Attitudes

3.2  Attitudes[pic 1][pic 2][pic 3]

Behaviour is a function of personal attributes and the environment. Personal attributes include an individual’s personality, values, perception and attitudes. Attitudes are, essentially, “feelings” towards people or things. An attitude may also be regarded as “a predisposition to respond that exerts an influence on a person’s response to a person, a thing, an idea or a situation.”^[1]Three components can be singled out in every attitude and these are cognitive, affective and the behavioural component. The cognitive component refers to the knowledge or intellectual beliefs an individual might have about an object (an idea, a person, a thing, or a situation). The feeling or affective component refers to the emotion connected with an object or task. The behavioral component refers to how a person acts, or the behavior taken on a subject.

There is a significant relationship between how people feel, what they believe, what they intend to do, and whether and how they do it. All these may also be related to the process of perception.

3.2.1 How are attitudes formed?

Attitudes are learned. Attitudes are learned, beginning from the cradle to the grave. They are conditioned by those around us and the conditions or situations in which we find ourselves. Some – particularly feelings – are so strong that they stay with us and affect us for the rest our lives. The range of influences is complex, but it includes the following:

• The groups to which we belong – most notably, in early life, the family, but also friendship groups, work groups, etc.
• Education
• Life experiences – particularly the most profound personal ones such as bereavement, etc., but also those experiences which we observe (e.g. on TV) or read about.
• Our work behaviour- e.g. Organisational Citizenship Behaviour. This is the willingness to go beyond one’s job description to help the company, even if such act does not lead to an immediate reward.

3.2.2 Are attitudes fixed?

Attitudes change over time as a result of the influence of the above factors. For example, it is very often the case that young people have more liberal attitudes than older people, but as they enter work and acquire family and financial commitments and responsibilities, they tend to become more “conservative”.

3.2.3 Why organizations try to influence attitude change?

One of the key tasks of management in organisations is to modify or change people’s behaviour. Attitude change has an influence on employee behaviour. Therefore attitude also influences effective performance and organization change processes. However, it is worthy noting that attitudes do not necessarily condition behaviour. They are simply significant determinants of that behaviour. Therefore, we need to know how attitudes may be changed.

Consider the following attitudes and their importance to an organisation:

• Job involvement – the worker’s ability to identify with the job.  The higher the level of involvement the fewer absences and complaints.
• Job satisfaction – the worker’s attitude toward the sense of being treated fairly and the level of pleasure derived from the work itself. The level of satisfaction is often determined by the level of support received from the leadership and fellow employees, by the reward structure, by the individual-job fit, by the mentally challenging work, and by opportunities to use one’s skills and abilities.
• Organizational commitment – this attitude reflects how the worker identifies with the organization.  Studies indicate that the worker’s level or attitude toward the organization is probably the best predictor of turnover. Distinction has usually been drawn between behavioural commitment and attitudinal commitment. Attitudinal commitment is the commitment in terms of a sharing of values and attitudes, a psychological bond to an organisation, an affective attachment. On the other hand, behavioural commitment is demonstrated by a willingness to exert effort beyond the requirements of contract and/or by a desire to remain a member of an organisation.

3.2.3 How to change attitudes

In order to change existing attitudes you must be able to identify the attitudes. This requires a form of measurement of attitudes. Attitude surveys are regularly undertaken in the field of marketing to ascertain what people feel about a particular product, or to develop classifications of consumers according to similarities of attitudes – for example, if a person believes one particular thing, they are likely also to believe another, related thing and therefore be potentials consumers a particular product. The growth of political opinion polls is one example of the rampant use of surveys to measure attitudes.

Increasingly, attitudinal surveys are being used within organisations to find out about the potential reactions of members of staff to particular courses of action (e.g. organisational change) or to form judgements about their suitability for particular posts.

Operational methods for attitude surveys generally seek to measure particular components for each belief. Therefore, attitudes to work could be measured as follows:

• Strength of feeling about the job itself- This is the strength with which various attitudes are held about different aspects of the job which are listed, usually measured on a seven point scale. E.g. A range of responses can be available including “agree totally” up to the last options which may be “disagree totally”.
• Value of job to self- This involves evaluating various aspects of the job, again, but in relation what each aspect means to the individual.
• Social factors- Attitudes and behaviour do not depend on inner perceptions alone, but also upon surrounding social pressures – the person’s perceptions of what others think he/she should do. The social factors must be investigated in order to understand all the factors determining behaviour.
• Overall attitude- This involves an overall assessment of the respondent’s attitudes to the context of the job and to work itself, e.g. the value and meaning the job has in his/her life. This is a useful measure as it allows more generalised attitudes to the job to be explored.

3.2.4 Attitude Change

1. The most successful methods of achieving attitude change in adults have been those that involve a relatively high degree of involvement by the individuals concerned in some form of small group decision-making process. This may lead to a – public – commitment to change which strengthens the intention to produce changed behaviour. Being part of a group may also reduce fear of change, especially if other members of the group will be similarly affected by the change.
2. One alternative is to use threats and (monetary) rewards. These may well change behaviour, but they are less likely to alter attitudes and beliefs. The use of threats, particularly, may result in apparent changes – “yielding” to the new expectations – rather than a commitment to the new beliefs. In the short term, a manager may get the behaviour that he wants from a subordinate but, by using threats, this may be at the cost of an increase in fear and mistrust, resulting eventually in the subordinate quitting, or transferring to another part of the organisation.

3.2.5 Obstacle to attitude change

The new (attitude or belief) may challenge the old or existing (attitudes and beliefs), and produce feelings of psychological discomfort or tension. This mismatch between the feelings produced by evidence for the new state and the old beliefs is referred to by Festinger (1957) as “cognitive dissonance”.