Attitude and Work. How are the Two Related?

MEANING OF WORK AND ATTITUDE

Work, according to Eze (2004)
is central and essential part of life. It is necessary for humans to provide
basic needs like food, shelter, clothing, love, esteem and other lofty life
goals. By working they earn money which afford them meaningful life. Many engage
in hours of productive activities, for which they train and accumulate
experiences. Work involves the use of hands, equipment, machines, technology
to transform raw materials to products that meets human needs. Work however
offers more than economic means; it is a place of social interaction, problem
solving, conflict management, attitude formation and change.

The world
of work is an intricate mix of people, structure and processes. The people in
modern Nigerian organisations are diverse in several dimensions of age,
ethnicity, education background, gender, socio­economic status, religion and
political affiliations. These mix of people are weaved around the processes,
rules (both procedural and substantive), routines, into the layers of the
organisational structure which varies from tall, formalized and complex
bureaucracies of the public sector and multinationals to more flexible and flat
structures of the private sector classifiable into various industrial segments.
The robust dimensions of organisational and group dynamics often produces
interactional, procedural and distributive injustices resulting in latent and
expressed grievances and open conflicts.

Attitude

Attitude can
be defined as an enduring organisation of motivational, emotional, perceptual
and cognitive processes with respect to some aspect of the environment. It is a
positive or negative evaluative reaction towards a stimulus, such as persons,
objects (equipment, technology, office environment), action of superiors/peers/subordinates,
or concept/ideas (organisation’s policies, rules and processes). 

Attitude as
shown below has three components; cognitive, emotional and behavioural and
serve several functions. It is the way we think, feel, and act towards products
and it is an evaluation process leading to negative neutral or positive
attitudes. Many of our belief or feelings about brands are evaluative in
nature. The more positive belief or feelings that are associated with a brand
the more favourable our behaviour towards it. Attitude though enduring, can change
over time as a result of learning or exposure to people, events and situations
that persuade us towards new mode of perception and consequent new attitude and
behaviour.

Two questions at this point. 

(1) does our attitudes influence behaviour) and 

(2) does our behaviour
influence our attitudes? 

One may likely respond that our attitudes influence
our behaviour, just as our behaviour influences attitude. This view looks
commonsensical but only true to a modest degree than usually assumed. In a way, attitude-behaviour consistency is not a one-way street. What
appears to be the reality with regards to the first question is that:

i.                  
Attitudes influence behaviour more strongly when
counteracting situational factors are weak,

ii.                
Attitudes have a greater influence on behaviour
when we are aware of them and when they are strongly held, and

iii.              
General attitudes do best at predicting general
classes of behaviour, and specific attitudes do best at predicting specific behaviours.

With regards to the second
question, the moment an individual or group began to behave in a particular
way, that is implement their roles as prescribed by office rules, societal
norms or values, indoctrination and so forth, they often form attitudes that
are consistent with how they had behaved. The reasons for this are:

Self-justification.
This according to Festinger (1959) is because individuals, who feel
incongruence among two or more cognitions, will likely experience the uncomfortable
state of tension called cognitive dissonance and are motivated to reduce
tension through adjustment of the previous perception; that is changing one or more
of their cognition. In some instances, they simply rationalise their behaviour
by seeking external justification for the action.

Persuasion.
Through discussions, advertisement, negotiation and persuasion one’s attitude
can change in line with behaviour.

Self–perception. We make inferences about
our own attitude and that of others by observing how we behave. How we behave is
often in conformity with our attitude; a positive behaviour towards a person,
object or concept indicates a positive attitude.

REASONS FOR WORK

The array of goods and services
generated as a result of organised effort, called work, is awesome. Work involves
the deliberate use of physical, emotional and mental energy to produce
utilities. Harnessing these energies has led to the production of tangible goods
such as agricultural products putting food on tables, automobiles for mobility,
energy as barebone for domestic and industrial uses, telecom equipment for
communication, textiles for clothing and a wide variety of other goods;
also intangible goods such as legal, social psychological or counsel, health
care, security, education and so forth. 

To do this certain basic inputs such as
land, raw materials, energy, information, capital, equipment/technology and
people. Work produces jobs which are organised or deliberately designed group
of activities composing of units of tasks, duties, responsibilities within the
context of peculiar conditions and rules which a significant amount of influence
on performance and gives coherence to the attainment of set goals and objectives.

Work can bring about several
outcomes than could be accounted for here but outcomes such as the following
are examples:

As a means of earning a living.
Traditionally, the reason many work is to be able to make ends meet by being
able to afford their daily needs for food, shelter, clothing and meeting all
other basic needs as stipulated by Maslow and other motivation theorists.

As an opportunity for using
basic human talents. Work provides avenue for using all of human talents,
physical, intellectual, emotional and so forth. Without work, man will be idle
and most of the endowments like cognitive skills for creativity, problem
solving and the likes will go unused.

As a platform for social
intercourse. Human beings are gregarious in nature. In the course of work, one
of the basic needs for socialization is further reinforced and met. Workers for
instance belong to unions, forms friendship and lasting friendship that
transcend work. This is why; organisational design formats are becoming more
organic rather than mechanistic. Teams, groups and the need for constant social
networking and stimulation are now features of jobs for deliberate purpose of
meeting basic human needs for relatedness.

As a basic life goal. Work is
the core of life aspiration for many. Many are motivated to live their dreams
in the course of career or profession. It is by working that aspirations like
building houses, marriage, having children are made feasible. Indeed work has
come to define the worth of modern man.

As a form of social identity.
People’s identity as well as self-esteem is concretised in the course of
implementing career goals. This why people appraise and describe or give
themselves titles like Professor, Engineer, Doctor, Lawyer based on
professional training and attainments.

Basis for
satisfaction. Self-actualization and man’s spiritual essence is associated with
career success or otherwise. Work in this respect gives not just direction to
efforts but also to life.

COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDE

People have attitude towards
just about everyone and everything. Attitude is a disposition to respond
favourably or unfavourably toward some person, thing, event, place, goods and
services or situation (often called attitude object). In other words, attitude
describes our thoughts, feelings, behaviour (negative or positive)
towards attitude objects.

The most popular approach to attitude
study is the tri-component view of attitude, which states that attitude has
three components, which are;

i.   
Cognitive Component. This
refers to thoughts, belief, opinions, and knowledge or information held by the
person concerning others, objects or ideas.

ii.    
Affective Component. Emotional
feelings about people, places and objects to which statements like ‘I do not
like’ can apply and can lead to behavioural outcomes.

iii.   
Behavioural Component. This
component refers to action tendencies and intentions to behave in a certain way
towards someone or something.

Sometimes, there are
consistencies among the components. For instance, if someone belief or know
(cognitive component) that coming late to work is wrong, he may hate coming
late (emotional component) and as a result tried always to be at work in time
(behavioural component). There are instances, where the three components are
inconsistent. Many may want to be at work on time but faces herculean task in
meeting up to that challenge for so many extraneous reasons like being late to
bus terminus because of delay due to rainfall, non-availability of connecting
bus services and fatigue or illness.

Hawkins
and his colleagues proposed a model in which attitude; cognitive, affective and
or behavioural is situated within certain stimuli contingents. The worker’s
attitude is shown to be influenced by environmental stimuli, such as working
condition, pay, social environment, family issues and so forth. Overall
orientation is indicative of a positive or negative evaluation of organisation
along with the physical and social context of work.

i.   
Knowledge functions: Whether they
accurately reflect objective reality or not, attitudes serve to organize our
beliefs about objects or activities such as brands or shopping. The amount of
information presented about products in the market serves useful purpose in
shaping knowledge and perception of work, people and the organisation as a
whole. This eventually translates to positive, neutral or negative attitudes.

ii.   
Value expressive functions: Attitudes are
sometimes formed as a reflection of self-concept or expression of individual’s
central values. What turn out to be important attitude will depend on whether
the attitude is terminal or instrumental in nature.

iii.    
Utilitarian functions: Based on the
operant conditioning principles, we tend to be favourably disposed towards
goods and services that are intrinsically rewarding and have negative attitudes
towards those that are not.

iv.    
Ego-defensive functions: As McGuire
classification of needs shows attitudes are formed and used in the defence of
the ego and self-image. Any given attitude can serve several functions, though
one may predominate (Hawkins, Best, & Coney, 2001)

ATTITUDE CHANGE

Attitude is viewed as Social
Psychology’s most indispensable concept by Allport (1935) because it defines
our identity, guide our actions and influence how we judge people and
situations.

Attitude can be formed and
attitude does change. Every day, we are confronted with objects, events,
people, and attitude that demand one form of response or another. Often our
response can result from old attitudes, newly formed or a change of attitude.

Attitude has been shown to be;

(i)     
Stable over time,

(ii)   
Held with a high degree of certainty,

(iii)   
Consistent with the person’s affect (emotional
reaction) toward a behaviour,

(iv)    
Formed as a result of direct experience,

(v)      
Easily remembered and

(vi)    
Capable of change.

Every year advertisers spend
millions of naira to change consumers’ attitudes. Governments often use the media
to send messages that is meant to cultivate positive attitudes towards its
views and programmes. Our conversation, arguments and disputations are filled
with attempts, not just to make others see our own point of view, but to get
them to change (that is persuade them) from one form of
attitude-negative or positive-and adopt another one. Persuasion is a fact of
everyday life (Maio and Olson, 2000).

What
factors lead people to change their attitudes? There are conditions under which
people change or resist change of their attitudes. Persuasive communication is
the vehicle through which attitude change is transmitted. Persuasion involves a
communicator who delivers a message through a channel (in
writing, verbally, visually) to an audience, within a surrounding context
(a cultural, civic, social, religious, setting). As the definition of
persuasion shows, five significant factors; communicator or source of message,
the message, the channel, the context, and the audience are crucial in attitude
change.

(1). Source of message.
Certain characteristics of the communicator finds relevance in persuading
others to change their opinion or attitude about a brand, some of these
characteristics are:

a.    
Expertise. People are better persuaded about
what they read, hear or see when the person making the presentation is an
expert. Many are better persuaded by advice to stop smoking or drinking when
offered by their doctor rather than by friends.

b.   
Attractiveness. Communicators that are
physically attractive, likable or similar in terms of shared attribute,
interests or goals may do better to persuade us than otherwise. Advertisers
spend thousands of naira to pair models, beauty queens, boxing or football
stars with their products. It is perhaps also true that ‘correct’ dressing, makeup
and trendy design may appeal to certain segment of the audience and aid
attractiveness.

c.    
Credibility. When the target market views the
source of the message as credible, it is easier to influence their behaviour.
Some authors belief that expertise and trustworthiness are aspects of source
credibility.

d.   
Trustworthiness. How honest or believable is the
message as well as the communicator?

e.    
Fast or slow speaker? Fast speakers are
generally viewed as more persuasive than slow speakers (Miller, Maruayama, Beaber
and Valone, 1976).

f.     
Body language. Eye contact is important in
establishing credibility and honesty. Other gestures such as averting the eyes,
smiling constantly, biting the lips constantly tend to lower speaker’s
credibility. It is also thought that the voice modulation-deep, baritone
voice-are helpful in persuasion.

ATTITUDE CHANGE AND WORK

Naturally,
managers are not interested in all attitudes but only job related attitudes
such as job satisfaction, absenteeism, turnover intention, presenteeism, organisational
silence, job involvement, job and organisational commitment and organisational
citizenship behaviour.

Managers are interested in
employees’ attitude because attitude is a key determinant of behaviour (Student
to visit www.prenhall.com/rolls). Satisfied and committed employees, for instance, are likely to have low rate of turnover, and absenteeism and of course
have been predicted to rate favourably on measures of organisational and job
commitment, job satisfaction and the likes.

However, since findings of satisfaction-production especially among more productive workers are qualified,
managers should not just assume that a content worker will be a productive
worker but instead formulate a strategy that targets and reinforce factors that
are conducive to high levels of job satisfaction such as mentally challenging
jobs, equitable rewards, supportive working conditions and supportive
organisational climate.

The workplace should equally have mechanisms, and perhaps as a legitimate performance
assessment tool, for determining or gauging the range of attitudes that are
either antithetical to productivity (qualifying for a change) or those
positively promoting productivity (qualifying for reinforcement).

CONCLUSION

Attitude
is important in life as well as work. It is both enduring and dynamic to the
extent that it can be subject to change. The understanding of this will assist
managers to shape workplace attitudes to engender positive behaviour that are
tangential to organisational productivity, job satisfaction and other desired
outcomes.