LECTURE 3 – ATTITUDES AND VALUES
1.ATTITUDES AND JOB SATISFACTION
1.1.Satisfaction with being an IO-psych student?
Example questionnaire items to query job attitudes.
- It is difficult to find satisfaction in work as an (IO-) psychology student
- For me, the advantage of being / becoming an (IO-) psychologist are bigger than the
disadvantages
- I sometimes regret that I will become an (IO-) psychologist
- If I would get the chance, I would do something other with my life.
- I am satisfied with my job as an (IO) psychology student.
- If I could do it all over again, I would choose to become an (IO-) psychologist again.
- (IO-) psychology gives me - compared to most other jobs - a lot of satisfaction
1.2.Summary of the determinants of job satisfaction: a framework
3 factors that determine job satisfaction
- Job Characteristics: job description
- Social information processing: eg if your colleagues have to work less / more or other
people earn more / less for the same job and how you deal with it
- Dispositions: personality characteristics eg some people hate ALL jobs, you can't help it
- Job satisfaction has certain consequences ( eg: what happens if your employees are simply
not satisfied?)
- Commitment is the core of job attitude, how committed you are to the job.
You can have job satisfaction on an individual level, on a team level,…
1
,1.3.Three components of an attitude
“They are always focused on something” You can have an attitude on a car, the weather,…
(opinion)
3 components:
- affective: emotional feeling
- objective cognitive evaluation, the rationale
- behavioural idea on how you will behave
Job satisfaction: a basic definition: A pleasant or positive emotional state resulting from an
appraisal of one’s job or job experiences (Locke)
1.4.Job satisfaction and criteria
Study where they compare attitudes with behaviour (attitudes about Asians in the US)
- They called hotels to ask if they would serve Chinese people: most said no
- A Chinese couple in hotel: in most cases served so: not a very strong relationship attitude ->
behaviour
- Sometimes attitudes predict behaviour, sometimes not! a looking at context
- For many people, their job is an important 'source' of their identity and job satisfaction is
therefore the most important attitude you can have, because you spend most of your day
on your job.
- To display this; the question "what do you do" or "what are you?" to ask for someone's job
2.Measuring job satisfaction
2.1.Kunin’s faces
Examples of a survey to measure this:
JDI (job description index) and MSQ (Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire) also have subscales
New way of data collection that is “more” reliable: = the faces scale of job satisfaction. Where
respondents must colour the box under the face that expresses “how do you feel about your job in
general, including work, pay,…” (picture in slide)
2
,3.Antecedents of job satisfaction
3.1.Job satisfaction: antecedents – Job Characteristics
How is job satisfaction determined? How can we change it?
Job characteristics: people evaluate the different aspects of the job and thus form their satisfaction
3.2.Job characteristics model (Hackman and Oldham)
People like to do a complete work cycle
have ': you are working on something complete + get feedback (?)
Some people don't even know what they are working on!
3.3.Motivating potential score (MPS) from the job diagnostic survey
Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) is a questionnaire based on the job characteristics model
MPS = (skill variety + task identity + task significance / 3) x autonomy x feedback
3
, Image: typical process: managers higher than customer service representative (manager has more
skill variety, more autonomy, ...). They are 2 exemplary profiles from the JDS
-O-NET: a description of jobs (you enter a job and you get a list of info about the work styles, work
values...) a sometimes used for research
Example items: “My job provides a lot of variety”, “My job has the ability to influence decisions that
significantly affect the organization”
3.4.Job satisfaction: antecedents – Social Information Processing
Value percept theory (Locke)
- DEF Locke: Individual values determine what you think of your job (they lead to job
satisfaction)
- Only values that are important to individuals lead to job satisfaction if they are not fulfilled
- What you want from the job and the degree in which you have that determine satisfaction
- Satisfaction = (want-have) x importance
- No strong relationship between wages and job satisfaction (low paid people sometimes
even higher than high paid)
3.5.Job satisfaction: antecedents - Dispositions
Personality and job satisfaction:
Everything with asterisks: high
JS and PH characteristics such as big 5 correlate highly.
4
1.ATTITUDES AND JOB SATISFACTION
1.1.Satisfaction with being an IO-psych student?
Example questionnaire items to query job attitudes.
- It is difficult to find satisfaction in work as an (IO-) psychology student
- For me, the advantage of being / becoming an (IO-) psychologist are bigger than the
disadvantages
- I sometimes regret that I will become an (IO-) psychologist
- If I would get the chance, I would do something other with my life.
- I am satisfied with my job as an (IO) psychology student.
- If I could do it all over again, I would choose to become an (IO-) psychologist again.
- (IO-) psychology gives me - compared to most other jobs - a lot of satisfaction
1.2.Summary of the determinants of job satisfaction: a framework
3 factors that determine job satisfaction
- Job Characteristics: job description
- Social information processing: eg if your colleagues have to work less / more or other
people earn more / less for the same job and how you deal with it
- Dispositions: personality characteristics eg some people hate ALL jobs, you can't help it
- Job satisfaction has certain consequences ( eg: what happens if your employees are simply
not satisfied?)
- Commitment is the core of job attitude, how committed you are to the job.
You can have job satisfaction on an individual level, on a team level,…
1
,1.3.Three components of an attitude
“They are always focused on something” You can have an attitude on a car, the weather,…
(opinion)
3 components:
- affective: emotional feeling
- objective cognitive evaluation, the rationale
- behavioural idea on how you will behave
Job satisfaction: a basic definition: A pleasant or positive emotional state resulting from an
appraisal of one’s job or job experiences (Locke)
1.4.Job satisfaction and criteria
Study where they compare attitudes with behaviour (attitudes about Asians in the US)
- They called hotels to ask if they would serve Chinese people: most said no
- A Chinese couple in hotel: in most cases served so: not a very strong relationship attitude ->
behaviour
- Sometimes attitudes predict behaviour, sometimes not! a looking at context
- For many people, their job is an important 'source' of their identity and job satisfaction is
therefore the most important attitude you can have, because you spend most of your day
on your job.
- To display this; the question "what do you do" or "what are you?" to ask for someone's job
2.Measuring job satisfaction
2.1.Kunin’s faces
Examples of a survey to measure this:
JDI (job description index) and MSQ (Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire) also have subscales
New way of data collection that is “more” reliable: = the faces scale of job satisfaction. Where
respondents must colour the box under the face that expresses “how do you feel about your job in
general, including work, pay,…” (picture in slide)
2
,3.Antecedents of job satisfaction
3.1.Job satisfaction: antecedents – Job Characteristics
How is job satisfaction determined? How can we change it?
Job characteristics: people evaluate the different aspects of the job and thus form their satisfaction
3.2.Job characteristics model (Hackman and Oldham)
People like to do a complete work cycle
have ': you are working on something complete + get feedback (?)
Some people don't even know what they are working on!
3.3.Motivating potential score (MPS) from the job diagnostic survey
Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) is a questionnaire based on the job characteristics model
MPS = (skill variety + task identity + task significance / 3) x autonomy x feedback
3
, Image: typical process: managers higher than customer service representative (manager has more
skill variety, more autonomy, ...). They are 2 exemplary profiles from the JDS
-O-NET: a description of jobs (you enter a job and you get a list of info about the work styles, work
values...) a sometimes used for research
Example items: “My job provides a lot of variety”, “My job has the ability to influence decisions that
significantly affect the organization”
3.4.Job satisfaction: antecedents – Social Information Processing
Value percept theory (Locke)
- DEF Locke: Individual values determine what you think of your job (they lead to job
satisfaction)
- Only values that are important to individuals lead to job satisfaction if they are not fulfilled
- What you want from the job and the degree in which you have that determine satisfaction
- Satisfaction = (want-have) x importance
- No strong relationship between wages and job satisfaction (low paid people sometimes
even higher than high paid)
3.5.Job satisfaction: antecedents - Dispositions
Personality and job satisfaction:
Everything with asterisks: high
JS and PH characteristics such as big 5 correlate highly.
4
