Chapter 3: Attitudes and

Job Satisfaction

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 Contrast the Three
LO 1 Components of an Attitude
Evaluative statements or judgments concerning
objects, people, or events
Three components of an attitude:

Affecti The emotional or

Cogniti ve feeling segment of
ve
an attitude
The opinion or
Behavi
belief segment of oral
an attitude
An intention to behave
in a certain way toward
someone or something
Attitude
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Copyright © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall
Three Components of an Attitude

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 Relationship Between Attitudes
and Behavior
• Early research: the attitudes that people hold
determine what they do.
• Festinger proposed that cases of attitude following
behavior illustrate the effects of cognitive dissonance.
– Cognitive dissonance is any incompatibility an individual
might perceive between two or more attitudes or between
behavior and attitudes.
• Research has generally concluded that people seek
consistency among their attitudes and between their
attitudes and their behavior. 3-4
 Relationship Between Attitudes
and Behavior
Important attitudes have a strong relationship to
behaviouor
Mitigating Variables

The close the match between attitude and

behaviour the stronger relationship
Specific attitudes predict specific behaviours
General attitudes predict general behaviour
The more frequently expressed an attitude,the
better predictor it is
High social pressures reduce the relationship and
may cause disonanace
Attitudes based on personal experience are
stronger predictors 3-5
 Major Job Attitudes
• Job Satisfaction
– A positive feeling about the job resulting from an
evaluation of its characteristics.
• Job Involvement
– Degree of psychological identification with the job
where perceived performance is important to self-
worth.
– Psychological Empowerment
• Belief in the degree of influence over one’s job,
competence, job meaningfulness, and autonomy. 3-6
 Major Job Attitudes
• Organizational Commitment
– Identifying with a particular organization and its
goals and wishing to maintain membership in the
organization.
– Three Diemensions
– Affective –Emotional attachment to organization
– Continuance-Economic value of staying
– Normative-Moral or ethical obligations
– Some relation to performance-(new employees)
– Less important now than the past-now perhaps more of
an occupational committment- i-e loyalty toward
profession than the employer 3-7
 Major Job Attitudes

• 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.

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 Major Job Attitudes
• Employee Engagement
– The degree of involvement with, satisfaction with,
and enthusiasm for the job.
– Engaged employees are passionate about their
work and company.

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 Are These Job Attitudes really distinct
• No these attitudes are highly related
Variables may be redundant(measuring the
same thing under different name)
While there is some distinction there is also a
lot of overlap
• Recent research identifies employees as being
Enthusiastic Stayers Vs Reluctant Stayers
Enthusiatic leavers Vs Reluctant Leavers
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 Job Satisfaction
• One of the primary attitude measured
– Broad term involving a complex individual summation
of a number of discrete job elements
• How to measure
– The single global rating (1 ques/1answer) best
– The summation of job facets.(Many Ques/1 avg)ok
• Are people satisfied in their Jobs
– In the US,yes,but the lvel appears to be dropping
– Results vary by employee facet of the job
– Pay and promotion are the most problematic elements
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 Causes of Job Satisfaction
• correlated with life satisfaction.
• Pay influences job satisfaction only to a point.
– After about $40,000/year (in US) there is no
relation b/w amount of pay & job satisfaction
• Personality can influence job satisfaction.
– Negative people are usually not satisfied with
their jobs
• Those with positive core self-evaluations, who
believe in their inner worth and basic
competence, are more satisfied with their jobs
3-12
 Four Employee
Responses to Dissatisfaction

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 Specific Outcomes of Job
Satisfaction
– Job Performance
• Happy workers are more likely to be productive
workers & vice versa
– OCB
• Satisfaction influence OCB through perception of
fairness
– Customer Satisfaction
• Satisfied frontline employees increase customer
satisfaction and loyalty
– Absenteeism
• Satisfied employees are moderately less likely to miss
3-14
Specific Outcomes of Job Satisfaction
– Turnover
• Satisfied Employees are less likely to quit
• Many moderating variables in this relationship
• Economic Environment and Tenure
• Organization actions taken to retain high performers
& weedout lower performers
– Workplace Deviance
• Dissatified workers are more likely to
uninize,abuse,substances,steal be tardy and withdraw
• Despite the overwhelming evidence of the impact of job
satisfaction on the bottom line,most managers are either
unconcerned about or overestimate worker satisfaction 3-15
 Summary and Managerial Implications
• Managers should watch employee attitudes
They give warnings of potential problems
They Influence behaviours

• Manager should try to increase job satisfaction and

generate positive attitudes
Reduces cost by lowering turnover, absentism,
tardiness, theft and increasing OCB

• Focus on the intrinsic part of the Job:make work

challenging and interesting 1-16
 Emotions and Moods
• Myth of rationality
– Managers worked to make emotion-free
environments.
– Emotions were seen as irrational

• View of Emotions.
– Emotions were believed to be disruptive.
– Emotions interfered with productivity.
– Only negative emotions were observed

• Now we know that emotions can’t be separated

 Affect
(a broad range of emotions that people
experiance

Emotions Moods

Less intense
Intense Feeling feeling than
directed to emotions and
Someone,somet lacks a
hing contextual
stimulus

1-18
 Emotions and Moods
• Six essentially universal emotions
1. Anger
2. Fear
3. Sadness
4. Happiness
5. Disgust
6. Surprise
All other emotions are subsumed under these six
May be placed along a spectrum of emotion
Happine Surprise Fear SadnessAnger Disgust
Differentiate Between Emotions and Moods
 Basic Moods +ve and –ve Affect
• Emotions can’t be neutral
• Emotions makers are grouped in to general
mood states
• Mood states affect perception and therefore
percieve relaity

1-21
Structure of Moods

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 Discuss Whether Emotions Are
Rational and What Functions They Serve

Decision Making

Thinking Feeling
 Are Emotions Rational and What Functions
They Serve
• Do emotions make us ethical?
– Research questions the previous belief that
emotional decision making is based on higher-level
cognitive processes.
– Our beliefs are shaped by our groups, resulting in an
unconscious feeling that our shared emotions are
“right.”
– People who are behaving ethically are at least
partially making decisions based on their emotions
and feelings, and this emotional reaction will often be
a good thing.
 Sources of Emotions and Moods
• Personality
– Moods and emotions have a trait component.
– Affect intensity – how strongly people experience their
emotions.
• Day & Time of Week
– There is a common pattern for all of us.
• Happier in the midpoint of the daily awake period.
• Happier toward end of the week
• Weather: Illusory correlation – no effect.
• Stress: Even low levels of constant stress can worsen
moods.
• Social Activities: Physical, informal, and dining
activities increase positive moods.
 Sources of Emotions and Moods

• Sleep
– Poor sleep quality increases negative affect.
• Exercise
– Does somewhat improve mood, especially for depressed
people.
• Age
– Older people experience fewer negative emotions.
• Sex
– Women tend to be more emotionally expressive, feel
emotions more intensely, have longer-lasting moods, and
express emotions more frequently than do men.
 Emotional Labor
• An employee’s expression of organizationally desired
emotions during interpersonal transactions at work.
–Emotional dissonance when employees have to project
one emotion while simultaneously feeling another.
• Can be very damaging and lead to burnout.
•Types of Emotions
– Felt: the individual’s actual emotions.
– Displayed: required or appropriate emotions.
• Surface acting: hiding one’s inner feelings and
foregoing emotional expressions in response to
display rules.
• Deep acting: trying to modify one’s true inner feelings
based on display rules.
 Affective Events Theory
An event in the work environment tiggers
+ve and –ve emotional reactions
Personality and mood determine response identity
The result of a series of emotional experiences
triggered by a single event.
Emotion-driven behaviors areTypically brief and
variable
• Current and past emotions affect job satisfaction.
• Emotional fluctuations can change performance.
 Describe Affective Events
Theory and Identify Its Applications
 Affective Events Theory
• AET offers two important messages:
1. Emotions provide valuable insights into how
workplace hassles and uplifting events influence
employee performance and satisfaction.
2. Emotions, and the events that cause them, should
not be ignored at work because they accumulate.
 Emotional Intelligence
• Emotional Intelligence is a person’s ability to
– Perceive emotions in the self and others.
– Understand the meaning of these emotions.
– Regulate one’s emotions accordingly in a
cascading model.
• EI is debatable and not wholly accepted.
– The case for EI
• Spontaneous application.
• Predicts criteria that matter.
• Is biologically-based
Emotional Intelligence
 Strategies for Emotion
Regulation and Their Likely Effects
• Emotion regulation involves identifying and
modifying the emotions you feel.
– Effective emotion regulation techniques include:
• Accepting rather than suppressing emotional responses
to situations.
• Re-evaluating events after they occur.
• Venting.
• Changing your emotions takes effort, and this
effort can be exhausting.
Strategies for Emotion Regulat &their Likely Eff
• Selection
– EI should be a hiring factor, especially for social jobs.
• Decision Making
– Positive emotions can lead to better decisions.
• Creativity
– Positive mood increases flexibility, openness, and creativity.
• Motivation
– Positive mood affects expectations of success.
• Feedback amplifies this effect.
• Leadership
– Emotions are important to acceptance of
messages from organizational leaders.
• Negotiation
–
Strategies for Emotion Regulation Cont…
• Customer Service
– Emotions influence customer service.
– Emotional contagion = “catching” emotions
• Job Attitudes
– A good day at work followed by a good mood at home
• This usually dissipates overnight.
• Deviant Workplace Behaviors
– Negative emotions lead to workplace deviant
behaviors.
• Actions that violate norms and threaten the
organization.
• Safety and Injury at Work
– Don’t do dangerous work when in a bad mood.
 Apply Concepts about Emotions
and Moods to Specific OB Issues
• How Managers Can Influence Moods
– Use humor and praise to increase employees’
positive moods.
– Being in a good mood oneself can result in more
positivity and better cooperation.
– Selecting positive team members can have a
contagion effect.