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What is Attitude?
Attitudes are evaluative statements, judgements or feelings about objects, people or events.

In organizations, attitudes are important because they affect job behaviour.

These are positive or negative evaluations that employees hold about job environment.
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A positive, negative, or mixed reaction to a person, object, or idea, expressed at some level of intensity (e.g., love, like, dislike, detest)
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Four Possible Reactions to
Attitude Objects
Cacciopo, et al. 1997
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Components of Attitudes:
Tripartite View
Cognitive
Attitude
Affective
Behavioral
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Components of Attitudes

COGNITIVE
 beliefs about attitude object (pos & neg)

AFFECTIVE
 emotions and feelings the object triggers
(pos & neg)

BEHAVIORAL
 reaction toward the object (pos & neg actions)
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Attitude Object: DENTIST

COGNITIONS
 Dentists are friendly.
 Dentists are expensive.

AFFECTS
 Dentists make me feel anxious.
 I like dentists.

BEHAVIORS
 I visit the dentist twice a year.
 I am a very cooperative patient.
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Why People Have Attitudes

Value-Expressive function: Express who we are

Ego-defensive function: Protect Self-
Esteem

Instrumental function: Obtain awards, avoid punishments

Knowledge function: understand people and events
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•
•
 GENES: Twin studies high correlations on attitude strength and content for identicals raised together OR apart!
significantly lower for fraternals
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Genetic
Influences on
Attitudes
Olson et al., 2001.
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences

Affectively Based Attitudes
 based on people’s feelings of an attitude object (not on beliefs)

Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes
 values
 mere exposure
 classical conditioning
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences

Affectively Based Attitudes
 based on people’s feelings of an attitude object (not on beliefs)

Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes
 values
 mere exposure
 classical conditioning
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences

Affectively Based Attitudes
 based on people’s feelings & values of an attitude object

Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes
 values
 mere exposure
 classical conditioning
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The tendency to develop more positive feelings toward objects
& individuals the more we are exposed to them.
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences

Affectively Based Attitudes
 based on people’s feelings & values of an attitude object (not on beliefs)

Sources of Affectively Based Attitudes
 values
 mere exposure
 classical conditioning
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Classical Conditioning
The case whereby a stimulus that elicits an emotional response is repeatedly experienced along with a neutral stimulus that does not, until the neutral stimulus takes on the emotional properties of the first stimulus
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Where Do Attitudes Come From?

GENES
 Twin study

SOCIAL EXPERIENCES
 affectively based
 behaviorally based
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences

Behaviorally Based Attitudes
 based on people’s observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object

Sources of Beh. Based Attit.
 Bem’s Self-Perception Theory
 Operant Conditioning
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Self-Perception Theory
What are your attitudes about liberal politicians?
Behavior
“Now that I think about it, I only vote for conservatives.”
Attitude
“I guess I don’t like liberal politicians.”
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Origins of Attitudes:
Social Experiences

Behaviorally Based Attitudes
 based on people’s observations of how one behaves toward an attitude object

Sources of Beh. Based Attit.
 Bem’s Self-Perception Theory
 Operant Conditioning
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The case whereby behaviors that people freely choose to perform increase or decrease in frequency, depending on whether they are followed by positive reinforcement or punishment
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Behaviorally Based Attitudes
& Operant Conditioning
Behavior
Toward
An Object
+ Reinforcement or
Punishment
.
e.g., playing with a child of another race
+ reinforcement
- parents’ approval
Punishment - parents’ disapproval
Pos or Neg
Attitude toward the
Object
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General Attitudes and Specific
Behaviors

Must be correspondence between level of specificity of attitude and behavior.
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For example, to predict recycling at work, do you ask:
– How do you feel about recycling?
– How do you feel about recycling office paper?
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Correspondence of Specificity
(Davidson & Jaccard, 1979)

Study of married women’s use of birth control
 Ps asked a series of attitude questions - general to specific (e.g., will U use birth control in next 2 years)
 Two years later asked Ps if they had used birth control since the interview
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Correspondence of Specificity
(Davidson & Jaccard, 1979)
Attitude Attitude-Behavior
Measure Correlation
 Att. toward birth control
 Att. toward birth control pills
.08
.32
 Att. toward using birthing control pills .53
 Att. toward using birth control pills during the next two years .57
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Predicting Planned Behaviors
Theory of Planned Behavior
(Ajzen & Fishbein)
Behavioral
Intention
Behavior
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Do Attitudes Predict
Behavior?

IT DEPENDS!

One Key Factor
 Spontaneous Behaviors
 Planned/Deliberative Behaviors
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