What is Attitude?

Attitude is defined as a more or less stable set of predispositions of opinion, interest or

purpose involving expectancy of a certain kind of experience and readiness with an
appropriate response.

Attitudes are also known as “frames of reference“. They provide the background against
which facts and events are viewed.

An attitude describes persons’ enduring favorable or unfavorable cognitive evaluations,

feelings, and action tendencies toward some object or idea. People have attitudes regarding
almost everything such as religion, politics, cloth, music, food.

A person’s attitudes settle into a coherent pattern and to change one may require difficult
adjustment in many others. Thus, a company would be well advised to fit its product into
existing attitudes rather than to try changing people’s attitude.

Attitude can be defined as learnt predispositions to respond to an object or class of objects in

a consistently favorable or unfavourable way.

Attitude Definition
Attitudes are evaluation statements either favourable or unfavourable or unfavourable
concerning objects, people or events. They reflect how one feels about something.
Robbins

Attitude is a mental and neutral state of readiness organized through experience, exerting a
directive or dynamic influence upon individual’s response to all objects and situations with
which it is related.
G.W. Allport

 Attitude as an enduring organization of motivational, emotional, perceptual and cognitive

processes with respect to some aspect of the individual’s world.

Krech and Crutchfield

Attitude is a tendency or predisposition to evaluate an object or symbol of that object in a

certain way.

Katz and Scotland

Attitude Meaning
In simple words, an “attitude” is an individual’s way of looking or an individual’s point of
view at something.
To be more specific, an “attitude” may be defined as the mental state of an individual,
which prepares him to react or make him behave in a particular pre-determined way. It is
actually an acquired feeling.
Attitude is the mixture of beliefs and feelings that people have about situations, specific ideas
or other people.

Components of Attitude
1. Cognitive component
2. Affective component
3. Behavioral component

Cognitive component
Beliefs are the cognitive components of consumer attitude. Cognitive component of attitude
is associated with the value statement. It consists of values, belief, ideas and other
information that a person may have faith in.
Positive brand associations enhance brand equity and are achieved through a number of
positioning strategies. Through brand associations, marketers establish and influence
favorable beliefs about a brand and unfavorable beliefs about competitors.

Example: Quality of sincere hard is a faith or value statement that a manager may have.
Affective component
Affective is the emotive component of consumer attitude. Affective component of attitude is
associated with individual feelings about another person, which may be positive, neutral
or negative.
Three research models describe the determinants of affective response.

 Functional theory of attitude explains that consumers buy as a result of one of four
psychological functions: adjustment, ego defense, value expression, and application of
prior knowledge.

 Fishbein model relates consumer beliefs and evaluations to affective response: if beliefs

are strong and desirable, affective responses are positive.

 Belief importance model analyses affective responses across competing brands.

Example: I don’t like Sam because he is not honest, or I like Sam because he is sincere. It is
an expression of feelings about a person, object or a situation.
Behavioral component
Intention is the behavioral component of consumer attitude. Behavioral component of
attitude is associated with the impact of various condition or situations that lead to
person behavior based on cognitive and affective components.
Two research models demonstrate the relationship between intention to purchase and actual
purchase and consumption.

 The theories of reasoned action explain purchasing behavior as a direct result of intention,
influenced by attitude toward purchase and by subjective norms.

 The theory of trying to consume explains actual consumption behavior of purchasers. It

provides insight into the establishment and maintenance of long-term relationship with
consumers.
Example: I don’t like Sam because he is not honest is an affective component, I, therefore,
would like to disassociate myself with him, is a behavioural component and therefore I
would avoid Sam.
Cognitive and affective components are bases for such behaviour. Former two components
cannot be seen, only the behaviour component can be seen. Former is important because it is
a base for the formation of attitude.

Characteristics of Attitude
Characteristics of attitude are discussed below:
1. Attitude are predispositions
2. Attitude are different from values
3. Attitude are evaluative statement
4. Attitude influence human behavior
5. Attitude have intensity
6. Attitude are learnt
Attitude are predispositions
Attitude are predispositions of purpose, interest or opinion of the person to assess some
objects in a favourable or an unfavourable manner.
Attitude are different from values
Attitude are different from values: Values are the ideals, whereas attitudes are narrow, they
are our feelings.
Attitude are evaluative statement
Attitude are evaluative statements: either favourable or unfavourable concerning the objects,
people or events.
Attitude influence human behavior
A positive attitude towards a thing will influence human behavior towards the thing
favorably and vice-versa.

Attitude have intensity

It refers to the strength of the effective component. For example, we may dislike an
individual but the extent of our disliking would determine the intensity of our attitude
towards the person.
Attitude are learnt
Attitude is not inborn phenomenon. Attitude are learnt through social interaction and
experience.

Functions of Attitude
Four important functions of attitude which are crucial in organizational behavior viewpoint
are:
1. Adjustment Function
2. Ego-Defensive Function
3. Value-Expressive Function
4. Knowledge Function
Adjustment Function
Attitudes often help individuals to adjust to their work environment.

Consumers hold certain brand attitudes partly because of the brand utility. If a product has
helped us in the past even in a small way, our attitude towards it tends to be favorable. One
way of changing attitude in favor of a product is by showing people that it can solve
utilitarian goals. They may not have considered some advertisement which stresses the
utilitarian benefits of a product.

Example: Well-treated employees tend to develop a positive attitude towards their

management or job.
Ego-Defensive Function
Consumers want to protect their self concept from inner feelings of doubt. Cosmetic and
personal hygiene products, by acknowledging this need, increase their relevance to the
consumer and have the possibility of a favorable attitude by offering reassurance to the
consumers self concept.

Example: Older faculty might feel somewhat threatened by a young and new faculty
member who is full of fresh ideas and enthusiasm
Value-Expressive Function
Attitudes are one expression of general values, lifestyles, and outlook. If a consumer segment
generally holds a positive attitude towards being in a fashion segment, consumer may treat
high fashion clothing and accessories as symbols of that lifestyle.

Example, a manager who values honest and sincere work will be more vocal against an
employee who is having a very casual approach towards work.
Knowledge Function
Attitudes provide frames of reference or standard that allow individuals to understand and
perceive the world around him. Individuals have a strong need to know and understand the
people and things with whom they come in contact, especially if they think they might
influence their behavior.

Example, If a student has a strong negative attitude towards the college, whatever the
college does, the student will be perceived as something ‘bad’ and as actually against them.

Types of Attitude
There are broadly three types of attitude in term of organisational behavior
1. Job satisfaction
2. Job involvement
3. Organizational commitment
Job satisfaction
A collection of positive and/or negative feelings that an individual holds toward his or her
job.

A person will hold a positive attitude if had a high level of satisfaction, while dissatisfied
people will generally display a negative attitude towards life.

When we talk about attitude, we generally speak about job satisfaction because they are
inter-related in organizational behaviour.

Job involvement
Job involvement refers to the degree to which a person identifies himself (psychologically)
with his job, actively participates and considers his perceived performance level important to
self-worth. (Robbins)
Higher job satisfaction leads to low absenteeism & employee turnover and indicates that the
individual cares for his job.

Organizational commitment
Organizational commitment refers to a degree to which an employee identifies himself with
the organizational goals and wishes to maintain membership in the organization.

Resigning from the job or absenting versus job satisfaction is a predictor of organizational
commitment. Organizational commitment depends upon the degree of autonomy & freedom
job and job enrichment factor.

Attitude Formation
 The question often arises, ‘how are the attitudes and subsequent behaviors formed?’
While attitudes are basically learned over the years, some inherited characteristics do affect
such attitudes
Some of the learned characteristics responsible for attitude formation are:
1. Experiences
2. Perceptual biases
3. Observation of other person attitude
4. Association
5. Personality
Experiences
Our personal experiences with people and situations develop our attitude towards such
persons and situations.

Through job experience, people develop attitudes towards working conditions, salaries,
supervision, group dynamics and so on.

Perceptual biases
Perception is the result of a complex interaction of various senses such as feelings, seeing,
hearing and so on and plays an important part in our attitude and behavioural formation.

For example, if a manager perceives a subordinate’s ability as limited, he will give him
limited responsibility. Similarly, we lose many good friends due to our changed perception
about them.

Observation of other person attitude

When we like someone, we try to emulate that person’s attitude.

For example, when we are impressed by someone keeping calm under stressful
circumstances and we appreciate such calmness, we might try to do the same.

Association
Our association with the group we belong to strongly influences our attitude. Our close
association with a group would encourage us to be consistent with the attitude of the group.

Personality
Personality is a set of traits and characteristics, habit patterns and conditioned responses to
certain stimuli that formulate the impression that a person makes upon others and this
impression is a function of a person’s attitude.
Consumer Attitude Formation
Attitudes are learned though there are different approaches on how learning works as is
acquired by individuals. Following factors lead to consumer attitude formation:

1. Economic Factors
2. Family Factors
3. Social Factors
4. Political Factors
5. Psychological Factors
6. Personality Factors
7. Reference Group Factors

Importance of Attitude
An expert knows that a positive attitude is necessary for successful completion of a project or
an assigned task. Having a positive attitude with positive thinking in the organization will
reflect on what employee do and make them a more productive employee.

Importance of attitude in organisational behavior

Employees with a positive attitude will create a healthy atmosphere in the organization,
develop positive relations with sub-ordinates, their supervisors, managers and top
management. A positive attitude has significant benefits for an individual in many aspects.

Following are the aspects related to the importance of attitude:

1. Career success
2. Productivity
3. Leadership
4. Teamwork
5. Decision making
6. Motivation
7. Interpersonal relations
8. Stress management
Career success
Performance is a parameter to measure employees‘ success in the workplace. Performance
leads to success either through promotion or increased compensation. A positive attitude of
an employee will help him to think of ways to accomplish their task in a well-defined
manner

Productivity
An employee with a positive attitude tends to take more interest and responsibility and will
provide better work, which in turn will improve productivity.
Leadership
Managing a diverse workforce is a crucial task for achieving the objective of an organization.
Positive attitude demonstrated by leaders or employee will result in proper communication
between the subordinate which will lead to efficient work.

Teamwork
A positive attitude of employees helps to appreciate each other‘s competencies and work as a
team for achieving common objectives.

Decision making
An employee with a positive attitude and mindset will help employees to make better
decisions, in an objective manner. It will enable employees to choose wisely and logically
and avoid them to take an unambiguous decision.

Motivation
Motivation is an important factor for efficient work. An employee with a positive attitude
will always be mentally prepared to face any obstacle in a job. The moment they are
successful in overcoming obstacles, they are motivated to move forward.

Interpersonal relations
Customers prefer to make relation with someone who is positive in nature. A positive
attitude helps in establishing valuable customer loyalty.

Stress management
Positive attitude and thinking will reduce the stress of an employee and with reduced stress
employee can take a better decision and increase their productivity which results, employees,
to enjoy better health and take fewer sick leaves.