Chapter 3: Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

Attitudes – evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people, or events

**What are the main components of attitudes?

*Cognitive component – the opinion or belief segment of an attitude; description of or belief in

the way things are

*Affective Component – the emotional or feeling segment of attitude

*Behavioral Component – An intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or

something

**Does behaviour always follow from attitudes?

Leon Festinger: “Attitudes follow behaviour.”

Cognitive Dissonance – Any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behaviour and
attitudes

*Moderating Variables

-importance of the attitude

-correspondence to behaviour

-accessibility

-social pressures

-direct experience with the attitude

**What are the major job attitudes?

*Job Satisfaction – a positive feeling about one’s job resulting from an evaluation of its
characteristics

*Job Involvement – the degree to which people identify psychologically with their job and
consider their perceived performance level important to self-worth

-psychological empowerment – employee’s belief in the degree to which they influence their
work environment, their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and their perceived autonomy

*Organizational Commitment – degree to which an employee identifies with a particular

organization and its goal and wishes to maintain membership in the organization

*Perceived Organizational Support (POS) – degree to which employees believe the organization
values their contribution and cares about their well-being
 *Employee Engagement – an individual involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for
the work he or she does

Job Satisfaction

**Measuring Job Satisfaction

-single global rating

-summation of job facets

**Impact of satisfied and dissatisfied employees on the workplace

*Exit – directs behaviour towards leaving the organization, including looking for a new position
as well as resigning (Active/Destructive)

*Voice – includes actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions

(Active/Constructive)

*Loyalty – passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve (Passive/Constructive)

*Neglect – passively allows conditions to worsen and includes chronic absenteeism or lateness,
reduced effort, and increased error rate

**JS and Performance – happy workers are more likely to be productive workers

**JS and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) – satisfied employees would seem more
likely to talk positively about the organization

**JS and Customer Satisfaction – satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty

**JS and Absenteeism – dissatisfied employees are more likely to miss work

**JS and Turnover - ???

**JS and Workplace Deviance - ???