The Application Of Attitude Change Theory In Ideological And Political Education In Colleges

The psychological age of college students is the transition from child to adult. They not only mature physically , but also develop their abstract thinking ability significantly . They can gradually observe ourselves objectively , and change from a state of dependence to independence. During this period, their tendency of criticizing , denying and destroying the existing things is strong . Usually simple persuasion and education can not change their existing views. Meanwhile, college students have obviously denied the world of childhood, but their mental structure is still not as strong as that of adults . This has caused many difficulties in the ideological work of colleges.There are a lot of researchers on ideological work in colleges . The ideological and political educators have been exploring good methods in practice , and have made some progresses . But because social development and changes in recent years stimulate and impact college students strongly , they have more psychological puzzles and conflicts , and are under greater pressure . Thus it is likely for them to become rebellious and extreme psychologically . This requires the ideological and political educators to base their work on reality , update their concepts of education and form a new educational system. We currently only limit the education of students in working methods and educate every student in the same way, so the effect of education is decreased . Therefore from angle of social psychology and attitude changing , the author tries to find a reasonable way to do ideological education .Social psychologists believe , " Attitude is the internal psychological tendencies of the outside world (including people, matter and things ) , which are more stable and include three elements : cognition , emotion and behavioral tendencies . " Cognition, attitudes and behavior coordination are man's normal situation . In order to achieve coordination, inevitably there are no coordination , and conflicts arise . Thus an uncoordinated psychological pressure caused by wanting to change uncoordinated state arises. This pressure is the internal cause of changing attitude . The core of ideological work in colleges is to have the students feel their incompatibility with the environment , thus take the initiative to change and adapt to the society . As everybody has the need to succeed , hoping to have recognition and respect from others, normally he or she will change the attitude , so as to maintain coordination with others and adapt to the society . But sometimes college students do not clearly realize that they are wrong ; or though they know that they are wrong , rebellious ideas arise because of distrusting the educator or improper methods of psychological persuasion . This requires educators to base their work on reality, have the attitude of being responsible for the students and the society and use appropriate education methods . Only in this way will it be possible to achieve good education effect . Therefore, the key of the ideological education in colleges is to encourage students to get rid of incorrect attitude and develop in the direction recognized by the society .This paper is guided by Marxist world outlook and methodology, the author comprehensively and systematically studies the issue of applying attitude change and its theory in the ideological and political education in colleges , using the basic theories of social psychology and combining the reality of the ideological and political education in colleges . This paper can be divided into three parts . Part one is about the characteristics of college students'attitude , College students'attitude ( including the cognition , emotion and behavior ) , cognitive factors , emotional factors and behavioral factors. The author believes college students'attitude has the following six characteristics : being social, indirect , stable , valuable , coordinated and gender. The six properties reflect the diversity of the contemporary college students'attitude , which provides a theoretical basis for the ideological and political education. Part two is about the factors affecting attitude change of college students . This research had already been conducted by many philosophers. According to one psychologist--Hovland's model of persuasion and attitude change , this paper puts forward that the attitude change of college students depends mainly on five basic elements , including the impact of educators , the reasonable arrangement of education contents , choosing education methods , characteristics of education objects and educational environment The impact of educators is the most important element in attitude change and the key in ideological education . The theory of attitude change has five requirements on the ideological and political educators , including the educators'being professional, credible, attractive , their characters and the relationship between educators and education objects. The process of changing attitudes in fact is a process , in which educators educate the education targets through transferring education contents so as to cause their changes in attitude . In the process of changing attitudes, reasonable arrangements of education contents will also affect the final result. The view always focuses on one or more points , and it is also affected by intellectuality , emotion and difference . Fully grasping and applying them helps to improve the acceptability of the view. In the process of transferring contents , choosing education method can not be neglected. The same education contents will have different effects , because of using of different transferring methods . Through organizing education contents effectively and rationally , it may improve the educational effect . Being the education terminal , education targets are the subject of attitude change . So the ideological and political educators should have a good grasp of the characteristics of the objects of education and use different ways to really touch the hearts of students , so the students will want to change deep down . The ideological and political education is not conducted in vacuum, but under certain education environment. The author classifies the environment into two kinds : ideological education environment and external environment . Part three is about concrete measures to change the attitude of college students . Changing the established attitude of college students and promoting the formation of new attitude are a very complicated work . For the educators , only understanding general theory of attitude is far from enough , they also need to master a lot of effective ways to change attitudes and take concrete measures to enable the students to form a new attitude. Educators should step up self-cultivation and strengthen their ability of appealing and inspiring . They should convince students with theory , move them with emotion, and wok deeply and meticulously . We can also promote students'attitude change through playing roles . The educators should also correctly handle the rebellious psychology of students . The students should have the opportunity to exchange views . We should also create positive relationships between college students , make them live in an environment which is favorable for them to attitude learning , improve and strengthen the interpersonal relationship . Meanwhile , the positive factors should be mobilized ; the campus culture environment should be optimized , and hidden education should be emphasized so as to create joint efforts.