mentality

noun

Etymology: From mental + -ity. Doublet of mentalité.

1. A mindset; a way of thinking; a set of beliefs.

   “Before he can succeed, he will have to shed the mentality that he can get by without hard work.”

   “[…]with a mentality anchored in a profoundly influential and persistent hostility to central features of the Enlightment faith in the theoretical and practical autonomy of the human subject.”

2. The characteristics of a mind described as a system of distinctive structures and processes based in biology, language, or culture, etc.; a mental system.

   “1978, Edward Proffitt, "Romanticism, Bicamerality, and the Evolution of the Brain", The Wordsworth Circle, Vol. 9, No.1, reprinted in Kuijsten, 2016, page 129. […] the new mentality [of Romantic poetry]...is a mentality of self-authorization.”

   “Our mentality — whether bicameral or conscious — is thus more a function of social context, language, and forms of communication than a hard-wired neurologically-based system.”