Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

Attitudes and Job Satisfaction
Chapter Learning Objectives

• After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
– Components of an attitude.
– Summarize the relationship between attitudes and

behavior.
– Compare and contrast the major job attitudes.
– Define job satisfaction and show how it can be measured.
– Summarize the main causes of job satisfaction.

Attitudes
Evaluative statements or judgments
concerning objects, people, or events.
Three components of an attitude:
How Consistent attitudes are?
Leon Festinger’s Cognitive dissonance
theory
• 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
Does Behavior Always Follow from Attitudes?
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.
Self perception theory
• Individuals when asked about the attitude, recall
their past behavior to determine thier attitude
• Behavior attitude relationship is as stronger as

other way round
– Specially stronger when attitudes are vague and

ambiguous
– Few experiences
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.
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
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 past – now perhaps more of
occupational commitment, loyalty to profession rather
than a given employer.
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.
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.
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?
– Results may also depend on how job satisfaction is
measured.
– Pay and promotion are the most problematic
elements.
Causes of Job Satisfaction
• Pay influences job satisfaction only to a point.

– 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.
Employee Responses to Dissatisfaction
Active
Destructive Constructive
Passive
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.
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.
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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Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

Chapter Learning Objectives

– Summarize the relationship between attitudes and

– Compare and contrast the major job attitudes.

– Define job satisfaction and show how it can be measured.

– Summarize the main causes of job satisfaction.

• Behavior attitude relationship is as stronger as

– Specially stronger when attitudes are vague and

• Pay influences job satisfaction only to a point.

• Personality can influence job satisfaction.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of the impact of job

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