your own attitudes. Sometimes we all get into that place where everything in our life seems a bit bleak, overwhelming, or just negative; however, we all have tools that can help us change our bad attitudes into positive ones! I keep using this word, “attitude”, but what really is an attitude? Well, “attitude” is a little hard to define in the world of Psychology, since so many variables contribute to it, but a general definition is that an attitude is a way of thinking/feelings/behaving about a person. A common way to explain what an attitude includes is by using ABCs, Affect, Behavior, and Cognition; the ABCs factor in emotion, behavior, and mental processes. Attitudes can be affected by one’s emotion towards an object, how one has behaved towards the object previously, or one’s thoughts about an object. Along with attitudes including behavior, attitudes can predict future behavior as well; behavior is multiply determined by personality, motivation, habit, and ability. Emotions and thoughts guide our behavior, as we probably have all seen in our decisions, but we can also control our behavior, we can control our attitude.

There are a few ways that make it easier to control our attitudes:

1. The first step is the acknowledge that your attitudes are controlled by you; giving yourself power to control your own attitudes puts it in perspective.
2. Redirecting your thoughts, this one is a bit difficult at times; it’s hard to pay attention to everything we think about vigilantly. Keeping yourself vigilant in noticing what you’re thinking is key to this technique. If you find yourself thinking too much about the negative things that are around you, try to acknowledge it and look for at least one positive aspect. Just a tip, keep telling yourself “You don’t lose, you either win or learn”.
3. Be thankful for what you have right now. This technique goes hand in hand with redirecting your thoughts, but sharing your gratitude about things in your life helps you keep your attention on the positive things and in turn changing your attitude.
4. Surround yourself with positivity. Surrounding yourself with positive aspects in life can affect your attitude; by surrounding yourself with positivity can influence you to behave positively. Take a moment and think about the five people you spend most of your time with, now evaluate whether or not they are positive influences on you, and do they help you see the bright side of life? If not, you might want to reconsider whom you spend your time with.
5. Work backwards; since behavior and attitudes can affect each other, changing your behavior consciously can form healthy and positive habits, which will result in a change in attitudes.
6. And finally, setting goals for yourself. Goal setting is a common tool in bettering yourself. Setting a goal to change your behavior or to acknowledge your attitudes can help you change your negative attitudes into positive ones.

We can all develop our negative attitudes into positive ones! It might be difficult at first, but overtime it gets easier. Attitudes are very important in social interactions and self-esteem! Anyone can change his or her attitude; it’s easier than ABC! For some more information about attitudes and behavior check out this article: http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/52/Attitude-Behavior.html