Motivation and Attitude  Formation & Change

Although many people view attitude change efforts as Machiavellian manipulation (and they can be), we all behave in ways that are intended to elicit desirable responses from others. The behavioral sciences examine and describe how this kind of interaction occurs and how we can use these principles more effectively in management.

Objectives:

• to know key motivational authors, theories and concepts to enable reading the literature and conversing about them
• to use motivational and attitudinal theories to analyze a situation and explore interventions

Questions for study:

• What motivates you? What leads you to do your best?
• What are methods used in your workplace to motivate others?
• What are the assumptions about people that these methods are based on?
• Think about times when motivational attempts work and when they don't. What is the difference (consider matching motivational strategy to personal motivational style)?
• Think of a motivational or attitudinal change situation in your workplace. Use a well-formed theory (such as expectancy, equity theory, cognitive dissonance, or other attitude change principles) to plan an intervention.
• How are attitude and motivation related?
• What are some of your strongest attitudes about work-related issues (e.g., fairness, job satisfaction, etc.) and how were they developed?
• Think of an attitude you have changed (or changed in others)--how did that happen?
• Think of an attitude you would like to change in others--how might you go about it?

Attitude

• Attitude(course readings on definitions, formation and change)
• Attitude Outline (key concepts and diagrams). Some of the outline is a bit cryptic--note the section on correlations of authoritarian attitude with behaviors.
• Cognitive Dissonance  --when what you get isn't what you expect
• Attitude change--source, message, channel (Soulier's outline)
• Attitude change--message, modeling, dissonance (Soulier's outline)
• Persuasion (Steve Hines course at West Virginia Univ. Interesting & readable)

Motivation

• Overview of Motivation (slideshow)
• Overview of motivational theories. (article)
• Theory X & Y and Organizational Design.
• Motivational Principles. Good summary of practical ideas
• Worker satisfaction, motivation & commitment (slideshow)
• Dump the cash, load on the praise. What works?
• Self concept model of work motivation.
• Poll of worker job satisfaction
• Diagnostic Survey for Motivating Others
• Motivation principles applied to training (Soulier outline)
• VIE/Expectancy Theory.
• OB-Mod (more to come--check CSS Library OB and Psych books til then)