ATTITUDES

Introduction: Attitudes constitute an important psychological attribute of individuals, which shape their behavior. When a person says that he likes or dislikes something, an attitude is being expressed. For managing the people effectively in the organization, management must understand their attitudes and values. In organizations, attitudes are important because they affect job behavior.

Definitions on Attitude are:Attitudes are evaluative statement either favorable or unfavorable concerning objects, people, or events. They reflect how one feels about something. Stephen P. Robbins

The Nature of Attitudes: It is fruitful to bring out the salient features, which contribute to the meaning of attitudes. The following are the features of attitude. 1. Attitudes refer to feelings and beliefs of individuals or groups of individuals.2. The feeling and beliefs are directed towards other people, objects, or ideas.3. Attitudes tend to result in behavior or action.4. Attitudes can fall anywhere along a continuum from very favorable to very unfavorable.5. All people, irrespective of their status or intelligence, hold attitudes.

Theories of Attitude Formation:

I. Cognitive consistency theoriesII. Functional theories III. Social judgment theoriesIV. Self- Perception theory

I. Cognitive Consistency Theories: Attitudes do not exist in isolation; indeed, a complex structure results which appears to have at its heart a consistent tendency to maintain balance and resist change from influences of various types.  In general, these theories are concerned with inconsistencies that arise between related beliefs, bits of knowledge, and/or evaluations about an object or an issue. Psychological tension created by this unpleasant state leads to attempts at reducing the inconsistency.  There are four important theories under this group and they are: 1. Balance Theory2. Congruity Theory3. Affective Cognitive Consistency Theory4. Cognitive Dissonance Theory

1. Balance Theory: The basic model of balance theory has been provided by Heider. The theory is concerned with consistency in the judgment of people and/or issues that are linked by some form of relationship.  There are three elements in the attitude formation and they are:  i. The personii. Other personiii. Impersonal entity.  In a three element system, balance exists if all three relations are positive or if two relations are negative and one is positive.  Imbalance exists if all three relations are negative or if two relations are positive and one is negative.

People tend to perceive others and objects linked to them so that the system is balanced. Thus, if a perceiver likes a source who favors a certain position on an issues, the balancing process includes the perceiver to favour that position too. When imbalance states occur, the psychological tension created motivates the person to restore balance cognitively by changing the relation. Thus, a person’s attitudes towards an object depend on his attitudes towards a source who is linked with the object.  2. Congruity Theory: Osgood and Tannenbaum have proposed the congruity (suitable) theory of attitudes which is similar to the balance theory. Congruity exists when a source and concept that are positively associated have exactly the same evaluations and when a source and concept that are negatively associated have exactly the oppositive evaluations attached to them. Congruity is a stable state and incongruity is unstable one. Incongruity leads to attitude change, and the theory states how much attitudes towards the source and towards the concept change in order to resolve the incongruity.

3. Affective Cognitive Consistency Theory: This theory, propounded by Rosenberg, is concerned with the consistency between a person’s overall attitude or effect towards an object or issue and his beliefs about its relationship to his more general value. Rosenberg has related attitudes to one aspect of cognitive structure-means-end relationship between the object or issues and the achievement of desired and undesired value of goals. This theory is also called structural because it is concerned mainly with what happens within the individual when an attitude changes.  When there is inconsistency beyond a certain level of tolerance, the individual is motivated to reduce the inconsistency and thereby to change one or both components to make them more consistent.

4. Cognitive Dissonance Theory: Leon Festinger proposed the theory of cognitive dissonance. This theory sought to explain the linkage between attitudes and behaviour. Dissonance means an inconsistency. Cognitive dissonance refers to any incompatibility that an individual might perceive between two or more of his or her attitudes, or between his or her behaviour and attitudes. Festinger argued that any form of inconsistency is uncomfortable and that individuals will attempt to reduce the dissonance and, hence, the discomfort. Therefore, individuals will seek a stable state, in which there is a minimum of dissonance. For example, the dissonance producing behaviour is required as a result of the boss’s directive, the pressure to reduce dissonance would be less than if the behaviour was performed voluntarily. Although dissonance exists, it can be rationalized and justified.Rewards also influence the degree to which individuals are motivated to reduce dissonance. The rewards act to reduce dissonance by increasing the consistency side of the individual’s balance sheet.

II. Functional Theories: Functional theory considers how attitudes and efforts are related to the motivational structure of the individual. The theory focuses on the meaning of the influence situation in terms of both the kind of motive that is aroused and the individual’s method of copying and achieving his goals. There are two important theories under this group and they are:  1. Functional theory by Katz2. Functional theory by Kelman

1. Functional theory by Katz:

The most prominent person who visualized functional theory is Katz and he suggests four functions of attitudes and they are: a. Utilitarian or instrumental function b. Ego defensive c. Value orientation d. Knowledge.  a. Utilitarian or instrumental function: Attitudes serve as a means to reach a desired goal or to avoid an undesired one. Instrumental attitudes are aroused by the activation of a need or cues that are associated with an attitude object and arouse favorable or unfavorable feelings.

b. Ego defensive: The ego-defensive function of attitude acknowledges the important of psychological thought. Ego-defensive attitudes may be aroused by internal or external threat, frustrating events, appeals or to the build-up or repressed impulses, and suggestions by authoritarian sources. The attitudes influence his behaviour by affecting his perception of the situation accordingly. c. Value Orientation: The value orientation function take into account attitudes that are held because they express a person’s value or enhance his self-identity. These attitudes arise by conditions that threaten the self-concept, appeals to reassert the person’s self-image, or by cues that engage the person’s values and make them salient to him. 

d. Knowledge: The knowledge function of attitudes is based on a person’s need to maintain a stable, organized and meaningful structure of the world. Attitudes that provide a standard against which a person evaluates aspects of his world serve the knowledge function too. Since attitudes intervene between work requirements and work responses, information about how people feel about their jobs can be quite useful in prediction about work responses.

2. Functional theory by Kelman:His theory is directed towards the types of social relationships that occur in social influence situations. Kelman has distinguished three processes of attitude formation and change and they are:a. Compliance b. Identification c. Internalization.  Compliance occurs when an attitude is formed or changed in order to gain a favorable reaction from other person or group.  Identification occurs when a person forms or changes his attitude because this adoption helps him establish or maintain a positive self-defining relationship with the influencing agent.  Internalization involves adopting an attitude because it is congruent with one’s overall value system.  

III. Social Judgment Theory:The social judgment theory, formulated originally by Sheriff and Hoveland, attempts to explain how existing attitudes produce distortions of attitudinally related objects and how these judgments mediate attitudes change. Accordingly, a person’s own stand on an issue, that is initial attitude, serves as an anchor for the judgment of attitudinally related stimuli. The person’s initial attitude on an issue provides a point of reference against which he evaluates other opinions. These views can be considered in terms of attitudinal continuum (range) and can be considered as comprising latitudes.

The latitude of acceptance, which is the range of opinions the individual finds acceptable, encompasses the opinion that best characterizes his own stand. The attitude of rejection, which is the range of opinions the individual finds objectionable, encompasses the opinion he finds most objectionable. The attitude of non-commitment is the range of opinion that the person finds neither acceptable nor unacceptable.

IV. Self- Perception Theory: Self Perception Theory: When asked about an attitude toward some object, individuals often recall their behaviour relevant to that object and then infer their attitude from their past behaviour. Self-perception theory, argues that attitudes are used, after the fact, to make sense out of an action that has already occurred rather than as devices that precede and guide action.  The traditional attitude-behaviour relationship is generally positive, the behaviour-attitudes relationship is stronger. When one has had few experiences regarding an attitudes issue or given little previous thought to it, one will tend to infer his or her attitudes from his or her behaviour.

Effects of Employee Attitudes: Attitudes are reasonably good predictors of behaviour. They provide clues to an employee’s behavioral intentions or inclinations to act in a certain way. Positive job attitude help predict constructive behaviours; negative job attitudes help predict negative behaviours.  1. Employee Performance: Employee performance is higher if the employees have higher level of job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment.  2. Employee Turnover: Employee turnover is the rate of change in the working personnel of an organization during a specified period. Employees having positive attitudes towards job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment have much lower turnover rate than those who have negative attitudes towards these factors.

3. Absence and Tardiness: Absenteeism is unauthorized absence from the workplace while tardiness is a type of short period absence ranging from a few minutes to several hours for each event. Generally negative attitudes of employees towards job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment bring higher level of absence and tardiness. 4.Organizational Citizenship: Employees demonstrate organizational citizenship behaviours which are discretionary actions that promote organizational success if they have positive attitudes.

While understanding employee behaviour based on attitudes may pay rich dividend, managing their attitudes requires the analysis of causes that underlie those attitudes. Based on such an analysis, managers can take measures to change negative attitudes.

Methods of Attitude Change:

There are various methods through which a positive change in attitudes may be brought. In the social context, Cohen has suggested four methods for attitude change. These are:1. Communication of additional information2. Approval and disapproval of a particular attitudes3. Group influence4. Inducing engagement in discrepant behaviour From organization’s point of view, manager can take following actions in bringing changes in attitudes of organizational members. 1. Introducing reward system in such a way that the reward is closely tied with individual or group performance.2. Clearly defined employees’ role so that every employee is sure about what is expected of him.

3. Setting challenging targets for those employees who are high achievers so that they derive satisfaction from the work itself.4. Providing immediate feedback to employees about their job performance.5. Providing opportunities for employees to participate in decision-making process wherever possible.6. Exhibiting a caring, considerate orientation by showing concern for employee feelings.7.Refraining from attacking the employees’ attitudes; instead using the listening skills for understanding their attitudes.

Attitudes and Consistency: People seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behaviour. This means that individuals seek to reconcile divergent attitudes and align their attitudes and behaviour so they appear rational and consistent. When there is an inconsistency, forces are initiated to return the individual to an equilibrium state in which attitudes or the behaviour is again consistent. This can be done by altering either the attitudes or the behaviour, or by developing a rationalization for the discrepancy.  Attitude-Behaviour (A-B) Relationship: Attitudes alone do not influence behaviour but these act with other factors in the individual influencing behaviour, such as personality, perception, motivation, etc. Further, attitudes are also affected by the individual dimensions as well as the objects, persons, and ideas.

Measuring the A-B (Attitude-Behaviour) Relationship:

• Attitudes significantly predict future behaviour.• Attitudes that individuals consider important tend to show a strong relationship to behaviour.• The more specific the attitude and the more specific the behaviour, the stronger the link between the two.• Attitudes that are easily remembered are more likely to predict behavior than attitudes that are not accessible in memory.• So the more one talk about his or her attitude on a subject, the more he or she is likely to remember it, and the more likely it is to shape his or her behaviour. • The attitude-behaviour relationship is likely to be much stronger if an attitude refers to something with which the individual has direct personal experience.

Developing Positive Attitudes by Individuals: In an organizational setting, managers may help employees to develop positive attitudes in them. Developing of positive attitudes is necessary for the betterment of the life because negative attitudes often result into bitterness, resentment, high stress, ill health, and purposeless life. Positive attitudes lead to better personality development, meaningful life, feeling of being important, and contribution to self and society.  Following actions on the part of individuals may be more relevant for developing positive attitudes:1. Identification of attitudes.2. Looking for positive.3. Building positive self-esteem.4. Setting challenging targets.5. Avoiding procrastination.6. Continuous learning.

1. Identification of Attitudes: Before developing positive attitudes, it is essential that the existing attitudes, both positive and negative, should be identified. Identification of one’s own attitudes helps in locating the attitudes that are negative and need change.  2. Looking for Positive: For developing positive attitudes, it is essential that one must look for positive and avoids negative persons, things, and happenings. Every person or object may have a combination of both positive and negative. Therefore, if one wants to look for only negative, he may find fault with every thing. For looking for positive, it is necessary that one must analyse the situation critically. This critical analysis gives better picture of the situation and helps in understanding the positive aspect of the situation. 3. Building Positive Self-esteem: Self-esteem denotes the extent to which people consistently regard themselves as capable, successful, important, and worthy individuals. Therefore, developing positive self-esteem helps in inculcating positive attitudes.

4. Setting Challenging Targets: For developing positive attitudes and being successful at work, it is essential that one must set for himself challenging targets to be achieved. Challenging targets must always help in motivating an individual to do something better because he feels that he has to achieve something.  5. Avoiding Procrastination: Procrastination is the act or habit of putting off work till some future time, that is, the habit of “doing today’s work tomorrow.” Sometimes, it is possible that time-wasting things may happen and the target for the day’s work is not achieved. In such a situation, it is desirable that one should work for extra time to complete the day’s work.  

6. Continuous Learning: For developing positive attitudes, it is essential that continuous learning must be made a part of total personality development. Learning is the process by which new behaviours are acquired.

For developing positive attitudes, one must read relevant literature. For example, those who aspire to become effective business executives must read the life history of successful business executives.

…learning never ends the journey of excellence

continues…

Thank You