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Chapter 4 ATTITUDES. What is an Attitude. Attitude is an evaluation of people, ideas, issues, situations, or objects. It has three parts - thoughts, feelings, and actions. Attitudes are tied with self esteem.
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Chapter 4 ATTITUDES
What is an Attitude • Attitude is an evaluation of people, ideas, issues, situations, or objects. • It has three parts - thoughts, feelings, and actions. • Attitudes are tied with self esteem. • Positive attitude results from healthy self-esteem, optimism, extraversion, and personal control.
What is an Attitude Extraversion is the characteristic of a happy attitude in which a person’s behavior is directed outward, toward others. Personal control is the power people have over their destinies.
Changing Attitudes • Changing a person’s attitude is always not possible. • Often, people with negative attitudes need only to be shown how destructive their attitudes are; then a change takes place. • The key is feedback. • Striking a balance between negative and positive feedback is important.
Positive Attitudes andOptimal Experiences • Optimal experience is the pleasure in performing the process of an activity itself, rather than achieving the goal. • Psychologist MihalyiCsikszentmihalyi refers to the process itself as flow. • Flow is the feeling of oneness with an activity that allows an individual to uniquely experience an event or activity by becoming totally engaged in the process.
Positive Attitudes andOptimal Experiences • Components found in a flow experience: • The activity requires a specific skill and is challenging. • Attention is completely absorbed by the activity. • The activity has clear goals. • Feedback is clear about how you are doing. • You are concentrating only on the task itself. • You achieve a sense of personal control. • You lose a sense of self-awareness.
Positive Attitudes andOptimal Experiences • Components found in a flow experience (cont.): • You lose your sense of time. • You are concentrating only on the task itself. • You achieve a sense of personal control. • You lose a sense of self-awareness. • You lose your sense of time.
Flow in Our Everyday Lives • Everyone can incorporate optimal experiences into their daily lives. • Everyone should learn to love their everyday professions. • A key to personal happiness and life satisfaction is to take responsibility. • People are more likely to feel flow while at work.
Attitudes and Job Satisfaction • Job satisfaction is more important to employees than pay level or job security. • With high job satisfaction, employees are less likely to be absent for unexcused reasons. • Job performance leads to job satisfaction.
Organization citizenship behavior is an attitude of willingness to go beyond the behaviors that are generally associated with life in the workplace. It is important to the productivity of any organization or work group. Attitudes and Job Satisfaction
Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Figure 4.2: Changing Attitudes
Factors to be considered before implementing the Theory Y management attitude: Maturity level of the employees. Meaningfulness of the work. Speed of transition in management attitudes. Positive Attitudes and Managers:Theory X and Theory Y
Strategies for Success • Changing pessimism to optimism: • Describe the situation. • What is the worst possible outcome of this situation, and is there anything one could do to prevent it? • What is the best outcome that could occur, and can anything be done to ensure the best outcome? • What is the most likely outcome, and what can be done to cope if the most likely outcome occurs?
Strategies for Success • Building positive attitudes: • Be positive. • Don’t get trapped in the negative attitude of others. • Look for good qualities in yourself, others, and in your organization. • Don’t let situations outside of you push you around. • Become goal oriented.
Summary • An attitude is an evaluation of people, ideas, issues, situations, or objects. • Four characteristics that happy people have in common are healthy self-esteem, optimism, extraversion, and personal control. • Feedback is the key to changing attitudes.
Key to personal happiness and life satisfaction is to take responsibility and find out what makes oneself feel flow in his/her work. Job performance leads to job satisfaction. Managers’ attitudes need to be flexible to ascertain whether the Theory X or Theory Y management style is more appropriate in their work environment. Summary