Presented by Dr.Daleep ParimooPresented by Dr.Daleep Parimoo

ATTITUDEATTITUDE

An attitude is a stable and enduring disposition to evaluate an object or entity (a person, place or thing), in a particular way. “I like working on this project” and “I do not like working after office hours” are examples of attitudes because they express a persons general feeling, either favorable or unfavorable toward something.

AttitudeAttitudess

3

An attitude is a predisposition to act or feel a certain way towards a person or thing.

Attitude Attitude

Has an emotional chargecan not be measured directly

◦self reporting or inferenceIs not temporary - more or less

enduring

4

There are many different definitions ( Allport; Fishbein & Ajzen).

Examples:"Attitudes are associations between objects and evaluations of those objects"

"Attitudes are lasting evaluations of various aspects of the social world--evaluations that are stored in memory"

"An attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness organized through experience exerting a directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with which it is related."

"A learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object."

Definitions

Attitudes have been considered along with two other elements – beliefs and behaviors.

Beliefs represent what we have learned or come to know through experience. As such, they are either true or represent what we think is true (for example, that working on a challenging project would bring recognition in the organization or that working after office hours would affect health and personal life).

Behaviors (for example, whether one completes the project successfully or leaves the office at 6PM in the evening) represent the actions we take with regard to a particular object or entity.

Attitudes are acquired through:

Social learning

Social comparison

Genetic factors (not all agree on this)

Attitude formation: Learning•Classical Conditioning•Operant or Instrumental Conditioning•Observational Learning or Modeling

Attitude formation

Attitudes may be learned from the experiences we have. These include mostly mundane events such as being praised by our parents or major life and world events. 

The basic processes through which we learn attitudes remain the same throughout life, though as we grow older the attitudes we learn may be more complex, and the ones we already hold may become more resistant to change.

The processes through which our experiences create attitudes are all related to “learning” which is a basic human process

All our attitudes are learned from our experience of the social context around us.The influence of the family, schooling, and peer groups waxes and wanes as we grow into adolescence and adulthood. 

Thus, the primary sources of our attitudes change as we mature. A final source of attitudes is the culture in which a child grows up. Culturally prevalent prejudices are generally reflected in prejudiced attitudes.

HOW ATTITUDES ARE FORMEDHOW ATTITUDES ARE FORMED

Beliefs, Attitudes, and Beliefs, Attitudes, and Behaviors May Be Formed in Behaviors May Be Formed in Two Ways:Two Ways:

Direct formation is when a belief, attitude, or behavior is created without either of the other states occurring first.

Hierarchy of effects occurs after a belief, attitude, or behavior is formed directly, there is a tendency for the states to build upon each other to create hierarchies

Direct Formation of Beliefs, Direct Formation of Beliefs, Attitudes, & Behaviors Attitudes, & Behaviors

Direct belief formation corresponds to the decision-making perspective and cognitive learning.

The direct formation of attitudes is linked to the experiential perspective.

The direct formation of behavior is linked to the behavioral influence perspective. Operant conditioning and modeling.

Classical conditioning/associative learning--positive affect is attached to object

Mere exposure--frequent exposure to stimulus increases liking for it.

Moods--mood at the time of exposure to object influences feelings about object.

Forming Attitudes DirectlyForming Attitudes Directly

Strong environmental forces can directly influence behavior, such as from the design of the physical environment.

Operant conditioning can influence behavior without the formation of beliefs or attitudes.

Forming Behavior DirectlyForming Behavior Directly

Why are attitudes important?

Attitudes serve as one way to organize our relationship with our world. They make our interactions more predictable affording us a degree of control.For example, the attitude “I like working for this company” is very useful in guiding our behavior towards the company’s work.  Attitudes also enable us to reduce the vast amount of information that we possess into manageable units. All the beliefs we have about our company could be summarized as “I like my company”, and thus our attitude represents the combination of many bits of information for us.  We can use others attitudes to make judgments about them.  It has been found consistently that the more similar our attitudes are to those of others, the more we like them.

Finally, people’s attitudes can sometimes be useful in predicting behavior, such as how they will vote in an election or which brand of car they will buy.

 

Components of Attitudes

Attitudes consist of three basic components: emotional, informational, and behavioral. 

The emotional component involves the person’s feelings, or affect- positive, neutral, or negative- about an object. Thus, emotion is given the greatest attention in the organizational behavior literature in relation to job-satisfaction. 

In addition, the expression of emotions either positive, like a customer service representative; negative, like a bill collector or a police officer; or neutral, like an academic administrator or public servant- is also important to work behavior.

 

The informational component consists of the beliefs and information the individual has about the object. A supervisor may believe that two weeks of training is necessary before a worker can operate a particular piece of equipment. In reality, the average worker may be able to operate the machine after only four days of training. Yet the information the supervisor is using (that two weeks is necessary) is the key to his attitude about training.  The behavioral component consists of a person’s tendencies to behave in a particular way toward an object. For example the supervisor in the above paragraph may assign two weeks of machine training to all his new people.

Attitudes don't always determine behavior (LaPiere, 1934)

He went on tour with a Chinese couple in southwest. Chinese were very much discriminated against in those days.

Asked hotel proprietors (in person) whether the Chinese couple(a) could stay there (99% said yes) and(b) could eat there (100% said yes).

Then, sent same proprietors a letter asking same questions(a) (9% said yes) and(b) (8% said yes).

Conclusion: Attitudes do not predict actual behavior.

When do attitudes influence behavior?

Utilitarian Function: use to obtain rewards and avoid punishments.

Ego-Defensive Function: self-protection, e.g., smokers

Knowledge Function: simplifies decisions, e.g., brand loyalty

Value-Expressive Function: express identify to others. e.g., t-shirts.

The Functions of AttitudesThe Functions of Attitudes

Hierarchies of Beliefs, Hierarchies of Beliefs, Attitudes, and BehaviorsAttitudes, and Behaviors

Decision-Making Hierarchies

Experiential Hierarchy

Behavioral Influence Hierarchy

Decision making hierarchies◦High involvement: beliefs attitudes

behavior◦Low involvement: beliefs behavior

attitudesExperiential

◦Affect behavior beliefsBehavioral influence hierarchy

◦Behavior beliefs affect

Attitudes are learnedAttitudes are learned

In the absence of existing attitude we are open to suggestion

20

Something(object of attitude)

Positive resultGoal achievement

Formation of a + attitude

Tricomponent Attitude Model Tricomponent Attitude Model (ABC)(ABC)

◦Affect (How I feel about it)plus

◦Behavioural tendency (Conative), plus

◦Cognitions (what I think or know) about likely consequences of behaviour

21

AFFECTIVE (Feeling)

BehaviourCONATIVE

COGNITIVEKnowledge

MeasurementMeasurement

Observation - difficult & time consuming Qualitative

◦pinpoint important attributes & issues◦provide direction for further research

Self reporting scales◦Likert - degree of agreement with a statement◦Semantic differential - opposite adjectives◦Rank order scale◦Constant sum scale

22

Multiattribute modelMultiattribute model

This college has great facilitiesDisagree |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| Agreestrongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 strongly

Teachers at this college are highly professionalDisagree |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| Agreestrongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 strongly

Courses are recognised by employersDisagree |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| Agreestrongly 1 2 4 5 6 7 strongly

College is easy to get toDisagree |__|__|__|__|__|__|__| AgreeStrongly 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 strongly

23

Snake diagramsSnake diagrams

Fishbein type models SUM of Score X Importance on all attributes

24

Full time Marketing students' evaluation of subjects Sem 2/04

Questionnaire item

BSBSLS306A

BSBMKG604A

BSBMKG404A

BSBMKG406A

BSBADV605A

BSBCMN310A

BSBCMN310A

BSBMGT608A

Attitude change strategiesAttitude change strategies

Changing the Basic Motivational FunctionAssociating the Product With an Admired

Group or EventResolving Two Conflicting AttitudesAltering Components of the Multiattribute

ModelChanging Beliefs About Competitors’

Brands

25

Associate with a special group, event Associate with a special group, event

or causeor cause

eg. famous people who attended TAFEassociate with Football, Olympics, etc.

Relating two conflicting attitudeseg Do you want a status course or a job

Attitudes.ppt May 05 26