Attitudes

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Krech and Crutchfield defined attitude as an, “enduring organization of motivational, emotional, perceptual and cognitive processes with respect to some aspect of individual world.”

“Attitude is a tendency or predisposition to evaluate an object or symbol of that object in a certain way.” -Katz & Scotland

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Relatively stable clusters of feelings, beliefs and behavioural intentions towards specific objects, people or institutions.

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Three components: Affective component Behavioural component Cognitive component

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AFFECTIVE COMPONENT: The emotional and feeling segment of attitude. These are verbal statements about feelings. It refers to an individual’s feeling about something or someone. E. g. I like this.

BEHAVIOURAL COMPONENT: An intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something. It reflects observed behaviour. E.g. I want to change my job.

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COGNITIVE COMPONENT: The opinion or belief segment of an attitude. These are evaluative beliefs and are measured by attitude scales by taking about thoughts. E.g. I believe my boss is partial for some employees.

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Job Satisfaction: A positive feeling about one’s job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.

Job Involvement: The degree to which a person identifies with his or her job, actively participates in it, and considers his or her performance important to self worth.

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Organizational Commitment: The degree to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organization.

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OrganizationalCommitment

The strength of an individual’s

identification with an organization

Continuance CommitmentCannot afford

to leave

Affective Commitment

Desireto

Remain

Normative CommitmentPerceived obligation to remain

Work AttitudesWork Attitudes

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The Theory of Cognitive DissonanceThe Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

Desire to reduce dissonance

• Importance of elements creating dissonance

• Degree of individual influence over elements

• Rewards involved in dissonance

Desire to reduce dissonance

• Importance of elements creating dissonance

• Degree of individual influence over elements

• Rewards involved in dissonance

Types of relationship between Cognition Types of relationship between Cognition

Dissonance: Incompatibility

Consonance: ConsistentIrrelevance: Unrelated

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Cognitive Dissonance: (proposed by Leon Festinger) Refers to any incompatibility that an individual might perceive between two or more of his attitudes or behaviour and attitude.

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Paths to reduce dissonancePaths to reduce dissonance

Change behaviourConcluding behaviour is

not that important.Change the attitudeOutweigh the dissonant

one.3–13