-

ge.ltaAt'**'3 i ^ QUESTIONS : DOES BEHAVIOR ALWAYS FOLLOW FROM ATTITUDES? WHY OR

NOT? QUESTION 2:AND WHAT ARE MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES.
In the world that we live in today, every individual is very unique. Their life style, hobbies,
interests, likes and dislikes and many other characteristics, the way they portrait it is very
differently, even each and everyone in a family will also have different characters or
personality. The behavior of a person is hard to be predict if we do not understand them. So
what we need to do to understand more about a person's behavior is to study their
thoughts. By understanding it, we may know their attitude, and can predict the behavior of
peoples. It help us to gain a greater understanding of those factors that influence individual
and group dynamics in an organizational setting so that individuals and the groups and
organizations to which they belong may become more efficient and effective. The factors
that may influence organizational includes individuals and group behaviour. Quite some of
the research on organizational behavior is ultimately aimed at providing human resource
management professionals with the information and tools they need to select, train, and
retain employees in a fashion that yields maximum benefit for the individual employee as
well as for the organization.
Organizations today are facing challenges that comes from their employees. That is the
behaviour of their employees. The organizations want to have more understanding of their
employees, so that can predict their behaviour. Besides, organizations also try to change
their employees' mind set into more positive side. By doing this, it will increase the
efficiency and effectiveness of the employees and this will bring benefit to the
organizations. By understanding this, we will be able to improve the employees' satisfaction
in organization and meet the requirement of the organizations as well.
Attitude can be defined as a predisposition to respond to a stimulus, that is something in a
person's environment such as an event, thing, place, or another person, in a positive or
negative way. For example, when we speak of a positive job attitude, we mean that the
person involved tend to have pleasant internal feelings when they think about their jobs.
Attitudes can be see as a favorable or unfavorable evaluation reaction toward something or
someone exhibited in one's beliefs, feelings, or intended behavior. Sometimes people refers
its as the ABC's of attitudes, that is affection, behavioral, and cognitive. An affective
component includes beliefs and knowledge about and evaluations of the stimulus. The
affective component refers to our feelings, the emotional part of the attitude. Finally, an
attitude's behavioral component is the inclination to behave in a certain way as a response
to one's feelings and cognitions. In a workplace, a person's attitudes are very important
determinant of performance related behaviors, such as the quantity and quality of output,
organizational commitment, absenteeism, turnover, and a host of other important
outcomes. On general level, a person's attitudes influence that individual to act in a
particular way. whether an attitude actually produces a particular behavior depends on a
number of factors such as family and peer pressures, past and present work experiences,
and group norms. For instance, people may dislike what they are doing but hold back their
effort because of a lack of perceived rewards or pressure from co-workers. In this example,

Nigerian Heritage: The Yoruba Example

You raised up your mouth at the foot of the tree

Does the juice fall for free?
As Adigun (1987) argued further 'when a person has
received consideration for the performance of a work, he must carry
out the obligation if he will be liable to refund the payment money'.
Being a group that loves cattle and hen rearing, the Yoruba
have elaborate rules which regulate poultry keeping in general.
Anyone may give his goat or hen to another for rearing purposes.
The conditions which govern the relationship between the parties in
such a case have been discussed by Ajisafe (nd.d.: 63).
Some of these rules are as follows:
The first breed goes to the owner, the next one to the cattle
caretaker.
(a) If the first breed is twoone male and one female, the owner
takes the female and the next female breed goes to the
caretaker.
(b) Should either or both parties (the owner and the caretaker)
wish to close contract, and the cattle has not produced any
breed, it should be sold and the money equally divided,
provided the cattle have been with the caretaker for a period
not shorter than 12 full months.
Nowadays, the period may be shorter than 12 months. We
came across instance where such cattle are being looked after in the
name of children. A parent may buy a cattle and ask a caretaker to
look after it in a child's name. But the rules which govern the sharing
of the proceeds are the same. The buying of cattle for others to
follow after is a form of savings and investment. Such cattles or hens
could be recalled by the owner anytime for sale in order to meet
pressing needs.
One party may also contract out to another the collection
and cutting of palm fruits for the purpose of processing same into
palm oil. The contractor is entitled to a portion of the product that

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Nigerian Heritage: The Yoruba Example

is so produced and as an agent of the principal (owner) he is allowed

to act in defence of the right of the owner against a third party who
may want to make illegitimate claims.
An individual may request for the assistance of others'
children in executing a task. On completion, such children may be
given gifts to take home. Such gifts need not be on every occasion
that assistance is sought and rendered.
It is not uncommon to enter into casual contracts such as
when an educated person is asked to take a grown up girl or boy of
over 10 years old to the city and told to make her or him into
whatever you want'. Here the educated person is being told to tram
the child. Agreements of this nature are ordinary but both parties
understand the in-built expectations. A system of guardianship is still
practiced. Under it, one is allowed to give one's child out to a friend
or relative to be looked after and be trained. This may be so for
several reasons. For example, a child's stubbornness and the need to
avoid mal-treatment by the step mother among other reasons. The
use of paid house-maids is also common in the cities
A responsible person may also be asked to act as a trustee in
respect of the property, which an orphan inherits from his parents.
The guardianship terminates once the child becomes of age i.e. attain
the age of responsibility.
Generally, before a matter comes up; for adjudication before
the modern legal system, it would have been tried by the local courts
We now turn to the traditional judicial hierarchy and some example
of how disputes are resolved.
8.5 THE JUDICIAL HIERARCHY
The court of first instance could be taken to be the head of
the household who is expected to resolve matters within his
household impartially. He may decide matters coming before him
with the assistance of his friends. However, in all cases 'the
complainant takes precedence in stating a case. He must not be
interrupted while on his knees, (natives kneel down in making a
statement), but a person of high rank or one held in great respect

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of

Adjudication