Attitudes

They are evaluative statements either favorable or unfavorable - concerning object, people or events. They reflect how one feels about something. Attitudes have 3 components.

Cognitive Component

The opinion or belief segment of an attitude.

Example: "Discrimination is wrong".


    


Affective Component

The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude.

Example: "I don't like Raju because he discriminates against people".

Behavioral Component

It is an intension to behave in a certain say towards someone or something "I will avoid Raju because of my feeling about him".

Sources of Attitudes

Our attitudes are developed from our parents, teachers and friends. We observe the way our parents, teachers and friends behave and try to shape our attitude. People tend to imitate the attitudes of popular individuals and those they admire and respect.

Attitudes keep changing with experience. The attitude is important as it affects job behavior.

Types of Attitudes

There are three types of attitudes. These are job related attitudes. They are:

1. Job Satisfaction: It refers to individual's general attitudes towards his/her job. A person with high job satisfaction holds positive attitude about his job.

2. Job Involvement: It is the degree to which a person participates in his job and considers his involvement is important. People with high job involvement care about what kind of work they do.

3. Organizational Commitment: The degree to which an employee identifies with an organization and its goals and wishes to maintain the membership in the organization. A person with high organizational commitment exhibits low absertism.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

This theory has been developed by Len Festinger. His theory states that dissonance makes an individual feel uncomfortable. Cognitive dissonances mean incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes.

Cognitive dissonance occurs when a person behaves in a fashion that is inconsistent with his or her attitude.

In an organization, cognitive dissonance occurs when an employee desires to leave the job as there is no use in continuing there. But continues to work by rationalizing. "Organization is not bad after all" or "what is alternative".

Rewards also influences the degrees to which individuals are motivated to reduce dissonance High rewards accompanying high dissonance tend to reduce tension in the dissonance.






Next Chapters

Organizational Culture
Value System
Ability
Attitude
Learning
Perception
Personality
Reinforcement
Job Satisfaction
Communication
Leadership
 

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