Attitudes are evaluative statements—either favorable or unfavorable—about objects, people, or events. They reflect how we feel about something. When you say “I like my job,” you are expressing your attitude about your work.

Attitudes are complex. If you ask people about their attitudes toward religion, Lady Gaga, or an organization, you may get simple responses, but the underlying reasons are probably complicated. To fully understand attitudes, we must consider their fundamental properties or components.

Typically, researchers assume attitudes have three components: cognition, affect, and behavior.1 The statement “My pay is low” is a cognitive component of an attitude—a description of or belief in the way things are. It sets the stage for the more critical part of an attitude—its affective component. Affect is the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude reflected in the statement “I am angry over how little I’m paid.” Affect can lead to behavioral outcomes. The behavioral component of an attitude describes an intention to behave a certain way toward someone or something—as in, “I’m going to look for another job that pays better.”

Viewing attitudes as having three components—cognition, affect, and behavior—helps us understand their complexity and the potential relationship between attitudes and behavior. For example, imagine you just realized that someone treated you unfairly. Aren’t you likely to have feelings about this, occurring virtually instantaneously along with the realization? Thus, cognition and affect are intertwined.

Exhibit 3-1 illustrates how the three components of an attitude are related. In this example, an employee didn’t get a promotion he thought he deserved. His attitude toward his supervisor is illustrated as follows: The employee thought he deserved the promotion (cognition); he strongly dislikes his supervisor (affect); and he has complained and taken action (behavior). Although we often think cognition causes affect, which then causes behavior, in reality these components are difficult to separate.

In organizations, attitudes are important for their behavioral component. If workers believe, for example, that managers, auditors, and engineers are in a conspiracy to make employees work harder for less money, we should try to understand how this attitude formed, how it impacts job behavior, and how it might be changed.