ATTITUDES, AND

JOB SATISFACTION

By
Dr M RAJANIKANTH
 Attitudes

Attitudes Cognitive component

The opinion or belief segment
Evaluative of an attitude.
statements or
judgments Affective Component
concerning The emotional or feeling segment
objects, of an attitude.
people, or
events. Behavioral Component
An intention to behave in a certain
way toward someone or something.

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Attitudes
 Moderating Variables
•The most powerful moderators of the attitudes relationship are
• the importance of the attitude,
• its correspondence to behavior,
• its accessibility,
• the presence of social pressures, and
• whether a person has direct experience with the attitude.
•Specific attitudes tend to predict specific behaviors, whereas
general attitudes tend to best predict general behaviors. For
instance, asking someone about her intention to stay with an
organization for the next 6 months is likely to better predict
turnover for that person than asking her how satisfied she is with
her job overall. On the other hand, overall job satisfaction would
better predict a General behavior, such as whether the individual
was engaged in her work or motivated to contribute to her
organization 3–4
 Moderating Variables
Discrepancies between attitudes and behavior: This may
explain why an employee who holds strong anti-union
attitudes attends pro-union organizing meetings, or why
tobacco executives, who are not smokers themselves and
who tend to believe the research linking smoking and cancer,
don’t actively discourage others from smoking.
Attitude–behavior relationship
Asking college students with no significant work experience
how they would respond to working for an authoritarian
supervisor is far less likely to predict actual behavior than
asking that same question of employees who have actually
worked for such an individual.
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 Types of Attitudes
Job Satisfaction
A collection of positive and/or negative feelings that
an individual holds toward his or her job.

Job Involvement
Identifying with the job, actively participating in it,
and considering performance important to self-worth.

Organizational Commitment
Identifying with a particular organization and its
goals, and wishing to maintain membership in the
organization.
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 Types of Attitudes
Perceived Organizational support (POS)
The degree to which employees believe an organization
values their contribution and cares about their well
being.

Employee Engagement
An individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and
enthusiasm for the work he or she does.

Organizational Commitment
Identifying with a particular organization and its
goals, and wishing to maintain membership in the
organization.
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The Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive Dissonance
Any incompatibility between two or more attitudes
or between behavior and attitudes.

Desire
Desireto
toreduce
reducedissonance
dissonance
• •Importance
Importanceofofelements
elementscreating
creatingdissonance
dissonance
• •Degree
Degreeofofindividual
individualinfluence
influenceover
overelements
elements
• •Rewards
Rewardsinvolved
involvedinindissonance
dissonance

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 Measuring the A-B Relationship
• Recent research indicates that attitudes (A)
significantly predict behaviors (B) when moderating
variables are taken into account.

Moderating
ModeratingVariables
Variables
• •Importance
Importanceofofthe theattitude
attitude
• •Specificity
Specificityofofthe
theattitude
attitude
• •Accessibility
Accessibilityofofthe
theattitude
attitude
• •Social
Socialpressures
pressureson onthe
theindividual
individual
• •Direct
Directexperience
experiencewith
withthe
theattitude
attitude

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 Self-Perception Theory
Attitudes are used after the fact to make sense out of an
action that has already occurred.

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An Application: Attitude Surveys
Attitude Surveys
Eliciting responses from employees through
questionnaires about how they feel about their jobs,
work groups, supervisors, and the organization.

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 Attitudes and Workforce Diversity
• Training activities that can reshape employee
attitudes concerning diversity:
– Participating in diversity training that provides for
self-evaluation and group discussions.
– Volunteer work in community and social serve
centers with individuals of diverse backgrounds.
– Exploring print and visual media that recount and
portray diversity issues.

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reserved.