Introduction
How were the Grinch's attitudes formed in the first place?
Grinch attitudes were brought about by his cognitive beliefs and thoughts about the Christmas. He had a negative feeling and emotions about the Christmas that was provoking him and he hate in engaging in Christmas activities. Everybody in Who-ville loved Christmas and they were eagerly waiting for the Christmas but Grinch was entirely looking for a way he can avoid Christmas. He was the only one in the whole village who hated Christmas. His heart was too small to accommodate the love of the Christmas celebrations.
According to Daniel Katz theory of attitude formation, Grinch believed that his negative attitudes had a functional role in his life, he developed his attitudes in an aim to make sure that the Whos did not enjoy Christmas. His attitudes were formed from the perspective that he was expressing values as means to defence his ego. He developed numerous ideas that would help him to stop the Christmas celebrations. One thing he hated about these celebrations includes noise from the Christmas bells, singing and shouting from the Whos. Therefore, he used his negative attitude towards Christmas as an excuse to stop and steal Christmas celebrations.
According to the self perception theory, Grinch attitudes were formed from the perception that he learned about his attitudes by watching his actions. For instance, if he found himself looking for reasons to avoid the Christmas celebrations, he can identify that he has negative attitudes towards the Christmas. He thought that by denying the Whos opportunity to have celebration instruments, such as ribbons, Christmas trees and boxes among others would stop the whole village from the celebration. Therefore, the formation of his beliefs could be as a result of how he perceived about the whole Christmas issue. He did not know why and how people from his village celebrate the Christmas.
How did the who’s manage to change his attitudes?
However, Grinch attitudes came to change once he realised that his efforts had not worked the way he wanted. He thought that his perception about Christmas would steal Christmas from the Who communities. Despite his great effort on planning and implementing how he was going to stop his fellow villagers from Christmas celebrations, all things did not turn on his way. His mission turns out to be a failure and disappointment. He revealed that he was the only one who had negative attitude against the Christmas.
When Grinch came to realise that he had failed in stopping the villagers from Christmas celebration, he started blaming himself on not stealing everything that would make stop the villagers. One important thing he did not steal from them was Christmas itself. However, after thinking for a while he realised that of all things, he cannot actually steal the Christmas from the villagers. He realised that the villagers were busy enjoying their celebrations despite the fact that they did not have celebration equipments such as toys and ribbons. As a result, everything turned to uncontrollable, nothing he could do to stop the Christmas celebrations. Everything was beyond his effort and capabilities. He could do nothing else rather than changing his attitudes and returned what he has stolen from the villagers and joined them in the celebration. If you cannot beat them join them
What social psychology process played a role in his attitude change?
The functionalist theory played a great role for Grinch to change his attitudes. The theory focuses on the basis of attitude formation. Daniel Katz claimed that the formation of attitudes have a great role in a life of an individual. He said that individuals could form new attitudes so that they could serve a certain purpose. This can be explained by the incident which changed Grinch attitude and he decided to join the people in celebrating the Christmas occasion. Grinch mind was inflicted by the notion that he was unable to steal Christmas from people, this made him to change his attitudes that people were not supposed to celebrate Christmas in happiness. His changed his contemptuous attitude and the bad feeling that he felt when people were enjoying Christmas.
There is also another psychological process that makes people change their attitude. The functionalist theory claimed that people decided to change their attitudes when they realised that the attitudes that they holds were insignificant to serve the purpose that was intended from the start. The individual therefore will decide to swallow his pride and ego and develop a positive attitude that will be favourable to him and the population surrounding him. Grinch himself noticed that he was the only one who was not celebrating Christmas therefore a need for him to change his attitudes and joins the rest arose.
Attitudes will always change when an individual is forced in a hard situation that requires him to think again about the attitudes that he holds. The perceptions and the beliefs that he held changes and one a new attitude are developed. This is what made Grinch change the attitudes that he had and joined his fellow community members in celebrating Christmas.
In terms of attribution, do you think it was something about the Grinch himself that caused his heart to grow three sizes in the end, or was it something about the situation, or both? Support your opinion.
In my opinion, Grinch heart grew three sizes in the end due to the situation at the moment. The events and happenings that occurred in Christmas were not expected by Grinch. When he came, he got into a shocking surprise that he was not able take away Christmas from the people. He was puzzled by the fact that people celebrated Christmas despite the inadequate of prizes and presents that they were used to in the previous celebration. He was amazed tom learn that Christmas came without ribbons, tags, packages, boxes and bags.
His heart grew into three sizes after he learnt that Christmas did not come from the store and there was something special why the people celebrated Christmas. The celebration meant that more to people and lack of the gifts could not make them not to celebrate. The events and situation made him change into three dimensions: he brought back the children toys, the food that he had taken and himself changed his attitude to the best. I support my opinion since people decided to change their attitudes when they realised that the attitudes that they holds were insignificant to serve the purpose that was intended, a reason for Grinch to develop the new attitude.
References
Harvey, J. (1988). The Abilene paradox: The management of agreement. Retrieved on 24 Feb 2012 from http://www.xecu.net/schaller/management/abilene.pdf
Johnson, P. (2001). Effects of groupthink on tactical decision-making. Retrieved on 24 Feb 2012 from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/sam/groupthink_johnson.pdf
Atherton , J. (2011) Leaning and teaching: Cognitive dissonance and learning. Retrieved on 24 Feb 2012 from http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/dissonance.htm
Changing Minds.org (2012) Risky shift phenomenon. Retrieved on 24 Feb 2012 from http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/risky_shift.htm
