SHIKHAR Mains 2023 Day 17 Model Answer English

Q1: लोक प्रशासन में अनुनय-विनय (या समझाना-बुझाना) महत्वपूर्ण भूमिका निभाता है। चर्चा कीजिए। साथ ही, प्रभावी अनुनय-विनय के विभिन्न तत्वों पर भी प्रकाश डालिए। 

Persuasion plays an important role in public administration. Discuss. Also highlight the various elements of effective persuasion.

Approach:

• Briefly define persuasion and write about its role in public administration.

• Highlight various elements of an effective persuasion.

• Conclude appropriately.

Answer:

Persuasion is a conscious attempt to change the attitude/belief of others. It attempts to win ‘the heart and mind’ of people and influences their attitude, intention, motivation or behaviour. It does not involve using force or threats but convincing someone by using written or spoken words to convey information, feelings, or reasoning, or a combination thereof.

Role of persuasion in public administration

• Bringing behavioral change: Social welfare programs require behavioral change for their success. For example, in Swachh Bharat Abhiyan people need to be persuaded to regularly use toilets instead of defecating in the open.

• Internal change in bureaucracy: Public administrators need to persuade their staff first for effective implementation of government policies. For example, implementing the department’s own citizen’s charter etc.

• Social Justice: Persuasion can play an important role in ensuring social justice by eradicating evils like child marriage, female foeticide, untouchability, discrimination against women in religious places etc.

• Maintenance of law and order: Many a times, such as during a mob lynching or communal riots, people need to be persuaded against taking law and order in their hands and restore peace.

• Obeying laws of the land: Through persuasion, better compliance of laws by the public can be achieved by making them aware and active citizens, such as following traffic rules etc.

      Persuasion needs to be effective for bringing favorable changes. Its effectiveness depends on “who is saying what to whom” i.e. source, message and target- all three are very important for successful persuasion.

Various elements of an effective persuasion are following:

• Establishing a common ground: The persuader should establish positive rapport and credibility with target people.

• Pointing out the benefits: Persuader should highlight the major benefits of changed behaviour or attitude, rather than trying to push for the change.

• Turning objections into strengths: Objections to change are natural but the persuader should turn them into opportunities. For this, he may agree with the prospect's objection and then illustrate how it is easily overcome by the proposed change.

• Gradual steps and consistency: Persuader should break the larger objectives into smaller goals, giving them the time to behave consistently and agree to the larger idea.

• Use the reciprocity principle: The principle implies that when someone does something for us we feel obliged to return the favor. This may include appropriately rewarding the target population for the changed behaviour/attitude.   

• Social proof technique: People tend to follow others (bandwagon effect) more so when they don't have sufficient information to make the decision on their own. This works by demonstrating benefits for others from the suggested change. For example, changing people’s hesitance towards COVID vaccination by getting vaccinated yourself.

Thus, broadly speaking persuasion should have desirable source (having credibility) as well as desirable message characteristics (having fear, rational, and emotional appeals) to be effective.

Q2: अभिवृत्ति और व्यवहार इतनी घनिष्ठता से गुथे हुए हैं कि एक में परिवर्तन अनिवार्य रूप से दूसरे को प्रभावित करता है। उदाहरणों के साथ इस कथन की व्याख्या कीजिए।

Attitude and behaviour are so closely interwoven that a change in one inevitably influences the other. Explain the statement with examples.

Approach:

• Introduce by giving definition of attitude and behaviour.

• Explain the effect of attitude on behaviour and vice versa.

• Bring out if there are any inconsistencies between attitude and behaviour.

• Give appropriate examples wherever necessary.

Answer:

Attitude is a feeling, belief, or opinion of approval or disapproval towards something. Behavior is an action or reaction that occurs in response to an event or internal stimuli.

So, attitude is a predisposition to certain feelings while behavior is the expression of those feelings through action or inaction.

Attitude influence over behavior

It is expected that usually, attitudes towards things, places and objects guide human behavior. For example, a person passionate towards a sport would be expected to take time out of even their hectic schedule to play or watch it.

Similarly, negative attitudes prevent a person from doing certain things such as lack of faith in the democratic institutions of a country or candidates fielded in elections may induce people to not vote. Not just individual attitudes but societal attitudes also affect individual behavior. For e.g. predisposition in favor of science subjects in society pushes many students towards taking these subjects even when they have interest in certain Humanities subjects.

Behavior influence over attitude

Behavior of a person also determines attitude towards a person, place, thing, or an activity. For e.g. “role playing” technique adopted in employer-employee relationship improvement is based on this principle that when a person himself plays the part, he realizes how his attitude is not right towards a certain person or job, which ultimately leads to change in attitude. 

Individuals register an immediate and automatic reaction of "good" or "bad" towards everything they encounter, even before they are aware of having formed an attitude. For instance, advertising, political campaigns, social messages such as getting insurance, quitting smoking and other persuasive media messages are all built on the premise that behavior follows attitude, and attitude can be influenced with the right message delivered in the right way.

Similarly, at times individuals seek new experiences and practices and adapt new behaviors in order to change their attitudes towards the world. This is particularly true for children who copy the actions of others and, to a degree, build their attitudes and beliefs from this learned behavior. 

Individual also changes his attitude as per change in his behavior towards an object. For e.g. a person who dislikes liquor may change his attitude when he himself starts drinking even if it is due to peer pressure.

Inconsistency between attitude & behavior:

Sometimes attitude and behaviour may be contradictory also. Flexibility of mental attitude that leads to tolerance as well as hypocrisy are a result of this inconsistency. For instance:

A person may have a negative attitude towards people of other religions but may deal with them perfectly well while doing business transactions, such as a shopkeeper and customer.

A person opposing religious activities of one religion on liberal grounds whereas agreeing to regressive diktats of his/her own religion on grounds of freedom. In such cases, pointing out inconsistencies between behaviour and attitude can help redirect behavior to be in sync with attitude.