Look for the Stimulus - Organismus - Response model: http://www.google.ro/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&sqi=2&ved=0CGcQFjAI&url=http%3A%2F%2Fedtech2.tennessee.edu%2Fprojects%2FUSDA%2Fsor.pdf&ei=EXgwU6_MEqbH7AampYGYBg&usg=AFQjCNHjCmouEMA31gdPiGU45LoSCvkxdQ&sig2=2Yi9CYz8FOm8Fy7CW3bu8w&bvm=bv.63587204,bs.1,d.bGE

Attitude is anatural thing that is present in the human being and can not be changed

Behavior any conduct that you behave but it might be changed.

Dear Hatem

I think, attitudes can also change, but quite slowly. Attempts are made by companies to change attitude of difficult employees, and create a buy-in for them in the management's change agenda through various interventions, including training.

Dear Dan-Cristian

Thanks for the paper you attached. It is indeed very useful for the answers I am looking for.

Hi,

In psychology, an attitude is 'an evaluation of an object, person, act, etc.'. They can be explicit and implicit, and can be weak or strong, positive or negative. They can be changed but in the case of strong attitudes, this takes quite some effort and often fails. If you want to know more about that specific element of attitudes, look up the Elaboration Likelihood Model of information processing.

Behavior is, essentially, any output of the brain. Unfortunately there is quite a big attitude-intention-behavior gap meaning that not always do attitudes lead to concordant behaviors, Also, sometimes people are not aware of their attitudes - e.g. in the case of implicit attitudes - which also causes behavior to not always follow attitudes. (Even explicit attitudes often do not match implicit attitudes).

Hope this helps somewhat - there is a huge literature in psychology on this topic :)

i feel behavior is a manifestation of attitude.

while behavior cn change according to situation attitude changes less frequently.

diff. is beautifully explained in ghoshal's AMJ article on opportunism

A non-technical example:

Three stone masons in the middle ages were hard at work when a visitor came along and asked them what they were doing.

The first stone mason was hard at work, sweat beading his brow. “I am cutting this stone”, he grumbled.

The second stone mason, though less distraught, responded with a deep sigh, “I’m building a parapet”.

The third stone mason, replied with a radiant face, “I am building a beautiful cathedral that will glorify God for centuries to come”.

Attitudes are positive or negative feelings towards something, for example, job satisfaction, while behavior reflects any act or say. Often our actions are the result of the attitudes that we have. Boundary between attitudes and behavior is the individual's intentions.

It is sometimes helpful to think of an attitude as comprised of three dimensions: A) A cognitive dimension (essentially the nature or composition of the belief), B) An affect or emotional dimension, and C)  A behavioral dimension.  For example, a young man believes that the actions of certain terror groups are terrible, deplorable (the cognitive dimension).  And, he feels extremely angry, emotional about it (the affective dimension). Moreover, he takes action by dropping out of college, joining the Marines, and requesting that he be assigned to the area where he can fight the terrorists directly (the behavioral dimension). 

What are the differences between attitudes, beliefs and opinions? 

Attitudes show how people think (cognitive aspect), feel (affective aspect) and tend to behave (behavioural aspect) with regard to people or/and things. They may be negative or positive or indifferent. When your believing, feeling and tending to behave toward an object, event, a person or a group of people are optimistic, you have a positive attitude. When your believing, feeling and tending to behave toward an object, event, a person or a group of people are pessimistic, you have a negative attitude.

Behaviour is an activity or an action done. It occurs after the attitude. For example, Mr. A has a negative attitude about union leaders. Hence, he declined a job offered by an organization which is highly unionized (Behaviour). 

A rational individual attempts to be consistent between what he or she believes and what he or she does. A rational person prefers consistency between his or her attitudes and his or her behaviour. When attitudes and behaviour are consistent there is consonance. When there is a conflict or inconsistency between attitudes and behaviour there is a tension within the person. This tension is called cognitive dissonance.

Out of the two alternatives-either change the attitude or change the behaviour for dissonance deduction, behaviour is more difficult to change for a person. Behaviour is usually more difficult to change, particularly when that behaviour has been observed by others (it can’t be denied), was done voluntarily, and can’t be undone and therefore people usually change their beliefs and feelings to reduce the inconsistency (McShane et al, 2008).

An example:

Palitha was a career ambitious young bank executive in a large state bank. He accepted to do a foreign assignment (to work as the assistant branch manager in the branch located in Chennai in India) by believing that doing a foreign assignment would lead to a promotion into senior management of the bank. After working for one year he came to know that most of the senior management people did not have a single foreign assignment done.  As a result he began to experience a certain amount of tension and discomfort in the second year on the foreign assignment. However, he convinced himself that the foreign assignment is not bad as it has been giving a great exposure to him resulting in improving his management skills and knowledge.  Also he could enjoy by being in an environment which is different culturally, religiously, geographically and politically.  

There is cognitive dissonance as Palitha’s attitude about the foreign assignment (positive-belief that a foreign assignment is a driver of getting promoted to senior management) and his behaviour (taking a foreign assignment) are inconsistent. Yes. Here the behaviour has been observed by others, was done voluntarily, and cannot be undone. Hence Palitha could not change his behaviour. Instead he did changing his attitude.

Attitude is descriptive and evaluative positive or negative statements. Attitude is a hypothetical construct ,we can not directly observe attitude. Behavior is action. Attitude does involve intentional and affective component of human behavior but attitude is not behavior.

Good discussion. How can we can we understand the concept of 'practices' in this line of thinking? How practices are different from behaviours?

The contributions of colleagues lead us to confirm that attitudes precede behaviors. As the teacher Thumin points out excellently, there are three dimensions in attitudes: cognitive, affective and behavioral.

The behavior becomes concrete once the attitude is configured.

We learn all our lives and, consequently, attitudes can change, also behaviors, but that mobility depends, to a great extent, on previous cognitive-affective formations. The new life events that people face usually influence the change of attitudes and behaviors.

As an example: a teacher as the years pass in his work, tends to be more fatherly with his students.

It is that an obvious relationship between attitude and professional behavior.

Attitude is internal, although it often shows on the outside. Behaviour is external and can be observed.

If attitude is largely internal i.e. cognitive and emotional how is it represented or expressed externally such as it is different from behavior

That is to say, is attitude ever expressed/represented externally in order to name it ??

e.g. is being brave or confidence an attitude or a behavior ?

how do you know whether to call a concept/ construct an attitude or a behavior ?

Though there is difference between attitude and behavior, it is hard to establish which one precedes. One can not say with certainty that attitude precedes behavior because sometimes our repeated behavior changes out attitude.

El comportamiento humano es muy complejo.El tipo de personalidad ayuda en lo que actitud, y comportamiento se refiere."los neuroticos casi siempre tienen una actitud cuestionadora ante otra personas con la que comparten el dia a dia, adunto que permite develar su comportamiento...

Hello Debi S. Saini

I think the main difference between attitudes and behavior is in the following:

. Behavior is permanent and attitudes are temporary

. Behavior in part comes as a result of genetic factors but attitudes are usually acquired

. Behavior is difficult to change but attitudes can be changed

. The behavior in some of them is non perception and nondirected against one but attitudes are usually aware and directed because they consist of an external effect.

You can use this link and to benefit from it https://he.kendallhunt.com/sites/default/files/heupload/pdfs/Ch3_Frymier_4e.pdf.

Abbas Atiyah

It is assumed that there is a simple and direct relationship between attitudes and behavior in social psychology. In other words, if we know a person's attitude on a subject, we think that we will predict his behavior on that subject.

Difference between attitudes and behaviors is best described by Festinger's cognitive dissonance theory.