ATTITUDE AND WORK

INTRODUCTION

Since work is important component of life and living, people tend to develop different attitudes towards different work aspects. Most mornings we leave our homes set off to work in formal organisations such as banks, schools hospitals, retail shops and informal settings like market places, farms and barbing salons. In the workplace people engage in myriad of activities, they interact, communicate and learn from one another things they would otherwise not been exposed to. 

The work place is essentially about four key components; equipment and machines (or tools of work or technology), the structure, processes and the people; meaning that work has physical, social and emotional content, people are bound to respond to work the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ aspects of work in one form or the other. For some the workplace may offer exceptional opportunities for career growth, excellent pay, and warm relationship with supervisors and peers while for others, the experience may be less salutary; such as low pay, harsh disciplinary environment and little opportunity for creativity, growth and development. Work experience can therefore range from satisfying to not satisfying.

 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.

Attitude components and manifestations

Typically, a workers attitude is moderated by economic, social, emotional and physical conditions of work. His knowledge, skill, feelings and behaviour is influenced towards shaping work orientation and productivity. It will also determine cooperation, conflict and overall disposition to behave in specific ways under certain circumstances. Also attitude in spite of stability can be changed through a variety of means using essentially persuasive communication and proper understanding of message, message content, media and recipients. Furthermore, attitude, as an enduring organization of motivational, emotional, perceptual and cognitive processes with respect to some aspect of our environment, serves four key functions (Katz, 1960).

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.