ATTIUDES

Attitudes
 Outline
• What is an attitude?
– Definitions
– 3 categories of evaluative response
– Attitude functions
• Values
• Attitudes and behavior
• Attitude formation and change
– Persuasion
– Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
• Attitudes are evaluative statements either
favorable or unfavorable about objects,
people or events. They reflect how we feel
about something.

• I like my job. Expressing attitude about work.

Definitions of Attitudes

• An attitude is a mental and neural state of

readiness, organized through experience,
exerting a directive or dynamic influence
upon the individual’s response to all objects
and situations with which it is related.
G. W. Allport (1935)
• The intensity of positive or negative affect
for or against a psychological object.
Thurstone (1946)
• An attitude is a psychological tendency that is
expressed by evaluating a particular entity with
some degree of favor or disfavor. Eagley &
Chaiken (1993)
• An attitude is a predisposition to react in a certain
way to an object or experience.
 Attitudes versus Emotions
Attitudes Emotions

Judgments about an Experiences toward an

attitude object attitude object

Based mainly on rational Based on awareness of

logic our senses

Usually stable for days or Occur briefly, usually

longer lasting minutes
 Emotions, Attitudes and Behavior
Perceived Environment

Beliefs

Emotional
Attitude Feelings Episodes

Behavioral
Intentions

Behavior
 Main components of Attitudes
• Three main component(ABC model)
• Cognition: The opinion or evaluative belief or
perception about segment of an attitude. My
E.g.. My pay is low..
• Affective: Emotional or feeling segment of an
attitude. am angry about how little am paid.
• Behavior : An intention to behave in a certain
way toward something or someone.
• Iam going to look for another job .
 Job Satisfaction
• A person's evaluation of
his or her job and work
context
• A collection of attitudes Job
Content
about specific facets of Supervisor
the job positively

Career Job Co-workers

Progress Satisfaction

Pay and Working

Benefits Conditions
 Responses to Dissatisfaction

• Leaving the situation

Exit • Quitting, transferring

• Changing the situation

Voice • Problem solving, complaining

• Patiently waiting for the

Loyalty situation
to improve

• Reducing work effort/quality

Neglect • Increasing absenteeism
 Job Satisfaction and Performance

•Happy workers are somewhat more

productive workers, but:
– General attitude is a poor predictor of specific
behaviors
– Job performance affects satisfaction only when
rewarded
– Job satisfaction and motivation have little effect in
jobs with little employee control (e.g. assembly
lines)
 Job Involvement
• Measures the degree to which people identify
psychologically with their job and consider
their perceived performance level as
high .Psychological empowerment: Employees
beliefs in the degree to which they influence
their work environment, their competence,
the meaningfulness of their job and they
perceived autonomy in their job.
Employee-Customer-Profit Chain

Company
Company
Practices
Practices

•
• Less
Less •
• Satisfied
Satisfied
turnover
turnover Customer’s
Customer’s customers
customers
Satisfied
Satisfied
Perceived
Perceived
Employees
Employees •
• Consistent
Consistent •
• Customer
Customer
service Value
Value referrals
service referrals

Higher
Higher
Revenue
Revenue
Growth
Growth
and
and Profits
Profits
 Organizational Commitment
• Affective commitment
– Emotional attachment to, identification with, and
involvement in an organization
• Continuance commitment
– Belief that staying with the organization serves
your personal interests
 Building Organizational Commitment

• Provide justice and support

• Provide some job security
• Support organizational comprehension
• Involve employees in decisions
• Build trust
Psychological Contract Defined
• Beliefs about the terms and conditions
of a reciprocal exchange between that
person and other party
Transactional v. Relational Contracts
Transactional Relational
Contracts Contracts

Focus Economic &

Economic
socioemotional

Time-frame Closed-ended Open-ended

and short-term and indefinite

Stability Static Dynamic

Scope Narrow Pervasive

More
Tangibility Well-defined
subjective
 Values
• Values are principles that guide our lives.
They are designed to lead us to our ideal
world (Schwartz, 1992)
– Transcend specific situations
– Guide selection or evaluation of behaviour and
events
– Ordered by relative importance
 Value Dimensions (Schwartz, 1992)

Openness to change Self-transcendence

Self- Universalism
Direction

Stimulation Benevolence

Hedonism Tradition

Achievement Conformity

Power Security

Self-enhancement Conservation
 Value Dimensions (Hofstede, 1980)
• Power Distance
– the tendency to see a large social distance between those in the upper part of
a social structure and those in the lower part of the social structure.
• Control of others’ behaviours
• Uncertainty Avoidance
– Avoidance of situations where the outcome is uncertain
• Security, low risk-taking, state religion
• Masculinity-Femininity
– The tendency of members of a culture to value activities that are more
common among men than women.
• “success” vs. “caring for others and quality of life”
• Individualism-Collectivism
– Tendency to give priority to personal goals even when they conflict with the
goals of important groups.
 Chinese Culture Connection (1987)
• CBC • Hofstede
– Integration – Collectivism
– Human-heartedness – Masculinity
– Confucian work – --
dynamism
– Moral discipline – Power distance (high)
– Uncertainty avoidance
– --
 Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980)
and Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1985, 1987)

Attitude toward
the behaviour

Behavioural
Behaviour
Intentions
Subjective
Norms

Perceived
Behavioural
Control
 How are Attitudes Formed?

• 1. Direct experience
a. with the attitude object
b. with associated object

• 2. Experience with others

a. classical conditioning
b. instrumental conditioning
c. modelling others’ behavior
 PERSUASION

• The process of getting others to agree with (or

change their attitude regarding) an advocated
position by means of a rational or an emotional
appeal.

Who says what to whom

under what circumstances?
 WHO SAYS WHAT TO WHOM UNDER WHAT
CIRCUMSTANCES?
Source (WHO?)
a. Credibility: Are they an expert and are they
trustworthy?
b. Physical attractiveness
 WHO SAYS WHAT TO WHOM UNDER WHAT
CIRCUMSTANCES
Message (WHAT?)
a. primacy-recency effects
b. one- vs. two-sided arguments
c. fear arousal
 WHO SAYS WHAT TO WHOM UNDER WHAT
CIRCUMSTANCES?
• Five factors are important in any fear appeal:
• 1.) the magnitude of the unpleasantness of the event
• 2.) the probability that the negative event will occur if the
recommended action is not taken
• 3.) the perceived effectiveness of the recommended action
• 4.) the perceived ability to perform the recommended action
• 5.) how afraid you already are of the topic
 WHO SAYS WHAT TO WHOM UNDER WHAT
CIRCUMSTANCES
Recipient or Target (TO WHOM?)
a) personality traits (self-esteem and
intelligence)
b) gender
c) mood
 WHO SAYS WHAT TO WHOM UNDER WHAT
CIRCUMSTANCES?
• Context (UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES?)
– a. Situational distractions (noise)
– b. overheard message
 Cognitive Dissonance Theory
(Festinger, 1957)
• Types of Cognitions
– Irrelevant – two cognitions have nothing to do
with each other
– Consonant – one cognition follows from, or fits
with another
– Dissonant – one cognition follows from, or fits
with, the opposite of another; discrepant
 Attitude change following induced compliance
(Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959)

15

13
11.76
11

9 Control
7.61 8.03
$1
7 $20
5

1
 Mean attitudes toward police
actions (Cohen, 1962)
7

5 $0.50
$1.00
4 $5.00
$10.00
3 Control