An attitude is a learned predisposition, an evaluative statement either favorable or unfavorable toward a given object, a person or an event.

. Attitudes are narrow as they represent our feelings, thoughts and behavioral tendencies towards a specific object or situation. Over a period of time our attitudes unless we strongly believe in them also undergo a change. It express an individual's positive or negative feelings about some object. Attitude have a past, present and future; they evolve from past experience, they guide our current behavior and can direct our development in the future.

Nature of attitude
1.Attitudes refer to feelings and beliefs of individuals or groups of individuals. 2.The feelings and beliefs are directed towards other people, object or ideas. 3.Attitude constitutes a psychological phenomena which cannot be directly observed.

4.Attitudes are gradually acquired over a period of time starts right from childhood and continues throughout the life of a person.

5.All people irrespective of their status and intelligence hold attitude

1. Informational or cognitive component: it consists of beliefs, values, ideas and other information a person has about the object. It makes no difference whether or not this information is correct or real. The cognitive component is sometimes referred to as opinion. 2. Emotional or affective component: it basically consist of the feelings,sentiments,moods and emotions a person has towards an individual, event object or sitution.this component is concerned with the evaluation and emotion and often expressed as like or dislike, goods or bad, pleasing or displeasing, favorable or unfavorable. the expression of warmth, love, hate and other emotional expression also belong to the affective component. For example I feel

3. The behavioral component; it consist of the tendency of a person to behave in a particular manner towards an object. For example Ill never call them again Out of three components only the behavioral component can be directly observed

 Experience: People gain experience in forming attitudes by coming in direct contact with an attitude object.

Association: People are highly influenced by the major groups or associations to which they belong. Our geographic region, religion, educational background, race etc.all influence our attitudes strongly.

 Family: Individuals develop certain attitudes from their family membersparents, brothers,sisters,etc. the family characteristics influence the individuals attitude patterns to which he is initially exposed.

Peer group: As people approach their adulthood, they increasingly rely on their peer groups for approval/attitude.

 Society: Social class and religious affiliation also play a vital role in forming attitudes of an individual. The culture, language and the structure of society, all provide an individual with the boundaries of his initial attitude.

Personality factors: Personality differences between individual play a major role in the formation of attitude.

Attitudes serve a number of functions. According to katz,attitudes serve four important functions:

1.Adjustment functions: people strive to maximize the rewards and minimize the penalties in their external environment. Attitudes are the means for reaching desired goals or for avoiding undesirable results. Attitudes are the expression of sentiments based on experiences in attaining the motive satisfaction.

2. The ego-defensive function: people normally expend a great deal of their energies in the process of learning to live with themselves. Many of our attitudes serve the function of defending our self-image.for instance, when people cannot admit their inferiority feelings, they project their feelings over some convenient minority group and bolster their egos by showing attitudes of superiority towards this minority groups.

3. The value-expression function: many attitudes serve another functions in term of positive expression of an individual in the minds of other people. Valueexpressive attitudes, according to katz,not only give clarity to the self image but also mould that selfimage closer to the hearts desire. Attitudes make people either bond or clash. They allow us to tell others our opinion and views. 4. The knowledge functions: the world can be a confusing and strange place, attitude help us to organize our social world, thus making the world more familiar and predictable.

Lawler porter model

Value of reward (Box 1) People desire various outcomes (rewards) which they hope to achieve from work. The value placed on a reward depends on the strength of its desirability. Perceived effortreward probability (Box 2) It refers to a persons expectation that certain outcomes (rewards) are dependent upon a given amount of effort.

Effort (Box 3) is how hard the person tries, the amount of energy a person exerts on a given activity. It does not relate to how successful a person is in carrying out an activity. The amount of energy exerted is dependent upon the interaction of the input variables of value of reward and perception of the effortreward relationship. Abilities and traits (Box 4). Porter and Lawler suggest that effort does not lead directly to performance but is influenced by individual characteristics. Factors such as intelligence, skills, knowledge, training and personality affect the ability to perform a given activity.

Role perceptions (Box 5) refer to the way in which individuals view their work and the role they should adopt. This influences the type of effort exerted. Role perceptions will influence the direction and level of action which is believed to be necessary for effective performance.

Performance (Box 6) depends not only on the amount of effort exerted but also on the intervening influences of the persons abilities and traits, and their role perceptions. If the person lacks the right ability or personality, or has an inaccurate role perception of what is required, then the exertion of a large amount of energy may still result in a low level of performance or task accomplishment

Rewards (Boxes 7A and 7B) are desirable outcomes. Intrinsic rewards derive from the individuals themselves and include a sense of achievement, a feeling of responsibility and Recognition. Extrinsic rewards derive from the organization and the actions of others and include salary, working conditions and supervision etc.

Perceived equitable rewards (Box 8). This is the level of rewards people feel they should fairly receive for a given standard of performance. Self-rating of performance links directly with the perceived equitable reward variable. Higher levels of self-rated performance.

Satisfaction (Box 9). This is not the same as motivation. It is an attitude, an individuals internal state. Satisfaction is determined by both actual rewards received and perceived level of rewards from the organization for a given standard of performance. If perceived equitable rewards are greater than actual rewards received, the person experiences dissatisfaction. The experience of satisfaction derives from actual rewards that meet or exceed the perceived equitable rewards.