This document discusses attitudes, their characteristics, components, and relationship to behavior. It defines attitudes as evaluative statements about objects, people, or events that predispose someone to respond favorably or unfavorably. Attitudes have three main components - cognition, affect, and behavior intention. While attitudes can predict behavior, the relationship is complex and moderated by factors like importance and social pressures. Job attitudes like satisfaction and commitment are discussed in detail along with their causes and benefits. The document also examines how attitudes can change through overcoming barriers like lack of information or prior commitment.

1. ATTITUDE

2. WHAT IS ATTITUDE?
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 Attitudes are evaluative statements or judgments
concerning objects, people or events.
 Predisposition to respond in a favourable or
unfavourable way to persons or objects in one’s
environment.
 Characteristics of Attitudes
 They tend to persist unless something is done to change them.
 They can fall anywhere along a continuum from very
favourable to very unfavourable.
 They are directed toward some object about which a person
has feelings and beliefs.

3. THREE IMPORTANT ASSUMPTIONS
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1) An attitude is a hypothetical construct - we cannot
actually see attitudes, although we can often see their
consequences.
2) An attitude is a unidimensional construct - it usually
ranges from very positive to very negative.
3) Attitudes are believed to be somewhat related to
subsequent behavior, although, this relationship can be
unclear.

4. SIGNIFICANCE OF ATTITUDES
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Attitudes
are important
because they predict and affect
Job Behavior
For success, attitude is equally as important as ability (Walter
Scott).

5. ABC MODEL
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Informational/
Cognitive
(i.e. beliefs)
Affective
(i.e. emotions)
Attitude
(+ve or -ve)
Behavior
(i.e. conative)

6. THREE MAIN COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES
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 Cognition – An opinion or belief.
 Affect – The emotional or feeling segment associated
with that belief.
 Behavior – The intention to behave in a certain way.

7. ATTITUDES FOLLOW BEHAVIOR: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
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Cognitive Dissonance (Leon Festinger, 1957): Any
inconsistency between two or more attitudes, or between behavior
and attitudes.
 Individuals seek to minimize dissonance and attain stability and
consistency.
 Consistency is achieved by modifying one or both the cognitions,
or through rationalization i.e. adding new cognitive element.
 The desire to reduce dissonance is determined by:
 The importance of the elements creating the dissonance.
 The degree of influence the individual believes he or she
has over the elements.
 The rewards that may be involved in dissonance.

8. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATTITUDE AND BEHAVIOR:
MODERATING VARIABLES
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The most powerful moderators of the attitude-behavior
relationships are:
 Importance
 Correspondence to behavior
 Accessibility
 Social pressures
 Direct personal experience
Knowing attitudes helps predict behavior.

9. MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES
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 Job Satisfaction
 A collection of positive and or negative feelings that an
individual holds toward his or her job.
 Job Involvement
 Identifying with the job, actively participating in it, and
considering performance important to self-worth.
 Psychological Empowerment
 Organizational Commitment
 Identifying with a particular organization and its goals, and
wishing to maintain membership in the organization.

10.  Perceived Organizational Support (POS)
 Degree to which employees believe the organization values their
contribution and cares about their well-being.
 Higher when rewards are fair, employees are involved in
decision making, and supervisors are seen as supportive.
 High POS is related to higher OCBs and performance.
COMPARE AND CONTRAST
THE MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES
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11. WHAT CAUSES JOB SATISFACTION?
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 The Work Itself – the strongest correlation with overall
satisfaction
 Pay – not correlated after individual reaches a level of
comfortable living
 Advancement
 Supervision
 Coworkers

12. THE BENEFITS OF SATISFACTION
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 Better job and organizational performance.
 Better organizational citizenship behaviors.
(OCB – Discretionary behaviors that contribute to organizational effectiveness, but
are not part of employees’ formal job description)
 Greater levels of customer satisfaction.
 Generally lower absenteeism and turnover.
 Decreased instances of workplace deviance.

13. 4-13
THE CONSEQUENCES OF DISSATISFACTION
Exit Voice
Neglect Loyalty
Passive
to
Active
Destructive to Constructive

14. CHANGING ATTITUDES
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 Unlike personality traits, attitudes can be readily changed, and
some time it is in the best interests of management to do so.
 If employees believe that their employer does not take care of
them, management would like to change this attitude.
 Some time it s difficult to change attitude due to certain barriers.
 After these barriers are identified, some ways of overcoming
them and effectively changing attitudes are examined.

15. BARRIERS TO CHANGING ATTITUDE
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Two basic barriers that prevent people from changing their attitude
Insufficient Information
Prior Commitment
(Escalation of Commitment)

16. WAYS TO OVERCOME BARRIERS
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There are ways in which the barriers can be overcome and attitudes
can be changed.
 Providing New Information (Anti-management Attitude)
 Use of Fear (Anti-smoking Commercials)
 Resolving Discrepancies
 Influence of Friends and Peers
 The Co-opting Approach

17. IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS
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Employee attitudes give warnings of potential problems.
 Satisfied and committed employees exhibit behaviors that
increase organizational outcomes.
 Managers must measure job attitudes in order to improve them.
 Most important elements a manager can focus on are the intrinsic
parts of the job: making the work challenging and interesting.
 High pay is not enough to create satisfaction.

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