What does 'A' stand for under A-B-C components of Attitude?

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 4

The correct answer is Option (4) → Affective

An attitude has three components: the thought component (cognitive), the emotional component (affective) and the tendency to act (behavioural or conative). Together they are the A-B-C components: Affective-Behavioural-Cognitive.

Option (1) Apperception — Incorrect. The word appears in the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) of Morgan and Murray, a projective test in which the subject makes up stories about picture cards. It is no part of an attitude.

Option (2) Aptitude — Incorrect. Aptitude refers to an individual’s underlying potential for acquiring skills, a domain of psychological attributes like intelligence and interest, not a component of attitude.

Option (3) Ability — Incorrect. Ability is a person’s capacity to do something; an attitude is a state of mind towards an attitude object, made of thought, feeling and a tendency to act.

Option (4) Affective — Correct. ‘A’ stands for the affective aspect, the emotional component of an attitude.

NCERT (2025-26): “Nature and Components of Attitudes … All definitions of attitudes agree that an attitude is a state of the mind, a set of views, or thoughts, regarding some topic (called the ‘attitude object’), which have an evaluative feature (positive, negative or neutral quality). It is accompanied by an emotional component, and a tendency to act in a particular way with regard to the attitude object. The thought component is referred to as the cognitive aspect, the emotional component is known as the affective aspect, and the tendency to act is called the behavioural (or conative) aspect. Taken together, these three aspects have been referred to as the A-B-C components (Affective-Behavioural-Cognitive components) of attitude. Note that attitudes are themselves not behaviour, but they represent a tendency to behave or act in certain ways. They are part of cognition, along with an emotional component, and cannot be observed from outside.…”