Organizational Behaviour Assignment
ATTITUDE
Attitude is a mental and neutral state of readiness organized through experience, exerting a directive or
dynamic influence upon individual’s response to all objects and situations with which it is related. (G.W.
Allport)
Attitude as an enduring organization of motivational, emotional, perceptual and cognitive processes
with respect to some aspect of the individual’s world (Krech and Crutchfield)
Attitude is a tendency or predisposition to evaluate an object or symbol of that object in a certain way
(Katz and Scotland)
An attitude is defined as, "a learned pre-disposition to respond in a consistently favorable or
unfavorable manner with respect to a given object". (Katz and Scotland)
In simple words, an "attitude" is an individual's point of view or an individual's way of looking at
something. To be more explicit, an "attitude" may be explained as the mental state of an individual,
which prepares him to react or make him behave in a particular pre-determined way. It is actually
acquired feeling. Attitude is the combination of beliefs and feelings that people have about specific
ideas, situations or other people.
Attitude is important because it is the mechanism through which most people express their feelings. In
effect attitude is used in a generic sense, as to what people perceive, feel and express their views about
a situation, object or other people. Attitude cannot be seen, but the behaviour can be seen as an
expression of attitude
Characteristics of Attitudes Attitudes have following characteristics:
1. An attitude is the predisposition of the individual to evaluate some objects in a favourable or an
unfavourable manner.
2. The most pervasive phenomenon is "attitude". People at work place have attitudes about lots of
topics that are related to them. These attitudes are firmly embedded in a complex psychological
structure of beliefs.
3. Attitudes are different from values. Values are the ideals, whereas attitudes are narrow, they are our
feelings, thoughts and behavioural tendencies toward a specific object or situation.
[Link] is a predisposition to respond to a certain set of facts.
5. Attitudes are evaluative statements – either favourable or unfavourable concerning the objects,
people or events.
An attitude is "a mental state of readiness, organized through experience, exerting a specific influence
upon a person's response to people, objects and situations with which it is related". Attitudes thus state
one's predispositions towards given aspects of the world. They also provide an emotional basis for one's
interpersonal relations and identification with others. Managers in work organisations need to know and
understand employees' attitudes in order to manage effectively. Attitudes do influence behaviour of
people and their performance in organisations
Importance of attitude in an organization:
1. Career success: Employees‘ success in the workplace is measured through their performance.
Employees with a positive attitude will always think of ways to accomplishing their task in a well defined
manner instead of complaining or finding excuses for non-performance. This results in success either
through promotion or increased compensation.
2. Productivity: With a positive attitude, employees tend to take more interest in what they do and
deliver. Consequently, they produce better quality work with minimum errors. This improves their
overall output as well as productivity.
3. Leadership: Working in an organization is all about managing a diverse workforce. Some employees
earn respect easily and people often follow and listen to them. This is possible through the positive
attitude demonstrated by leaders.
4. Team work: Good relationships among employees help them to build effective teams where all the
members are united and work for a common cause. A positive attitude helps employees to appreciate
each other‘s competencies and work as a team for achieving common objectives instead of being overly
perturbed by inadequacies of team members.
5. Decision making: Having a positive attitude helps employees to take better decisions, in an objective
manner. It triggers a healthy thought process, enabling employees to choose wisely and logically.
6. Motivation: Having a positive attitude helps in motivating employees to overcome obstacles that they
may face during the course of their job. It also determines the way they see the world around them. The
moment they are successful in overcoming obstacles, they are motivated to move forward.
7. Interpersonal relations: Customers prefer to deal with someone who is positive in nature. A positive
attitude enables employees to share a better rapport with customers, earning valuable customer loyalty.
8. Stress management: Stress has a detrimental effect on the health of employees. So how can
employees cope with it? Stress can be reduced through positive thinking; and with reduced stress,
employees will enjoy better health and take fewer sick leaves. In conclusion, a positive attitude at work
is beneficial not only to the organization, but also to the employees on an individual basis.
Components of Attitudes
The three components of attitudes are:
1. Cognitive component
2. Affective component and
3. Behavioural component.
1. Affective component:
The affective component of an attitude reflects 'feelings and emotions' that an individual has towards a
situation. Cognitive component of attitude is related to value statement. It consists of belief, ideas,
values and other information that an individual may possess or has faith in. Quality of working hard is a
value statement or faith that a manager may have.
2. Cognitive component:
The cognitive component of an attitude is derived from 'knowledge' that an individual has about a
situation. Affective component of attitude is related to person‘s feelings about another person, which
may be positive, negative or neutral. I do not like Maya because she is not hard working, or I like Mina
because she is hard working. It is an expression of feelings about a person, object or a situation.
3. Behavioral component:
The intentional component of an attitude reflects how an individual 'expects to behave' towards or in
the situation. Behavioral component of attitude is related to impact of various situations or objects that
lead to individual‘s behaviour based on cognitive and affective components. I do not like Maya because
she is not hard working is an affective component, I therefore would like to disassociate myself with her,
is a behavioral component and therefore I would avoid Maya. Development of favorable attitude and
good relationship with Mina is but natural. Individual‘s favorable behaviour is an outcome of the fact
that Mina is hardworking. Cognitive and affective components are bases for such behaviour.
Former two components cannot be seen, only the behaviour component can be seen. Former is
important because it is a base for formation of attitude.
BARRIERS TO CHANGING ATTITUDE:
Attitudes of employees are not always rigid, these can be changed. Sometimes, it is in the best interests
of the organization to try to do so. For example, if the employees have got a negative attitude towards
their job or towards the management and organization, he is dissatisfied, he feels that he is not taken
care of by the management; management would like to change this attitude, because happy work force
is the major strength of the organisation. But sometimes, attitudes change is very difficult to accomplish
because of certain barriers. Therefore, the job of the management is to identify these barriers and then
examine the ways of overcoming them and effectively changing the attitudes.
The changes in attitude can be classified into the following two types:
1. Congruent Change: Congruent change in attitude means that the change is a movement in the same
direction but the intensity of feeling is reduced. For example, if a person dislikes his boss very much, this
negative attitude may persist, but the degree of dislike will be reduced.
2. Incongruent Change: Incongruent change involves change of direction itself from negative to positive
or vice versa towards the person. For example, if in the above example, that person starts liking his boss;
this is a change from negative to positive attitude
There are a number of barriers which prevent people from changing their
attitudes:
1. Prior Commitments: One barrier to change of attitude is prior commitments. This occurs when people
feel a commitment to a particular course of action and are unwilling to change. Theory and research
have also supported escalation of commitment which means, tendency of the decision makers to persist
with failing course of action. For example, if the president of a company is an MBA from IIM,
Ahmadabad and he himself appoints a marketing manager who is also from the same institute.
Unfortunately, the things are not working out well and the marketing manager is not very good.
However, as the president has himself hired this man, he is unwilling to admit the mistake. Using the
ego-defensive function of attitudes, the president distorts all negative information received about the
marketing manager and continues to believe that everything is going well and the right selection
decision was made.
2. Strong Commitment: If an employee is strongly committed, it becomes difficult to change his or her
attitude. In other words we can say that the stronger the belief about the attitude, the harder it is to
change it.
3. Publicly Expressed Attitudes: Attitudes that have been expressed publicly are more difficult to change.
This is because of the fact, that it requires a lot of effort for one to admit his or her mistake.
4. Low Credibility: The term credibility implies trust, expertise and objectivity. Employees are least
interested in responding to change the efforts made by someone who is not liked, has low rate of
credibility and is not convincing. If people hate you, they are least interested in adopting your message.
5. Insufficient Information: Sometimes people do not see any reason as to why they should change their
attitudes. The boss may not like the negative attitude of the subordinate, but the subordinate may be
quite pleased with his own behaviour. Till the boss shows him that his negative attitude will hinder his
career progress and his salary increase, he will continue to have the negative feelings. This is particularly
true when the attitude is a result of poor treatment by the management. The worker will use the
negative attitude to serve an adjustment function ―I can‘t respect a manager who treats us the way he
does.
6. Degree of Fear: If there is a low level of fear, people often ignore it as the warnings are not strong
enough to warrant attention. Similarly, if a very high degree of fear is used, people again reject the
message and refuse to be persuaded as the warnings are too threatening and thus not believable. In
both these situations it is difficult to change the attitude of employees. Research has found out that fear
can cause some people to change their attitude. However, the degree of fear is very important for the
final outcome
Ways of Overcoming the Barriers and Changing the Attitudes:
A few important ways in which the barriers can be overcome and the attitudes can be changed are as
explained below:
1. Providing New Information: One of the ways of changing the attitudes is by providing new
information. Sometimes, this information will change a person‘s beliefs and in this process his attitudes.
This is specifically true when the reason for the negative attitude is insufficient or misleading
information. For example, people generally have a negative attitude towards the staff at railway
reservation counters. They believe that the staff avoids the work. Therefore, whenever there is some
delay in getting the reservation, people express their displeasure towards the staff. Such a negative
attitude can be changed by drawing the attention of public towards the circumstances in which the staff
works. Sometimes, the staff is to deal with illiterate or ignorant passengers which consume a lot of time.
2. Use of Fear: A second way of changing the attitudes is through the use of fear. Research has found
out that fear can cause some people to change their attitude. However, the degree of fear is very
important for the final outcome. For example, the department of health and social welfare prepares an
antismoking commercial. If the commercial threatens the people that they will die of cancer if they don‘t
quit smoking, people simply shut it out and refuse to listen because it is too threatening. As a result the
commercial will not have the desired impact. On the other hand, if before giving the advertisement of a
cigarette, we give a statutory warning that ―cigarette smoking is injurious to health‖, it is a very low
level fear and people often ignore it. Therefore, health officials should find commercials that use only
moderate fear arousal.
3. Resolving Discrepancies: Another way of changing the attitudes is by resolving discrepancies
between attitudes and behaviour. For example, research shows that when a person has more than one
offer of a job and he has to make a choice, he often feels that his final choice may have been a mistake.
However, the theory of cognitive dissonance says that this mild conflict or dissonance will not last long
because people will try to actively reduce the dissonance by attitude and behaviour change. When he
takes the new job and starts working, he will start having negative feelings towards the jobs which he
has not chosen and positive ones towards the job which he has chosen. In the end, he will conclude that
he has indeed made the right choice.
4. Influence of Friends or Peers: Change of attitude can come about through persuasion of friends
or peers. Credibility of the others, especially the peers, is important to effect change. Peers with high
credibility shall exercise significant influence as compared to those peers who have low credibility.
5. The Co-opting Approach: Another way in which attitude change takes place is by co-opting,
which means taking people who are dissatisfied with a situation and getting them involved in improving
things. For example, an employee feels that the company should be doing something for improving the
employees‘ benefits. The company appoints him as a member of the employees benefit committee. By
giving him the opportunity to participate in employee benefit decision making, the company increases
the chances that his attitude will change. Once he realizes the practical problems involved in
determining the best possible benefits and the efforts and hard work involved in it, he is most likely to
change his attitude.
6. Oral Pursuation Technique: All the attitude change techniques are not equally effective across
different situations. Another way in which attitude can be changed is through oral-pursuation. Oral
pursuation techniques are most effective when you use a positive and tactful tone, present strong
evidence and use logic to support your position.
7. Training Sessions: The use of training sessions in which employees share and personalize their
experiences and practice new behaviours can be a powerful stimulant for changing attitude.
8. Others: Research has proved the following points which will help in changing the attitudes:
(i) An individual is more likely to change a privately held attitude than the one he has stated publicly.
(ii) An individual from a culturally deprived environment who holds a number of hostile attitudes may
change when he is given opportunities for education.
(iii) A person from a privileged back ground, who has always held to a democratic attitude, may become
negative towards some group because of some unfortunate experience. Through continued interaction
with others holding similar attitudes, one can be influenced in a positive or negative direction