ATTITUDE

BY
Nitu Revankar
ATTITUDE
 Attitude is a state of mind of an individual towards
something.
 It is defined as a tendency to feel and behave in a
particular way towards objects, people or events.
 Attitudes are evaluative statements or judgements either
favourable or unfavourable concerning objects, people or
events.
 Attitudes are likes and dislikes of an individual.
DEFINITION
 “Attitudes are an ‘individual’s enduring favorable or
unfavorable evaluations, emotional feelings, and action
tendencies toward some object or idea.”
 Frank Freeman said, “An attitude is a dispositional
readiness to respond to certain institutions, persons or
objects in a consistent manner which has been learned
and has become one’s typical mode of response.”
CHARACTERISTICS OF ATTITUDE
 Attitudes have an object
 Attitudes have structure

 Attitudes have direction, degree and Intensity

 Attitudes are learned

1. Attitudes have an Object: Attitudes must have an object.

That is, they must have a focal point whether it is an abstract
concept, such as "ethical behaviour," or a tangible item, such
as a motorcycle. The object can be a physical thing, such as a
product, or it can be an action, such as buying a lawnmower.
In addition, the object can be either one item, such as a
person, or a collection of items such as a social group.
2. Attitudes have Direction, Degree and Intensity: An attitude
expresses how a person feels toward an object. It expresses:
i) Direction: The person is either favourable or unfavourable
toward, or for against the object;
ii) Degree: How much the person either likes or dislikes the object;
and
iii) Intensity: The level of sureness or confidence of expression
about the object, or how strongly a person feels about his or her
conviction. Although degree and intensity might seem the same and
are actually related, they are not synonymous.
3. Attitudes have Structure: Attitudes display organisation, which
means that they have internal consistency and possess inter
attitudinal centrality. They also tend to be stable, to have varying
degrees of silence, and to be generalised.
4. Attitudes are Learned: Attitudes is gradually learnt over a period of
time. The process of learning attitudes starts right from childhood
and continues throughout the life of a person.
COMPONENTS/ DIMENSIONS OF
ATTITUDE

• Cognitive
1 Component

• Affective
2 Component

• Behavioural
3 Component
 Cognitive Component: The ccnitive component of an attitude
conceptualised as a person's factual knowledge of the situation,
object, c. person, including oneself. in other words, the
cognitive component refers to how much a person knows about
a topic. For example, the cognitive component of computer
anxiety would be based or how much a pamer knows about
coraputers and her le of understanding of computer operation.
 Affective Component: The affective component of attitude
consists of a person's evaluation of liking of, or emotional
response to some situation, object, or perzen. Affective
responses reflect one's attitude with sensations of pleasure,
sadness, or other levels of physical rousal. For example, for the
attitude construct of compute: anxiety, a topic of current
interest, the affective component would be a person's liking of
the computer and his feening of excitement, or dread, when she
or he used one.
 Behavioural Component: The behavioural component of
an attitude involves the person's overt behaviour diccted
towait a situation, object, or person. The components are
not isolated but are interrelated and produce an
organising framework or mental representation of the
attitude contruct.
IMPORTANCE OF ATTITUDES
 Determines Meaning of Environment
 Rationalises the Actions

 Organises the facts

 Facilitates selection of facts.

1. Determines Meaning of Environment: Attitudes determine the

meaning of what is seen in the environment. If an individual has a
favourable attitude towards another individual, the former tends to
judge the latter's actions as 'good' or 'superior However, if he holds a
negative attitude towards the other person, he may be prompt in
disagreeing with him and fail to appreciate any good work done by him.
2. Rationalises the Actions: Attitudes reconcile contradictions in the
opinions of people. With the help of a proper attitude as a background,
it is possible for an individual to reconcile or rationalise actions in
which another individual are obvious contradictions. Thus, when a
worker takes a little rest during work hours, his supervisor may
consider this act as loafing' or 'relaxing' depending upon his attitude.
3. Organises Facts: Attitudes organise facts. Accordingly,
objective events can be perceived differently by different
people with divergent attitudes. Thus, by influencing the
attitudes of workers, it is possible for an irresponsible union
leader to lead to misinterpretation of facts among them.
4. Facilitates Selection of Facts: Attitudes also facilitate the
selection of facts. An individual tends to select only those facts
and stimuli from the environment which are consistent with his
cherished attitudes. Thus, attitudes act as a screen or filter.
Usually,, with a negative attitude towards the union, several
managers tend to enlist only its negative activities (i.e.,
sabotage, act of misconduct, etc.) and fail to pick-up its
positive behaviour (i.e., voluntary wage cut, new norms of
productivity, etc.).
FORMATION OF ATTITUDES
The process of attitude formation is generally viewed as a social
learning.
1. Childhood Phase

2. Adulthood Phase

3. Maturity Phase

1) Childhood Phase: Attitudes begin developing in childhood

become crystallised to some extent in adulthood, but they may
continue to undergo modification even in later life. According
to social learning theory, people learn attitudes by observing
and imitating (modelling) the behaviour of others.
2) Adulthood Phase: In general, by the time a person
reaches adulthood he or she has acquired a set of
subjective standards or a frame of reference for
evaluating his or her experiences. These standards and
attitudes are influenced by the person's emotional ties of
affiliation, loyalty, and security acquired by associating
with other people. The number of these associations and
consequently the sources of influence on attitudes
expand as a person grows to maturity.
3) Maturity Phase: As children mature, their attitudes,
although typically remaining somewhat similar to those
of their parents, become more like those of their age-
mates and other people in their expanding social world.
FACTORS INFLUENCING ATTITUDE FORMATION
 Psychological Factors
 Family Factors

 Social Factors

 Organisational Factors

 Economic Factors

 Political Factors
ATTITUDE MEASUREMENTS
 Attitudes are subjective attributes of people.
 Psychologists have devised numerous methods for the
measurement of attitudes.
1. Thurstone type of Scale.

2. Likert Scales

3. Semantic Differential

4. Repertory Grid

5. Opinion Surveys

6. Interviews

7. Self Fulfilling prophecy

THURSTONE TYPE OF SCALE.

 The Louis Leon Thurstone scale was the first formal

technique of measuring attitude both in psychology and
sociology.
 This scale is associated with differential scales which
have been developed using consensus scale approach.
 This scale is used to track respondents behaviour,
attitude,feeling towards a certain issue or topic.
 Under such an approach the selection of items is made
by a panel of judges who evaluate the items in terms of
whether they are relevant to the topic area and
unambiguous in implication.
PROCEDURE OF THURSTONE SCALE
1. Gathers a large number of statements, usually twenty or
more, that exp ress various points of view toward a
group, institution, idea, or practice.
2. These statements are then submitted to a panel of
judges and then each one are arranged in 11 groups or
piles ranging between 1 and 11.
3. This sorting by each judge yields a composite position
for each of the items. In case of marked disagreement
between the judges in assigning a position to an item,
that item is discarded.
4. For items that are retained, each is given its median scale
value between one and eleven as established by the panel. In
other words, the scale value of any one statement is computed
as the ‘median’ position to which it is assigned by the group
of judges.
5. A final selection of statements is then made. For this purpose
a sample of statements, whose median scores are spread
evenly from one extreme to the other is taken. The statements
so selected, constitute the final scale to be administered to
respondents. The position of each statement on the scale is
the same as determined by the judges.
6. You want the statements with the most agreement between
judges. For each median value, this is the item with the
lowest interquartile range. This is a “Rule of Thumb”: you
don’t have to choose this item. If you decide it’s poorly
worded or ambiguous, choose the item above it 
LIKERT SCALES
 Likert (1932) proposed a technique, usually in the form
of a five-point points.
 The statement relating to the measurement is given to the
respondents who is then asked to check on any one of the
five points.
1. Strongly approved

2. Approved

3. Undecided

4. Disapproved and

5. Strongly Disapproved

These points show the degree of agreement and

disagreement with the given statements.
 SEMANTIC DIFFERENTIAL: This technique calls for
successive allocation of a concept to a point in the multidimensional space
by selection from among a set of given scaled semantic alternatives.
 people evaluate attitudes along three dimensions:
1. Evaluative (good-bad),
2. Potency (strong-weak), and
3. Activity (active-passive).
 REPERTORY GRID: The personal construct
theory, has been considered to be of relevance to the
study of Perception, Personality and Attitudes.
1. According to kelly’s theory it believes that people are
fundamentally inquisitive and will explore and explain
the world using what he calls ‘constructs’.
2. The repertory grid is a way of carrying out an interview
in a highly structured manner, using the interviewee's
own language and setting out their responses in the
form of a grid.
3. According to the theory, people develop their own
tentative models or personal theories about the world in
order to understand and negotiate their environments
 The main components of a repertory grid:
 The topic
 Elements: people, objects, experiences etc.
 Constructs: "sweet" – "dry", "fruity" – "grassy", "heady" – "light“
 Ratings
OPINION SURVEYS
 An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a poll or a survey,
is a human research survey of public opinion from a
particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to
represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of
questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or
within confidence interval.
INTERVIEWS
 The interviews are to be conducted to obtain the reactions of
personnel. The interviews are conducted by representatives of
some outside organisation such as consultancy firm or a
university department.
 Yes and No answer type of questions are asked by the
respresentatives.
SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY
 It is a process in which a person tries to convert his or her
attitudes, beliefs and expectations into reality.
 E.g: A teacher trying his/her best to see that the students pass
with good marks.
 One may hold self-fulfilling prophecy in both positive and
negative ways. The term is usually used in the context of a
negative prophecy.
 Have a feeling and act accordingly.
PERCEPTION
 Perception is a complex cognitive process and differs from
person to person. People’s behaviour is influenced by their
perception of reality, rather then actual reality.
 Perception can be defined as a process by which individuals
organise and interpret their sensory impressions in order to
give meaning to their environment.
 Perception is selection and organisation of material which
stems from the outside environment at one time or the other
to provide meaningful entity we experience.
NATURE OF PERCEPTION
1. Intellectual Process: Here the person selects the data from the
environment, organises it, and obtains meaning from it.
2. Cognitive or Psychological Process: Perception is a bask
cognitive or psychological process. The manner in which a
person perceives the environment affects his behaviour. Thus,
people's actions, emotions, thoughts, or feelings are triggered by
the percep tion of their surroundings.
3. Subjective Process: Perception is a subjective process and
different people may perceive the same environmental event
differently based on what particular aspects of the situation they
choose to absorb how they organise this information, and the
manner in which they interpret it to obtain the understanding of
the situation.
4. Lens Providing Worldview: The central role that perception
plays is determining actions, because it is through perception
that one should interpret our environments, and its reality.
5. Socially Co-Created: Individual needs interpretation because
the reality of any person is constantly evolving and is filled
with parallel streams of equivocal cues.
6. Culturally Influenced: Cultural values and beliefs shape
people's worldviews. They come to influence actions even
through subtle means like the language that people speak.
7. Self-Fulfilling: Both the perceiver and the target are persons in
case of person perception. This makes the perceptions more
complex. One feature of this complexity is the self-fulfilling
nature of expectations shaping the perceiver's prediction of a
target's behaviour. This prediction affects the perceiver's
behaviour towards the target.
 PERCEPTION VERSUS SENSATION
Sr.N Perception Sensation
o
1 It is comparatively a complex Mental It is a simple Process
process
2 It assist to derive a meaning of the The person just becomes cautious of the
stimulus quality of stimulus like colour,form,shape
etc.

3 The person becomes more active in The person is comparitively inactive in

perception because he tries to know the sensation
meaning of sensation in a process

4 It is the interpretation of what is sensed It is pickup information by our sensory

receptors.
5 Perception classisfies stimulus based on Sensation dervies information from the
past experience, feeling & motives various organs of the body

6 It is a combination of Physiological and It is only a Physiological characteristics.

psychological characteristics.
COMPONENTS OF PERCEPTION
Stimuli
1. Overt
Enviornment
2. Covert or
Attention
Internal
Environment
Translatio Recognitio
n n

Performan
Behaviour
ce

Satisfactio
n
 Stimuli: Overt and Covert Environment

 Attention: Sensory and neural mechanisms

 Recognition: Mediators and Physical Organisms

 Translation: Response Organism Decisions

 Behaviour: Overt and Covert Behaviour

 Performance: Action- Satisfaction Reaction Retrospection

 Satisfaction: Expectation and Performance Evaluation

PERCEPTUAL PROCESS
Selection
(Exposure
Attention)

Organisation

Interpretation (Categorization
Inference)
I. PERCEPTUAL SELECTIVITY
 Perceptual Selectivity refers to a tendency to select
certain objects from the environment for gaining
attention such that these objects are consistent with our
existing beliefs, values and needs.
 This selectivity is enhanced by 2 related processes:
 Firstprocess: Sensory Activation
 Second process: Sensory Adaptation
Factors affecting Perceptual Selectivity
1. Internal or Personal factors
2. External Factors
INTERNAL OR PERSONAL FACTORS
 Self Concept
 Beliefs
 Expectations
 Inner needs
 Response Disposition
 Response salience
 Perceptual defence

EXTERNAL FACTORS
 Size
 Contrast
 Intensity
 Repetition
 Novelty and Familiarity
 Motion
 Order
II. PERCEPTUAL ORGANISATION
 Perceptual Organisation emphasizes on the subsequent activities that
take place in the perceptual process after a stimulus is received.
 A person perceives the organised patterns, stimuli and identifiable
whole objects.

 Factors affecting Perceptual Organisation:

1. Figure and Ground
2. Perceptual Grouping
a) Similarity

b)Proximity

c) Closure

d)Continuity

3. Perceptual Constancy
4. Perceptual Context
5. Perceptual Defence
III. PERCEPTUAL INTERPRETATION
 Perception is said to have taken place only after the data is
interpreted.
 The Interpretation of stimuli is uniquely individual because
it is based on what individuals expect to see in light of their
previous experience.
 Stimuli are often highly ambiguous. It means individuals
usually intrepret them in such a way that they serve to fulfil
personal needs, wishes and interests.
PERCEPTUAL DISTORTION/ERRORS
 Selective Perception
 Halo Effect

 Contrast effects

 Projection

 Stereotyping

 Impression

 Inference

 Attribution

 Distortions

 Self fulfilling Prophecy

FACTORS AFFECTING PERCEPTION
 IMPORTANCE OF PERCEPTION
 Facilitates understanding of Human behaviour
 Helps in Behaviour Prediction

 Determination of needs

 Effective subordinate dealing

APPLICATIONS OF PERCEPTION IN
ORGANISATION
 Motivation
 Hiring

 Performance appraisal

 Employee effort

 Employee loyalty
THANK YOU