ATTITUDE AND
JOB
SATISFACTION
YOU CAN WIN
It is not the colour of the balloon, it
is what is inside that makes it go
up
The same thing applies to our
lives. It is what is inside that
counts.
The things that go up is our
attitude
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
• We have to answer six questions about
attitude to understand them
• What are the main components of
attitudes?
• How consistent are attitudes?
• Does behaviour always follow from
attitudes?
• What are the major job attitudes?
• How are employee attitudes measured?
• What is the importance of attitudes to
workplace diversity?
• Job satisfaction –Measuring job
satisfaction
• How satisfied are people in their jobs
• What causes job satisfaction
• The impact of Dissatisfied and satisfied
employee on the workplace
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
What is Attitude ?
Attitudes represent beliefs feelings and
action tendencies towards objects –ideas or
people
This simple meaning has important
implication for managers
•Attitudes are learned
•Attitudes refer to feelings and beliefs of an
individual or groups of people
•The term attitude is in general terms the
positive or negative orientation of a person
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
•The term attitude is being used quite
frequently nowadays in describing people’s
behaviour
•There are two main senses in which it is
used
•One in general terms meaning the positive
or negative orientation of a person
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
 For example when it is said that Mala has
a positive attitude or that Geeta has a
negative attitude
- What is probably meant is that Mala’s
general attitude orientation towards most
things is positive
-Whereas Geeta’s general orientation is
negative
-However this is not a correct usage of the
term attitude
• Attitude always has a referent –an object
towards which positive or negative
orientation is implied
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
• The term attitude is frequently used in
describing people and explaining their
behaviour. More precisely, an attitude can
be defined as a persistent tendency to
feel and behave in a particular way
towards some object. For example,
George does not like working in the night
shift. He has negative attitude towards his
work assignment.
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
Sources of Attitudes
• Attitudes are basically learned
• People are not born with specific attitudes
rather they acquire them through a
process of learning –especially from the
following:
1.Experience:Previous work experience can
account for the individual differences in
attitudes such as loyalty/commitment and
performance
2. Association: People are highly influenced
by the major groups or associations to
which they belong
- Our geographic region, religion,
educational background, race ,age and
income /class –all strongly influence our
attitudes
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
3. Family : Family exerts influence on the
initial core of attitudes held by an
individual
-individuals develop certain attitudes from
their family
members-parents,brothers,sisters etc
-The family characteristics influence the
individual’s attitude patterns to which he is
initially exposed
-Family is primary to the group which an
individual belongs to
4.Peer group:As people approach their
adulthood they increasingly rely on their
peer groups for approval/attitude
-How others judge an individual largely
determines his self image and
approval-seeking behaviour
-We often seek out others who share
attitudes similar to our own,or else we
change our attitudes to conform to the
attitudes of those in the group whose
approval is important
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
5.Society;Social class and religious
affiliation also play a vital role in forming
attitudes of an individual
-The culture,language,and structure of
society all provide an individual with the
boundaries of his initial attitudes
6.Personality factors: Personality
differences between individuals play a
major role in the formation of attitudes.
-This particular area has been the subject
matter of great interest and it carries a
great deal of weight in organisational
behaviour
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
• To understand attitudes we need to
consider their fundamental properties
• We will answer six question about
attitudes that will help us understand them
better
• 1.What are the main components of
attitudes?
• 2.How consistent are attitudes?
• 3.Does behavior always follow from
attitudes?
• 4.What are the major job attitudes?
• 5.How are employee attitudes measured?
• 6.What is the importance of attitudes to
workplace diversity?
Attitudes
Work Related Components of
Attitude(ABC Model)
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
• In organizations attitudes are important
because of their behavioral component
• If workers believe for example-that
supervisors –auditors-bosses are all in
conspiracy to make employees work
harder for same or less money
• We have to understand how these
attitudes were formed-their relationship to
actual job behavior-and how they might
be changed
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
How consistent are attitudes?
• Did you ever notice how people change
what they say so it doesn’t contradict what
they do ?-Indian cars isn’t up to that of the
import brands –but changes when dad
buys Scorpio Mahindra
• Research has generally concluded that
people seek consistency among their
attitudes and between their attitudes and
their behavior
• This means that individuals seek to
reconcile divergent attitudes and align
their attitudes and behavior so they
appear rational and consistent
• Alter either attitude and behavior or
develop rationalization for the
discrepancy
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
How consistent are attitudes?
Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Festinger’s theory of cognitive
dissonance is one of the best known and
most researched frameworks pertaining
to attitude change
• According to this theory attitude change is
caused by conflict among beliefs
The Theory of Cognitive
Dissonance
Contd
• Dissonance normally occurs when a
person perceives a logical inconsistency
among his or her cognitions. This
happens when one idea implies the
opposite of another.
-
For example, a belief in animal rights
could be interpreted as inconsistent with
eating meat or wearing fur. Noticing the
contradiction would lead to dissonance,
which could be experienced as anxiety,
guilt, shame, anger, embarrassment,
stress, and other negative emotional
states. When people's ideas are
consistent with each other, they are in a
state of harmony, or consonance.
-
If cognitions are unrelated, they are
categorized as irrelevant to each other
and do not lead to dissonance.
Contd
• Examples
• The classical version of this idea is
expressed in the Aesop fable, The Fox
and the Grapes, in which a fox sees some
high-hanging grapes and wishes to eat
them.
•
However, unable to think of a way to
reach them, he surmises that the grapes
are probably not worth eating anyway
(that they are not yet ripe or that they are
too sour). In the story, the dissonance of
the desire for something unattainable (the
desire versus the un fulfillment) is
reduced by irrationally deciding that
which is desired must be flawed (Sour
Grapes).
Contd
• Smoking is often postulated as an
example of cognitive dissonance because
it is widely accepted that cigarettes cause
lung cancer, yet virtually everyone wants
to live a long and healthy life.
-
In terms of the theory, the desire to live a
long life is dissonant with the activity of
doing something that will most likely
shorten one's life. The tension produced
by these contradictory ideas can be
reduced by quitting smoking, denying the
evidence of lung cancer, or justifying
one's smoking.
Contd
• For example, smokers could rationalize
their behavior by concluding that only a
few smokers become ill, that it only
happens to very heavy smokers, or that if
smoking does not kill them, something
else will.
Attitudes and job satisfaction
Does Behavior always follow attitudes?
• Early research on attitudes assumed that
attitudes were related to
behavior-attitudes that people hold
determine what they do
• Common sense too suggests a
relationship
- Logical that people watch television
programs that thy say they like
- employees try to avoid assignments they
find distasteful
Measuring the A-B Relationship
• Recent research indicates that
attitudes (A) significantly predict
behaviors (B) when moderating
variables are taken into account.
Self-Perception Theory
Self-Perception Theory
Self-perception theory is an account of
attitude change developed by
psychologist, Daryl Bem. It asserts that
we develop our attitudes by observing our
own behavior and concluding what
attitudes must have caused them
• Self-Perception Theory provides an
alternative explanation for cognitive
dissonance effects. For example
Festinger and Carlsmith's experiment
where people were paid $1 or $20 to lie.
Cognitive dissonance says that people
felt bad about lying for $1 because they
could not justify the act.
• Self-perception takes an 'observer's
view, concluding that those who were
paid $1 must have really enjoyed it
(because $1 does not justify the act)
whilst those who were paid $20 were just
doing it for the money.
Contd-Self perception
• When your attitudes have been
established for a while and are well
defined those attitudes are likely to guide
behavior
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
Work Attitudes
• In relation to organisations the general
meaning of attitude is applied to work
• Work attitudes are reflected in job
satisfaction and in organisational
commitment
Job satisfaction
• Job satisfaction includes various aspectsthe nature of the job itself ,the
compensation a person gets by working
on the ,growth opportunities,opportunities
for career advancement,the
organisational climate,the behaviour of
the superior and co-workers and so on
Attitude and Job Satisfaction
• Job satisfaction leads to improved
performance and retention of personnel in
the organisation
• Recruitment policies,placement practices
,development schemes etc contribute to
job satisfaction
Job Attitudes
• A person can have thousands of attitudes
but OB focuses on a very limited number
of work related attitudes
• These work related attitudes tap positive
or negative evaluation that employees
hold about aspects of their work
environment
• Most of the research in OB has been
concerned with three attitudes
• Job Satisfaction
• Job involvement
• Organizational commitment
Types of Attitudes
Other Job Attitudes
An Application: Attitude
Surveys
Sample Attitude Survey
Attitudes and Workforce
Diversity
• Training activities that can
reshape employee attitudes
concerning diversity:
– Participating in diversity training
that provides for self-evaluation
and group discussions.
– Volunteer work in community and
social serve centers with
individuals of diverse
backgrounds.
– Exploring print and visual media
that recount and portray diversity
issues.
Job Satisfaction
• Measuring Job Satisfaction
– Single global rating-1-5 scale
– Summation score-key elements
in job/pay promotion,
opportunities, relations with co
worker
• How Satisfied Are People in
Their Jobs?
– Job satisfaction declined to
50.4% in 2002
– Decline attributed to:
• Pressures to increase productivity
and meet tighter deadlines
• Less control over work
How Employees Can
Express Dissatisfaction
Responses to Job
Dissatisfaction
The Effect of Job
Satisfaction on
Employee Performance
• Satisfaction and Productivity
– Satisfied workers aren’t necessarily
more productive.
– Worker productivity is higher in
organizations with more satisfied
workers.
• Satisfaction and Absenteeism
– Satisfied employees have fewer
avoidable absences.
• Satisfaction and Turnover
– Satisfied employees are less likely to
quit.
– Organizations take actions to retain
high performers and to weed out lower
performers.
Job Satisfaction and
OCB
• Satisfaction and Organizational
Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
– Satisfied employees who feel
fairly treated by and are trusting
of the organization are more
willing to engage in behaviors
that go beyond the normal
expectations of their job.
Job Satisfaction and
Customer Satisfaction
• Satisfied employees increase
customer satisfaction because:
– They are more friendly, upbeat,
and responsive.
– They are less likely to turnover
which helps build long-term
customer relationships.
• Dissatisfied customers
increase employee job
dissatisfaction.
• Leads to unionization ,stealing
- Undue socializing