What are the three kinds of collective attitudes?

The three kinds of collective attitudes are aggregate, common, and corporate attitudes. These categories help differentiate how groups or collections of individuals can hold or express a collective stance, belief, or feeling.

The Three Kinds of Collective Attitudes

Understanding collective attitudes is crucial for analyzing social phenomena, group behavior, and organizational dynamics. While all involve multiple individuals, the nature of their collectivity varies significantly across these three types.

1. Aggregate Attitudes

Aggregate attitudes refer to the sum or compilation of individual attitudes within a group. This type of attitude doesn't imply any form of collective thinking or shared intention beyond statistical summation. It's essentially what happens when individual opinions or beliefs are counted or averaged to produce a group-level statistic.

• Key Characteristics:
  • A simple collection of individual views without necessarily implying interaction or shared awareness among individuals.
  • Often measured through polls, surveys, or statistical analysis of individual responses.
  • Example: A public opinion poll showing that 60% of a country's population approves of a new policy. Each individual has their own approval or disapproval, and the aggregate is the total percentage.
  • Insight: While useful for understanding general sentiment, aggregate attitudes don't explain why people hold those views collectively or if they would act on them as a group.

2. Common Attitudes

Common attitudes go beyond mere aggregation; they involve attitudes that are shared and mutually recognized among individuals within a group. There's an awareness among members that others in the group hold the same or similar attitudes, often leading to a sense of "we-ness" or collective identity.

• Key Characteristics:
  • Involves a mutual recognition or shared understanding among group members that they hold a particular attitude.
  • Often forms the basis for informal social norms, cultural values, or collective mood.
  • Example: The shared enthusiasm of a crowd at a sporting event, where each person's excitement is amplified by the awareness of others' excitement. Another example could be a community's common belief in the importance of local traditions.
  • Insight: Common attitudes often foster social cohesion and can lead to spontaneous collective action, even without a formal leader or structure.

3. Corporate Attitudes

Corporate attitudes pertain to attitudes held by organized groups or entities that act as a single, unified agent. This type of attitude is distinct from the sum of its members' individual attitudes and is often expressed through formal policies, decisions, or collective actions of the organization itself.

• Key Characteristics:
  • Held by an organized collective agent (e.g., a company, government, committee) that has decision-making processes and the capacity for collective action.
  • Often formalized through official statements, regulations, or strategic plans.
  • Example: A corporation's official stance on environmental sustainability, reflected in its policies and public statements, or a government's foreign policy toward another nation.
  • Insight: Corporate attitudes are products of collective deliberation, formal procedures, and often represent a compromise or consensus that might not perfectly align with any single member's individual view.

Summary of Collective Attitude Types

Understanding these distinctions helps clarify how collectives, from loose aggregations to highly structured organizations, express and embody beliefs, values, and dispositions.