Other forms: mentalities
A mentality is the habitual way a person or group thinks. A siege mentality, the wrong mentality, a winning mentality.
It is nearly always used critically or of groups — a siege mentality, a herd mentality — and it implies the thinking is fixed and unexamined. In sport it is used approvingly for mental toughness. Note mental plus the -ity that makes nouns of quality.
1nounmentalityThe habitual way a person or group thinks.
“The new coach wants to change the team's losing mentality.”
mentality is a habit of thought.
Mental plus -ity, from Latin mens, the mind.
Proto-Indo-European
*men-
Latin
mentālis
Middle French
mental
English
mental
English, today
mentality
From mental + ity. a doublet of mentalité. mental Borrowing from Middle French mental, from Latin mentālis, from mēns + -ālis.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA