Chapter 3 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

Attitudes
Evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people, or
events

Affective: The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude

Cognitive: The opinion or belief segment of an attitude
Behavioral: An intention to behave in a certain way toward
someone or something

Relationship between Attitudes and Behavior

Cognitive Dissonance: Any incompatibility between two or

more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes
o Individuals seek to reduce this uncomfortable gap, or
dissonance, to reach stability and consistency
o E.g. I need to stop smoking (attitude) but I keep

smoking anyway (behavior)

Reduce dissonance
o Change your attitude or behavior, or both
o Belittle the importance of the inconsistent behavior
o Find consonant elements that outweigh the dissonant ones
Desire to reduce dissonance
o Importance of elements
o Degree of individual influence
o Rewards involved in dissonance
Moderators of Attitude-Behavior relationship
o Importance of the attitude
o Correspondence to behavior
o Accessibility
o Existence of social pressures
o Personal and direct experience of the attitude
Predicting Behavior from Attitudes
o The more frequently expressed an attitude, the better
predictor it is.
o High social pressures reduce the relationship and may
cause dissonance.
o Attitudes based on personal experience are stronger
predictors.

Ajzens Theory of Planned Behavior

o Attitude towards behavior + Subjective norm + Perceived
behavioral control Intention Behavior

Major Job Attitudes

o
Job Satisfaction: A positive feeling about the job resulting
from an evaluation of its characteristics
o Job Involvement: Degree of psychological identification
with the job where perceived performance is important to
self-worth
o Psychological Empowerment: Belief in the degree of
influence over the job, competence, job meaningfulness,
and autonomy
o Organizational Commitment: Identifying with a
particular organization and its goals, while wishing to
maintain membership in the organization.
Affective emotional attachment to organization

(more impt)
Continuance economic value of staying
Normative - moral or ethical obligations
Has some relation to performance, especially for new

employees.
Less important now than in past now perhaps more
of occupational commitment, loyalty to profession

rather than a given employer. (doctor)

o Perceived Organizational Support (POS) - Degree to
which employees believe the organization values their
contribution and cares about their well-being
Higher when rewards are fair, employees are
involved in decision-making, and supervisors are
seen as supportive.
High POS is related to higher OCBs and performance.
o Employee Engagement - The degree of involvement
with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the job.
Engaged employees are passionate about their work

and company.
Measuring Job Satisfaction
o Single global rating (one qn-one ans)
o Summation score (many qn-one ans)

Causes of Job Satisfaction

Pay

o Influences job satisfaction only to a point (nothing beyond

$40,000) money = happiness != satisfaction

Personality
o Positive core self-evaluations, who believe in their inner
worth and basic competence more satisfied with their
jobs than those with negative core self-evaluations
o Negative core self-evaluations set less ambitious goals
and are more likely to give up when confronting difficulties

Outcomes of Job Satisfaction

Job Performance
o Satisfied workers are more productive AND more
productive workers are more satisfied! - The causality may

run both ways.

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCB)
o

Satisfaction influences OCB through perceptions of fairness.

Customer Satisfaction
o Satisfied frontline employees increase customer

satisfaction and loyalty.

Absenteeism
o Satisfied employees are moderately less likely to miss

work.
Turnover
o Satisfied employees are less likely to quit.
o
Many moderating variables in this relationship.

Economic environment and tenure

Organizational actions taken to retain high

performers and to weed out lower performers

Workplace Deviance
o Dissatisfied workers are more likely to unionize, abuse
substances, steal, be tardy, and withdraw.