An attitude is a strong belief or feeling toward people, things, and situations. You have favorable, or positive, attitudes and unfavorable, or negative, attitudes about life, human relations, work, school, and everything else. Attitudes are not quick judgments we change easily but you can change your attitudes. People interpret your attitudes by your behavior.

Attitudes are developed primarily through experiences. As you developed from childhood to adulthood, you interacted with parents, family, teachers, friends, employees, and managers. From all these people, you develop your attitudes.

Douglas McGregor classified attitudes, which he called assumptions, as Theory X and Theory Y. Managers with Theory X attitudes hold that employees dislike work and must be closely supervised to get them to do their work. Theory Y attitudes hold that employees like to work and do not need to be closely supervised to get them to do their work. Managers with dominant personalities often do not trust employees. Thus, they have Theory X attitudes and can be abusive.

Over the years, research has shown that managers with Theory Y attitudes tend to have employees with higher levels of job satisfaction than the employees of Theory X managers. However, managers with Theory Y assumptions do not always have higher levels of productivity in their departments.

Although others’ attitudes can affect your behavior, human relations, and performance, you are responsible for your own actions. Try to ignore negative comments and stay away from people with negative attitudes. Focus on the positives. If you are stuck in an unpleasant situation that you can’t change, having a poor negative attitude will only make the situation more unpleasant. You can choose to be and learn to be either optimistic or pessimistic.