Chapter Six
Attitudes Can Shape
Your Life
Chapter Preview: Attitudes Can
Shape Your Life
• Impact of attitudes on success of
individuals and organizations
• Ways people acquire attitudes
• Attitudes that employers value
• How to change your own or others'
attitudes
• How to help others change attitudes
• Organizational efforts to develop
positive employee attitudes
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What Is an Attitude?
• A thought, accepted as true, that leads
one to think, feel or act positively or
negatively toward a person, idea or
event
• An emotional readiness to behave in a
particular way
• You learn them and can change them
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Aspects of Attitudes
• Values serve as a foundation for
attitudes
• Attitudes motivate to respond
• You have freedom to choose your
response
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Figure 6.1 - The Relationship Among Values,
Attitudes, and Behaviors
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Root Causes of Negative Attitudes
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Low self-esteem
Unresolved conflict
Work that is not satisfying
Fear or uncertainly
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Total Person Insight
The biggest career challenges these days are
perceptual…psychological. Not technical. Not
even skills-based. The major adjustments we
need to make are mental. For example, how
we frame things at work. The way we process
events in our head. Our attitudes and outlook
about how our jobs and organizations now
have to operate.
Price Pritchett
Chairman, EPS Solutions
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The Powerful Influence of Attitudes
• People with positive attitudes are more
likely to achieve personal and
professional goals
• People with negative attitudes find it
difficult to achieve contentment or
satisfaction in life
• Attitudes are a powerful force in any
organization
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The Age of Information Mandates Attitude
Changes
• As the information age unfolded, advanced
technology was not enough to retain clients
and customers
• Competitive advantage is superior customer
service provided by well-trained employees
with effective interpersonal skills
• Empathizers have the ability to imagine and
feel themselves in someone else’s position
• Leadership is about empathy
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How Attitudes Are Formed
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•
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Socialization
Peer and reference groups
Rewards and punishment
Role model identification
Cultural influences
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Socialization
• Process through which people are
integrated into a society by exposure to
actions and opinions of others
• Family is important in early years
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Peer Groups
• People one’s own age
• Have powerful influence on attitude
during adolescence possibly stronger
than parents, teachers or other adults
Reference Groups
• Several people who share a common
interest and tend to influence behavior
• Point of comparison and source of
information
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Rewards and Punishment
• Attitudes developed to minimize
punishment and maximize rewards
• Organizations use these to encourage
or discourage certain attitudes
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Role Model Identification
• A role model is someone that you
admire or are likely to emulate
• Can exert considerable influence
• Supervisors are important
• Organizations should pay more
attention to what supervisors do than
what they say!
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Cultural Influences
• Total of knowledge, beliefs, values, and
customs that we use to adapt to our
environment
• People define themselves differently in
different cultures
• Includes both tangible and intangible
• Organizations should strive to create
positive corporate culture
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Attitudes Valued by Employers
• Attitudes sought by employers
– Self-motivation
– Openness to change
– Team spirit
– Health consciousness
– Appreciation of coworker diversity
– Honesty
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How to Change Attitudes
• Attitudes are hard to change
• Knowing how to change attitudes in
yourself and others can be essential to
effective interpersonal relations
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Changing Your Own Attitude
• Attitudes that help achieve positive
results:
– Choose happiness
– Embrace optimism
– Think for yourself
– Keep an open mind
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Total Person Insight
We don’t need more money, we don’t
need greater success or fame, we don’t
need the perfect body or even the
perfect mate—right now, at this very
moment, we have a mind, which is all
the basic equipment we need to achieve
complete happiness.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler
Coauthors, The Art of Happiness
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Choose Happiness
• Happiness is the state of mind that permits us
to live life enthusiastically
• Happy people
Unhappy people
– more sociable
– flexible
– creative
– self-focused
– socially withdrawn
– antagonistic
• Energy builder and key to overcoming
adversity and reaching goals
• Perceptions of situation are critical
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Embrace Optimism
• Optimistic thoughts give rise to good
moods, which help develop positive
attitudes
• Optimists are more likely to bounce
back after a disappointment
• Focus on success rather than failure
• Avoid pessimism which leads to
cynicism
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Think for Yourself
• Need for acceptance by group can lead
to “group think”
• Two groups in the workplace
– Personal relationships
– Professional relationship
• Overlap can cause confusion
• Evaluate situations based on your
values!
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Keep an Open Mind
• Our attitudes may persist in the face of
overwhelming evidence to the contrary
• Learn to consider other points of view
and gently question your beliefs
• Expose yourself to experiences and
information beyond what you have been
socialized to believe
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Helping Others Change Attitudes
• Change the conditions that precede the
behavior
• Change the consequences that follow
when the person exhibits the behavior
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Figure 6.2 - Serenity Prayer ,Source:
“Serenity Prayer”by Dr. Reinhold Niebuhr.
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Follow This Simple Rule
• When experience is followed by positive
consequence, person is likely to repeat
behavior
• When followed by a negative
consequence, behavior should soon
stop
• An attitude is someone’s thought
process
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Organizational Efforts
• Organizations realize employees’
attitudes and performance cannot be
separated
• Salaries and benefits traditional rewards
• Today, workers want
– Respect
– Interesting work
– Recognition
– Skill development
• Workers expect competitive pay
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Organizational Efforts
• Maintenance of positive attitudes helps
productivity
• Provide benefits that workers consider
important
• Find creative ways to influence worker
attitudes
• “Choose one’s attitude”
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Chapter Review
• Impact of attitudes on success of individuals
and organizations
– Attitudes are a powerful force in
organizations
– Attitudes and performance cannot be
separated
– Positive attitudes toward work and
coworkers improves teamwork and
productivity
– A caring attitude leads to a high degree of
customer loyalty and repeat business
– A serious safety attitude decreases
accidents
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Chapter Review
• Ways people acquire attitudes
– People acquire attitudes through
• Early childhood socialization
• Peer and reference groups
• Rewards and punishments
• Role model identification
• Cultural influences
– Attitudes are not set in stone
– You have power to choose attitudes
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Chapter Review
• Attitudes that employers value
– Employers hire and attempt to retain
employees who
• Have interpersonal skills
• Are self motivated
• Accept change
• Are team players
• Are concerned about health
• Value coworkers diversity
• Are honest
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Chapter Review
• How to change attitudes
– You can decide to change your attitude by
• Choosing to be happy
• Becoming an optimist
• Thinking for yourself
• Keeping an open mind
– Learn how to help others change their
attitudes
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Chapter Review
• How to help others change attitudes
– Alter the conditions that exist before the
potential negative behaviors
• Provide effective training
– Alter the consequences following a
person’s behavior
• Provide positive consequences
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Chapter Review
• Organizational efforts to develop
positive employee attitudes
– Money alone is not enough
– Enhance the quality of work life
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