Soft Skills Attitude

1. Attitudes
An attitude is a
predisposition to act
or feel a certain way
towards a person or
thing.

2. Attitudes
• have an emotional
charge + or –
• occur within a situation
• can not be measured
directly
– self reporting or inference
• are learned
• not temporary - more or
less enduring
Situation
Attitude

3. Attitudes are learned
• In the absence of existing attitude we are
open to suggestion
Something
(object of attitude)
Positive result
Goal achievement
Formation of a + attitude

4. Communicator effect
• highly respected source
helps formation of an
attitude
• an inept attempt to teach
an attitude can lead to a
negative reaction eg. anti
drug ads

5. Attitude stability depends on
• how closely it's
linked with other
attitudes
• knowledge -
cognitive aspect
• degree of
liking/disliking -
affective aspect

6. Peanut butter example
• Cognitive (Knowledge)
– larger jar for the money
– less oil on top
– creamier and easier to spread
• Affective (Emotional)
– pretty label
– I like those teddy bear presenters
• 2 component model: sum of cognitive X
affective leading to a goal

7. Attitudes can be formed to preserve
balance in our self image
• Have to fit with other
attitudes, values,
information accepted,
what we do
• Changes in these
may cause a
readjustment of an
attitude
– eg. Johnny Cash for
Ripple Wine
– Billy Jean King for
sports clothes
Knowledge
Opinion
Attitudes
Values

8. Attitude to object vs attitude to a
behaviour
• The attitude-toward-object model
– Attitude is function of evaluation of
product -specific beliefs and evaluations
• The attitude-toward-behavior model
– Is the attitude toward behaving or acting
with respect to an object, rather than the
attitude toward the object itself
• Object: Rolls Royce car
• Behaviour: purchasing a Rolls Royce

9. Tricomponent Attitude Model
(ABC)
– Affect (How I feel
about it)plus
– Behavioural
tendency
(Conative), plus
– Cognitions (what I
think or know)
about likely
consequences of
behaviour
AFFECTIVE
(Feeling)
Behaviour
CONATIVE
COGNITIVE
Knowledge

10. Measurement
• Observation - difficult & time consuming
• Qualitative
– pinpoint importnat attributes & issues
– provide direction for further research
• Self reporting scales
– Likert - degree of agreement with a statement
– Semantic differential - opposite adjectives
– Rank order scale
– Constant sum scale

11. Attitude Profiling
• Single component
– One dimensional based on feelings
– Healthy vs unhealthy breakfast
– Popular in commercial market research
– Could be a lot more specific
• Multi attribute methods
– What are key ATTRIBUTES used to judge
something
– Rate the brands on these attributes
– How important is each attribute?

12. Multiattribute model
This college has great facilities
Disagree |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| Agree
strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 strongly
Teachers at this college are highly professional
Disagree |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| Agree
strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 strongly
Courses are recognised by employers
Disagree |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| Agree
strongly 1 2 4 5 6 7 strongly
College is easy to get to
Disagree |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| Agree
Strongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 strongly

13. Snake diagrams
Fishbein type models SUM of Score X Importance on all attributes
Full time Marketing students' evaluation of subjects Sem 2/04
Que st ionnaire it e m
BSBSLS306A
BSBMKG604A
BSBMKG404A
BSBMKG406A
BSBADV605A
BSBCMN310A
BSBCMN310A
BSBMGT608A

14. Attitude change strategies
• Changing the Basic Motivational Function
• Associating the Product With an Admired
Group or Event
• Resolving Two Conflicting Attitudes
• Altering Components of the Multiattribute
Model
• Changing Beliefs About Competitors’
Brands

15. Four Basic Attitude Functions
• utilitarian
– what it will do for you
• ego defensive function
– helps protect customer self image
• value expressive
– reflects customers general values, lifestyle or
attitude
• knowledge
– cater to customer need to know

16. Associate with a special group, event or
cause
• eg. famous people who attended TAFE
• associate with Football, Olympics, etc.
Relating two conflicting attitudes
• eg. Do you want a status course or a job

17. Alter components of the multi
attribute model
• change the evaluation of attributes
• eg. you'll get a job with TAFE
• changing broad beliefs
• eg. TAFE is more than this is how we hold the drill
• adding a new attribute
• eg. social activities
• change the overall brand rating
• eg. the one personnel companies go to first
• change beliefs about competing brands