Attitudes

Robbins & Judge
Organizational Behavior
14th Edition
Attitudes
Kelli J. Schutte
William Jewell College
Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-1

Attitudes
• An attitude is an evaluative statement or judgement concerning an object, person or event
• If you ask people about their attitude toward religion, Lady Gaga or an organization, you may get a simple response but the underlying reasons are probably complicated
• 3 components
o Cognitive (beliefs or opinions)
o Affective (emotions or feelings)
o Behavioural (intention, not action)
See E X H I B I T 3–1

Does behaviour always follow attitudes?
• Leon Festinger – No, the reverse is true
• Cognitive dissonance is incompatibility between attitudes

or between behaviour and attitudes
• Individuals try to narrow this gap as it makes them

uncomfortable. The goal is to reach stability (minimum
dissonance)
• This is achieved through changing the attitude, modifying

the behaviour or rationalization for the discrepancy

Does behaviour always follow attitudes?
The desire to lower dissonance depends on
• Importance of the elements (stronger desire for
important attitudes)
• How much influence an individual has on these
elements (stronger desire when people think
they can control cause of dissonance)
• Rewards associated with dissonance (high
rewards accompanying high dissonance tend to
lower tension)

Moderating variables
The most powerful moderators of the attitude-behaviour
relationship
• Importance of the attitude
• Correspondence between the attitude and behaviour
• Accessibility of the attitude
• Existence of social pressure on behaviour
• Personal and direct experience of the attitude

Predicting behaviour through attitudes
• Important attitudes (e.g. related to our

fundamental values) have stronger relationships
with behaviour
• The closer an attitude and a behaviour, the
stronger their relationship (specific and general)
• The more frequently expressed an attitude, the
better its predictive power
• High social pressure weakens the relationship and
may generate dissonance
• Attitudes based on personal experience are
stronger predictors

What are the major job attitudes?
• Job satisfaction
A positive feeling about one’s job,
resulting from an evaluation of its
characteristics
• Job involvement
The degree of psychological
identification with the job, where
perceived performance is important
for self-worth

• Psychological empowerment
The belief in the degree of influence over one’s work
environment, competencies, job meaningfulness and
perceived autonomy
• Organizational commitment
Identifying with a particular organization and its goals,
while wishing to maintain membership in the organization

• Perceived organizational support
o The degree to which employees believe the organization
values their contributions and cares about their well-being
o Higher when rewards are fair, employees are involved in
decision making and supervisors are viewed as supportive
• Employee engagement
The degree of involvement in, satisfaction with and enthusiasm
for a job
• These attitudes can have positive or negative effects (e.g.

higher engagement will improve outcomes while lower
engagement will generate lower performance)
Are these job attitudes really distinct?
• These attitudes are related

so there is significant
overlap
• Variables may be
redundant (measuring the
same concept under a
different name)
• OB researchers are
working on this issue

Job satisfaction
•There are 2 popular methods for measurement

o Single global rating (one question and one answer)
o Summation of job facets (multiple questions and answers with one
score)
•Are people satisfied in their jobs?

o Results vary e.g. over time
o Pay and promotion are the most problematic elements

Causes of job satisfaction
• Pay
o It is related to satisfaction but becomes less important as people
reach a standard level of comfortable living
• Personality
o Those with positive core self-evaluations are more satisfied
o Core self-evaluations are beliefs related to inner worth and basic
competence

Outcomes of job satisfaction
• Job performance
o Satisfied workers are more productive
o The causality can be in both directions
• Organizational citizenship behaviour

Satisfaction influences this through perceptions of fairness
• Customer satisfaction
Satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty

Outcomes of job dissatisfaction
• Turnover
o Dissatisfied employees are more likely to quit
o Many moderating variables (e.g. economic conditions)
• Workplace deviance
Dissatisfied workers are more likely to cause problems e.g. less productive
• Absenteeism
Dissatisfied employees are more likely to miss work
Most managers are either unconcerned by or overestimate job satisfaction

Employee responses to dissatisfaction
Active
Destructive Constructive
Passive

Managerial implications
• Managers should assess employee attitudes, to detect

warnings of potential problems
• They should build positive job attitudes to improve

organizational performance
• They should focus on intrinsic parts of jobs, offering work

that is more challenging and interesting (pay not enough)

Global implications
•Are employees in Western cultures more satisfied?

o Western workers appear to be more satisfied than those
in Eastern cultures
o Perhaps because Westerners emphasize emotions and
individual happiness more
•Much of the research has been done in the developed world

so more research is needed to improve knowledge about other
places and people in the job satisfaction context

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Robbins & Judge

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-1

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-2

• Leon Festinger – No, the reverse is true

• Cognitive dissonance is incompatibility between attitudes

• Individuals try to narrow this gap as it makes them

• This is achieved through changing the attitude, modifying

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-3

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-4

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-5

• Important attitudes (e.g. related to our

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-6

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-7

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-8

• These attitudes can have positive or negative effects (e.g.

• These attitudes are related

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-10

•There are 2 popular methods for measurement

•Are people satisfied in their jobs?

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-11

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-12

• Organizational citizenship behaviour

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-13

Most managers are either unconcerned by or overestimate job satisfaction

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-14

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-15

• Managers should assess employee attitudes, to detect

• They should build positive job attitudes to improve

• They should focus on intrinsic parts of jobs, offering work

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-16

•Are employees in Western cultures more satisfied?

•Much of the research has been done in the developed world

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 3-17

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