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Enjoying Your Work
Richard Brislin
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Changing deep-seated attitudes takes special tactics
People's attitudes help them to organize the incredible amounts of information to which they are exposed. If they have well-developed attitudes about what sorts of work will interest them, they can analyze information about various organizations and be much more efficient in their job searches.
If they have well-developed attitudes about food preferences, they can be selective about the advertisements they read that describe the offerings at various restaurants.
If they have well-developed attitudes about the topic, "what a good boss does," they will work hard for some of their managers and will minimize their interactions with others.
The field of attitude change has long been studied by both psychologists and communication scholars. Conclusions drawn from some of the research on change may have given the impression that attitude change is relatively easy. Researchers would measure people's attitudes. Then, they would present well-argued facts arguing a position different from people's recently assessed attitudes. They might add other factors to the communication, such as having the facts presented by a high-status individual or by a young but highly experienced person. After listening to these presentations, researchers would measure attitudes again and many people would show that they had changed.
One difficulty with these studies is that they dealt with attitudes about which people did not have strong feelings. Given that people did not care too much in the first place about the attitudes being assessed, it did not take much effort to encourage them to change their positions. Examples of topic areas studied in this research were "the importance of getting a regular tetanus booster shot," and "the music of Teddy Conklin, old time vaudeville singer." Discussions of these topics did not cause very many people to experience adrenaline rushes and to shout at others who disagreed with them. Another issue was "whether or not freshman should be able to own and park cars on their college campuses." This was not a hot topic for college students who were sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
When people have well-developed attitudes about which they have strong feelings, attitude change is very difficult. Rather than expect a 180-degree turn from their initial positions, a more realistic goal is to nudge them to examine different concepts relative to their initial attitudes.
Let's look at attitudes towards various jobs as examples. If people have a negative attitude about meeting strangers, they may avoid jobs in sales since they will have to constantly meet potential customers and clients. Attitude-change efforts will rarely result in such dramatic change that people actively seek out strangers at company receptions and at social events in their neighborhoods. A more realistic goal is to encourage people to learn techniques for becoming comfortable with meeting new people. They may accept a communication presenting arguments that this skill will likely help them in their quest for job promotions no matter what their position in a company.
Understanding the difference between strongly held and weakly held attitudes is important.
One way I think about strong attitudes is to ask and answer the questions, "What attitudes will cause people to come to public meetings, such as city council meetings? What will motivate them to leave their homes, give up their normal leisure time activities, and come to a hearing or to a demonstration?" In Hawaii, examples are fluoridation of water, limits on the number of cars that people can own, and the placement of garbage dumps. And, of course, there is that golden oldie, regulation of fireworks used by individuals. People have intense attitudes concerning these issues, and they do not change easily. I'll make a few suggestions for encouraging people to modify their firmly held positions, however slightly, in the next few columns.
See the
Columnists section for some past articles.
The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Given the amount of time people spend at work, job satisfaction should ideally be high and it should contribute to general life happiness. Enjoyment can increase as people learn more about workplace psychology, communication, and group influences.
Richard Brislin is a professor in the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii. He can be reached through the College Relations Office:
cro@cba.hawaii.edu