Matching Personality and Job Types

This refers to the extent to which people successfully match their personalities with their jobs. If there is a perfect relationship between the job and personality, the job satisfaction and production turnover among the employees will be significantly higher. John Holland present six personality types and proposes that the satisfaction and the propensity to leave a job depend on the degree to which people successfully match their personalities with a suitable occupational environment. Holland’s typology of personality is given as below:

Vocational Typology	Personality Characteristics	Congruent Occupations
Realistic	Shy, genuine, persistent, stable, conforming, practical	Mechanic, drill press operator, assembly-line worker, farmer
Investigative	Analytical, original, curious, independent	Biologists, economist, mathematician, news reporter
Social	Sociable, friendly, cooperative, understanding,	Social worker, teacher, counselor, clinical psychologists
Conventional	Conforming, efficient, practical, unimaginative, inflexible	Accountant, corporate manager, bank teller, file clerk
Enterprising	Self-confident, ambitious, energetic, domineering	Lawyer, real estate agent, public relations specialist, small business manager
Artistic	Imaginative, disorderly, idealistic, emotional, impractical	Painter, musician, writer, interior decorator

· Realistic: The type of activities for this category involves physical activities which require skill, strength and coordination. The suitable personality characteristics to meet these activities would be shy, genuine, persistent, stable, conforming, practical etc. The congruent occupations for this category of people are assembly line worker, farmer, mechanic etc.

· Investigative: The type of activities for this category involves thinking, organizing and understanding. The appropriate characteristics to meet these activities would be analytical, original, curious, independent etc. The congruent occupations for this category of people are biologists, economist, mathematician, news reporter.

· Social: The type of activities for this category involves helping and developing others. The relevant personality characteristics to meet these s activities would be sociable, friendly, cooperative, understanding. The congruent occupations for this category of people are social worker, teacher, counselor, clinical psychologists.

· Conventional: The type of activities for this category involves rule-regulated, orderly and unambiguous activities. The appropriate characteristics to these activities would be conforming, efficient, practical, unimaginative, and inflexible. The congruent occupations for this category of people are accountant, corporate manager, and bank teller file clerk.

· Enterprising: The type of activist for this category involves verbal activities specific to influence others and attain power. The suitable personality characteristics to meet these activities would be self confident, ambitious, energetic, and domineering. The congruent occupations for this category of people are lawyer, real estate agent, public relations specialist, small business manager.

· Artistic: The type of activities for this category involves ambiguous and unsystematic activities that allow creative expression. The suitable personality characteristics to meet theses activities would be imaginative, disorderly, idealistic, emotional, and impractical. The congruent occupations are painter, musician, writer, interior decorator etc.

Holland’s model proposes that a realistic person in a realistic jobs is in a more compatible situation than is a realistic person in an investigate job. Sociable person should be in social jobs, conventional people in convention jobs and so forth. Due care must be exercised to ensure a perfect between personality characteristics and the type of jobs offered to the candidates during the selection process. The person-organization fit essentially argues that people leave jobs that are not compatible with their personalities.

OTHER KEY PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS RELEVANT TO WORK PLACE

Some of the important personality factors that determine what kinds of behaviors are exhibited at work include need patterns, locus of control, introversion and extroversion, tolerance of ambiguity, self-esteem and self-concept, authoritarianism and dogmatism, Machiavellianism, Type A or B Personality and work ethic.

Authoritarianism and Dogmatism:

People who are likely to have authoritarian orientation tend to use their power more aggressively towards their subordinates and create a very defensive climate in the department, while at the same time they are being very submissive or docile towards their supervisors. Dogmatism refers to the extent to which people are flexible or rigid in dealing others. Managers who are exhibiting these traits are likely to be detached from others and people show much of hatredness in them.

A combination of high authoritarianism and dogmatism is obviously not conducive to creativity and organizational effectiveness since new ideas that people at lower levels in the system have will neither be listened to nor implemented. Certain societies tend to accept authority much better than others, and hence authoritarianism can be traced to needs of dependency in members in some cultures who feel comfortable when they are ‘told’ the ways in which things have to be carried out in their work.

Machiavellianism:

This refers to the extent to which people are manipulative and tactic in achieving one’s own goals. These people strongly believe that ends can justify means. People who are high Machiavellian tend to be cool, willing to twist and turn facts to influence others and try to gain control of people, events, and situations by manipulating the system to their advantage. High Machiavellians may be successful only for a short period but in long run they tend to be distrusted and disliked by many in the department and finally they may be ineffective.

High-Machiavellians manipulates more, win more, are persuaded less and have a grater influence over other people than do low-Machiavellians. Yet these High-Machiavellians outcomes are moderated by situational factors.

It has been found that High- Machiavellians flourish:

· when they interact face-to-face with others rather than indirectly

· when the situation has a minimum number of rules and regulations, thus allowing latitude for improvisation

· where emotional involvement with details irrelevant to winning distracts low-

Machiavellianism

· when forming coalitions which they use to their advantage.

The following are the strategies to protect against the manipulative actions of High-

Machiavellians:

i) Expose them to others: Expose the broken promises, manipulative strategies and lies of high-Machiavellian to others.

ii) Pay attention to what people do, not to what they say: High-Machiavellians make great promises and are great persuaders, so pay attention to the action that a person carries out and avoid being swayed by smooth promises

iii) Avoid situations that give high-Machiavellians the edge: Do not make decisions quickly where emotions are high and a person puts forward a persuasive argument and pushes for an immediate decision. Try not to face this person on a one-to-one basis.

Invites others to participate in the meeting. :

Risk Taking

This refers to the extent to which people are willing to take chances. This propensity to assume or to avoid risk has been shown to have an effect on their decision making capabilities and information gathering process. High risk taking managers made more rapid decision and used less information in making their choices than did the low risk taking managers.

The requirement of Risk taking propensity varies from the different types of job demands.

For instance, a high risk taking propensity may lead to more effective performance for a stockbroker in brokerage firm than an accountant whose job demands more cautious approach in dealing each and every one of the things. An accountant performing auditing activities is expected to have low-risk taking propensity as his nature of job demands to follow a book of rules and regulations.

Type A and Type B Personality:

This refers to the extent to which people tend exhibit certain characteristics. Type A person feels a chronic sense of time urgency, are highly achievement oriented, exhibit a competitive drive and are impatient when their work is slowed down for any reason.

Type B persons are easygoing individuals who do not have sense of time urgency, and who do not experience the competitive drive.

Type A Mangers do operate under moderate to high level of stress. They subject themselves to more or less continuous time pressure, creating for themselves a life of deadlines. These characteristics result in some rather specific behavior outcomes. For example, Type A people are fast workers because they emphasize quantity over quality. In managerial positions, Type A executives demonstrate their competitiveness by working long hours and not infrequently making poor decisions because they make them too quickly. Type A’s are also rarely creative. Because of their concern with quantity and speed, they rely on past experiences when faced with problems. They do not allocate the time that is necessary to develop unique solutions to new problems.

Which category of people – Type A or Type B more successful in organization? The research results reported that great sales people are usually Tape A category. But the senior executives are likely to be Type B category. The main reason is that Type A people are usually trade off quality of effort for quantity. Promotions in corporate and professional organization usually go to those who are wise rather than to those who are merely hasty, to those who are tactful rather than to those who are hostile, and to those who are creative rather than to those who are merely agile in competitive strife.

The following are their typical characteristics of Type A and Type B people. Type A people are likely to more chances to get coronary heart diseases than Type B people.

Type ‘A’ Personality

· Competitive

· High Need for Achievement

· Aggressive

· Works Fast

· Impatient

· Restless

· Extremely Alert

· Tense Facial Muscles

· Constant Time Pressure

Type ‘B’ Personality

· Able to Take Time to Enjoy Leisure

· Not Preoccupied with Achievement

· Easy Going Works at Steady Pace

· Seldom Impatient

· Relaxed

· Not Easily Frustrated

· Moves Slowly

· Seldom Lacks Enough Time

Tolerance for Ambiguity

This dimension refers to the extent to which individuals are threatened by or have difficulty coping with situations that are ambiguous, where change occurs rapidly or predictably, where information is inadequate or unclear or where complexity exists. This personality characteristic indicates the level of uncertainty that people can tolerate with out experiencing undue stress and can still function effectively. Managers with higher tolerance of ambiguity scores are more likely to be entrepreneurial in their actions, to screen out less information in a complex environment, and to choose specialties in their occupations those possess less-structured tasks. It is also reported that individuals who are more tolerant of ambiguity have more difficulty focusing on a single important element of information – they are inclined to pay attention to a variety of items – and they may have somewhat less ability to concentrate without being distracted by interruptions.

There are three dimensions in Tolerance of Ambiguity. They are Novelty, Complexity and Insolubility.

• Tolerance of Ambiguity towards Novelty: This refers to the extent to which you are tolerant of new, unfamiliar information or situations.
• Tolerance of Ambiguity towards Complexity: This refers to the extent to which you are tolerant of multiple, distinctive or unrelated information.
• Tolerance of Ambiguity towards Insolubility: This refers to the extent to which you are tolerant of problems that are very difficult to solve alternative solutions are not evident, information is unavailable or the problems compensate seem unrelated to each other.

In general, the more tolerant people are of novelty, complexity, and insolubility, the more likely they are to succeed as managers in information-rich, ambiguous environment. They are less overwhelmed by these ambiguous circumstances.

Work Ethic Orientation:

This refers to the extent to which people are committed to work and involved in their activities. Extreme work ethic values could lead to traits of workoholism and workaholic people tend to give predominant interest to work which might lead to premature burnout and health problems such as hypertension, anxiety etc. Some individuals are highly workoriented while others try to do the minimum that is necessary go get by without being fired on the job. The extremely work ethic oriented person gets greatly involved in the job and lives up to being described as ‘living, eating and breathing the job’. Extreme work ethic values could lead to traits of ‘workoholism’ when work becomes to be considered as the only primary motive for living with very little outside interests.

Personality Types (MBTI)

MBTI describes four dimensions of Personality Types:

(a) Extroversion versus Introversion: (The ways in which people relate to the world)

(b) Sensing versus Intuition: (Becoming aware of and perceiving information)

(c) Thinking versus feeling: (Ways of deciding and prefer to make judgments)

(d) Judging and Perception: (The amount of control exercising and organizing people)

a) Extroversion and Introversion:

This deals with whether the focus of attention is directed towards outwardly or inwardly.

Where do you prefer to focus your attention?

Extroversion:

Extroverted attention flows outward to the world of objects and people or external ideas.

They are interacting more with people.

Characteristics associated with people who prefer Extraversion are:

· Attuned to external environment

· Prefer to communicate by talking

· Work out ideas by talking them through

· Have broad interests

· Sociable and expressive

· Readily take initiative in work and relationships

Extroverts are usually active, sociable, like variety and stimulation, and are often good speakers, sales people or public relations professionals.

Introversion:

Introverted attention focused on the subjective, inner world of thoughts, feelings and ideas. Introverts like quit reflection, can concentrate on one idea or thought for longer than an extrovert, and are less active and prone to change.

Characteristics associated with people who prefer Introversion are:

· Drawn to their inner world

· Prefer to communicate in writing

· Work out ideas by reflecting on them

· Learn best by reflection, mental “practice”

· Focus in depth on their interest

· Private and contained

Research scientists, academicians and librarians are often introverts.

b) Sensing Versus Intuition:

This aspect deals with the ways of collecting information and ideas.

Sensing

A person with a sensing preferences focuses on the specific, practical and tangible. The sensing person relies more on the physical or material reality of the world of the five senses: touch, sight, sound, taste or smell. Sensing managers take in information through their senses and attend to the details of the problem. They like to solve problems in standard ways. They are patient with routine details and are precise in their work. They distrust creative inspirations and usually work all the way through to reach conclusions.

They emphasize action, urgency and bottom-line results.

Characteristics associated with people who prefer Sensing:

· Oriented to present realities

· Factual and concrete, precise and practical

· Focus on what is real and actual

· Observe and remember specifics

· Build carefully and thoroughly toward conclusions

· Understand ideas and theories through practical applications

· Trust experience

The sensing person is likely to provide a practical solution to problems. They may be good at repairing machines, sports, building, handicrafts, or keeping the detailed records of a business.

Sensation Feelers (SF) deal with concrete problems in a methodical way. They have astute powers of observation regarding the details of how an organization is run. SFs do not fight the system, but use what is available for problem solving. SFs are nonjudgmental of their co-workers and do not look for underlying motives and meanings in people’s behavior. If organizations do not have adequate SF’s, small problem will go unattended till they become big.

Possible Shortcomings: SF’s may be reluctant to accept new ideas and are impatient with abstract theories. They react adversely to radical changes. They have difficult honoring commitments and decision made in the past since they live full in the present moment.

Intuition

This person relies more on their insights and based on that they guess, assume and draw the inferences. Ideas, associations or creative process often accompany the presence of intuition. They focus on the relationships and connections between facts. Intuition manager like solving new problems and are impatient with routine details. They perceive the problem in its totality and consider several alternatives simultaneously. They are imaginative and futuristic, enjoying mind testing games.

Characteristics associated with people who prefer Intuition:

· Oriented to future possibilities

· Imaginative and verbally creative

· Focus on the patterns and meanings in data, sees beyond the surface

· Remember specifics when they relate to pattern

· Move quickly to conclusions, follow hunches

· Want to clarify ideas and theories before putting them into practice

· Trust inspiration

The intuitive person is likely to have an affinity for music, literature, the arts, higher mathematics, and science and abstract theories. People with high level of intuition are also likely to be creative, adaptable and open to new ideas, and they are often artists, musicians, strategic players or architects.

Intuitive Thinkers (NT) are the architects of progress and ideas. They are interested in the principle on which the organization is built and seek answers to he significant events. They have enormous drive and are creative. If organizations do not have adequate number of NT’s, change will be minimal. Shortcomings of Intuitive Thinkers: Intuitive Thinkers may not always be aware of the feelings of others. Unless subordinates are intellectually competent, they may not be considered valuable. They expect a great of themselves and others and tend to escalate standards.

c) Thinking versus Feeling:

These deals with the way people make decisions.

Thinking

The person with a preference for thinking tends to be objective, analytical and impersonal in decision and judgments. Thinking managers are logical and analytical in their problem solving and search for additional information in a logical manner.

Characteristics associated with people who prefer Thinking:

· Solve problem with logic,

· Use cause and effect reasoning

· Strive for an objective standard of truth

· Can be “tough-minded”

· Fair – want everyone treated equally

As this person is logical in analysis, he is good at organizing, scheduling, comparing, analyzing and quantitatively evaluating objections and activities. Sensation Thinkers (ST) are decisive and excellent at decisions involving precise interpretations of facts and figures. They are persevering and precise. They want the organization run on an impersonal basis. They are hard working and super dependable. Organizations run efficiently because of such managers.

Possible Shortcomings: STs cannot tolerate delays due to complications. In periods of rapid changes they still cling to rules and procedures which is dysfunctional. When dealing with others, STs may not accurately perceive the interpersonal process. They withhold rewards unless full deserved others.

Feeling

People who use feelings to make decision are more likely to be empathetic, loyal, and appreciative and tactful. Feeling types consider the person and are likely to bend the rules if the situation warrants. Feeling managers heavily emphasize the human aspects in dealing with organizational problems and is more process oriented. They enjoy pleasing people and avoid conflicts.

Intuitive Feelers (NF) have personal charisma and commitments to the people they lead. They communicate their caring and enthusiasm. They are comfortable in an unstructured, group-centered management system that lets employees participate in the decisionmaking process. If adequate NF’s are not available in organization, an organization will become cold, sterile and dull. Possible Shortcomings; NF’s make decision on the basis of personal likes and dislikes.

They often try to please others all the time.

Characteristics associated with people who prefer Feeling:

· Empathetic

· Guided by personal values

· Assess impacts of decisions on people

· Strived for harmony and positive interactions

· Compassionate

· May appear “tenderhearted”

They like helping other people and often work as nurses, counselors and artists. They use past experiences and values and seek harmony when making judgments.

d) Judgment versus Perception

This aspect deals with the amount of control a person has over events and organizing things.

Judgment

The strong Judgment oriented people tend to live in a planned, decided and orderly way, wanting to regulate their life and control events. They are given more responsibility and authority because their operating mode is stable and predictable.

Characteristics associated with people who prefer Judging:

· Scheduled

· Organize their lives

· Systematic

· Methodical

· Make short and long term plans

· Like to have things decided

· Try to avoid last-minute stresses

The person with a strong orientation for judgment will therefore be good at making decision and planning. They usually make good managers, engineers and lawyers.

Perception

Perceptive people tend to live in a flexible, spontaneous way, wanting to understand life and adapt to it. They often appear to be more relaxed and less organized than judging types and are less attracted to schedules and routines.

Characteristics associated with people who prefer Perceiving:

· Spontaneous

· Flexible

· Casual

· Open-ended

· Adapt, change course

· Like things loose and open to change

· Feel energized by last minute pressures.

The perceptive type, on the other hand, may wait until all the information and aspects of a situation are seen before they make a decision. Artists, consultants, musicians and counselors tend to be perception oriented.

PERSONALITY

INTRODUCTION

People tend to have a general notion that personality refers to a personal appearance with charming smile, or outlook. But psychologists view the concept as dynamic in nature concerned with growth and development of a person’s whole psychological system. Personality can be defined as the consistent psychological patterns within an individual that affect the way they interact with others and the situations they encounter. Personality is defined as relatively stable and enduring characteristics that determine our thoughts, feelings and behavior. Personality is a complex phenomenon and there are various perspectives of personality construct. One common and simple definition of Personality is: It is the consistent psychological patterns within an individual that affect the way they interact with others and the situations they encounter.

PERSONALITY

Research studies shows that individual’s personality is more or less consistent, lasting, and can remain substantially constant across all the situations and time. But there are individual differences, for some people, these straits may be consistent across a number of situations, that is, they exhibit the same behavior such as shyness or inhibitions in the entire situation at all the time. But others may vary quite a lot. Changes in personality occur slowly over an extended period of time. Thus, if managers are able to understand certain dimensions of personality traits exhibited by individuals, they can predict confidently to a great extent the daily behavior of employees.

Personality Determinants

There are several factors that determine the formation or shaping of our personality. Among them the three major factors are: Heredity, Environment and Situation.

• Heredity The genetic components inherited from our parents at the time of conception determine strongly the personality characteristics of an individual. The color, height, physical statutory, facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition, inheritable diseases etc are considered to be inherited from our parents. Research studies conducted on identical twins that were reared in different places, temperament of young children, longitudinal studies on the job satisfaction of employees over long period of time and across different situation reveal that the heredity plays a substantial role in determining the behavior of individuals. If all personality characteristics were completely dictated by heredity, they would be fixed at birth and no amounts of experience could alter them.
• Environment The culture in which people are brought up in their lives and they type of socialization process such as family’s child rearing practices, socio economic status of the family, number of children in a family, birth order, education of the parents, friends and peer group pressures, religious practices, the type of schooling and recreational activities, pastime behavior etc play a critical role in shaping our personalities. For example, our parents mould the character of all children, almost from birth by expressing and expecting their children to conform to their own values through role modeling and through various reinforcement strategies such as rewards and punishments. Research studies reveal that the birth order – the difference between first born children and later born children determine certain key personality characteristics, that is, first born tend to exhibit more ambitious, and hard working, more cooperative, more prone to guilt and anxiety and less openly aggressive. Both the heredity and environment are equally important in determining personality characteristics of an individual. Heredity sets the parameters or outer limits, but a person’s full potential will be determined by how well he or she adjusts to the demands and requirements of the environment.
• Situation The type of specific situation which a person encounters also equally shapes the type of personality characteristics. For example, an individual’s exposure to a job interview and the type of experiences encountered during that time will shape certain personality characteristics. Similarly, going for a picnic with friends and encountering the type of experiences whether pleasant and unpleasant will shape the personality characteristics of individuals.

Dimensions of Self-Concept

It is defined as the totality of individual’s thoughts and feelings having reference to himself as an object. The self concept is made up of collection of attitudes, feelings, ideas, opinions that they have about themselves including their preference towards sports, books, physical ability, smartness sexuality, job performance etc. In short, the self-concept is what we think and feel about ourselves. People tend to have both positive and negative self concept. Those who have very positive self concept tend to have high level of confidence, achievement, and success in their life.

Key Personality Traits Relevant to Work Behavior

i) Self Esteem: It refers to the individuals’ self worthiness and the extent to which they regard themselves as capable, successful, important and worthwhile. People who feel good about themselves will always produce good results. Studies of self-esteem show that it is closely related to mental health. People with low self-esteem are more likely to suffer depression and greater stress. People with positive self-esteem adjust to life better and deal every day problems more effectively. Individuals’ with high self esteem will try to take up more challenging assignments and be successful, which in turn, enhance their overall self-concept. People with high self esteem would tend to classify themselves as highly valuable in the organization.

ii) Locus of Control: It refers to the extent to which people tend to have control over their own fate and life. There are two type of locus of control. The Internal Locus of Control refers to those who believe that they control what happens to them and shape the course of their evens in their lives, whereas the External Locus of Control believe that what happens to them is controlled by outside forces such as luck or chance. Internals always believe in putting more effort and seek more job related information, rely more on their own abilities and judgment at work, and more actively seek opportunities for advancement.

iii) Self Efficacy: It refers to the belief that a person has in their own capability to perform a specific task. People with high self-efficacy will prefer to have moderate level of task difficulty, strong self confidence and conviction in the chosen tasks and possess high expectation in completing the assignment across the entire situation. Employees with high self-efficacy respond to specific negative feedback about their performance with increased motivation and effort, while those with low self-efficacy are more likely to give up and reduce their motivation

iv) Self-Monitoring: It refers to the extent to which a person has the ability to adjust his or her behavior to external or situational factors. Those with high self-monitoring will be more sensitive and notice the significant changes occurring in the environment and able to adapt them by adjusting their behavior. High self-monitors are capable of exhibiting a striking contrast between their public persona and their private self. Low self-monitors cannot disguise their behavior and tend to exhibit the same behavior all the time.

v) Emotional Intelligence: It is also called as EQ which refers to individual’s ability to be aware of feelings and emotions and the extent to which they can manage them more effectively in dealing with others and challenging events. It consists of five main abilities:

• Knowing one’s emotions: Self-awareness and recognizing ones feelings as it occurs
• Managing emotions: Handling feelings and emotions appropriately to the relevant situations
• Motivating oneself: Directing the feelings and emotions in such a way to fulfilling the desired goals
• Recognizing emotions in others: Empathizing and understanding the feelings and emotions for others
• Handling Relationships: Being able to interrelate, communicate and work with others.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is very closely linked to our self-concept, because it is strongly related to self awareness.

vi ) Big Personality Traits

There are five Big Personality Traits which have a significant impact in individual’s life.

They are as follows.

• Extroversion: Extroverts are sociable, lively, and gregarious and seek outward interaction. Such individuals are likely to be most successful working in marketing division, public relations etc. where they can interact face to face with others. Introverts are quite, reflective, introspective and intellectual people, preferring to interact with a small intimate circle of friends. Introverts are more likely to be successful when they can work on highly abstract ideas (accountant, R&D work etc) in a relatively quite atmosphere.
• Agreeableness: This refers to the extent to which individuals agreeing and cooperating with others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm and trusting. People who score low on agreeableness are cold, disagreeable and antagonistic. This characteristic is very important and critical in attaining a successful achievement in their life.
• Conscientiousness: This refers to the extent to which people are responsible and dependable in their work and life. A highly conscientiousness person is responsible, organized, dependable and persistent. They are likely to move upward direction very quickly and attain remarkable achievement in their life. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized and unreliable.
• Emotional Stability: This refers to the extent to which people have the ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, selfconfident and secure. Those with highly low level of emotional stability tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed and insecure.
• Openness to experience: This refers to the extent to which people are more imaginative, artistic sensitivity and intellectualism. Individuals tend to vary widely ranging from conservative to creative or artistic. Extremely open people are creative, and artistically sensitive. Whereas not so open category personnel are very conservative and find comfort in the familiar or routine activities.

ATTITUDES

INTRODUCTION

It is defined as individuals’ feelings like likes and dislikes, pros and cons, favorable or unfavorable, positive or negative towards various other people, objects, events or activities. These are the evaluative statements – either favorable or unfavorable towards object or people. I like coke. I do not like rock music. These are expression of attitudes towards products. In organizations, attitudes are important because they affect job behaviors. If employees believe that supervisors, auditors, bosses , engineers are all in a conspiracy to make the employee work harder for the same or less money, then it makes sense to try understand how attitudes were formed, their relationship to actual job behavior and how they can be made more favorable.

ATTITUDES

Attitudes can be defined as an individual’s feelings about or inclinations towards other persons, objects, events, or activities. Attitudes encompass such affective feelings as likes and dislikes, and satisfactions and dissatisfactions. Our needs, past experiences, selfconcept, and personality shape the beliefs, feelings, and opinion we hold towards the perceived world. Once we have formed our likes and dislikes, we generally cling on to them and find it difficult to change our attitudes, unless we make a conscious and determined effort to do so. An interesting phenomenon is that our values shape our attitudes. Traditionally, behavioral scientists have divided attitudes into two major groups:

i) those that are cognitive (for example, beliefs or expectations about cause-effect relationships between events) and ii) those that are evaluative (for example, liking or disliking for event). An example of a cognitive attitude would be an employee’s belief that superior job performance would be rewarded by praise from a superior. An example of an evaluative attitude would be the degree to which he or she would like or value such praise.

Components of Attitudes

There are three components of attitudes such as Cognitive (Thinking), Affective (Feeling) and Conotive (Behavioral).

• Cognitive Component: Cognitive component deals with thinking, evaluation, comparison, rational, logical issues with respect to the targeted object. This will facilitate to form a strong belief or further strengthen the belief system towards various objects. By observing and analyzing the various features of Sony lap top computer, you may form a very good opinion stating that Sony laptop is best among others. Such an evaluation is based on the cognitive component of attitudes.
• Affective Component: Affective component deals with feelings or emotional issues of the targeted objects. I do not like Ramesh as he had hunted down a rare species of deer’s in the forest. As deers are harmless creatures, I love them very much. The disliking of Ramesh is due to emotional aspects or personal feelings towards the targeted object.
• Behavioral Components: This refers to intention to behave in a certain way towards someone or something. As I do not like rock music, I am not interested to attend the concert. The action of not attending is due to a part of disliking of rock music concert. All these three components collectively act together for the formation of attitudes.

Sources of Attitudes:

Attitudes are formed through various sources. We acquire or learn from parents, teachers, peer group members.

• Family Members: Parents or siblings influence strongly to form favorable or unfavorable attitudes towards various objects. The child rearing practices, the types of reinforcement received from parents or siblings will help mould certain attitudes such as strong preference towards color, religious faith, choices of food habits etc which would be stable and long lasting over a period of time.
• Reference Group: People tend to form a strong attitude based on the influence of powerful personalities whom they admire a lot. For example, celebrities, charismatic political or religious leaders significantly influence either to strengthen the existing attitudes or form new attitudes. Marketing managers rely on celebrity figures to endorse the products to subtly influence their admirers to buy the products.
• Peer Group influence: Friends or colleagues at work place will have a strong influence on the formation of certain attitudes or belief system due to pressure to conforming to their norms, standards, values etc. People need people. The acceptance or reassurance of group members will strongly reinforce the chosen attitudes and behavior.
• Socialization and Learning process: The way in which people are brought up in family, the do’s and dont’s laid down by the parents, educational and educational institutions, the rules and regulations of work place, the types of rituals, cultures, norms of society etc will strongly influence the formation of attitudes.

Types of Attitudes:

There are three types of job-related attitudes such as job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment.

• Job Satisfaction: The term job satisfaction refers to an individual’s general attitudes towards their job. The likingness or dislikingness differ from individual to individual with respect to job contextual factors or job content factors. Some people give much importance to job contextual factors like salary, security, supervision, supportive colleagues, company policy, working conditions, perquisites, promotions, equitable rewards etc. Whereas others may show much interest in job content factors such as advancement, challenging assignments, career progress, appreciation and recognition, work itself. Research results revealed that the job satisfaction had a tremendous impact on improving productivity, enhancing quality requirements, reduced absenteeism rate and employee turnover. The employees expressed their dissatisfaction through so many ways such as leaving the organization, raising their voice to demand to improve the working conditions, be patient by passively waiting for the conditions to improve and neglecting everything in work. A person with a positive attitude is likely to have more job satisfaction, while a person with negative attitude is likely to have job dissatisfaction towards his or her job. Job satisfaction is one of the major determinants of an employee’s organizational citizenship behavior. Satisfied employee would seem more likely to take positively about the organization, help others and go beyond the normal expectation in their job. Moreover, satisfied employees normally are more prone to go beyond the call of duty because they were to reciprocate their positive experiences. The following are some of the major determinants of job satisfaction – mentally challenging work, equitable rewards, supportive working conditions, supportive fellow employees, personality-job fit, company policies and programs.
• Job Involvement: This refers to the extent to which a person identifies psychologically with her or his job. The person feels that the job is more meaningful and it utilizes one’s talent and skills to the fullest extent. There is a perfect harmony between the types of skills a person possesses and the work content. The individual experiences as if the whole work is being carried out by him having full control over everything related to the work. Due to this perception, performance level will be increasing significantly and enhance the overall self worth. Employees with a high level of job involvement strongly identify with and really care about the kind of work they do in their job. Job involvement measures the degree to which a person identifies psychologically with her or his job and considers her or his perceived performance level important to her or his self-worth. Employees with a high level of job involvement strongly identify with and really care about the kind of work they do in their job. There is high level of relationship between job involvement and fewer absences and lower resignation rates of an individual.
• Organizational Commitment: It is refers to the extent to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organization. The person shows much of association and loyalty to their organization. Organizational commitment has gained a great deal of interest in recent years because of the changing nature of the workplace. People, who feel a perfect congruence between his values, beliefs, attitudes, and the organizational policies, practices, programs and its overall work culture, are likely to have more commitment than those who have incongruence. In order to elicit a high level of commitment from the employees, a due care must be taken at every stages right from the recruitment to retirement. Administering suitable screening tests such as aptitude tests, personality tests, interest’s tests etc will help significantly placing a right person to do a right type of job. With fewer workers, managers want workers who identify with the organization’s purpose and will work hard to achieve its goals. Organizational commitment can also be enhanced through organizational communication process, team briefing, supportive leadership etc. A good fit between the personality and the job, an internal locus of control, positive realistic expectations, opportunities for career advancement etc are the good predictors of organizational commitment. A well designed formal mentoring program has also been shown to increase organizational commitment. Promotional opportunity, providing employees with more information, supervisor’s support etc are likely to improve organizational commitment.

Attitudes and Consistency

People always seek harmony in their life. They desire to maintain consistency between attitudes and behavior or consistency among their various attitudes. Even in case of divergent opinion or happen to work in a place where the work demands are not aligned with the basic values, people will show interest to change either the nature of assignment or leave the organization or change their basic values in such a way to ensure consistency in their life style. This means that individuals seek to reconcile divergent attitudes and to align their attitudes and behavior so that they appear rational and consistent. Where there is an inconsistency, forces are initiated to return the individual to a state of equilibrium where attitudes and behavior are again consistent. This can be done by altering either the attitudes or the behavior, or by developing a rationalization for the discrepancy.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Cognitive dissonance refers to any incompatibility between their behavior and attitudes or incompatibility among a various attitudes. In general, people always prefer a consistency or equilibrium in their life. Festinger argued that any form of incompatibility will lead to a state of discomfort in the minds of people and people will try to attempt to reduce the dissonance and seek a stable state where there is a minimum level of dissonance.

It is very difficult process to avoid dissonance completely. But one can minimize the occurrences of such dissonance by carefully choosing the choices or changing the attitudes suitably. One of the most interesting examples of this cognitive dissonance is as follows: Mr Ramesh, who has been brought up with high moral values and cultivated to do right things and uphold strong human values, has joined a pharmaceutical firm as sales representative promoting and selling drugs meant for expectant mothers. Based on this understanding and knowledge of pharmaceutical field, he noticed that a particular drug is likely to have more side effects and it is harmful to the expectant mother. His boss is forcing him to push the product more aggressively among the doctors and hospitals. Due to this, he is undergoing a high level of cognitive dissonance due to discrepancy between his attitudes (belief that the drug is harmful to the expectant mother) and behavior (promoting and selling the drug). What will he do? Clearly, Ramesh is experiencing a high degree of cognitive dissonance. Because of the importance of the elements in this example, one cannot expect Ramesh to ignore the inconsistency.

There are several paths that he can follow to deal with her dilemma.

i) He can change his behavior (stop promoting and selling drug) and quitting the job.

ii) He can reduce dissonance by concluding that the dissonance behavior is not so important after all (I have to make a living, and in my role as a sales representative, I have to promote the drug and make my organization to maker profit).

iii) He can change her attitude (There is nothing wrong in this drug, and giving rationalization that all drugs have some amount of side effects).

The degree of influence that individuals believe they have over the elements has an impact on how they will react to the dissonance. If they perceive the dissonance to be uncontrollable results, they are less likely to be receptive to attitudes change. Rewards also influence the degree to which individuals are motivated to reduce dissonance. High dissonance, when accompanied by high rewards, tends to reduce the tension inherent in the dissonance. This occurrence is perhaps personified in the expression “Everyone has their price”. The regard acts to reduce dissonance by increasing the consistency side of the individual’s balance sheet.

Self-Perception Theory:

Attitudes are used to make sense out of an action that has already occurred. When asked about an attitude towards some object, individuals recall their behavior relevant to that object and then infer their attitude from the past behavior. So if an employee were asked about his feelings about being travel agent, he might think I have had this same job as travel agent ten years ago, so I must like it. Self-perception theory therefore argues that attitudes are used, after the fact, to make sense of the action that has already occurred rather than as devise that precede and guide action.

Attitudes Surveys:

It is eliciting responses from employees through questionnaires about how they feel about their jobs, work groups, supervisors, and the organization. Typically attitude surveys present the employee with a set of statements or questions. Ideally, the items will be tailor-made to obtain the specific information that management desires. An attitude score is achieved by summing up responses to the individual questionnaire items. These scores can be then being averaged for work groups, department, divisions or the organizations as whole.

Surveys have been used over the last three decades to measure attitudes such as job satisfaction, climate, leadership, teamwork, and commitment. As a result, a number of surveys have reasonable national averages that can be used to compare against organizations results. Using attitude surveys on a regular basis provides managers with valuable feedback on how employees perceive their working conditions. Policies and practices that management views as objectives and fair may be seen as inequitable by employees in general. Such type of things can be gathered by conducting attitudes surveys.