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Chapter 3: Attitudes and Job

Satisfaction
Dr. Imran Hameed
Course Coordinator

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

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Does Behavior Always
Follow from Attitudes?
Leon Festinger – No, the reverse is sometimes true!
Cognitive Dissonance: Any incompatibility between two or more
attitudes or between behavior and attitudes
◦ Individuals seek to reduce this uncomfortable gap, or dissonance, to reach
stability and consistency
◦ Consistency is achieved by changing the attitudes, modifying the behaviors,
or through rationalization
◦ Desire to reduce dissonance depends on:
◦ Importance of elements
◦ Degree of individual influence
◦ Rewards involved in dissonance

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Moderating Variables
The most powerful moderators of the attitude-behavior relationship
are:
◦ Importance of the attitude
◦ Correspondence to behavior
◦ Accessibility
◦ Existence of social pressures
◦ Personal and direct experience of the attitude

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Predicting Behavior from
Attitudes
◦ Important attitudes have a strong relationship to
behavior.
◦ The closer the match between attitude and behavior,
the stronger the relationship:
◦ Specific attitudes predict specific behavior
◦ General attitudes predict general behavior
◦ The more frequently expressed an attitude, the better
predictor it is.
◦ High social pressures reduce the relationship and may
cause dissonance.
◦ Attitudes based on personal experience are stronger
predictors.

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 What are the 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 the job,
competence, job meaningfulness, and autonomy

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Another Major Job Attitude
Organizational Commitment
◦ Identifying with a particular organization and its goals, while wishing to
maintain membership in the organization.
◦ Three dimensions:
◦ Affective – emotional attachment to organization
◦ Continuance Commitment – economic value of staying
◦ Normative – moral or ethical obligations
◦ Has some relation to performance, especially for new employees.
◦ Less important now than in the past – now perhaps more of an occupational
commitment, loyalty to profession rather than a given employer.

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And Yet More 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.

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
a different name)
While there is some distinction,
there is also a lot of overlap.

Be patient, OB researchers are working on it!

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Job Satisfaction
One of the primary job attitudes measured.
◦ Broad term involving a complex individual summation of a number of
discrete job elements.

How to measure?
◦ Single global rating (one question/one answer) - Best
◦ Summation score (many questions/one average) - OK

Are people satisfied in their jobs?

◦ In the U. S., yes, but the level appears to be dropping.
◦ Results vary by employee facets of the job.
◦ Pay and promotion are the most problematic elements.

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 Causes of Job Satisfaction
Pay influences job satisfaction only to a point.
◦ After about $40,000 per year (in the U.S.), there is no relationship between amount
of pay and job satisfaction.
◦ Money may bring happiness, but not necessarily job satisfaction.

Personality can influence job satisfaction.

◦ Negative people are usually not satisfied with their jobs.
◦ Those with positive core self-evaluation are more satisfied with their jobs.

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Outcomes of Job Satisfaction
Job Performance
◦ Satisfied workers are more productive AND more productive workers are
more satisfied!
◦ The causality may run both ways.

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

◦ Satisfaction influences OCB through perceptions of fairness.

Customer Satisfaction
◦ Satisfied frontline employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Absenteeism
◦ Satisfied employees are moderately less likely to miss work.

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More Outcomes of Job
Satisfaction
Turnover
◦ Satisfied employees are less likely to quit.
◦ 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
◦ Dissatisfied workers are more likely to unionize, 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.

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Summary and Managerial
Implications
Managers should watch employee attitudes:
◦ They give warnings of potential problems
◦ They influence behavior

Managers should try to increase job satisfaction and generate positive

job attitudes
◦ Reduces costs by lowering turnover, absenteeism, tardiness, theft, and
increasing OCB

Focus on the intrinsic parts of the job: make work challenging and
interesting
◦ Pay is not enough

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Chapter 4: Emotions and
Moods

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Differentiating Emotions from Moods
Why Were Emotions Ignored in OB?

The “Myth of Rationality”

◦ Emotions were seen as irrational
◦ Managers worked to make emotion-free environments
View of Emotionality
◦ Emotions were believed to be disruptive
◦ Emotions interfered with productivity
◦ Only negative emotions were observed
Now we know emotions can’t be separated from the workplace

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Insert Exhibit 4-1

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Basic Emotions and Moods

While not universally accepted, there appear

to be six basic emotions:
1. Anger
2. Fear
3. Sadness
4. Happiness
5. Disgust
6. Surprise

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Whether Emotions Are Rational and What
Functions They Serve

Insert Exhibit 4-2

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 Identify the Sources of Emotions
and Moods
Personality
◦ There is a trait component – affect intensity
Day and Time of the Week
◦ There is a common pattern for all of us
◦ Happier in the midpoint of the daily awake period
◦ Happier toward the end of the week
Weather
◦ Illusory correlation – no effect
Age
◦ Older folks experience fewer negative emotions
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 Continued….
Stress
◦ Even low levels of constant stress can worsen moods
Social Activities
◦ Physical, informal, and dining activities increase positive
moods
Sleep
◦ Poor sleep quality increases negative affect
Exercise
◦ Does somewhat improve mood, especially for
depressed people
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Emotional Labor
Emotional Labor-An employee’s expression of
organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal
transactions at work.
Emotional Dissonance:
◦ Employees have to project one emotion while
simultaneously feeling another
◦ Can be very damaging and lead to burnout

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 Emotional Labor

Types of Emotions:
◦ Felt: the individual’s actual emotions
◦ Displayed: required or appropriate emotions
◦ Surface Acting: displaying appropriately but not
feeling those emotions internally
◦ Deep Acting: changing internal feelings to match
display rules - very stressful

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Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is a person’s ability to:

◦ Be self-aware
◦ Recognizing own emotions when experienced
◦ Detect emotions in others
◦ Manage emotional cues and information

◦ Video…..

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Emotional Intelligence……..

Insert Exhibit 4-6

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Application of Emotions and Moods to OB
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.

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Application of Emotions and Moods to OB

Motivation
◦ Positive mood affects expectations of
success; feedback amplifies this effect.
Leadership
◦ Emotions are important to acceptance of
messages from organizational leaders.

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Application of Emotions and Moods to OB

Negotiation
◦ Emotions, skillfully displayed, can
affect negotiations
Customer Services
◦ Emotions affect service quality delivered to
customers which affects customer relationships
◦ Emotional Contagion: “catching” emotions
Job Attitudes
◦ Can carry over to home, but dissipate overnight

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Application of Emotions and Moods to OB

Deviant Workplace Behaviors

◦ Negative emotions lead to employee deviance
(actions that violate norms and
threaten the organization)
Safety and Injury at Work
◦ Don’t do dangerous work when in a bad mood
Manager’s Influence
◦ Leaders who are in a good mood, use humor, and
praise employees increase positive moods

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Managerial Implications

oEmotions and moods are a natural part of an

individual’s makeup.
oIgnoring co-workers’ and employees’ emotions and
assessing others’ behavior as if they were
completely rational is wrong.
o“You can’t divorce emotions from the workplace
because you can’t divorce emotions from people.”
oManagers who understand the roles of emotions and
moods will significantly improve their ability
to explain co-workers’ and employees’ behaviors.

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