Attitudes, Values, and Personality

Attitudes, Values, and Personality

• Evaluative statements, which can be favorable or unfavorable, concerning objects, people, or events are attitudes
• They reflect how one feels about something

Three Main Components of Attitudes

• Attitudes are composed of cognition which is evaluation, affect which is feeling, and behavior which is action

Behavior

• Any observable overt movement of the organism can be generally taken to include verbal behavior and physical movements
• An action, activity, or process can be observed and measured
• Actions, activities, and processes are initiated in response to stimuli which are either internal or external

Attitude-Behavior Tango

• While we have a handle on attitudes and behavior separately, how they interact is complex
• The relationship between attitudes and behaviors is like a complicated dance, with each partner influencing the other's moves

How Attitude Influences Behavior

• Attitude and behavior are closely intertwined, with attitudes having a direct impact on behavior
• Attitude shapes how we respond to situations, interact with others, and manage emotions; positive attitudes typically lead to positive behaviors

Attitudes Follow Behavior: Cognitive Dissonance

• Cognitive dissonance is any inconsistency between two or more attitudes, or between behavior and attitudes
• Individuals seek to minimize dissonance
• Desire to reduce dissonance is determined by the importance of the elements creating the dissonance, the degree of influence the individual believes they have over the elements, and the rewards that may be involved in dissonance

Behavior Follows Attitudes: Moderating Variables

• The most powerful moderators of the attitude-behavior relationships are correspondence to behavior, accessibility, social pressures, and direct personal experience
• Knowing attitudes helps predict behavior

Major Job Attitudes

• Major job attitudes include job satisfaction, job involvement, psychological empowerment, organizational commitment, perceived organizational support, and employee engagement

Job Satisfaction

• Job satisfaction is a two-way street
• Employees need to feel satisfied, and organizations must help employees realize their potential
• To increase the job satisfaction of your employees, you need to look beyond the practical benefits of providing adequate salaries and health insurance
• Motivating employees may also be important, because job satisfaction links to motivation, which employees can benefit from even more when realizing their full potential

Job Involvement

• Job involvement refers to a state of psychological identification with work - the degree to which a job is central to a person's identity
• Organizational commitment plays a pivotal role in determining if an employee will stay for the long term while working passionately towards the organizational goal
• Job involvement is regarded as the key to unlocking employee motivation and increasing productivity
• Job involvement contributes to organizational effectiveness, productivity, and morale by deeply engaging employees and making their work a meaningful and fulfilling experience
• People become involved in their jobs when they perceive in them the potential for satisfying salient psychological needs, such as growth, achievement, meaning, recognition, and security

Psychological Empowerment

• Psychological empowerment is defined as "intrinsic task motivation reflecting a sense of self-control in relation to one's work and an active involvement with one's work role"

Organizational Commitment

• Organizational commitment is defined as the view of an organization's member's psychology towards their attachment to the organization for whom they are working

Affective Commitment

• Affective commitment refers to an employee's perceived emotional attachment to their organization
• Affective commitment is found when an employee feels their values and priorities align with the company's mission and feels at home in the organization
• This can turn employees into great brand ambassadors who are motivated to be their best

Continuance Commitment

• Continuance commitment is a sense of loyalty to the organization because the employee perceives few alternatives or perceives the cost of leaving the organization as being too high

Normative Commitment

• Normative commitment is the commitment of an employee toward the organization when they feel that they "ought" it to their organization to keep working there
• It is distinct from the "want" (affective commitment) and "need" feelings (continuous commitment)

Case of Ms. X

• An employee diagnosed with lung cancer had their medical expenses covered by their company and also received medical leave with full salary
• After returning to work and receiving a more lucrative offer from another company, the employee chose to stay due to the obligation they felt for their current company's support during a difficult time

Perceived Organizational Support

• Perceived organizational support is an employee's understanding of the affirmation and assistance services offered by their organization
• Supports can be offered in many ways, such as freedom of creativity in work or ample vacation days for health or leisure
• Perceived organizational support relies on how the business treats each employee and how the employee perceives the support

Employee Engagement

• Employee engagement is the strength of the mental and emotional connection employees feel toward the organization they work for, their team, and their work
• It is about how emotionally invested employees are in their work and the organization's goals
• Engaged employees typically display a high degree of commitment, are more productive, and contribute positively to the company culture
• Engaged employees are not just working for a paycheck or the next promotion but are interested in their work and motivated to contribute to the organization's success

Measuring Job Satisfaction

• Job satisfaction is a positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics
• Job satisfaction can be measured using a single global rating method with a few general questions, is highly remarkably accurate
• Job satisfaction can measured using the summation score method which identifies key elements in the job and asks for specific feeling about them

Causes of Job Satisfaction

• The work itself has the strongest correlation with overall satisfaction
• There is a strong correlation between satisfaction levels and how people view the social context of their work
• Pay is not correlated after an individual reaches a level of comfortable living

Consequences of Dissatisfaction

• Active and constructive responses to dissatisfaction include voice
• Active and destructive responses to dissatisfaction include exit
• Passive and constructive responses to dissatisfaction include loyalty
• Passive and destructive responses to dissatisfaction include neglect

How to Recognize Job Dissatisfaction

• Job dissatisfaction is recognized by dreading Mondays, being unable to wait for Friday, often being bored or tired at work, avoiding one's boss, lacking enthusiasm or self-worth, feeling stuck, taking work stress home, questioning your career choice, and inability to see a way out

Causes of Job Dissatisfaction

• Role ambiguity is uncertainty about what the organization expects from the employee
• Role conflict is the recognition that job demands are incompatible or contradictory
• Role overload is when too many expectations or demands are placed on a person

Benefits of Satisfaction

• Benefits of satisfaction include better job and organizational performance and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB)
• Also included are greater levels of customer satisfaction, lower absenteeism and turnover, and decreased workplace deviance

I Am Affirmations

• Sample affirmations include being strong, capable, and ready for the coming days
• Sample affirmations include embracing growth, learning, and new opportunities, in addition to choosing to focus on what you can control
• Affirmations include being consistent, disciplined, and committed to one's goals, as well as focused, productive, and efficient

Personality

• Personality is composed of the sum total of ways an individual reacts to and interacts with others
• Personality is described with measurable traits, such as shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, ambitious, loyal, and timid

Measuring Personality

• Self-report surveys are the most common method, but prone to error
• These surveys evaluate a series of factors

Personality Determinants

• Personality reflects heredity and environment
• Heredity is the most dominant factor, and twin studies have shown that genetics are more influential than parenting
• Environmental factors do have some influence
• Aging influences levels of ability, yet basic personality is constant

Dominant Personality Frameworks: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

• Personality is assessed through a personality-assessment instrument
• Individuals are classified as extraverted or introverted (E/I), sensing or intuitive (S/N), thinking or feeling (T/F), and judging or perceiving (J/P)
• Classifications are combined into 16 personality types

Measuring Personality Traits: Big-Five Model

• The Big Five traits are extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience
• Strong relationships to job performance, especially conscientiousness

Dark Triad

• The Dark Triad is a group of negative personality traits comprising Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy

Maciavellianism

• High machs tend to be pragmatic and emotionally distant, and believe the ends justify the means

Narcissism

• Narcissism involves a grandiose view of self, the need for excessive admiration, a sense of self-entitlement, and arrogance

Psychopathy

• Psychopathy is marked by a lack of concern for others and a lack of guilt or remorse when actions cause harm

Approach-Avoidance Framework

• Approach motivation is one's attention to positive stimuli
• Avoidance motivation is one's aversion to negative stimuli
• The framework organizes traits and may help explain how they can predict work behavior

Core Self-Evaluation

• People with positive core self-evaluation see themselves as capable and effective in the workplace

Self-monitoring

• Adjusted behaviors meet external, situational factors

Proactive Personality

• Proactive personalities identify opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere

Personality and Situations

• Situational strength theory explains that the way personality translates into behavior depends on the strength of the situation
• Situation strength can be analyzed in terms of clarity, consistency, constraints, and consequences
• Trait activation theory (TAT) predicts that some situations, events, or interventions “activate” a trait more than others

Values

• Represents basic, enduring convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence"

Value Systems

• Individuals value prioritizing is by content and importance to the individual
• Individuals value prioritizing is by intensity of overall importance relative to other values
• The hierarchy of values tends to be relatively stable
• Values are the foundation for attitudes, motivation, and behavior
• Values can influence perception and objectivity

Rokeach Value Survey

• Terminal values are desirable end-states of existence while instrumental values are the preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving the terminal values
• Goals that a person would like to achieve during their lifetime are terminal values

Personality-Job Fit: Holland's Hexagon

• Job satisfaction and turnover depend on congruency between personality and task
• People in jobs congruent with their personality should be more satisfied and less likely to voluntarily resign than people in incongruent tasks

Person-Organization Fit

• It is more important that employees’ personalities fit with the organizational culture than with the characteristics of any specific job
• The fit predicts job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover

Hofstede's Framework for Assessing Cultures

• The five factors of Hofstede's framework are Power Distance, Individualism versus Collectivism, Masculinity versus Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Long-term versus Short-term Orientation