ADVERTISEMENTS:
Significance of interests and attitudes in social life are: (i) determines social relationships (ii) determines structure of society (iii) Common interest is the basis of representative democracy (iv) Attitudes mould social relations (v) Practical utility of attitudes.
(i) Interests determine social relationships:
The role of interests and attitudes in social life is clarified when we say that the origin, growth and progress of society depend upon them. In the first place, it is the interests which determine social relationship of one to another. Society exists because of common interests.
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Some interests are common by their very nature, such as the interest in the welfare of the city or nation. Other interests are made common because we can attain our interest more easily when pursued in common.
The value of co-operation in social life is too evident to need any explanation. Men co-operates because of mutual interests. As the area of co-operation grows Wider, Society also grows. The common order of society is widened and supported by the co-operation of common interests. The socializing forces which strengthen society are founded on interests.
(ii) Interests determine structure of society:
Secondly, the nature of interests pursued in common by men, helps us to understand the structure of society. Every society is marked by some particular interest which its members follow and which determine its structure. So we distinguish between feudal society, bourgeois society and proletarian society.
In feudal society the classes are marked out on the basis of relation to land. The difference between bourgeois and proletariat is marked out in terms of their respective relationships to capital. In India classes are based on caste system.
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Every class or community represents a complex of common interests, which the society upholds and sanctions as a whole. It is on the basis of common class interest that a number of associations are created which has become one of the most remarkable features of modern society.
(iii) Common interest is the basis of representative democracy:
It is on the basis of the common interest of locality that the modern system of democracy developed. Though after the improvement of means of communication the significance of territorial interest has waned and it has been replaced by economic interest, still the former has played a great part in bringing up the representative system of democracy.
Leaving certain exceptional cases the representatives in modern democracies are elected on the territorial basis, the assumption being that the residents of a particular territory have common interests.
(iv) Attitudes mould social relations:
Just as the role of interests in determining the structure of society and the nature of social relationships is great, similarly the role of attitudes is also a vital one. There is a close relation between man’s personality and his attitudes. In a broader sense it may be said that an individual’s entire personality structure and hence his behaviour is organised around the attitudes he holds.
In a society our social relationship, in fact, involves an adjustment of attitudes on our part. Man is always changing his attitude to adjust himself with other individuals. Thus intolerance and prejudice which separate individuals may be changed into tolerance and understanding which unite them.
A man at one time may be a friend of the other, while after some time he may turn into his enemy. Thus attitudinal changes and adjustments constantly go on in society which moulds relations between individuals.
(v) Practical utility of attitudes:
So important is the role of attitudes in society that various agencies seek to measure them. Thus the producer of goods wants to measure the attitudes of purchasers in the market, the radio authorities want to know the attitudes of radio listeners towards different radio programmes and film producer wants to measure the attitude of filmgoers.
The practical utility of knowing the attitudes of individuals cannot be minimised. Every government seeks to know the responses of individuals towards its various laws and policies. If the attitudes of people are found unfavourable, they are sought to be changed through various formal and informal devices.
Consider, for example, the changes which ware induced in the national attitudes of Chinese by the Communist regime, or the great alteration o Italian attitudes under Mussolini. Everywhere we find people and groups displaying characteristic attitudes. These attitudes in part arise out of social situations and in part depend on the educational system.