Theories of Attitudes free essay sample

Attitudes are evaluative statements or judgments, either favorable or unfavorable concerning objective, people or events. They reflect how one feels about something e. g. if is said, â€Å"I like my job†, I am expressing my attitude about work. Attitudes are not the same as values, but the two are interrelated. There are three components of an attitude: Cogn ition, affect, and Behavior. Cognitive Component of an attitude The opinion or belief segment of an attitude. Affective Component of an attitude The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude. Behavioral Component of an attitude An attention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something. In organization, attitudes are important because they affect the behavior. If workers believe that supervisors, auditors, bosses, and time-and-motion engineers are all in conspiracy to make employee work harder for the same or less money, then it makes sense to try to understand how these attitudes were formed, their relationship to actual job behavior and how they might be changed. We will write a custom essay sample on Theories of Attitudes or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 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 evaluations hat employees hold about aspects of their work environment. Most of the research in ob has been concerned with three attitudes; Job Satisfaction, Job Involvement and Organizational Commitment. Job Satisfaction An individual’s general attitude toward his or her job. A person with at high level of job satisfaction hold positive attitudes about the job, while a person who is dissatisfied with his or her job holds negative attitudes about the job. Job Involvement The job involvement measures the degree to which a person identifies psychologically with his or her job and considers his or her perceived performance level important to self-worth. Employees with a high level of job involvement strongly identify with and really care about the kind of work they do. Organizational Commitment A state in which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in the organization. Cognitive dissonance An incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitude. Self-perception Theory Attitudes are used after the fact to make sense out of an action that has already occurred. Attitudes Surveys Eliciting responses from employee through questionnaires about how they feel about their jobs, work group, supervisors, and the organization.