Question

How do attitudes lead (or not) to behaviors? In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did.” What do you think he means by this? Do you agree? 250 - 500 words

Answer 1

Psychology defined attitudes as a construct, that influences a person's thoughts and actions regarding other people, places or things. Attitudes and behaviour greatly affect each other. Attitudes can affect behaviour positively as well as negatively. Normally positive attitudes lead to a well adjusted behaviour but sometimes a positive attitude can also turn in to haermful behaviour. Attitudes contain several factors that affect behaviour including social influences, conceptions about self or others, social environment etc. Sometimes when there are inconsistencies in behaviour and attitudes, the behaviour may be redirected. Attitudes and behaviour are two main parts of our daily life. Many reasearches have been conducted to study the relationship of behaviour and attitudes. By understanding the relationship between both of them, and the influencing factors, it has become easy to solve many social problems based on gender, caste, racism etc or to treat several mental disorders.

It is also true that attitude always does not affect the behaviour. Sometimes there is inconsistency between attitude and behaviour. When there is lack of beliefs, feelings or behavioural propensity, inconsistency occurs. It is difficult to decide for the psychologists whether attitudes lead to behaviour or not. Attitude is related to behaviour in many ways. Both of them are not connected directly and is influenced by internal and external factors. To sum up, we can say that behaviour and attitude have both consistency and inconsistency among them. Behaviour is not always affected by attitudes but other external sources also influence it in a great manner.

Mere Christianity is a theological book written by C.S. Lewis. He has written several quotes in his book. One of them is," Do not waste your time bothering whether you love your neighbour, act as if you did."

According to C.S. Lewis, if we do not like our neighbour or a person, we should stop worrying and start behaving like we love him/her. When we behave in this manner, we will actually start loving that person. Whenever, we show disrespect or disliking for any individual, we find out that we are disliking him more. We can do this to improve ourselves. Sometimes people know that we are not true and pretending to be good for them. But when we do good behaviour to others, it gives satisfaction to us and improves our personality.

Yes, I agree with his quote because by showing respect and love to others we improve ouselves. We will not get anything by hating others or thinking bad for them. It is harmful for us because by doing so we spoil our image in front of others and in our conscience.