The idea of aptitude is usually linked to an individual's capacity.
In psychology , the word aptitude refers to the psychological conditions of a person that are linked to their abilities and possibilities in the field of learning . The concept has its origins in the Latin aptus .
For example: "My son has a great aptitude for music," "We are looking for people with an aptitude for generating new business opportunities," "I'm sorry, but I don't have the aptitude for this type of work."
What is an aptitude
In this sense we can establish that when we refer to the term aptitude we are determining the ability that a specific person has in the area of logic or mathematics. In this way, we could highlight that among the types of skills that an individual may possess are musical abilities, analytical ability, inductive reasoning or observation skills.
Likewise, along with them, another one that frequently occurs among many individuals should be highlighted. We are referring to physical fitness , which is the ability of some of those to carry out exercise while maintaining an optimal pace and performance while fatigue is minimal.
In this sense, athletes are people who have this aptitude and are characterized by the fact that because they have it they have the opportunity to recover in a very short period of time after performing an exercise.
Aptitudes are conditions that favor learning.
Differences of the term in colloquial language and psychology
It is worth differentiating between the use of the term in colloquial language and in psychology. In everyday speech, aptitude refers to the ability of an individual to carry out an activity correctly and efficiently . In psychology, on the other hand, the term is linked to the emotional traits of the subject and their capacity in relation to cognition . Aptitude, in this sense, is associated with the natural ability of the subject, the knowledge they acquire from learning and what is known as intelligence .
Aptitude, therefore, can be part of various human dimensions, from the ability to understand statements and texts to abstract and logical reasoning, including manual skills or the power of analysis.
On the other hand, fitness is a concept of biology that is used within the framework of the theory of evolution . The word allows us to describe the capacity of a certain genotype for reproduction, which is related to the number of genes of this individual and their proportion with respect to all the genes of the next generation.
Aptitude vs. attitude
Many times, two concepts that are pronounced in a similar way, such as attitude and aptitude, tend to be confused, which is what we are addressing here.
In this case, the first term comes to define the posture that a person's body adopts and that expresses the mood that the person has. Thus, for example, the following phrase could be used to explain this meaning: "No matter how much Mary looked at her son, she always saw in him the same attitudes that surprised her, those of an experienced orator."