Essentials of

Organizational Behavior, 11/e

Stephen P. Robbins & Timothy A. Judge

Chapter 3

Attitudes

Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

 Contrast the three components of an attitude.

 Summarize the relationship between attitudes and
behavior.
 Compare and contrast the major job attitudes.
 Define job satisfaction and show how we can
measure it.
 Identify four employee responses to dissatisfaction

Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

 Attitudes

 Evaluative statements – either

favorable or unfavorable –
concerning objects, people or
events
 Attitudes reflect how one feels
about something

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2-4
5
 Three Main Components of
Attitudes
Cognition – a description of or belief in the way
things are
“I just found out I am paid 20% less than my coworkers.”

Affect – the emotional or feeling segment

associated with that belief
“I feel angry that I am not being treated fairly.”

Behavior – the intention to behave in a certain

way
“I am going to quit this job soon as I can and tell
everyone how terrible this company is.”
Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
 Group activity: Poster-Making
• Each group will be given a quote about
“Attitudes”. Show your interpretation of the idea
(quote) in your poster. You will be presenting this
in class after 1 hour.
• Criteria for judging:
– Composition and Visual Impact = 25%
– Relevance to the Theme = 40%
• Meaning & Interpretation
– Technique and Creativity = 35%
TOTAL = 100% 2-7
 Attitudes Follow Behavior: Cognitive
Dissonance
Any inconsistency between two or more
attitudes, or between behavior and attitudes
 Individuals seek to minimize dissonance
 The desire to reduce dissonance is determined
by:
 The importance of the elements creating
the dissonance
 The degree of influence the individual
believes he or she has over the elements
 The rewards that may be involved in
dissonance
Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
Behavior Follows Attitudes: Moderating
Variables
The most powerful moderators of the attitude-behavior
relationships are:
 Importance of attitude
 Correspondence to behavior
 Accessibility
 Social pressures
 Direct personal experience

*Knowing attitudes helps predict behavior

Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
 Major Job Attitudes
 Job Satisfaction
 Job Involvement
 Psychological Empowerment
 Organizational Commitment
 Affective commitment
 Continuance commitment
 Normative commitment
 Perceived Organizational Support (POS)
 Employee Engagement
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 Job Satisfaction
2-11

 A positive feeling about a job, resulting from an

evaluation of its characteristics.

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 Job Involvement
2-12

 Measures the degree to which people identify

psychologically with their jobs and consider their
perceived performance levels important to self-worth
 Psychological empowerment
 Employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they influence
their work environments, their competencies, the
meaningfulness of their jobs and their perceived autonomy.

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2-13

 Organizational Commitment
 An employee identifies with a particular organization and its
goals and wishes to remain a member
 Perceived Organizational Support (POS)
 The degree to which employees believe the organization
values their contributions and cares about their well-being
 Employee engagement
 An individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and
enthusiasm for, the work she does.
Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
• Johnson & Johnson (J&J) won first prize in the 2015 healthiest large company
category for its holistic approach to the health and wellbeing of its employees.
**Performance programs link good health and well-being to high performance.
Some examples include:
• STRESS PREVENTION/RESILIENCY TRAINING training available upon request to
help employees deal with stress in a positive way
• WORK LIFE BALANCE programs that respect the need for flexibility in when,
where and how employees work, providing resources to meet work, family and
personal responsibilities
• ENERGY FOR PERFORMANCE IN LIFE a program designed to help employees
manage and maximize their energy to achieve balance in body, mind/emotion
and spirit.
– Energy for Performance in Life is a two-day workshop run by an in-house human
performance institute. The workshop explores how to manage and expand energy
levels through the prism of four energy “dimensions”: spiritual alignment; being
mentally focused; being emotionally connected; and being physically energised.
 What Causes Job Satisfaction?
 The Work Itself – the strongest correlation with
overall satisfaction
 Social Component – there is a strong correlation
with how people view the social context of their work
 Pay – not correlated after individual reaches a level
of comfortable living

 Advancement
 Supervision
 Coworkers

Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

 The Consequences of Dissatisfaction

Destructive to
Destructive to Constructive
Constructive

Exit Voice
Passive to
Passive Active
to Active

Neglect Loyalty
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 Responses to Dissatisfaction
 Exit
 Directs behavior toward leaving the organization, including

looking for a new position as well as resigning

 Voice
 Actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions,

including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with

superiors, and undertaking union activity
 Loyalty
 Passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve

 Neglect
 Passively allows conditions to worsen (absenteeism, tardiness, less

effort and increase error rate)

Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
 The Benefits of Satisfaction
 Better job and organizational performance
 Better organizational citizenship behaviors
 (OCB – Discretionary behaviors that contribute
to organizational effectiveness but are not part
of employees’ formal job description)
 Greater levels of customer satisfaction
 Generally lower absenteeism and turnover
 Decreased instances of workplace deviance

Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

 Implications for Managers
Employee attitudes give warnings of potential
problems and influence behavior
 Satisfied and committed employees exhibit behaviors that
increase organizational outcomes
 Managers must measure job attitudes in order to improve them
 Most important elements a manager can focus on are the
intrinsic parts of the job: making the work challenging and
interesting
 High pay is not enough to create satisfaction

Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

 Keep in Mind…
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 Individuals have many kinds of attitudes about

their job.
 Job satisfaction is related to organizational
effectiveness.
 Most employees are satisfied with their jobs, but
when they are not, a host of actions in response to
the satisfaction might be expected.

Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

 Summary
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1. Contrasted the three components of an attitude.

2. Summarized the relationship between attitudes and
behavior.
3. Compared and contrasted the major job attitudes.
4. Defined job satisfaction and showed how we can
measure it.
5. Summarized the main causes of job satisfaction.
6. Showed that job satisfaction is a relevant concept in
countries other than the United States.

Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

2-22

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Copyright ©2012 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall