ATTITUDE & PERCEPTION

Module 2

IT'S YOUR ATTITUDE, NOT YOUR

APTITUDE THAT DETERMINES YOUR ALTITUDE.

"No matter where you move, you take your own attitude with you and that's what makes it terrible or wonderful.

ATTITUDE
The term attitude is in general terms the positive or negative orientation of a person. Evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people or events.

COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES
1) Cognition (beliefs and values) (My supervisor is unfair)

2) Affect (Feelings and emotions) (I dislike my supervisor) 3) Behaviour (intended behaviour) (Im looking for other job)

T YPES OF WORK-RELATED ATTITUDES

Job satisfaction

Job

involvement

Organizational

commitment

JOB SATISFACTION
Collection of feelings that an individual holds toward his or her job Job satisfaction includes various aspects-the nature of the job itself, the compensation a person gets by working on the job, growth opportunities, opportunities for career advancement, the organizational climate, the behaviour of the supervisor and co-workers, and so on.

SUMMARY OF HERZBERGS MOTIVATORHYGIENE (TWO-FACTOR THEORY) FINDINGS

JOB INVOLVEMENT
The degree to which a person identifies with his or her job, actively participates in it, and considers his or her performance important to self worth.

ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT
Organizational commitment indicates a persons feelings with regard to continuing his or her association with the organization, acceptance of the values and goals of the organization, and willingness to help the organization achieve such goals and values.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY

Developed by Leon Festinger is concerned with the incompatibility a person experiences between his/her attitude and behaviour or perceived differences between two or more attitudes. Eg: An employee is likely to experience cognitive dissonance when asked to praise boss whom he/she dislikes most.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORY

Any form of inconsistency is uncomfortable and that individuals will attempt to reduce the dissonance, and hence the discomfort.

Therefore, individuals will seek a stable state where there is minimum of dissonance. When dissonance is minimized, the consistency in behaviour will increase.

COGNITIVE DISSONANCE THEORYMANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

The theory of cognitive dissonance has an important role in recruitment, reward management and building a performance-oriented culture.

Persons recruited with a set of beliefs/attitudes that suit the demands of job will experience no dissonance, resulting in enhanced commitment and productivity.

"Believe in yourself and there will come a day when others will have no choice but to believe with you." -Oscar Wilde

PERCEPTION

PERCEPTION

Perception can be defined as a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environments.

FREQUENTLY USED SHORTCUTS IN

JUDGING OTHERS
Selective perception:

People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their interests, background, experience and attitudes. Drawing a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic.

Halo effect:

FREQUENTLY USED SHORTCUTS IN

JUDGING OTHERS
Contrast effects:

Evaluation of a persons characteristics that are affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.

Projection:

Attributing ones own characteristics to other people. If you are honest and trustworthy, you believe that others are also honest and trustworthy.
Judging someone on the basis of ones perception of the group to which that person belongs.

Stereotyping:

ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Fritz

Heider-The psychology of interpersonal relations 1958 This is a theory about how people generate causes to any outcome. Eg: An employee who fails to achieve promotion in his/her org will search for causes of failure to understand why it happened. The individual may attribute the same to organizational politics, irrationality in procedures, bias on the part of evaluation committee etc. This is called external attribution.

ATTRIBUTION THEORY
The same is called internal attribution, if the individual thinks that failure is due to his/her mistakes such as insufficient preparation, under performance, lack of skill etc. When people make an internal attribution for their actions, it appears that they also change their attitudes and beliefs about themselves. Therefore, the key to change is internal attribution.

ATTRIBUTION THEORY
In contrast, external attribution can undermine an existing habit. Further, under achievers tend to attribute to external and achievers to internal. People generally focus on the following factors when making attributions: Distinctiveness information: It is called low distinctiveness if an individual behaves in the same manner in all situations and high distinctiveness if this individual does not.

ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Consensus information: These are of 2 types-low consensus means, others do not behave in the same manner in this situation and high consensus, if others behave in the same manner in this situation. Consistency information: An individual repeatedly acts in the same way in similar situations.

ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Combination of (a) Low distinctiveness, (b) Low consensus and (c) High consistency causes the internal attribution whereas, (a) High distinctiveness, (b) High consensus and (c) High consistency causes the external attribution. Managerial implication The attribution model has profound influence over motivational and learning behaviour of employees in organizations.

ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Hence, proper understanding of attribution patterns in organizations is of paramount importance for design of reward, promotion and training efforts. Though external attribution behaviour may not always be undesirable, it could discourage the efforts of behavioural changes. Internal attribution behaviour is crucial for organizations, which are HR driven