Classification of Attitude in Organisational Behaviour

Classification of Attitude

Classification of Attitude

Attitudes have been classified in several ways such as positive and negative, common or personal, reciprocal etc.

Based on the existing relation between the individual of the society different categories of attitudes develop:

1. Reciprocal attitude:

   The attitude between employee and the employer, student and teacher is reciprocal. Such attitudes are designated as reciprocal ones.

2. Common attitude:

   When large number of people in the society have similar or uniform attitude towards an organisation, groups or political parties, religion etc. it is known as common attitude. If most of the people in a particular society do not like to take dowry, this is considered as a common attitude.

3. Private attitude:

   The name itself is explanatory. Such attitudes are absolutely the individual’s personal attitudes and are not shared by others. Likeness or dislikeness for a particular person comes under this category. But completely private attitudes are rarely found.

Sometimes people develop secret ambitions which are neither reciprocal nor common but private. Most individuals have secret areas of guilt and they often take elaborate pain to conceal their guilt feelings from others.

Attitudes also form a hierarchical order. Every person gives more importance to some attitudes and less to others. Attitude is also selective. The selective nature of the attitude is a function of the factors within the individual himself. This implies a functional state of readiness in relation to the stimuli in question. The psychology of attitude is highly related to the general selectivity of the whole organism.

Attitudes can also be classified in the following way into six groups:

1. Theoretical:

   Those who always desire to discover the reasons and truth behind everything come under this category. Hearing a beautiful story, a mathematician said “Beautiful, but what does it prove?” Scientists, philosophers and scholars are of this type. Their attitude is more theoretically oriented.

2. Economic:

   Guided by utility and practical value of an object economic type persons try to find out the benefit and utility of an object. Their attitude towards any object is utility oriented. They are very practicable persons. They judge people on the basis of their earning capacity. If there is a flood, they will be interested to know how it has economically affected the flood devastated areas.

3. Aesthetic:

   People having aesthetic attitudes attempt to discover the beauty of an object. It helps in fulfilment and self realization. They like to imagine beautiful things and get satisfaction out of it. If there is flood they go by the beautiful scenery or miserable scenes.

4. Social:

   Persons with social attitude judge the situation from the social standpoint. It involves love for fellowmen and self sacrifice. It is perhaps the most dignified attitude in life. Such people try to help others in distress. Gopabandhu Das was a person with social attitude.

5. Political:

   People with political attitude like to dominate and control other people. They are lovers of power. They try to control a situation by self display. Such people want to be leaders and ascent over others for the sake of power. Politicians come under this category.

6. Religious:

   The desire to explore the final secret of nature, mystic aspect of life is found among persons with a religious attitude. Such attitude is qualified by faith and belief and emotion and not coloured by reasoning. People of all other attitudes would try to examine the cause of flood with reason while people with religions attitude will say that Gods’ desire has been implemented and what God has done is for the well being of the people. They will never blame God for anything whatsoever, rather they may say that because of lots of corruption, God has become angry on people and penalized them in this way.

Important links

• Perceptual Process & its Role | Perception in O.B.
• Perception in O.B.- Meaning, Definition, Nature, Importance etc.
• Errors in Perception (Perception in Organisational behaviour)
• Attitude in Organisational Behaviour- Definition, Process of Formation
• Components of Attitudes & ABC Model of Attitude
• Attitude in Organisational Behavior- Function, Characteristics & Properties
• Techniques used to measure the Attitude

Disclaimer: wandofknowledge.com is created only for the purpose of education and knowledge. For any queries, disclaimer is requested to kindly contact us. We assure you we will do our best. We do not support piracy. If in any way it violates the law or there is any problem, please mail us on wandofknowledge539@gmail.com