Democratic Competence: Attitudes 1

I tried to figure out which VALUES I need to have as a democratically minded person in my previous post. I learned that the values in the Framework model of the European Council (EC) form the foundation of democratic competence and are essential for any political competence to be considered “democratic”.

According to the EC, “an attitude is the overall mental orientation which an individual adopts towards someone or something (for example a person, a group, an institution, an issue, an event, a symbol).” Attitudes usually consist of four components: a Belief or Opinion about “something or someone” we are facing, an Emotion or Feeling towards it, the Evaluation (either positive or negative) of it, and a particular way of Behaviour towards that object or person.

It seems that all attitudes start with a belief, like “democrats are communists” or “Trump followers are stupid”, “women can’t drive”. As a result of any belief, there is an emotion (perhaps fear, or anger). Based on that emotion, there is an evaluation, like “this is dangerous” or “this is fun” and last, there is a behaviour or action as in “not with me, nope” or “Let’s go”…