"Attitudes and Behavior" (Bureaucracy

People believe that there is a direct relationship when it comes to “Attitudes and Behavior”, in other words one influences the other. In our daily lives we usually explain behaviors of others (i.e. a spouse, child, friend, or co-worker) as reflecting his or her attitude. When it comes to Bureaucracy many government- held positions such as those of police officers, schoolteachers, and diplomats come into question as to how effectively its operators function under this assumption that attitudes play such an underlying role in conducting their jobs.

In James Q. Wilson’s Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do And Why They Do It an important question comes up whether the attitudes of bureaucrats will determine how they define and perform their tasks. Wilson breaks down the concept of “Attitudes and Behavior” to indeed show us that the way we perform our jobs has no substantial basis on our existing attitudes or prior experiences.

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First he presents a psychological study that shows no significant evidence exists that behavior is explained by attitudes. Then he introduces a third factor incentives or rewards and punishments that more importantly influence behavior than do attitudes. A good example for the argument would be the workers in welfare offices. Many observers believe that what welfare workers do is governed by their attitude toward the welfare recipient. Under closer examination the government agency of welfare offices is not that much different than the DMV, the waiting areas are crowded with impatient people waiting on endless lines, with no one to provide them with a probable length of wait time or what will happen next, therefore you can expect a certain negative attitude from the people towards the workers. As Wilson explains the clientele in the welfare offices is usually complicated, demanding, aggressive and uncooperative, causing the workers in...