G.VP.

DEGREE COLLEGE
DEPARTMENET OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES
B.B.M. II SEMESTER (AUTONOMOUS)
FOUNDATION TO INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR
ATTITUDES

CONCEPT OF ATTITUDE

Attitude is an internal state of person that is focussed on objects, events, people that can exist
in the person's psychological world. An individual's behaviour is also a function of attitudes.
An attitude is also a cognitive element; it always remain inside a person
When the term attitude first entered the field of social phenomenon, it was natural to conceive of
attitude as a tendency, set, or readiness to respond to some social object. For the first time. Allport
noted that all the definitions of attitude, which he had observed, contained the words 'readiness', 'set'
(tendency to respond), or 'disposition to act'. Even Allport has used these terms in defining attitude. He
defines attitude as follows:
"Attitude is a mental and neural state of readiness organised through-experience exerting a
directive or dynamic influence upon the individual's response to all objects and situations with
which it Is related".)
"Attitude is the" persistent tendency to feel and behave in a favourable or unfavourable way towards
some object, person, or ideas. "
Attitude is a predisposition to respond in a positive or negative way to someone or something in one's
environment".

Attitudes Vs Values
Attitudes are different from value. Values are the ideals - abstract ideals, positive or negative,
not tied to any specific object or situation that represents our beliefs about ideal conduct ,
Whereas attitudes are narrower, they are our feelings, thoughts and behavioural tendencies
toward a specific object or situation.
CHARACTERISTICS OF ATTITUDES:
1.Attitudes have an object: Attitude must have focal point, which should be physical object (say
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Maruthi 800), or a service (cardiac care in Apollo hospital) or an action (say smoking).
2. Attitudes have Direction (whether the person is either favorable or unfavorable towards an object),
Degree (to what extent he is favorable or unfavorable), and Intensity (how strong a person feels
about his conviction).
3. Attitude have structure: A persons attitude towards a specific objects tends to generalize towards a
class of objects. Ex. If a person faces any problem with videocon T.V. he tends to believe that all
Videocon products are prone to cause trouble.
4. Attitudes are learned: Attitudes are derived from direct and indirect experiences in their life.
Learning proceeds from attitude formation and change.
SOURCES OF ATTITUDE FORMATIONS:
The attitudes are learned. Though there are different approaches as how learn works and is acquired by
Individuals, generally it is held that individuals learn things from the environment in which they
interact. Thus, for attitude formation, all those factors must be taken into account from which people
learn. Such factors may be analyzed in terms of groups. Starting from the family as a group, an
individual moves in attitudes are acquired but not inherited. The entire attitude eventually develops
from human Needs. The important sources of acquiring attitude are as follows:
Direct Experiences: Attitude can be formed through personal experiences. Everyone comes in contact
with variety of objects they may be familier or they may be new people evaluate both the products.
This evaluation process develops the attitudes towards an object. This process of evaluation is
influenced by needs, perception, and personality.
Family And Group Influences: Groups such as family, friends, peer groups and their sub culture are
important in shaping an attitude of a person.
Ex. Children always tries to imitate their parents in doing any particular things and they try to adopt
their parents attitudes.
Learning And Observance: Attitude can be developed on the basis of some. Learning principles and
through observing others.
Ex. Pavlov classical conditioning theory i.e., how dog salivates at the sound of bell explains how
attitudes can be acquired.

Economic Status And Occupation: Economic status also contributes to attitude formation. socioeconomic back ground of a person influences the present and future attitudes.
Mass Communications: Mass communications like T.V, radio, news papers and magazines provides
large informations to the public which influences the attitude of the individuals or group.

TYPES OF ATTITUDES:
They are three types of attitudes at organizational levels
1.Job Satisfaction It refers to ones own feelings towards his job. Satisfied employees possess
positive attitudes towards his job, conversely dissatisfied person will have negative attitude towards
his job.
2.Job Involvement: Job involvement explains to what extent an individual involves in his job. Higher
job involvement reduces the grievances and resignations.
3. Organisational Commitments; It refers to ones identifications with his/her organizations and feels
proud to being as its employee.

FUNCTIONS OF ATTITUDES
Attitudes have been thought as serving four functions and thereby influencing the behaviour.
These are: utilitarian or instrumental. ego defensive, value orientation. and knowledge
1. Instrumental Attitudes serve as a means to reach a desired goal or to avoid an un desired.
Instrumental attitudes are aroused by the activation of a need or cues that are associated with the
attitude object and arouse favorable or unfavorable feelings.
. 2. Ego-defensive. The ego-defensive function of attitude acknowledges the importance of
Psychological thought. Attitudes may be acquired and maintained to protect the person from
facing threats in the external world or from becoming aware of his own, Unacceptable
Impulses. Ego-defensive attitudes may be aroused by internal or external threat, frustrating
Events. appeals or to the build-up, or repressed impulses. And suggestions by authoritarian
sources. The attitudes influence his behavior by affecting his perception
of the situation accordingly.
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3. Value Orientation. The value-orientation function takes into account attitudes that are held
Attitudes of employees can be changed and it is in the best interest of the organisation because
they to try for the change. But change is difficult as there are barriers to it.

express a

person's values or enhance his self-identity. These attitudes arise by

conditions that threaten the self-concept, appeals to reassert the person's self-image, or by cues
that engages the persons values and make them salient to him.
4. Knowledge. The knowledge function of attitudes is based on a person's need to maintain a
Stable, organized and meaningful structure of the world. Attitudes that provide a standard
against which a person evaluates aspects of his world serve the knowledge function/too
ATTITUDE CHANGE
There is often a paradox of attitudes in that people need them to provide stability to social world yet
world is a changing one and people must change their attitudes appropriate to the situation. The
attitude change appropriate to organisational requirement is more important because attitudes affect
behaviour and only a certain behaviour is desirable from organisational point of view. Organisations
adopt a number of techniques for changing attitudes of their memb~ so that their behaviour
corresponds to the organisational requirement. However, whatever the techniques for attitudes
change are adopted, they can be effective only if basic characteristics of attitudes and their nature are
kept in consideration. Though various theories of attitude formation and change have been presented
earlier which help in understanding attitudes and the techniques through which they-.ean be changed,
the change techniques can be more effective, if three basic factors are considered adequately
the characteristics of attitudes.
1. The personality of attitude holder; and
2.

Group affiliation oft he attitude holder.

3. Situational factors
4. Communication techniques.

CHANGING ATTITUDES
Barriers to change
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Cognitive dissonance also occurs when a person behaves in a fashion that is inconsistent with his
or her attitudes. For example, a person may realise that smoking and overeating are dangerous, yet
continue to do both. Because the attitudes and behaviours are not consistent with each other, the
person probably will experience a certain amount of tension and discomfort and may engage in
dissonance reduction, seeking ways to reduce the dissonance and tension it causes. The dissonance
associated with smoking might be resolved by rationalising, "just a pack a day will not affect my
health" or "I can quit when I have to". With regard to overeating, the person may decide to go on a diet
"next week". In general, the person attempts to change the attitude, alter the behaviour, or perceptually
distort the circumstances to reduce tension and discomfort.
In the organisational setting cognitive dissonance occurs when an employee desires to leave the
present job as there is no use in continuing and working hard. The individual may rationalise his or her
stay with such explanations as, "Organisation is not bad after all", or "what is the alternative?"
One obstacle to the change of attitude is the attitude theory of balance and consistency. That is, human
beings prefer their attitudes about people and things to be in line (i.e., balanced, consistent) wi.th their
behaviours towards each other and objects. When attitudes or behaviours are not consistent, people
usually seek to reduce the inconsistency rewarding internally. Leon Festinger has developed a theory
in support of attitude consistency called cognitive dissonance. Festinger's theory states that dissonance
makes an individual feel uncomfortable. This feeling makes the individual try to reduce dissonance.
The second barrier to change of attitude is prior commitments. This occurs when people feel a
commitment to a particular course of action and are unwilling to change.
The third barrier results from insufficient information. Sometimes people see no reason why they
should change their attitudes. The boss may not like a subordinate's negative attitude, but the latter
may be quite pleased with his behaviors. Unless the boss can show the individual why a negative
attitude is detrimental to career progress or salary increases or some other personal objective, the
subordinate may continue to have negative attitude.

WAYS OF CHANGING ATTITUDE

1. Providing New Information: New information will help change attitudes. Negative attitudes
are mainly formed owing to lack of or insufficient information. Workers generally become pro-union
because of the ignorance about the good intentions of the management. Once they come to know how
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the management cares for the welfare of the workers, they change their attitude and might turn promanagement.
2. Use of Fear: Fear can change attitude. However, the change depends oil the degree of fear. For
example, if low levels of fear arousal are used, people often ignore them. The warnings are not
strong enough to warrant attention. If moderate levels of fear arousal are used, people often
become aware of the situation and win change their attitudes. However, if high degrees of fear
arousal are used, people often reject the message, because it is too threatening and thus not
believable.13 On the contrary, high degrees of fear may prove counter productive. On being
threatened too far, people tend to become stubborn in their attitudes and may refuse to change.
3. Influence of Friends or Peers: Change of attitude can come about through
persuasion of friends or peers. Credibility of the others, specially peers, is important to effect change.
Peers with high creditability shall exercise significant influence on change. The same is not true with
peers who have low credibility.
4. The Coopting Approach : Coopting is another way of changing attitude. This means taking
people who are dissatisfied with a situation and getting them involved in improving things.
5. Others: Research has shown that an individual is more likely to change a privately held
attitude than one he has stated publicly. It is, therefore, necessary
that a situation is avoided where the individual makes his attitude public prior to the change attempt.
The individual from a culturally deprived environment who holds an array of
hostile attitudes, may change when he is given opportunities for education. A person from a privileged
subculture, who has always held to a democratic attitude, may become negative towards some group
because of one unfortunate experience. Again, through continued association with others holding
similar attitudes, one can be influenced in a positive or negative direction. Here the attitudes of both
the reference group and the social climate are important.