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Attitude

Attitude and Job Satisfaction


What is attitude?

Attitudes are evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people or events –Stephen Robbin. They also represent an ‘affective orientation towards an object.’ It simply means what one feels and thinks about something.

Elements of attitude:

  1. Cognitive components – opinion or belief
  2. Affective components – emotion or feeling
  3. Behavioral components – intention to behave

The interaction of these three components determines the way in which an individual develops an attitude towards something.

attitude

Sources:

  • Society
  • Friends
  • Teachers
  • Family Members

It also forms on the basis of the level of admiration we have over an object or persons. People also try to imitate others and attitudes are gradually formed on that basis also. In some attitudes formed are less stable, in some they even dominate the whole life.

Types:

Organizational behavior uses the concept of attitudes in relation to nature of the job and its influence on the performance of the persons. Accordingly,

  1. Job Satisfaction
  2. Job Involvement and
  3. Organizational Commitment, are the three kinds of attitude a person could have with respect his / her job or organization.

7 insights for happy employees

Job Satisfaction:

In “Job Satisfaction “, Stephen P. Robbins writes about five factors which make a person satisfied with his or her job. These factors are

Cranny, Smith and Stone define job satisfaction as employees’ emotional state concerning the job, considering what they anticipated and what they actually got out of it. In fact, an employee with low expectations can be more satisfied with a certain job than someone who has high expectations. If one’s expectations are met or surpassed by the job, then one is happy and satisfied with the job.

Job Involvement:

Job involvement has been defined as an individual’s psychological identification or commitment to his / her job. As such individuals who display high involvement in their jobs consider their work to be a very important part of their lives- In other words for highly involved individuals performing well on the job is important for their self esteem.

Organizational Commitment:

Three important elements of a committed individual would be

  • Identification with the organization’s goals and/or mission
  • Long-term membership in the organization and intention to remain with the organization, often termed loyalty
  • High levels of extra role behavior- behavior beyond required performance- Often denoted to as citizenship behavior or pro-social behavior.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory:

Leon Festinger developed this theory which explains the relationship between attitude and behavior. It refers to”any incompatibility that an individual might perceive between two or more of his or her attitudes, or between his or her behavior and attitudes.”

Attitude Surveys:

This is a tool that helps to collect information about the levels of attitude among the people. In most companies these kinds of surveys are conducted with the help of different rating scales like Likert scale offering five or seven alternative choices for each of the statement developed for attitude measurement.

Summary:

Research conducted on attitude and job satisfaction in Indian workers has made clear certain points as given below: