Attitudes

Question 1

What are the central features of an attitude?

Answer 1

. Can concern almost anything that we like or dislike e.g. work, constructs, and people
. Attitudes differ in valence (+ or -) and strength
. Represent the “truth” as we see it
. May not be consistent with behaviour, e.g. or may hate one’s job, but need the income
. Assessing attitudes is very common in work organisations

Question 2

What is the definition of an attitude and who was it by?

Answer 2

“A predisposition to feel, think and act towards some object, person or event in a more or less favourable or unfavourable way” Richardson (1977)

Question 3

What is the key difference between attitude and personality?

Answer 3

. Personality is the predispositions across many situations(more stable)
. attitude refers to a particular object/target/concept (less stable)

Question 4

State the strength of relationship between persoanlity, work attitudes and work moods

Answer 4

. personality to  attitude is strong
. attitude to personality is weak
. attitude to mood is strong
. mood to attitude is weak
. personality to mood is strong
. mood to personality is weak

Question 5

What are the 3 components of a work or any attitude?Breckler, 1984

Answer 5

. Affective component
. Cognitive component
. Behavioural component

Question 6

Explain the affective component of a work attitude?

Answer 6

How a worker feels about his or her job or organisation

Question 7

Explain the cognitive component of a work attitude

Answer 7

What a worker believes to be true about his or her job or organisation

Question 8

Explain the behavioural component of a work attitude

Answer 8

How is a worker is predisposed to behave in their job or organisation

Question 9

What are the influences of work attitude formation?

Answer 9

. Work situation
. Personality
. Values
. Social influence- co-workers , culture

Question 10

Why do work attitudes matter? only if attitude=behaviour however

Answer 10

might affect:
. Whether a person seeks a new job
. How co-operative they are with others at work
. Whether they present a positive image 
. How they react to change
. How hard they work (motivation)
. Their psychological or physical health

Question 11

What is the relationship between attitude and behaviour?

Answer 11

. attitude influences behaviour
. behaviour can also influence attitude
. or mutually influence each other

Question 12

How are attitudes usually measured?

Answer 12

. Normally using Likert scaling
. Statements worded either for or against issue in question
. Agreement or disagreement is indicated
. Statements responded to in the same way in two occasions are chosen (reliability)
. Overall attitude is the sum or mean of the item responses (after reverse scoring of negatives)
. Problem – socially desirable responding

Question 13

What is job satisfaction?

Answer 13

“A pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences” (Locke, 1976)

Question 14

Why might job satisfaction be important?

Answer 14

The happy worker-productive worker hypothesis

Question 15

What factors contribute to job satisfaction?

Answer 15

. job characteristics- task identity, significance, autonomy
. Personality- affects how you see things
. Distributive justice- fairness of the allocation of rewards/treatment

Question 16

Is the relationship between job satisfaction and performance conclusive?

Answer 16

This is still an area of research and debate, the relationship may differ depending on the variables

Question 17

What impact does job satisfaction and commitment have on work behaviour?

Answer 17

Both involved in people’s decisions to stay in or leave jobs and organisations
Both have implications for people’s general well-being
Both associated with motivation
Some connection with people’s job performance

Question 18

What is organisational commitment?

Answer 18

“The relative strength of an employee’s identification with and involvement in an organisation” (Mowday et al., 1979)

Question 19

What are the three key features of organisational commitment?

Answer 19

Desire to stay
Believe in and accept organisation’s goals
Willing to exert effort on behalf of organisation

Question 20

What are the three forms of organisational commitment and who by?

Answer 20

(Allen & Meyer, 1990)

• Affective: personal emotional attachment to organisation (liking)
• Continuance: costs and risks of leaving (personal sacrifice & investment and lack of alternatives)
• Normative: moral dimension. Sense of loyalty or obligation to the organisation

Each has own antecedents

Question 21

What are some findings of OC?

Answer 21

High affective linked to high performance (especially linked to being ‘good organisational citizens’ / ‘extra mile’ / ‘voluntary helping’)
High continuance sometimes linked to low performance (staying because you don’t have a choice?)
Commitment to manager linked to performance
Commitment to organisation linked to turnover

Question 22

How can OC be developed?

Answer 22

. Challenge and autonomy more than pay and reward (affective & normative)
. Perception of investment in the organisation (continuance – perception that current organisation is now better than alternatives?)
. Organisational values (fairness, courtesy, openness, initiative)

Question 23

What is the relationship of attitudes to job performance? pros and cons

Answer 23

. Roughly 0.6 which= strong correlation with JP
(Harrison et al., 2006)
.

Question 24

How does social influence change attitude and behaviour?

Answer 24

“Change in attitudes, beliefs, opinions, values and behaviours as a result to being exposed to other individuals’ attitudes, beliefs, opinions, values and behaviour” (Hewstone et al., 2008)

Question 25

What factors affect attitude change?

Answer 25

. Credibility of persuader - expertness and trustworthiness
. Attractiveness of persuader - similiarty
. One-sided and two-sided arguments
Use of fear
. Social Pressures and conformity
. Logical argument