Attitude

Evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people, or

events
Three components of an attitude:
The emotional or
feeling segment
Affecti of an attitude
Cogniti ve
The opinion or ve
belief segment
Behavi
of an attitude oral

An intention to behave
in a certain way
toward someone or
Attitude something
Find out the type of component
• I feel like taking a walk right now.
• Saharaganj is a very crowded place.
• I am going to watch a movie now.
• I love my pet.
• Eating noodles and pizza is not healthy
• I dislike going to parties
Model of an Attitude
Does Behavior Always Follow
from Attitudes?
• Leon Festinger – No, the reverse is sometimes true!
• Cognitive Dissonance: Any incompatibility between two or more
attitudes or between behavior and attitudes
▫ Individuals seek to reduce this uncomfortable gap, or
dissonance, to reach stability and consistency
▫ Consistency is achieved by changing the attitudes, modifying
the behaviors, or through rationalization
▫ Desire to reduce dissonance depends on:
 Importance of elements
 Degree of individual influence
 Rewards involved in dissonance
 6

Dr. Pallavi Srivastava 05/08/2019

 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Scenario
• Sudhir is a scientist for a local manufacturer that employs a
large percentage of the small town where he lives.
• Until recently Sudhir loved his job. However, it has been
discovered that the company is releasing small amounts of
toxins into the local river. Sudhir is extremely bothered by this
information.
• Based on what you know about Sudhir, describe the cognitive
dissonance that he is experiencing, and the different ways
ways that Sudhir can alter his behavior or attitude to reduce
the dissonance.
 Moderating Variables
• The most powerful moderators of the attitude-
behavior relationship are:
▫ Importance of the attitude
▫ Correspondence to behavior
▫ Accessibility
▫ Existence of social pressures
▫ Personal and direct experience of the attitude

Attitudes Predict Behavior

Moderating Variables
Predicting Behavior from
Attitudes ▫ Important attitudes have a strong relationship to
behavior.
▫ The closer the match between attitude and
behavior, the stronger the relationship:
 Specific attitudes predict specific behavior
 General attitudes predict general behavior
▫ The more frequently expressed an attitude, the
better predictor it is.
▫ High social pressures reduce the relationship and
may cause dissonance.
▫ Attitudes based on personal experience are
stronger predictors.
What are the Major Job
Attitudes?
• Job Satisfaction
▫ A positive feeling about the job
resulting from an evaluation of
its characteristics
• Job Involvement
▫ Degree of psychological
identification with the job where
perceived performance is
important to self-worth
 Another Major Job Attitude
• Organizational Commitment
▫ Identifying with a particular organization and its goals,
while wishing to maintain membership in the
organization.
▫ Three dimensions:
 Affective – emotional attachment to organization
 Continuance Commitment – economic value of staying
 Normative – moral or ethical obligations
 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

New Concept
• Employee Engagement:
 An individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and
enthusiasm for the work he or she does.
 Highly engaged employees have a passion towards their
work and feel a deep connection to their company.
 Companies with higher levels of employee engagement
have greater customer satisfaction, better productivity,
higher profits, lower levels of turnover and accidents than
at other companies.
 3-13

And Yet More Major Job Attitudes…

• 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.
Are These Job Attitudes Really
Distinct? • No: these attitudes are
highly related.
• Variables may be
redundant (measuring
the same thing under a
different name)
• While there is some
distinction, there is also
a lot of overlap.

Be patient, OB researchers are working on it!

 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

What causes job satisfaction?

• Job profile: Interesting jobs that
provide training, variety,
independence and control
• Bosses and peers: Interdependence,
feedback, social support and
interaction with co-wokes outside the
wokplace
 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Consequence of job dissatisfaction at

work- EVLN Model
Constructive Destructive

Active Voice Exit

Passive Loyalty Neglect

• Alternatives chosen depend upon the personality of

the employee, past experiences, loyalty, and
situation.
 Managerial Implications
• Managers should watch employee attitudes:
▫ They give warnings of potential problems
▫ They influence behavior
• Managers should try to increase job satisfaction and generate
positive job attitudes
▫ Reduces costs by lowering turnover, absenteeism,
tardiness, theft, and increasing OCB
• Focus on the intrinsic parts of the job: make work
challenging and interesting
▫ Pay is not enough
Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019
 05-08-2019

Values
Basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct is personally
or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of
conduct.
•Attributes of Values:
▫ Content Attribute: that the mode of conduct or end-state is
important
▫ Intensity Attribute: just how important that content is
•Value System
▫ A person’s values rank ordered by intensity
▫ Tends to be relatively constant and consistent

Prof. Pallavi Srivastava

 05-08-2019

Importance of Values
• Act as a standard for guiding action or a criterion for selection
of an action.

• Provide understanding of attitudes, motivation, and behaviors

• Influence our perception of the world around us

• Represent interpretations of “right” and “wrong”

• Imply that some behaviors or outcomes are preferred over

others

Prof. Pallavi Srivastava

 05-08-2019

Classifying Values – Rokeach

Value Survey
• Terminal Values
▫ Desirable end-states of existence; the goals that a person would like to
achieve during his or her lifetime e.g. family security, freedom, and
equality.
• Instrumental Values
▫ Preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving one’s terminal
values e.g. being honest, independent, intellectual, and logical

• People in same occupations or categories tend to hold similar values

▫ But values vary between groups
▫ Value differences make it difficult for groups to negotiate and may create
conflict Prof. Pallavi Srivastava
 05-08-2019

Linking Personality and Values to the

Workplace
Managers are less interested in someone’s ability to do a specific job than in that
person’s flexibility.

•Person–Job Fit:
▫ John Holland’s Personality–Job Fit Theory
▫ Key Points of the Model:
 There appear to be intrinsic differences in personality between people
 There are different types of jobs
 People in jobs congruent with their personality should be more satisfied and
have lower turnover

Prof. Pallavi Srivastava

 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Holland’s Typology of Personality &

Congruent Occupation
 05-08-2019

Relationships Among Personality Types

The closer the

occupational
fields, the The further
more apart the
compatible. fields, the
more
Need to match personality dissimilar.
type with occupation.

Prof. Pallavi Srivastava

 05-08-2019

Still Linking Personality to the

Workplace
In addition to matching the individual’s personality to the job,
managers are also concerned with:

•Person–Organization Fit:
▫ The employee’s personality must fit with the organizational
culture.
▫ People are attracted to organizations that match their values.
▫ Those who match are most likely to be selected.
▫ Mismatches will result in turnover.
▫ Can use the Big Five personality types to match to the
organizational culture.

Prof. Pallavi Srivastava

 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Values differ across cultures.

• Hofstede’s Framework for assessing culture – six value dimensions:

 Power Distance
 Individualism vs. Collectivism
 Masculinity vs. Femininity
 Uncertainty Avoidance
 Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation
 Indulgence vs. Restraint
 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Hofstede’s Framework: Power

Distance

The extent to which a society accepts that power in

institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.

• Low distance: Relatively equal power between those with

status/wealth and those without status/wealth

• High distance: Extremely unequal power distribution between

those with status/wealth and those without status/wealth
 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Hofstede’s Framework: Individualism

• Individualism
▫ The degree to which people prefer to act as individuals rather
than as member of groups
• Collectivism
▫ A tight social framework in which people expect others in
groups of which they are a part to look after them and protect
them

Versus
 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Hofstede’s Framework: Masculinity

• Masculinity
▫ The extent to which the society values work roles of
achievement, power, and control, and where assertiveness and
materialism are also valued
• Femininity
▫ The extent to which there is little differentiation between roles
for men and women

Versus
 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Hofstede’s Framework:
Uncertainty Avoidance
The extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and
ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them

High Uncertainty Avoidance:

Society does not like ambiguous
situations and tries to avoid them.
Low Uncertainty Avoidance:
Society does not mind ambiguous
situations and embraces them.
 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Hofstede’s Framework:
Time Orientation
• Long-term Orientation
▫ A national culture attribute that emphasizes the future, thrift, and persistence
• Short-term Orientation
▫ A national culture attribute that emphasizes the present and the here and now
 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Hofstede’s Framework: Indulgence

• Indulgence
– The degree to which it is alright for people to enjoy life, have fun, and
fulfill natural human desires
• Restraint
– The extent to which there are social norms governing the gratification
of basic human desires and behavior
 Prof. Pallavi Srivastava 05-08-2019

Hofstede’s Framework: An Assessment

• There are regional differences within countries
• The original data is old and based on only one company
• Hofstede had to make many judgment calls while doing the
research
• Some results don’t match what is believed to be true about
given countries
• Despite these problems it remains a very popular framework