Attitude and Group Conflicts: the Nigerian Experience
E. B. MAMMAN
DEPARTMENT OF RESEARCH AND POLICY ANALYSIS
INSTITUTE FOR PEACE AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION (IPCR), ABUJA
Being a Presentation at the Institute’s In-House Seminar 22ND, July 2010
ABSTRACT
Attitudes are our beliefs and feelings about people, places and things. With attitudes we can like or dislike people and we can be positive or negative in our approach and in our feelings.
Attitudes come from real and fictional heroes and mentors and from life experience. They range from minor to explosive, depending on the context and behaviours and social reactions they cause. Attitudes may be rational or based on hearsay and faith.
Attitudes can be good or bad; right or wrong; nice or not nice; desirable or undesirable; safe or harmful; healthy or toxic; normal or abnormal; and compatible or incompatible etc. It is in the human nature to observe, conclude and create attitudes, and once attitudes become incompatible, conflict results
This paper therefore examines the concept of attitude as a psycho-social construct which determines the behaviour and thinking of people about various issues affecting human life. In the attempt to explain why people behave the way they do, conceptual issues such as attitude function; prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination; group conflict theory, behaviour and relations were discussed.
It is the perception of the paper that the current level of group conflicts, manifesting in ethnic, political, religious, land and/or boundary crisis etc, and which has become a subject of much discourse at different fora is a direct fall-out of the wrong attitudes of Nigerians to issues
The quest for a change in attitude therefore presents an appeal to our worldview, seeing that we live in a world of differences: different people, different cultures, and different opinions.
DEPARTMENT OF RESEARCH AND POLICY ANALYSIS
INSTITUTE FOR PEACE AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION (IPCR), ABUJA
Being a Presentation at the Institute’s In-House Seminar 22ND, July 2010
ABSTRACT
Attitudes are our beliefs and feelings about people, places and things. With attitudes we can like or dislike people and we can be positive or negative in our approach and in our feelings.
Attitudes come from real and fictional heroes and mentors and from life experience. They range from minor to explosive, depending on the context and behaviours and social reactions they cause. Attitudes may be rational or based on hearsay and faith.
Attitudes can be good or bad; right or wrong; nice or not nice; desirable or undesirable; safe or harmful; healthy or toxic; normal or abnormal; and compatible or incompatible etc. It is in the human nature to observe, conclude and create attitudes, and once attitudes become incompatible, conflict results
This paper therefore examines the concept of attitude as a psycho-social construct which determines the behaviour and thinking of people about various issues affecting human life. In the attempt to explain why people behave the way they do, conceptual issues such as attitude function; prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination; group conflict theory, behaviour and relations were discussed.
It is the perception of the paper that the current level of group conflicts, manifesting in ethnic, political, religious, land and/or boundary crisis etc, and which has become a subject of much discourse at different fora is a direct fall-out of the wrong attitudes of Nigerians to issues
The quest for a change in attitude therefore presents an appeal to our worldview, seeing that we live in a world of differences: different people, different cultures, and different opinions.
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