Attitude And Aptitude: How Are They Different?

Attitude and aptitude: are they the same? What is the difference between them? What does each concept mean? Although we tend to confuse them – they are practically homophone words – they are two totally different concepts. Attitude refers to a way of behaving, or a tendency or inclination towards a certain behavior, and aptitude refers more to a capacity or ability.

Attitudes, although generally associated with something positive, can also be negative; instead, the skills are usually positive (the ability to do “X” things). What else do we know about attitude and fitness? To better understand their differences, we will put examples of attitudes and skills in social, work, family and personal life.

Attitude and aptitude: How are they different?

Attitude is defined as ‘the way someone is willing to behave or act’. Instead, aptitude is ‘the ability of a person or thing to adequately perform a certain activity, function or service’. Aptitude also refers to the ‘natural ability to acquire certain types of knowledge or to function adequately in a subject’.

So how do attitude and aptitude differ? As we have been able to intuit, attitude includes tendencies, personality traits and ways of reacting to problems. In the case of aptitude, we speak of an ability to fulfill certain roles and functions.

An attitude could be to have initiative at work in seeking solutions, and an aptitude could be the ability to learn quickly or to work in front of the public.

Attitude and aptitude in the company

In the workplace, attitude and aptitude are two qualities that are especially valued. They are often confused by their similar pronunciation, but they are different phenomena. Why are they valued in the business world? Because attitude is what makes a worker get involved in tasks, get involved, have initiative, propose ideas …

That is, the attitude here is related to a tendency to seek solutions to act “X” in a positive way for the company to improve performance and results, etc. (It all depends on the specific area in which we include that attitude).

On the other hand, aptitude has more to do with the ability to carry out a series of tasks or to acquire certain knowledge ; that is, it has more to do with a skill or knowledge.

In the business world, aptitude, like attitude, can refer to multiple fields: aptitude to work in a team (although we could also have an attitude to work in a team), to develop a program, to prepare reports, etc.

In this sense, we see how aptitude has more to do with what is more “technical” (knowledge), while attitude has more to do with personality, with initiative, with the way of being … (that is, it is related to personality and with the tendency to act in X ways).

Attitude and aptitude in other areas

Beyond the business environment, attitude and aptitude are present in our daily life, whether in the family, social, personal sphere … How can we differentiate these concepts in these areas? To do this, we are going to put some examples that allow us to better understand their differences:

Familiar scope

At a family level, we see examples of attitude when we decide to spend more time with our loved ones, for example, or when we help with household chores, take care of our siblings, etc. In other words, we usually associate the concept of attitude with something positive (although there may also be negative attitudes), but that happens in all areas.

An example of aptitude in the family environment would be to be able to carry out all the household tasks (ability to organize oneself).

Social ambit

In the social sphere, we also find a multitude of attitudes (and these may be, we insist, positive and negative). A positive attitude in this field would be to remember friends and call them from time to time, have the attitude of meeting them often, taking care of them… (positive attitudes).

A negative attitude could be to respond badly to them when we are angry. And in terms of fitness, we can think of the ability to organize different and fun plans with them, for example.

Personal scope

Finally, attitudes in the personal sphere refer to a tendency to behave with ourselves and with others ; for example, having a positive attitude towards what happens to us. And in terms of skills, here we can include work skills, skills to develop emotional intelligence, etc. In fact, there are skills and attitudes for just about everything.

As we have seen, attitude and aptitude are two different concepts. However, they share the fact that companies, for example, value a lot of attitude and aptitude in a worker, making reference to a multitude of fields and areas.

Beyond the workplace, each and every one of us shows attitude and aptitude in certain areas of life, as well as in our day to day. Knowing its characteristics, it will be easier for you to learn to differentiate them. And the language is very rich but full of nuances!

On the other hand, what do you think is more important when developing a project, or achieving our goals? The attitude or the aptitude? Many think that attitude is actually what moves a person to fight; If you don’t have an attitude, what good is having aptitude for you? It is a subject that invites, if not more, to reflect.