PAPER V - ETHICS, INTEGRITY AND APTITUDE

The upsc has published sample questions for PAPER V - ETHICS, INTEGRITY AND APTITUDE.

SAMPLE QUESTION NO. 1 
What do you understand by ‘ Ethical Human Conduct’? In what way is 
it important to be ethical along with being professionally competent?

SAMPLE QUESTION NO. 2 
What do you understand by the following terms ? Point out their 
specific relevance in public service; 
(i) Intellectual integrity 
(ii) Empathy 
(iii) Perseverance 
(iv) Spirit of service 
(v) Commitment 
Indicate two more attributes which you consider very important for 
public servants. Justify your answer......

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Book review: Geography of India by Majid Hussain

There are some prolific writers in geography – majid hussain, d s lal, savindra singh. The learning style of students differs and so do their favourite authors. Of the books written by Majid hussain, i feel this is a great work. The ncert geography along with the “Geography of India by Majid Hussain” can make the learning of “Indian Geography”easier. Before this book was written, it was Khuller’s Indian geography which was popular among students. I felt that book to be bit big and full of stats.

click to buy

Majid hussain is able to bring clarity on many topics which were not dealt beautifully in other books. He had used the beauty of maps to its maximum. Geography is a subject where diagrams, graphs etc can do wonders; the representations communicate the idea vivaciously. The correlation between the upsc geography syllabus and the book is high. This helps aspirants gain maximum especially when it comes to recent topics. 

Book review:Indian Polity by M Laxmikanth

This is a wonderful book written in a lucid style. The Laxmikanth’s book is easy to understand and is updated regularly. The book starts with history of our constitution. It gives a brief account of the makers of our constitution. In case history makes you sick, leave the beginning part for a while and start with the rest. There is a table which showcases “Schedules of constitution at a glance”, it will be very easy to decode the book if you keep this table in mind. Now and then come back to this table while reading it. This will help in organising the content of book.

 It would be nice if you can read the book keeping in mind the current affairs. The lokpal topic may be relevant in certain years, while the trending topic may be CAG in another year and so on. In GS there is vertical as well as horizontal integration of topics. So you can put the stuff you learn here in topics that may not seem be directly linked to it. Eg: In a question of environmental protection, you can bring in the directive principles (Art 48A). In a question on de-addiction, Art 47 can be remembered.

If the relevance of the topics is understood, the learning process can be simplified. There are certain landmark cases (Kesavananda bharti,Maneka), amendments(42^nd) etc which are highly important. Most beginners won’t be aware of these things. As a result the learning process becomes tedious. And by the time they recognise it, the time is up.Understanding the similarities between topics will reduce your workload. If you look the different sections in the polity eg: President’s with Governer’s or that of State legislature with Loksabha you can find that there are many similarities. Recognising these patterns will make the learning easier.

There is a NCERT book on polity, constitution of India, which is also a must read. It clears certain basic doubts and brings clarity of thought on the subject.

Buy Indian Polity 4th Edition from Flipkart.com

Citizen Charter :General Studies IAS Study Matierial : Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude

Citizen’s charter

A whole lot of measures to improve the governance have taken place in the last decade. The citizen’s charter, right to information, grievance redressal mechanisms etc are some of the prominent ones.

What is aim of the citizen charter?

In earlier times, citizen’s were separated by rigid walls from the government functioning. This leads to alienation of people from the bureaucracy. Many people have commented “bureaucracy exists to serve itself”. The citizen charter is a measure to change this ‘villain role’ of bureaucracy and make it more citizen’s centric. The citizen charter aims to bring transparency, accountability and responsiveness to the system. 

Why we need it?

In earlier times, citizens were in dark about the services or schemes given by government departments.

Eg:

1991:  Mohammed a 60 year old law abiding citizen goes to village office to get a nativity certificate. He arrives at 10.30 am at the office, to be received by empty chairs.  At around 11.00 an officer walks in. Mohammed runs to him to ask about the certificate. The officer says “Sir’ji is on leave… You can submit application at table 2.” Mohammed stares helplessly at the table 2 and the empty chair which in turn stares at Mohammed. After 3 hrs Mohammed leaves sad at heart and empty at stomach.

After few visits he manages to meet the officer at Table 2 and give him his application. The stone faced officer takes the application and sits on it for a month. Mohammed is clueless about when his application will hatch to give him the certificate…Mohammed is waiting for “Sir’ji to arrive from leave”

2013: Mohammed’s son Beeran walks to the same office. Beeran sees a big board where the list of services and the time in which these services will be granted is shown. He is also informed about the officers present in that office on that particular day. He is greeted by a “May I help you" board. He asks to the smiling officer about his certificate who explains the time,cost, format etc before directing to the correct desk. He is shown the table 2, where an officer enthusiastically receives his application and gives him a receipt. He is told that the application will be promptly processed(within specified time) and given to him…. Beeran leaves the office with a smile…He gets his certificate in the specified time without any hassles….

About the concept of citizen charter

This idea was started by John Mayor in Uk (1991). The Tony Blair government gave it a big push by the initiative “Service First”(1998).

The basic objective of the Citizen's Charter is to empower the citizen in relation to public service delivery. The six principles of the Citizen's Charter movement(UK) as originally framed were:

1 Quality: Improving the quality of services;

2 Choice: Providing choice wherever possible;

3 Standards: Specify what to expect and how to act if standards are not met;

4 Value: Add value for the taxpayers' money;

5 Accountability: Be accountable to individuals and organisations; and

6 Transparency: Ensure transparency in

Rules/Procedures/Schemes/Grievances

The Tony Blair govt (UK) later elaborated this concept to nine principles of service delivery..

• Set standards of service

• Be open and provide full information

• Consult and involve

• Encourage access and the promotion of choice

• Treat all fairly

• Put things right when they go wrong

• Use resources effectively

• Innovate and improve

• Work with other providers.

In India, the concept of citizen charter was added to create transparency in the implementation of programmes/schemes and services.

What are the components of the citizen charter..

Look here in this link of India post…(click here)

What are the headings you see there…. Vision… Mission etc…

The vision points to the direction in which India Post will move. Mission shows its aims,objectives etc. Thus seeing this charter both employees and the citizen will get the info about postal department. What you just read in the indiapost website are components of citizen charter.

To list them down..Components of a Citizen’s Charter are (the india post website has all these components..)

i. Vision and Mission Statement;

ii. Details of Business transacted by the Organisation;

iii. Details of clients;

iv. Details of services provided to each client group;

v. Details of grievance redress mechanism and how to access it; and

vi. Expectations from the clients

Look this website by government of kerala (click here). The certificate name,purpose, the time frame, the officers in charge etc are listed in detail. The Kerala government has also posted the certificate format in its websites. All these are directed towards creating “effective efficient and responsive” governance.

The Indian citizen Charters are expected to incorporate the following elements :-

(i) Vision and

Mission Statement

(ii) Details of business transacted by the organisation

(iii)Details of clients

(iv) Details of services provided to each client group

(v) Details of grievance redress mechanism and how to access it

(vi) Expectations from the clients. Here the last one “expectation from clients” is an Indian innovation.

The Indian government has a website fully for the purpose of citizen charter…

Visit it…(click here). The principles of citizen charter are given in the website which are listed below…

• Published Standards 

• Openness and Information

• Choice and Consultation

• Courtesy and Helpfulness

• Redress when things go wrong

• Value for money 

As far as India is concerned, the citizen charter is a good move to bring the benefits to the citizens. As more and more citizens become literate, this will bring change to the way business is conducted in our offices. The RTI along with citizen charter can bring much change to India’s offices. 

Essay Writing for Civil Service Exams

The essay is an area, which most students forget. It may not be possible to concentrate on essay writing due to lack of time. It’s fine. Even then you can be attentive ‘not’ to lose marks by making simple avoidable mistakes.

To talk about the essay,

First choose a topic you know. There may be proverbs or phrases you aren't clear about. In that case avoid those topics. The examiner may not be amused if you bluff an entire paper (essay paper only one question is to be answered!).

Another thing is to cover all aspects on a subject. The issue should be seen from all angles, before you reach a conclusion. Eg: In an essay on Sustainable development – the social, political, environmental view of the subject can be discussed.

It won’t be possible to start writing the essay straight away. You can create a good plan for essay before writing the actual essay. The upsc answer sheet is a big bundle with enough pages. You can do the rough work of the essay on the pages towards back.

Our idea is to create the essay which means we gotta make a Intro, body, and conclusion. That doesn’t mean that we will put “Introduction” or “Body” in writing when we start.  Take some time and make the Intro interesting. The examiner is seeing tonnes of paper, and he has to feel –“this is cool” or “hmm..OK”

There are many ways in which you can begin an essay. The way you can start essay depends on the topics. Eg:Through a small story with two people – one who enjoys its fruits and another who has been hit hard by the same. This works in topics like Eg: Globalization, Public-Private-Partnership etc. Thus the two views would be put in a subtle manner.The beginning must be attractive, well written and mistake free. Else the reader (examiner) will lose interest. 

After the intro comes the body part. The body must go into the subject – analyse the aspect from various angles.

Eg Essay on sustainable development there may be social, political, environmental views.

Social – how the uncontrolled destruction can lead to disaster. Here the touching story of uttarakand  or any flood can be written to highlight the issue

Political – how the international players are discussing the issue,what steps have been taken etc.

Environmental- how destruction of species, or monoculture can affect balance of nature

Each angle of thought can be made into paragraphs, thus the reader can watch how our thought on the subject unfolds.

I have always used  diagrams in essays, but i don't think its a common practice. 

In the conclusion part, you can bring your take on the subject. This conclusion should be in sync with your body. It would be bad if you preached nuclear energy to be an evil in the body of essay in full force and then ends with praise for the same.

Public/Civil service values and Ethics in Public administration : General studies UPSC IAS

Wikipedia defines civil service as the permanent professional branches of a government's administration, excluding military and judicial branches and elected politicians.

In India, the civil service personnel’s are accountable to ministers/elected representatives, who in turn are accountable to Parliament. The Parliament is elected by the people. Thus the bureaucrats serve the people by executing functions which are directed by Parliament in the best interest of its people. Be it IAS or IPS or any civil service there are a set of core values common to all. These core values determine the standards of behaviour a person in civil service must follow. Each individual service will have its own set of values which are based on these core values.

Values of civil service

Values

A member of the civil service in discharge of his/her functions is to be guided by maintaining absolute integrity, allegiance to the constitution and the law of the nation, patriotism, national pride, devotion to duty, honesty, impartiality and transparency.

• ·         Integrity – putting the obligations of public service above personal interests
• ·         Honesty – being truthful and open
• ·         Objectivity – basing advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence
• ·         Impartiality – acting solely according to the merits of the case and serving governments of different political parties equally well

In country like India where there are so many diverse cultures, treating all people with respect is of paramount importance. This includes giving respect to diversity of people and also giving respect to fellow workers.

The Government of India promotes values and a certain standard of ethics of requiring and facilitating every civil servant

• ·         To discharge official duty with responsibility, honesty, accountability and without discrimination.
• ·         To ensure effective management, leadership development and personal growth.
• ·         To avoid misuse of official position or information.
• ·         To serve as instruments of good governance and foster social economic development.

The high level of corruption, favouritism etc has increased the importance of maintaining civil service values. Only when civil service values are maintained, nation building process can go undeterred.

Good civil service values=good governance=better nation

The question that worries governments is, how to inculcate civil service values?

The three approaches are

• Economical
• Behavioural
• Legal

Eg: A government doctor in medical college is given non-practising allowance. There is a vigilance wing to see that the doctors don’t practise privately. Here the idea is that the high salary will satisfy his financial needs (economic), while law will prevent him from doing private practice (legal).

Its seen that the legal and economic methods aren’t able to create civil service values in many cases. Here lies the importance of behavioural change.(The topic behavioural change comes under “Attitude: content, structure, function; its influence and relation with thought and behaviour; moral and political attitudes; social influence and persuasion”)

Even after spending tonnes of money for legal and economic changes, still civil service values have seen value erosion. Thus these days the thought to inculcate civil service reforms is based mainly on behavioral change.

The behavioral change methods can be –

• Education- Creating necessary skills to enable effective decision making
• Training – The civil servants are offered in-service/mid-career training to increase professionalism and values.
• Mentoring 
• Periodical review/feed back

Countries like UK, have a civil service competency framework to enable/evaluate civil service values. Promotion and perks would be based on “What the civil servant does to people” rather than “Whom he knows”. 

Socialblood - where passion meets compassion

In my days at Medical College, i saw that availability of blood was one of the most challenging issues. Patients sometimes had to travel hundreds of kilometres to arrive at the hospital for a surgery. To ensure availability of blood, the blood bank wanted the bystanders of patients to predonate blood. It was heart breaking to see that many surgeries had to be postponed due to lack of donors. I was part of a team which strived to solve this. Our small initiative of creating a blood donor’s forum at district level could bring relief to many needy people. Today when i read about socialblood I felt moved. This innovative web platform by Karthik Naralasetty is likely to create blood donor’s forum with global reach. It is going to begin a new phase in history of blood donation.

The story of social blood began when its founder, KarthikNaralasetty , read about the need of a child who wanted many transfusions in a year to fight her thalasemmia. Karthik harnessed the power of social media to find help for the needy. He created groups in facebook for each blood group, and then created a platform Socialblood.org to compile all these data. Those people who needed help could post the info which helped to connect to donors. Even perfect strangers from distant regions came to help the people who were in need for blood. He has combined the passion for social networking with the compassion to donate blood.

Over time socialblood.org has improved. The hurdles in blood donation like geo-location etc have been slowly solved by collecting additional information. A link of donors with the nearest blood bank can also be established. This slow movement is gradually becoming  a revolution. The social blood has seen participation of people from all over the world. The thunderous applause at the TEDx  stands testimony to the effect it has on improving life of common man. He was awarded Staples youth social entrepreneur award for his creation socialblood.org

Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012. It brought many innovators to the fora. The pratham initiative by Roshini Nilekhani was another moving innovative story. 

You can watch these inspiring videos @ ftideacaravan

General Studies : Climate Change and Global warming Part 2

Climate change and Global warming

*Topics like Climate change conferences (like Kyoto,Bali ,IPCC), man-made causes of Climate change, REDD, CDM(clean development mechanisms) are discussed over and over again in the magazines and by coaching centers .Those topics are easily available on internet too. So I am not getting into those commonly discussed topics now. I will showcase some trends, terms associated with climate change and gobal warming.

Callendar effect- the effect of the combustion produced carbon dioxide on global climate. Callender is name of a scientist and not anything related with the calendar.

Carbon lock-in : we have been using fossil fuels. The general policy and framework in all countries have been to increase the production as well as efficient use of fossil based energy systems. Even when alternative technologies emerge, there will an inertia which allows the old system (fossil fuel based) to continue. This will result in prolonging the use of fossil fuels for sometime into the future. This phenomenon is known as carbon lock-in. It was first coined by Gregory Uhruh.

WAIS divide: West Antartic Ice divide is an ice core drilling project. Scientists would use the gases captured, cryobiology etc in the ice drilled to study the climate change. The WAIS divide would help us to learn climate change for over last 100000 years.

Urban thermal plume – The urban areas are hotter than the surrounding areas. Ie the temperature in the cities like Chennai or Bangalore will be higher than the surrounding rural areas. This will cause hot winds to rise up creating local climate variations. Haven’t we all seen chimney of factories. The same way the whole urban area acts like a large chimney from where the air rises up.

Keeling curve- The graph showing variation in Co2 content in the atmosphere from 1958. Scientist Keeling started measuring the co2 content at observatory in Mauna loa and it is one of the evidences for rising world Co2 levels.

Integrated carbon observation system (ICOS) – A research infrastructure to quantify green house gases in Europe and adjacent areas.

Blogs by UPSC IAS civil service exam toppers

Divya mittal (AIR-68) has uploaded notes in her blog (click here)

Blog by Anupam Saha (click here)

Blog by Dr Ajay Sharma. He jots down his civil service journey in this blog(click here)

Read more topper blogs (click here)

General Studies : Climate change and Global warming

The terms climate change and global warming are used in narrow meaning and broad meaning. In narrow meaning it refers to the recent change in climate change brought out by mainly by man’s activities (this is what we usually see and read in newspapers). In broader term it refers to the change in climate that has occurred on earth from historic times.

About the climate change (from early times):

The climate change has been a phenomenon that has been occurring since the creation of earth. The causes are many; some of major ones are given below:

Plate tectonics: We know that earth surface (oceans and continents) are made of plates. These plates move over time. The movement changes the amount as well as duration of sunlight at a given place. Eg: a place which is located at poles at an early point in time moves to equator. Here the sunlight received at that given point will be more when situated near equator. The land/water ratio at any given latitude also changes with plate tectonics. The “movement of plates” is an accepted phenomenon, and so is its role in climate change.

Volcanoes: Volcanoes bring loads of dust, carbon dioxide and heat when they explode. The dust reduces the amount of sunlight reaching earth surface. As a result cooling occurs. In earth’s history we know of many instances where earth was cooled as a result of the volcanoes. The co2 on the other hand will increase temperature, the manifestation of this will occur after certain time.

Earth’s orbital variation: Does earth always revolve in same path. Earth too has its freedom. As a result there is change in the path (large orbit or smaller orbit---eccentricity), tilt (earth normally has a tilt; this would increase of decrease sometimes). These changes in the earth’s motion path will lead to change in amount of sunlight it receives(Malkovich cycles). Change in sun’s energy = change in insolation=change in climate

Sun: We read about earth changing it path. Sun too has its freedom; it will glow at low intensity at certain times and glow with more brightness at some other time(sun spot activity). The change in sun’s energy (cause internal to sun) = change in insolation=climate change.

These forces mentioned above where happily changing climate in past. Now that we humans have increased exponentially, we too have decided to be a cause for changing climate. All the ways we change climate are listed as anthropogenic causes. In recent decade, we have become the major factor which influences climate change. The activities like deforestation, burning fossil fuels, release of cfc’s etc are changing the climate at a rapid pace.There is a set of scientists (minority) who believes that man is not a major factor but other factors mentioned above are the reason for present climate change.

About the recent climate change (in the last decades):

The concept of change in climate due to man’s activities has been there in scientific literature for over a century. It was the IPCC assessment that created a wide awareness and consensus about the issue. Now majority of the scientists accept that the “climate change and global warming” has occurred in recent times at an alarming pace and that man has played a major role in creating it. 

Social influence : General Studies- IV: Ethics, Integrity, and Aptitude

The way other people influence an individual comes under the topic social influence. The NCERT 12^th standard psychology (which can be downloaded free from internet) has two chapters (6 and 7) which cover this topic. Social influence is a broad term; I have described some aspects of it here. An in-depth knowledge of this topic can be had from basic books of psychology like Wayne Weiten.

Girija is a 35 yr old housewife and an excellent bathroom singer. Her husband who is the president of the Resident association suddenly asks her to sing on stage during the yearly meet. Would she be able to sing well? The thought of singing before all made her to nearly faint. Here the social situation of singing before the crowd was a tough call for her. (a simple example of social influence)

 Meanwhile, their son 6 year old Aditya was singing full throttle when invited to join a group song consisting of 5 children. Here the small group activity could bring out the best in him. (Social facilitation).

Would Aditya sing with same enthusiasm if the group strength (for group song) was fifty instead of five? Human psychology says that in all probability his effort will reduce. His effort won’t be much attended or cared by spectators if he is in the middle of a fifty strength group. He probably sings at a low voice and at times even stops singing! How many of us have done what Aditya did when asked to recite pledge or anthem @ school (social loafing)

A lady was dragged out of the ladies compartment of a train for robbery. There was a struggle inside the compartment, but none of the passengers reacted at that moment. Why didn’t even one of the ladies who witnessed the incident make an attempt to stop the crime? She fell on the track and died during the struggle. Wouldn’t that death be prevented if any one reacted?  Why do people who enthusiastically sms, tweet and talk endlessly about such issues on TV don’t react when seeing the incident in real? Studies in psychology says that larger the group larger the inactivity. (Bystander effect)

The same individual who was inactive in a group might have been active provided he/she was alone. This concept is called Bystander Effect. The reason for the bystander effect is diffusion of responsibility. A person who was inactive in such a scene says to his mind “I didn’t do anything because none did anything, so I am innocent and should not be feeling guilty”. I feel that bystander effect is high in cities than in rural areas.

 *The article attempts to introduce the concepts concerning the topic “social influence” with examples. Think of a similar example that you are familiar; it will simplify the whole study process.There are other aspects associated with the topic ‘social influence’, they will be covered later.

Book Review: Climatology by D S Lal

The Climatology is one of the most important segment in studying Geography. The D S lal’s Climatology book is a book popular among geography optional students.

In General: The book is written in lucid style. The images, description is able to generate interest in the subject.

The geography is a subject where imagination generated in our mind can simplify the process of learning. D S Lal is able to do exactly that in many of the chapters.

Pros

Atmospheric equilibrium: Stability and Instability is an area which many geography authors mess up. The understanding of the concept requires thorough understanding about certain physics laws. The author has written these areas with lot of illustration and patience. He has begun from the basics and slowly built up the concepts.

“Air masses” is another chapter where he has written brilliantly. He has written elaborately on the way air masses change their nature with time and place. The “ Frontogenesis and Frontolysis “ chapter is also really good. The illustrations are simple and easy to replicate in exams.

Another area which D S Lal has shown written well is regarding Applied Climatology and Global warming. He has delved into all the details needed for an ias aspirant in these chapters. The imaginary continent diagram is something that has been repeatedly used by D S Lal. We can use this diagram in other areas of geography too.

Cons

An area which disappoints the reader in most Geography textbooks is “Climatic Classification”. Here I cannot say he could do full justice to the area. May be the classification is too complicated subject or may be it’s due to lack of space. The Koppen’s classification has been dealt well in most books including this one.  

Readers would have loved the book more if more illustrations could be brought in chapters like “Climate types and their distribution”. The geo cheong leong book is good in this area.

The illustrations in chapter “Air pressure and winds” too seems bit complicated for beginners. I would prefer illustrations of Savindra Singh over D S Lal for this chapter.

Summary

The D S Lal’s Climatology is a well written book. The chapters will stay in mind if we read it slowly giving importance to the concepts. A basic knowledge of terms like “change of state”, “evaporation” etc are needed for following this book. It’s desirable to have other references for chapters listed in the ‘cons’ segment. Overall it’s a good book recommended for geo optionals. 

*The book is reviewed thinking of ias aspirants as its readers. The review may not be applicable to readers whose purpose may be different (eg: studying for degree). Most books undergo change in content and presentation style every year, which may not be covered in this review.

Probity in Governance : General Studies- IV: Ethics, Integrity, and Aptitude

The topics in paper IV – ethics, aptitude and integrity are interrelated. The identification of these interrelated areas makes it easy for you to grasp the paper.

The topics like ethics in public life, foundational values of civil service, integrity, impartiality and non-partisanship, objectivity, dedication to public service etc overlaps with the topic Probity of governance. The Right to information, fight against corruption, conflict of interest etc are topics concerned with probity of governance.

probity in governance

click pic to enlarge

Importance:

The probity is closely linked to societal values.

Eg: When a corruption case is brought against a politician or beaurocrat, then the whole target is the ‘individual’. Who shapes the individual? The society to an extent shapes his values. A person who lives in a society which gives social standing/respect to a person who has more money, in turn will work to gain money by all means. This is where value education comes in.

The probity of governance is closely related to “equality before law”.

Eg:  Is it wrong if a file before government is cleared within 2 days? The answer is “no” if all citizens with similar file status can get it cleared in 2 days. Here the concern is “compliance with processes”. If an ordinary citizen submits a file, the processes might take lot of time, which is shortened when some1 powerful submits.

One more concept in probity of governance is that ‘Something is legally right’ doesn’t always mean it is ‘right’. The law may be interpreted in ways that are suited. This is especially important when it comes to ‘land acquisition’, ‘signing contract with certain foreign firms’ etc.

Attitude: content, structure, function and its influence and relation with thought and behaviour

General Studies- IV: Ethics, Integrity, and Aptitude

Attitude: content, structure, function; its influence and relation with thought and behaviour; moral and political attitudes; social influence and persuasion  

Attitude

Attitude is the evaluation of various aspects of the world. It can be evaluation of an idea, object, action (eg: playing cricket or watching football match etc) or about a person (eg: towards mahendra singh dhoni or sachin tendulkar). The attitude may be strong (eg: attitude towards drinking behaviour – people usually have strong opinion for or against drinking) or weak. The formation of an attitude may be associated with a belief system (eg; attitude towards eating a particular food may be related to religious beliefs – here the belief system rather than rational thought creates attitude).

The attitude may be formed by direct experience or observation. Eg: You see the new ad of ford ecosport you develop a particular attitude towards it. Then you go for a test drive. (attitude towards the vehicle created by ad leads you to do a particular behaviour). Your attitude towards it may change after the test drive!. That means by direct experience you have gained a new attitude.

Functions of attitude

The attitude helps to form a self-concept about us. You like a particular type of movies or music or hobby. All these add up to create an image about yourself in your mind. Eg: When you tell to your girlfriend, “I like playing guitar, i love rugby and love to chill!”, then it’s all ways in which your attitude is shown. These attitudes help create an image of you in her mind and yours.[value-expressive function]

It helps in guiding our actions towards people, ideas, objects etc. Eg: Negative feeling about certain cities as dirty or crowded is an attitude that guides us in taking a particular action. It acts as a protective mechanism in some cases – by avoiding the negative impact.[instrumental]

Attitude can serve knowledge function. It can also serve ego-defensive function.

Relation between attitude and behaviour

Does attitude always lead to behavior  The answer is “NO”. Attitude always doesn't lead to behavior  Eg: Three friends Arun, Varun and Tarun always talk about the evil practice of corruption in their hostel room in Delhi. It was during that time Anna hazare gave a call for Action against corruption. Arun bunked his class and went to Jantar Mantar to protest. Varun’s action against corruption was limited to pressing “like” button in facebook seeing the picture shared by Arun. Tarun enjoyed a pizza with gf, taking care to avoid the road through Jantar Mantar. The three guys hold attitude against corruption but chose to act in different ways [Attitude always doesn’t get converted to behaviour]

An interesting study on the relation between attitude and behaviour was done by Lapierre. He visited around 184 restaurants with Chinese couple. They weren’t turned away (in a area where negative attitude exists against the Chinese) by any of the restaurants. After around 6months, Lapierre did a survey in the same restaurants. The survey enquired whether they would serve Chinese customers. The reply from restaurants was negative. [Attitude against something may not get converted to action always]. When someone is turned away, think how strong the attitude must be. In places like Mumbai, certain community members of society are turned away from accommodation or sale of property by another and vice versa. This shows that prejudice exists to a real dangerous level and that a silly simple event may trigger problems. The whole exercise of healing work is done only when trouble erupts. In fact work should have been done eons back to avoid the trouble. Only when it boils out, a solution is searched. [Prevent/reduce prejudiced attitude for community harmony]

Eg: A voter is highly against corruption and he hates corrupt people. But during election he votes for a very corrupt person who belongs to his community!. Here his attitude towards the corruption has been washed away by another attitude. Here two attitudes competed and one won.[One attitude may be overcome by another]

Thus we see that relation between the attitude and behaviour is rather not so simple. The theory of planned behaviour is an attempt to explain this. The factors other than attitude that affects behaviour are shown in the diagram.

click on pic to enlarge

Emotional intelligence-concepts, and their utilities and application in administration and governance

General studies part IV - Ethics Integrity and Aptitude 

Emotional intelligence-concepts, and their utilities and application in administration and governance Part 2

Another case of relation between EQ and good administration/ governance

Let’s say that a major natural disaster occurred. The relief and rebuilding of the place needs good coordination between state and centre, officials of different departments. In short the decision has to be made by a group of people. Imagine that all these officials are holding a meeting to discuss future strategy. The IQ of all the people would combine in such a situation (Group IQ). A heated debate or a angry emotional outburst by a department head (person with low EQ) can spoil the whole discussion. This is something that occurs so commonly in the meetings. Here the low EQ of a person can change the whole direction of talks.

<<  Angry comment during a important meeting--> a lot of hue and cry over this silly occurrence -->discussion is lost  >>

A real life case scenario:Role of EQ in profession

The importance of EQ is high is certain professions. Eg: health care,social justice,ngo’s, rehabilitation etc. The doctor has to be a good listener and good communicator who understand the emotions of the patient while taking decision.

 Eg : A doctor working in government hospital comes across a patient who is poor. He has two choices.

Option A: Prescribe a drug available in his government hospital which is free but has higher side effects and low cure rate.

Option B: Write for a better drug which is not available in government supply but available in medical shops for a price.

If the question asked is “Which is the best treatment for the disease?” then answer would be Option B.

But when the patient is poor and doctor knows that the person won’t buy the better drug from outside, shouldn’t he go for Option A. In that way, at least he will get treatment, even though the treatment is not the best. The above said problem is one which commonly comes in real life scenarios for doctors working in government setups. How should he act? In case some side effect comes up after he prescribed drug thinking about the wellness of patient, can doctor be blamed? Here the judgement of “right” and “wrong” are based on the situation. Not on the research as to “which drug is the best for that particular disease”.

The persons working in social welfare departments continuously come upon such situations.

Measuring Emotional Intelligence

The Baron EQ-I and Goleman’s ECI are the two most widely
used tests for measuring EQ

This earlier part of this article can be read here (Part 1 - Click here)

General Studies Paper IV - Ethics, Integrity and Aptitute

Emotional intelligence-concepts, and their utilities and application in administration and governance. PART1

Emotional intelligence: The ability to identify your own and other people’s emotions accurately,express your emotions clearly, and regulate emotions in yourself and others.

The construct of the emotional intelligence can be seen in earlier studies. It was Daniel Goleman who popularised the term “Emotional intelligence” through his book with same name. The word appears in the studies by Mayer and Salovey during 1990’s.

Earlier IQ or intelligence quotient was seen as the measure for intelligence. Later it was identified that all High IQ persons aren’t very successful. It was suggested that something “other than IQ” was needed for success in certain fields, the EQ was an answer to this question.

The components of EQ according to Goleman are

Self-awareness – the ability to know one's emotions, strengths, weaknesses, drives values and goals and recognizes their impact on others while using gut feelings to guide decisions.

Self-regulation – involves controlling or redirecting one's disruptive emotions and impulses and adapting to changing circumstances.

Social skill – managing relationships to move people in the desired direction

Empathy - considering other people's feelings especially when making decisions and

Motivation - being driven to achieve for the sake of achievement.

The EQ added a new dimension to the way administration is conducted. Earlier stress was only on performance and not on human relations. The EQ studies indicate that organisations/governments should invest more time in maintaining good relationships too.

The importance of EQ is that it is related to decision making. The understanding of emotions of people is especially important in areas of governance.

Let take a real world case. Say a particular economic decision will be good for the people in long term. Eg: removing unwanted subsidy on agriculture. The rational decision suggested by the economist would be to remove subsidy as soon as possible. A good administrator would not jump to implement such a decision. He would take decision slowly keeping in mind the emotions of people. (the sudden removal of subsidy to farmers will get lot of crocodile tears from various stake holders which inturn may create a big strike bringing the state to paralysis). Here the administrator has to take decision that is good for farmers keeping in mind their emotional stand on the issue.

Note: There is a trend to project EQ as the most important form of intelligence. But this may not be true. While high EQ may be good in certain professions, it may not be not be a good thing in some other profession. Eg: An officer in charge of Intelligence. He would need for of strategic intelligence than EQ.

Another relation between EQ and governance is with regard to Leadership style. The transformational leadership (understand that there are many type of leadership like charismatic, transactional etc.. and transformational leadership is one type) is regarded as one which can bring a great change to a society. The skills possessed by the transformational leaders are similar to that with better EQ. This means that persons with high EQ can be better in certain leadership roles. Eg: Mahatma Gandhi was a transformational leader who found plenty of supporters due to his humble ways of living. His dress, his thoughts, simplicity etc could connect with millions of followers who were ready to act in ways he would ask for.

Part 2 (click here)