Attitude Formation And Stereotypes

Attitude Formation And Stereotypes ‘Stereotypes’, according to Hogg and Vaughan(2002:46), are impressions of people that are strongly influenced by widely shared assumptions of personality, behaviour and attitudes based on group membership for example, sex, race, ethnicity and nationality. These assumptions are a simplified evaluative image of someone or a social group and its members, mental representations influence impressions we form of a person or group and are seen as a social schema. As individuals stereotypes help us to deal with a large amount of social information we receive from a person or group of people. All this information helps us to simplify our social world to make it manageable, controllable and predictable. According to Pennington and McLoughlin (2008:184) Hogg and Vaughan (2002) have done many studies over the last 50 years and they summarise there research, the findings include; Stereotypes are quick to form and hard to change. Many stereotypes form in childhood and early teens. We show a tendency to rapidly stereotype others on the basis of a small number of traits and characteristics. Stereotypes are important as they influence impression formation, example when we first meet a person we assign them to a social group without finding any information out about them; from this we have formed a pre existing stereotype from our first impressions. Attitudes We cannot see or measure attitudes directly; the term attitude is used to represent a quite complex mental process. As individuals we continually seek to discover others attitudes, we tell others our views and try to change others opinions. According to Petty and Cacioppo (1986) say attitudes are a general evaluation we make about ourselves, others and issues, they go on to say ‘attitudes have a past, present and future; they were developed from past experience, they guide our current behaviour and can direct our development in the future’, (Pennington and McLoughlin, 2008:193). Through this defin ition it is thought attitudes strongly influence the way we behave. There are two different approaches to understanding attitudes; the structural approach and the functional approach. The structural approach (Katz 1960)- states that attitudes are an evaluation (positive or negative) of an attitude, i.e. It is expected for you to hold a positive attitude towards a close friend and you might hold a negative attitude towards a political issue, this approach is broken down into three components. (Pennington and McLoughlin 2008:193-194). Cognitive- our thoughts; Affective- our feelings and emotions; Behavioural- our behaviour The functional approach ties to understand and explains what the purpose of the attitude is for the individual; there are five different attitudes in this function. (Pennington and McLoughlin 2008:197). Adaptive function- helps achieve goal and avoids the undesirable. Self- expression- our opinion, attitudes and views. Ego- defensive function – protects self- esteem and promotes positive self image, Freudian theory. Knowledge function- helps with structure and organisation. Social adjustment function- helps manage social situation. Central traits – are pieces of information we latch onto whilst forming first impressions, these have disproportional influences over our final impressions. Primacy effect – information presented first has the strongest influence on impressions formed.

Performance management and high performance working Essay

Performance management and high performance working - Essay Example Therefore, performance is the process which adds to the effective management of individuals and teams so as to attain levels of organization performance. In addition, performance management initiates a shared understanding about what is to be attained and a vital approach to leading and improving peoples’ skills that will ensure achievement of company’ objectives (Foster, 2008). Therefore, performance management is a strategy which is related to every activity of the organization set up in the perspective of its human resources culture, policies, style and communication systems. The character of the strategy majorly relies on the organizational context and is dynamic from one organization to another. Consequently, the way in which employees are managed at work place tends to make a big difference in organizational performance (Jesuthasan, 2011). In today’s organizations, there is considerable evidence that a coherent style to manage people provides the foundation for significant gains in performance. Recently, a modern approach to manage organizations has cropped up that places employees and their skills at centre stage. This approach is referred to as high performance working. ... In addition, there should be fair treatment for individuals who leave the company as it changes and engages in the demands of the external community thus showing trust and commitment based on relationships within and outside the organization. A high performance working entails embracing greater employee involvement in order to achieve high levels of performance. The correct dimension this takes varies, however it entails activities in human personnel management for example, appraisal, workforce development, pay and incentives (Jesuthasan, 2011). It also involves work organization such as job design and team working, employment relations, management and leadership activities encompassing strategic management and business advancement as well as line management and organizational development. In high performance work places, all of these practices and policies are underpinned by a philosophy of individuals’ management that emphasizes on learning participation and autonomy. Many o rganizations have already initiated a high performance working approach and are harvesting the fruits of doing so, otherwise for those who have not; it can sometimes seem an expensive and discouraging possibility (Foster, 2008). In spite of the proven gains, the perceived difficulty of enhancing such comprehensive transformation can be a real obstacle. Skill utilization involves maximizing the contribution that individuals can make in the work place and the level of which people’s abilities have been deployed, developed and harnessed optimizes organization output capacity. Whatever takes place at work place is thus considered crucial to utilization of the available skills and this justifies why various organizations should run to achieve a high performance working (Foster, 2008).

To what extent was the First World War a catalyst for change in the Essay

To what extent was the First World War a catalyst for change in the Middle East - Essay Example Political The First World War shaped the Middle East by having its unity disbanded in a brutal manner that paved the way for the modern Middle East known to man in the present day. As such, the First World War set the stage for a series of never before witnessed events that have been in play to the current times in that there have been revolutions and reforms that have seen the Middle East become a widely divided location especially in terms of modernity and development (Iran Review 2012). Traditionally and conventionally, the borders of the Middle East were not clearly defined and two parties, mainly the chieftains, controlled them and the British coupled with the French. This was prior to the First World War, in which case the nation was largely united under a common religion and a form of belief in a single ethnicity. This was in spite of the presence of factions that were divided on religious and ethnic grounds because of the death of the Islamic prophet. In this case, there were significant revolutions in Iran and neighbouring lands of modern times where there were riots against the Iranian monarchy led by merchants in an attempt to cut back on the powers of the absolute monarchy that arbitrarily shifted its powers back and forth over the people. Prior to the First World War, the leaders who served administrative duties ceased to function due to lack of political support by the people. It was after the First World War that the monarchy received a substantial blow, which saw the monarchy weaken to the extent of having a mark on Iranian history. The culminations of the First World War set the stage for future confrontations against the governments of the time by causing massive disunity between the monarchy and the people to the extent that after the constitutional revolution, the Islamic revolution took place. Without the presence of the First World War and significant weakening of the monarchy, the Islamic revolution of 1978-1979 would not have taken place and the urban middle would not have participated to bring about change. In addition, the First World War saw the Middle East thrown into a state of turmoil or chaos following the constitutional revolution. This allowed the people to have greater control over the happenings in Iran, which was significant for the overthrowing of the then government. This was done in the early years that followed the world war through a military coup that saw Zia thrown out of power in 1923 and saw the establishment of new government after deposing the then monarchy. This set the stage for modern day Middle East, as we know it due to the rapid shift in power and the impact that other coups occurring in Europe had. This also had plenty to do with the crowning of Qajar Shah in 1921 and invasion by the Ottoman Empire, British and Russians. It is these events, of the first war, that also saw significant disunity in Iran and the open view that the government had no power whatsoever. As a result, of the Fir st World War, the stage was set for drastic change that lasts to date in that there have been significant uprisings against governments in an attempt to get improved governance and proper leadership, as well as reforms. Moreover, the First World War saw the development of numerous changes in modern times as seen in the case of the Hussein-McMahon correspondence that shows the great influence the First World War had in the Middle East. The above-mentioned correspondence saw Hussein seek