Chapter 5 R7309

Attitudes and Values

INTRODICTION
Attitude is a very complex cognitive process just like the personality of an
individual. The difference between these two is that personality is usually thought of
as the whole person, where as attitude may make up the personality. It is a very
important variable in human behaviour, because it constitutes an important
Attitude is a bent of psychological attribute of individuals which shapes their behaviour. The importance
mind, predisposition of of attitudes in understanding psychological phenomenon was given formal
certain actions.
introduction early in the history of social psychology. From the time of its entry into
the subject of psychology till now, interest in attitudes has been strongly growing.
However, over the years attitudes have been studied with differing methods and the
emphasis has also been different.
Atitudes are evaluative statements. These are frequently used in describing
people, objects and events and explaining the people's behaviour. These reflect how
one feels about something or some body. When Isay. I like Ram''. Iam expressing
my attitude about Ram. Thus, we can say that attitude is a bent of mind,
predisposition of certain actions.

MEANING ANDDEFINITION
Ii is very necessary as well as difficult to define attitude because the variety of
published definitions and descriptions is endless.
In a very precise way, "an attitude can be defined as a persistent tendency to
feel and behave in a particular way toward some object."
The term attitude is An attitude may also be defined as the way a person feels about something-a
often used in ageneric person, a place, a commodity, a situation or an idea. It expresses an individual's
sense to any reports of positive or negative feelings about some object. It describes an individual's feelings,
what people think or
feel or the ways n thoughts and predisposition to act toward some object in the environment.
which they intend to Some important definitions of attitudes are as given below:
QCt. According to G.W. Allport, Attitude is a menta! and neutral state of
readiness, organised through experience, exerting a directive or dynamic influence
related."
upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with whichit is
According to Bernard, "Social attitudes are individual attitudes directed
by
towards social objects and individual attitudes strongly inter-conditioned
collective or groups contacts."
 5.2 Attitudes and Valu
and action tendencies
individual or group weof individuals beliefs, feelings
mean the towards objects, ideas and people Quite oig
By attitude
persons, objects or ideas become associated in the minds of individuale and as
multidimensional.
resultAnattitudes
attitude become
may alsocomplex and
involve a prejudice, in which we prejudge an issue withou

considerationto al the evidences. evaluatit

giVing unbiased attitude in terms of effect and
defined
Many researchers have Crutchfield, Attitude is an
enduring
According to Krech and
perceptual and
processes with
cognitive organisation
respect to
o
motivational, emotional,
world'".
aspect of the individual's "Atitude is atendency or
According to Katz and
Scotland,
that object in a certain way.'"*
predisposition
symbol of
evaluate an object or often used in a generic sense to any reports
practice the term attitude is intend to act.
Thus, in
feel or the ways in which they
or
of what people think

ATTITUDE AND OPINION with each other. But there is

N
used closely
Attitude and opinion are Thurston opinions are
expressione
According to
difference in these terms. generalised predisposition to react in some w
" Attitudes tend to be focused on m
attitudes.
concepts. Opinions, on the other hand, tend to be
towardsobjects or
the concept.
specific aspects of the object or measurement of attitudes is general.
McCormnick and Tiffin observe that the atiuda
expressions of opinions. But we should distinguish between
Opinions are expres based on the barometer, reflects the generalised level of
scale which, like a thermometer or and opinion surveys, which
sions ofatitudes. individual's attitudes towards some object or concept
toward specific aspects of, for
typically are used to elicit the opinions of people
example, their work situation.

|ATTITUDE ANDBELIEF
can be made between
Though closely related with each other, a difference
attitude and belief.
more particularly,
Belief is a hypothesis concerning the nature of the objects, Belief
nature.
concerning one's judgement of the probability regarding their
be explained as the
reveals what one supposes to be true. Belief may also
in which an object is
Belief is the cognitive cognitive component of attitude which reflects the manner
component of atitude perceived.
working. But in
reflecting the manner For example, a boss may believe his subordinate to be very hard towards the
|in which an object is fact, he may or may not be hard working. The attitude of the boss
perceived. subordinate reveals whether he likes him or not. The positive attitude and the
ne
consequent liking may rather make the boss condone all the bad qualities in
subordinate and consider him hardworking.

ATTITUDE AND VALIES

The values of an individual generally reveal the moral side of his nature. Ine
what should
Values are one of the include his ideas about what is good or bad, what should be done and individuals
determinants of one's
attiude.
not be done. These are some of the things which are inculcated in the tohis
since childhood. "Honesty is the best policy'". *A worker must be honest
Attitudes and Values 5.3

work are statements of value, It is an evaluative statement that Honest workers

are good and reveals the attitude of a person towards honest workers. It can be said
that values are one of the determinants of one's attitudes. An individual considers an
honest worker to be good because of his values that 'A worker must be honest to hiS
work."

NATURE OF ATTITUDES
From the above definitions of attitudes we can bring about the
following salient
features which contribute to the meaning of attitudes :
1. Attitudes refer to feelings and beliefs of individuals or groups of
individuals. For example He has a poor attitude'', Ilike her attitude.
2. The feeling's and beliefs are direted towards other people, objects or
1deas. When a person says, "I like my Job'". It shows that he has a
positive attitude towards his job.
3. Attitudes often result in and affect the behaviour or action of the people.
Attitudes can lead to intended behaviour if there are no external
interventions.
4. Attitudes constitute a psychological phenomenon which cannot be directly
observed. However, an attitude can be observed indirectly by observing its
Consequences. For example, if aperson is very regular in his job, we may
infer that he likes his job very much.
5. Attitudes are gradually acquired over a period of time. The process of
learning attitude starts right from childhood and continues throughout the
life of a person. In the beginning the family members may have a greater
impact on the attitude of a child.
6. Attitudes are evaluative statements, either favourable or unfavourable.
When a person says he likes or dislikes something or somebody, an
attitude is being expressed.
7. Allpeople, irespective of their status and intelligence hold attitudes.
8. An attitude may be unconsciously held. Most of our attitudes may be
about those which we are not clearly aware. Prejudice furnishes a good
example.

|COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES
Attitudes comprise of three basic components : emotional, informational and
behavioural. These three components are described below :
1. Informational or Cognitive Component. The informational component
consists of beliefs,values, ideas and other informationa person has about the object.
|Beliefs, values, ideas It makes no difference whether or not this information is empirically correct or real.
and other information For example, a person seeking ajob may learn from his own sources and other
| person has about the employees working in the company that in a particular company the promotion
object. chances are very favourable. In reality, it may or may not be correct. Yet the
information that person is using is the key to his attitude bout that job and about that
company.
Positive, neutral 0r

negative feeling or stage2.forEmotional or Affective Component. The informational component sets the
the more critical part of an atitude, its affective component. The emotional
affect about an object.
component involves the person's feeling or affect-positive, neutral or negative-about,
 Attitudes and dValue
5.4

by this statement. Tlike thi

an Object. This component can be explained very good'"
are
because the future prospects in this companybehavioural component consists
3. Behavioural Component. The particular manner towards an
take object.
P
tendency of a person to behave in a above case may decide to up
Tendency to behave in
example, the concerned individual
in the the joh
a particular manner
because of good future prospects. the behavioural
towards an object. attitudes, only
Out of the three Components of another person's beliefs (the
componentcan be
see
directly observed. One cannot emotional component). These two components Can
informationg
(the
component) and his feelings understanding essential
these two components 1S in the
only be inferred. But still component of attitudes
organisational behaviour or the behavioural
study of the following table :
Components are illustrated in

AFFECTIVE BEHAVIOURAL
INFORMATIONAL OR COMPONENT
OR EMOTIONAL
COGNITIVE COMPONENT
COMPONENT

ATTITUDE

ATTITUDE OBJECT

COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDE

ABSMODEL OF ATTITUDE is called

above constitute, what Affective
A!ll the three components of attitude explained
AAstands for
the ABC model. Here, in the ABC model, the alphabet
B for Behavioural and C for the cognitive component. The importance
component, of the concept As
of this model is that to have a proper and thorough understanding assessed.
attitude, all the three components mentioned above must be properly
which can be directly
already explained, it is only the behavioural Component
can however only be
observed, the other two components : affective and cognitive
inferred.
 5.5
Attitudes and Values

FORMATION/SOURCES OF ATTITUDES
Attitudes refer tothe feelings and belicfs of individuals or groups of individuals.
But the question is how are these feelings and beliefs developed ? The point which
inherited. A
has been stressed by many people are that attitudes are acquired, but not
Atitudes are acquired
person acquires these attitudes from several sources. The important sources oft
but not inherited.
acquiring attitudes are as discussed below :
I. Direct Personal Experience. A person's direct experience with the attitude
object determines his attitude towards it. The personal experience of an individual,
whether it is favourable or unfavourable, will affect his attitude deeply. These
attitudes which are based on personal experience are difficult to change. For
example, an individual joins anew job, which is recommended to him by his friend.
But when he joins the job, he find his work repetitive, supervisors too tough and co
workers not so co-operative, he would develop a negative attitude towards his job,
because the quality of his direct experience with the job is negative.
2. Association. Some times an individual comes across a new attitude object
which may be associated with an old attitude obiect. In such a case, the attitude
towards the old attitude object may be transferred towards the new attitude object.
For example, if a new worker remains most of the time in the company of a worker.
who is in the good books of the supervisor, and towards whom the supervisor has a
positive attitude, the supervisor is likely to develop a favourable attitude towards the
new worker also. Hence the positive attitude for the old worker has been transferred
towards the new worker because of the associaiun between the old and the new
worker.
3. Family and Peer Groups. Attitudes like values, are acquired from parents,
teachers and peer group members. In our early years, we begin modelling our
attitudes after those we admire, respect or may be even fear. We observe the way our
family and friends behave and we shape our attitudes and behaviour to align with
theirs. We do so even without being told to do so and even without having direct
experience. Similarly, attitudes are acquired from peer groups in colleges and
organisations. For example, if the right thing is to visit "Hot Millions', or the
Domino's'',you are likely to hold that attitude.
If your parents support one political party, without being told to do s0, you
automatically start favouring that party.
4. Neighbourhood. The neighbourhood in which we live has certain cultural
facilities, religious groupings and ethnic differences. Further, it has people, who are
neighbours. These people may be Northerners, Southerners etc. The people
these
belonging todifferent cultures have different attitudes and bchaviours. Some of
rebellion
we accept andsome of these we deny and possiblyrebel. The confornmity or
hold.
in some respectsis theevidence of the attitudes we
5. Economic Status and Occupations. The economic status and occupational
socio-economic
position of the individual also affect his attitude formation. Our
background influences our present and future attitudes. Research findings have
Children
shown that unemployment disturbs former religious and economic values.
country is
of professional class tend to be conservatives. Respect for the laws of the
associated with increased years of higher education.
6. Mass Communications. Attitudes are generally less stable as compared to
5.6 Attitudes and Value.
values. Advertising messages for example, attempt to alter the attitude of the people
toward a certain product or service. For example, if the people at Hyundai Santro can

hold a favourable feeling toward their cars, that attitude may lead
get you to of a Santro. car.
desirable behaviour (for them)-your purchase help of the following figure.
with the
illustrated
All these sources can be
ASSOCIATION
DIRECT PERSONAL
MASS
EXPRIENCE
COMMUNICATIONS

ATTITUDES

FAMILY AND
ECONOMIC NEIGHOURHOOD PEER GROUPS
STATUS AND
OCCUPATION

ATTITUDES
TYPES OF WORK RELATED hundreds and thousands of attitudes, but
organisational
A person may possess on a very limited number of job related attitudes.
behaviour focuses our attention which employees hold about
their work
generally evaluations
These attitudes are unfavourable, positive or
attitudes may be favourable or
environment. These
in organisational behaviour has been concerned with
negative. Most of the research
attitudes :
the following work related
ORGANISATIONAL
JOB
JOB
INVOLVEMENT COMMITMENT
SATISFACTION

ATTITUDE

ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

the general attitude or

1. Job Satisfaction. The term job satisfaction refers to satisfied with his
feelings of an individual towards his job. A person who is highly
hand, aperson who s
Employee atitude is job, willhave a positive attitude towards the job. On the other
invariably related with dissatisfied with his job, will have a negative attitudes about the job. For example,
job satisfaction. person who is satisfied with his job will always be punctual, absenteeism WIn
minimum, performance will be high, his attitude towards his co-workers and DOS
Attitudes and Values 5.7

will also be very positive. ln case of adissatisfied person, he will generally be late
for office, on small pretexts he will absent himself from the job, turnover will be
high. performance level will be poor and his behaviour in the
organisation will be
very good. When people spcak of employee attitudes, they invariably relate these
with job satisfaction. In fact, these two are used
differences do exist between these two. interchangeably. though some
2. Job Involvement. As compared to job satisfaction. job
involvement is a
recent addition to the literature of organisational behaviour. Different authors more
have
given different meanings to this term and there isn'tcomplete agreement over
the term means. whar
A general definition of job involvement states that jobinvolvement measures the
degree to which aperson identifies psychologicallywith his or her job and considers
Job involvement is psy his or her perceived performance level important to self
chological identifjy worth.
cation with thejob. Employees who have a high level of job involvement very strongly identify with
their jobs and really care about the kind of work they do. High degree of
involvement just like job satisfaction will lead to less absenteeism and lower
resignation rates. However, the research has shown that it seems to more consistently
predict turnover than absenteeism. In case of turnover, the research has shown as
much as 16% variation in the turnover depending upon the level of job involvement.
3. Organisational Commitment. The third ijob attitude that affects the
organisation behaviour is the organisational commitment. Organisational
Organisational commi commitment is astate in which an employee identifiec with aparticular organisation
ment inplies identi and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in the organisation. In such a setup
fying wiüh one's
the employee feels proud of being the employee of a particular organisation.
employing organisatien Whereas job involvement refers to identification with one's specific job,
and its goas.
organisational commitment means identifying with one's employing organisation
and its goals.
Sometimes an employee may be involved or attached to his job but may not be
committed to the organisation and its objectives. Turnover and absenteeism are low
when an employee has organisational commitment. In fact, studies have indicated
that organisational commitment is a better indicator of turnover than the far more
frequently used job satisfaction predictor. Sometimes, an enmployee may be
dissatisfied with the job, but he may not be dissatisfied with the organisation as a
whole. In such a case, he may stick with the organisation because he may consider it
a temporary situation. But once the dissatisfaction spreads to the organisation as a
whole, te is most likely to consider resigning from the job.

FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDES
In studying organisational behaviour, it is very important to understand the
functions of attitudes : According to California Management Review, 1995, an
analysis, based on extensive review of surveys of employers concluded that the
most important consideration in hiring and biggest deficit among new work force
entrants are the attitudes concerning work that they bring with them to their new
jobs.""Attitudes can help in predicting human behaviour at work. An understanding
of attitudes is also important because attitudes help people adapt to their work
environment. According to D. Katz, attitudes serve four important functions :
 5.9
Attitudes and Values

organisation. There are certain ways by which it is possible for the supervisor and
listening to the
managers to get some inkling of attitudes of individuals such as
Certain diferences in chance remarks of individuals, the behaviour of individuals in the work place etc. A
employees' attitudes
sensitive intuitive supervisor can always get a feeling with respect to the general
are inevitable and are reactions
reaction of his work group even though he cannot pinpoint such
responsible for the the analysis of certain factors
specifically. The other way to find attitude change
effectiveness methods have been
individuas within an Such as turnover rate, absenteeism and production level. Various
developed for doing this. Afew of these are as explained below :
organisation.
1. Thurston Attitude Scale. This method consists of questionnaires which are
filled out by the employees. To develop an attitude scale the following steps are
involved :
each of which
() The first step is to write out a large number of statements,
expresses a viewpoint of some kind towards the company.
() Each of these statements is typed on a separate slip of paper and the judge
11)
is asked to place each statement in one of several piles (usually 7, 9 or
ranging from statement judged to express the least favourable view points
viewpoints (7, 9 or
to statements judged to express the most favourable
11).
(ii) Statements judged to express varying degrees of favourableness in
between these extremes are placed in the piles that are judged best to
characterise their relative degree of favourableness.
(iv) Many judges are used in the process, sometimes as many as 100 or more.
These judges are assisting the construction of the scale. They are not
having their attitudes measured. The allocation of statements to the several
piles is a part of the process of constructing the scale.
The purpose of allocation is to determine the scale value of the various
statements. If all judges tend to place a statement in piles towards the favourable then
we can conclude that the statement expresses a favourable attitude towards the
company. If the statement is placed by the judges in piles towards unfavourable end
of the series, then we may conclude that an unfavourable attitude is expressed by that
particular statement. So we can determine the average location of the statement by
the judge. Statements that are scattered by the judge over several categories are
eliminated.
The use of different statements in scales measuring the same atitude helps in
checking results by a repeat test in order to be sure of conclusion reached and to
measure the effectiveness of systematic company effort to improve employee
morale.
2. Likert Scale. Likert's method is simpler than Thurstone method and does not
require the use of judges in scaling the statements. While anumber of different
procedures were tried and compared but the simplest method described by Likert
was found to give results that correlated very highly with more complex methods.
Each statement has five degrees of approval and ask the person taking the scale to
check one of the five degrees :
- Strongly approved
- Approved
- Undecided
11
5.10
Attitudes and
Disapproved
- Strongly disapproved.
There are three principal methods of establishing the validity of a
device:
() Conmparing the results obtained from it with those of another
measuring
validity of which has been established.
(ii) Judgement of experts and
device,
(üi) Internal consistency
The validity of the Likert scale established by acomparison of the same with an
already established scale of Thurston is an example of judgement
3. Opinions Surveys. Attitude scales help to measure the
technique adopled
attitudes
individuals by summarising data for all employees within a group, such Scale can beof
used to quantify 'morale' of employee groupsS. Attitude scales can be
indicating the relative level of morale of employees group, but these do notuseful in
the management toidentify specific factors that may be sources of employee's enable
or unsatisfaction. This specific information can be obtained by the use unrest
questionnaire that provides for giving opinions about specific matters such.
working conditions, future prospects, comnpany policies, perquisites etc.
The usual practice in opinion questionnaire is that of obtaining a
single response
to each question in either 'yes' or 'no'. In particular, the employees may be asked to
check each item in one of the three boxes.
SATISFIED
NEUTRAL

DISSATISFIED|
He should also check each item as
being of
develop a questionnaire that can serve the great importance. It is possible to
purposes of obtaining opinions of
employees and measuring their attitudes. The data
can be compiled, tabulated and coilected by the questionnaires
towards analysed to know about the
attitude of workers
management
and the organisation.
4. Interviews. Still
another
reaction is the use of interviews. method of obtaining information about
The workers should be personnel
representatives of some outside organisations interviewed by the
university department. The employees are such as a consultancy
furnished willnot be used for any given assurance that the firm .or a
administrative
interviewer asks a series of questions so that function. In a guided interview,information
simple. Yes or No or by some each of which may be the
other words or phrases. In
the unguidedanswered
interviewer asks more by 4
himself and solicit general questions to intervieW, u
commitment. information about his encourage the employee to
job
satisfaction, job involvement andexpressJo
THEORIES OF ATTITUDE
have been
FORMATION
How are the
attitudes formed and
are formulated to explain the how do they change ? A
organised into major groupings attitude formation and numberTheseof theories
according to the naturechange.
of the
theories
psychologva
 S
judgement of attitude initial attitude towards an issue, serves as
related stimuli. The person's initial an anchor ror ne
provides a point of reference against
These Views can be which he evaluates other attitude on an 1SSue
considered in terms of opinions.
considered comprised of latitudes. The latitude of
as attitudinal continuum and can be
of opinions the acceptance, which is the range
individual finds acceptable,
encompasses the opinion that best
characterises his own
the individual finds stand. The attitudes of rejection, which is the range of
objectionable, encompasses the opinions
objectionable. attitude of non-commitment is the range of
The opinion he finds most
person finds neither acceptable nor opinions that the
unacceptable.
CHANGINGATTITUDES
Atitudes of employees are not always rigid, these can be changed.
it is in the best Sometimes,
interests of the organisation to try to do so. For example,
employee has got a negative attitude towards his job or towards the if the
organisation, he is dissatisfied, he feels that he is not taken management and
care of by the
managerment, management would like to change this attitude, because happy work
force is the major strength of the organisation. But sometimes, attitudes change is
very difficult to accomplish because of certain barriers. Therefore, the job of the
management is to identify these barriers and then examine the ways of overcoming
them and effectively changing the attitudes. All these points are explained in detail
as follows:
5.16
Attitudes and Values
BASIS FOR ATTITUDE CHANGE
The basis for change in attitude is discussed as follows :
(4) Compliance
Compliance implies change in behaviour based on
consequences,
uch
an individual's hopes to gain rewards or avoid punishment from anok.as
group of person. The individual does not necessarily experience another
changes
in beliefs or evaluation towards an attitude object, but rather is influenead
by the social outcomes of adopting a change in behaviour. The individal
is also often aware that he or she is being urged to respond in a certain
way.
(B) Identification
Identification involves change of beliefs and affect in order to be similar to
someone who one admires or likes. In this case, the individual adopts the
attitude, not due to the specificcontent of the attitude object, but more so because it
is associated with the desired relationship. Often,
children's attitudes on race, or their
political party affiliations are adopted from their parents' attitudes and beliefs.
(C) Internaliza tion
Change in beliefs and affect when one finds the content of the attitude to be
intrinsically rewarding, and thus leading to actual change in beliefs or evaluation
towards an attitude object. The new attitude or behaviour is consistent with the
individual's value system, and tends to be merged with the individual's existing
values andbeliefs. Therefore, behaviour adopted through internalization is due to the
content of the attitude object.