Individual Dimensions of Organizational Behaviour Part 1

UNIT 2
Individual Determinants of
-I
MR.T.SOMASUNDARAM
ASST. PROFESSOR, DEPT OF MANAGEMENT
KRISTU JAYANTI COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS)
Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I BENGALURU 1
UNIT 2: INDIVIDUAL DETERMINANTS
OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR - I
Personality: Meaning; Determinants of
personality: Biological, Cultural,
Family and Social and Situational
factors; Personality attributes
influencing OB; Attitude: Meaning;
characteristics, components, attitude
and behaviour; attitude formation;
measurement of attitudes.
Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 2
Meaning: PERSONALITY
Personality of an individual affects human behaviour.
Personality varies from people to people.
To some personality means charm (delight) dress &
attractiveness, to others, it means a mode of response of life
situations.
Personality refers to the concept of growth & development
of a person whole psychological system.

Definition:
“Personality refers to set of traits and behaviours that
characterize an individual.”
“Personality is defined as how a person understands,
how affects others, views himself, his pattern of inner &
outer measurable traits.”
“Personality may be understood as the characteristics
patterns of behaviour & modes of thinking that determined
a person’s adjustment to the environment.”
“Personality is the qualities that make someone
interesting or popular
(i.e.) celebrity, famous person, etc.
(body structure, skin colour, air style, etc.
“Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual
REACTS and INTERACTS with others.” 4
Types of personality:
- there are so many personalities based on aggregate of trait
(i.e.) characteristics of a person are called personality.
- personality differs in traits.
There are certain personality traits like -
Less intelligent Vs more intelligent.
Affected by feelings Vs emotionally stable.
Serious Vs happy.
Practical Vs imaginative.
Group dependent Vs self sufficient.
Uncontrolled Vs controlled.
Relaxed Vs tensed.
Submissive (very obedient) Vs dominant.
Reserved Vs outgoing (friendly confident). 5
DIFFERENT PERSONALITIES (FACE
EXPRESSION)

VARIOUS PERSONALITIES
Field Personalities
Business
Scientists
Social
Reformers

VARIOUS PERSONALITIES
Field Personalities
Sports
Film
celebrities
Religious
thinkers

CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSONALITY
1. Endomorph (fleshy) - friendly, people oriented, ask for others
when in trouble, slow to react, do not take things very
seriously, closed type, do not share secrets, get angry soon,
talk softly, be on time, enjoy with others, over confident, do
not get confused, think & talk, do not get tensed, loves to
eat.
2. Ectomorph (thin) - likes privacy, quick to react, unable to
act in a relaxed & natural way, upset, share secrets on time,
take things very seriously, talk loudly, do not follow time,
less confident, get confused always, do not spend time to
enjoy, get tensed often, do not think much when reacting,
get much body pain.
3. Mesomorph (muscular body) - enjoys exercise, aggressive,
violent behaviour & attitudes, risk taker, competition
oriented. 9
TYPES OF PERSONALITY
The following are the main personality types -
1. Introvert:
- person with introvert are primarily oriented to the
subjective (dependent) world.
- such people look inward & experience & process their
thoughts & ideas within themselves.
- they avoid social contacts & initiating interaction with
other group mates.
- people who are introverts are quite but they may interact
only with a few persons who are close to them.
- Such people can be successful in assignments where there
is very little or no scope for interaction with others (i.e.)
research activities. 10
- people with introvert personality are found more inclined
(down) to excel at tasks that required thought & analytical
skill.
- have trouble remembering in name & faces.
- like to think a lot before they act, work alone, quite & shy.
- have some problems communicating.
2. Extrovert:
- extroverts are just contrary (opposite) to introverts.
- extroverts are those who mingle freely with everyone &
want to be in the company of a group.
- such people can be successful in assignments where there
is greater scope for interaction.
- extroverts are friendly, sociable, lively, aggressive &
expressing their feelings & ideas openly.
- they are more suitable for the position that requires
interaction with others.
- tend to work faster, dislike complicated procedure.
3. Type A:
- Type A people are characterized by hard working, highly
achievement oriented, impatient, have sense of time urgency,
aggressive etc.
- such people tend to be very productive & work very hard &
fast & are always achievement oriented.
- being impatient & aggressive, such people are more prone to
heart attack.
- struggle to achieve more & more in less time (aggressive
involvement will be there).
- feel impatient (dislike waiting), cannot relax (hurry) Does
not have time to relax & enjoy life. 12
- those persons who are classified as Type A have a strong
desire & tendency to control all aspects of the situation & if
they are unable to control a situation, they react with anger &
frustration.
- in the case of negative outcomes, they blame themselves
more than the external factors.
- research has indicated that such patterns of behaviour as
exhibited by Type A personality profile, leads to health
problems, specially heart related illness.
4. Type B:
- such people do better on tasks involving judgments,
accuracy, rather than speed & team work.
- easy going, sociable, free from urgency of time, non
competitive are the characteristics of type B personalities.
- Type B is relaxed & easy going. 13
- don’t discuss achievements, play for fun & can relax.
- never suffer sense of time.
- research has indicated that Type B persons may be hard
working but feel no pressing conflict with people or time &
hence are not prone to stress & problems.
5. Judging:
- people with judging personality type like to follow a plan,
make decision & need only that what is essential for their
work.
- work best, when they can plan work & follow the plan.
- like to get things settled & may decide things too quickly.
- tend to be satisfied once they reach a judgment on a thing
or situation or persons.
6. Perceptive:
- they are the people who adapt to change, want to
know all about a job, & at times may get over
committed.
- do not mind leaving things open.
- may have trouble making decisions.
- may start too many projects & have difficulty in
finishing them.
- want to know all about their work.
- tend to be curious (eager to know something) &
welcome new information

FACTORS INFLUENCING PERSONALITY
Some of the personality factors influences behaviour are –
1. Communication skills:
- people having good communication may show interest in
jobs that offer scope to talk.
- those who are not so good in their communication ability
may have to settle mostly for paper work.
- those with good communication skill will have self
confidence.
2. Inquisitiveness: (People who are always eager to learn)
- they show keen interest in every matter & in particular that
concerning their work.
- they are prepared to spare any amount of time & effort to
learn.
3. Tolerance:
- only people who have tolerance (should have patience or allow
something to happen) can be successful in such jobs. (Sales
representation & public relation officer)
- people who are intolerant (behave differently or unwilling to
accept ideas) may quarrel (an angry argument) frequently with
others.
4. Self-esteem: (I like myself)
- an individual liking or disliking one self’s is called self-esteem.
- the extent to which a person considers himself to be capable &
important is what is known as self esteem.
- an individual with a high level of self esteem may not be
interested in routine (regular) & mundane (dull) jobs.
- such a person will only be interested in more interesting &
challenging assignments.
- individuals with high self esteem are found more satisfied
with their jobs than those with low self esteem.
- people with low self esteem they depend on the receipt of
positive evaluation from others. (what ever they do it should
be accepted by others)
* Low self esteem – Susceptible (easily influenced by feelings
or emotions) to change.
* High self esteem – Success, risk taking, Job satisfaction.
5. Desire for domination:
- some people always have the desire to dominate.
- they have the capacity to lead others. Such a quality is
essential for executives.
- a person with a desire for domination wants others to
accept his views.
PERSONALITY THEORIES
Behavioural science experts have developed different theories
on the concept of personality:
1. Type Theory:
The type theory classifies personalities based on -
a) Body build/ structure:
- psychologists have explained the concept of personality
based on the body structure of individuals.
- people who are short & hefty (large, heavy & powerful)
are considered to be sociable, relaxed & even tempered
(angry mood).
- tall & thin person are likely to be self conscious (nervous
or worried about what others think of you) & restrained
(self controlled behaviour). 19
- those with heavy set muscular body build are noisy &
insensitive (showing no concern for others feelings or not
appreciating others) & are fond of physical activity (things that
can be seen, heard, or touched).
b) Psychological factors:
- accordingly personalities are classified into introverts &
extroverts.
- the type theory provides a simple approach to understand the
concept of personality.
2. Trait theory:
- it explains the characteristics of a person in which he/ she
differ from another.
- human characteristics include shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy,
ambitious (so difficult to achieve), loyal, timid (lacking courage
or confidence) etc.
- it can be described as individual variables.
Trait theory is based on the following three assumptions
i) Trait is common to many individuals.
ii) Traits are relatively stable.
iii) Traits can be inferred (evidence) by his/ her behavioral
indicators.
3. Psychological theory:
- psychological theory is yet another type of personality.
- the theory is based on the assumption that human
behaviour is influenced more by unconscious forces (doing
things without realizing) rather than conscious & rational
thoughts (able to think & reason).

The unconscious frame work consists of three elements -
a) ID:
- it is unconscious (doing things without realizing) part of
human personality.
- it refers to an individual impulse (acting without thinking
ahead) or drive.
- it is animalistic (behaviour of animals), unorganized & is
present in the individual throughout his life.
- it forces the individual to satisfy certain urges (encourage to
move more quickly), particular thirst, hunger (cannot control).
(e.g.) A person who is starving may even resort to stealing to
satisfy his hunger.
ID does not understand & obeys no law, rules & therefore it
may sometimes be dangerous to the individual & to the society
as well. 22
b) EGO:
- it is conscious (aware of something & responding to it) part of
human personality.
- while ID forces a person to satisfy certain urges at once, ego
makes him to understand reality (a thing that is actually
experienced or exists).
(e.g.) The ego can best be described as controlling ID through
realities.
A starving man cannot control or satisfy his hunger simply by
eating images, but really having food. Thus here lies the role of
ego.
- it prevents him from doing anything for the sake of satisfying
his urge (a strong desire).
- ego disciplines a person in the process of satisfying his needs
& desire by telling him that there is an appropriate time & place
for everything. 23
c) SUPER EGO:
- it denotes a system of norms, values & ethics that guide &
govern a person to behave properly.
- it guides the individual in knowing whether his actions are
with the norms of the society.
- it can be described as conscience (a person’s sense of right
or wrong).
- it determines what is wrong or right at a given time in
given situation / society.
- it judges whether an action / behaviour is right or wrong as
per the norms & standards of the society.
“When super ego combines with ego control ID fully”

4. Social learning theory:
- a person acquires certain behaviour or modifies his
behaviour by learning.
- he learns to behave by observing the actions of others.
- the behaviour of an individual is influenced by the
situation.
- a person may sometimes develop a situation to behave in a
particular manner.
Learning occurs through two ways –
a) Reinforcement:
- any thing done to strengthen or support behaviour.
b) Observing.

5. Self theory:
- it is based on what a person says about himself.
a) Self image: (how one sees oneself)
- by nature, every person has certain beliefs about what or
who he/she is.
b) Ideal-self: (what one would like to be or look like)
- it stands more important to motivate an individual to
behave in a particular manner.
c) Looking glass- self: (perception of a person about how
others are perceiving his qualities)
- it refers to how others are perceiving the individual.
- it means the way an individual thinks how people perceive
about him & not the way actually see him.
d) Real- self: (what one actually is)
- the first three self concepts relate to an
individual’s perception about himself/herself.
They may be same or differ from the real-
self.
- people perceive the same situation differently
depending upon their conception of the
situation. This influences them to behave
differently.
- it plays a significant role in reacting /
behaving in a particular manner.
DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY

1. Heredity:
“Heredity refers to those factors that were determined
at conception.”
- it refers to biological factors and transmission of qualities
from parents to children.
- physical structure, temperament, attractiveness, biological
rhythms are considered to be import from one parent’s.
- it explains individual personality is molecular structure of
genes located in chromosomes.
- it is still an unsettled area of understanding, because
geneticists face major obstacle in gathering information
scientifically on human being.
- physical and psychological characteristics can be
transmitted through heredity.
The following classification of characteristics is said to be
inherited by all humans:
i) Physical structure (how tall or short one, long or short
nose, large or small feet, etc).
ii) Reflexes (response from external stimuli like blinking
when something falls in the eye).
iii) Innate drivers (impulses to act based on physiological
tensions, but linked through learning with activities which
reduce tensions).
iv) Intelligence (the capacity to learn, to modify responses).
v) Temperament (patterned and recurrent responses associated
with basic emotional make up, (i.e.) excitable or lethargic.

2. Environment:
- it includes factors as culture which influences norms,
attitudes and values that passed from one generation to next
and create consistencies over time.
- culture plays important role in development of human
personality.
- child learn to behave in expected way by culture of family
where he or she born.
- culture expects different behaviours from male and female
and show predictable differences based on difference in
gender.
- every culture has its own sub cultures, own views, moral
values and standards, style of dress.
- individual (boy or girl) expected to behave differently
based on urban and semi urban class. 31
Culture has significance influence on personality development
and linear relationship can’t be established between
personality and culture for two reasons:
i) Cultural impacts on individual are not uniform, because
they transmitted by certain people – parents and others who
are not at all alike in their value and practices.
ii) Individual has some experiences that are unique.
iii) Each individual reacts in own way to social pressures,
difference in behaviour caused by biological factors.
3. Family:
- it influences on personality development, particularly in
early stages.
- it plays important role in identification process for
individual’s early development.
The process can be examined from three different
perspectives:
i) Identification can be viewed as the similarity of the
behaviour (including feelings) between child and model.
ii) Identification can be looked upon as the child’s motive or
desire to be like the model.
iii) Identification can be viewed as the process through which
the child actually takes on attributes of model.
- overall home environment created by parents with direct
influence is critical to personality development.
- siblings (brothers and sisters) also contribute to personality
development and it has psychological variable which
represents social experience on adolescences and adulthood.
- it is argued that those born first are more susceptible to
social pressures, more dependent than those born later 33
4. Socialization process:
- the other relevant persons, groups and organization
exercise their due role in personality development.
- it is relevant to organizational behaviour because the
process is not confined to early childhood, but takes place
throughout one’s life.
- socialization is one of the best explanations of why
employees behave the way they do in today’s organization.
- it involves the process by which a person acquires from
wide range of behavioural potentialities, starting at birth,
acceptable at standards, social group and employing
organizations.
- it starts with initial content between mother and her infant,
other members of immediate family (father, sister, brothers),
followed by social groups (peers, friends, members). 34
5. Situational considerations:
- personality incorporates based on need of power and
achievement.
- with highly bureaucratized work situation, individual may
be frustrated and behave aggressive.
- sometimes situations influences individual personality.
- classification of personality is due to impact of various
types of situations.
- certain situations are more relevant to influence personality
and it seems to differ in constraints.
(E.g.) Behaviour or personality changes in different
situations like when person in temple or church, interview,
public park, etc.

‘BIG FIVE’ PERSONALITY TRAITS
(PERSONALITY STRUCTURE)
Conscientiousness
Extroversion Agreeableness
Emotional Openness to
stability Experience
The following 5 basic personality variables/ dimensions
1. Extraversion: Who is sociable, outgoing, talkative &
assertive (confident).
2. Agreeableness: One who is good natured, cooperative, soft
hearted & trusting.
3. Conscientiousness: A person who is responsible,
dependable, persistent (work continuously) & achievement
oriented.
4. Emotional stability: Someone characterized by calm,
nervous, enthusiastic, worried, depressed (unhappy) &
insecure.
5. Openness to experience: A person who is imaginative,
curious, broad minded, artistically
sensitive & intellectual (think & understand things).
MAJOR PERSONALITY
ATTRIBUTES INFLUENCING OB
Achievement
Authoritarianism Orientation
Locus Self - Esteem

of Control
Other Key
Risk taking
Machiavellian Personality
Personality Attributes
Self
Monitoring
Introversion – Type A and Type B

Extroversion Personality
1. Authoritarianism:
- it is the concept developed to measure susceptibility to
autocratic, anti – democratic, etc.
- it has been extended to authoritarian personality, and
describe individual who has strong belief in legitimacy of
formal authority.
- it is tend to be rigid in their positions, high moral value on
beliefs and strongly oriented towards rules and regulations.
- it is likely to prefer autocratic or directive leadership and
exhibit high respect for individuals in positions of authority.
2. Locus of Control:
- it refers to an individual’s belief that events are either with
in one’s control (internal locus of control) or beyond one’s
control (external locus of control).
a) Internal locus of control
control::
- belief that one controls key events and consequences in
one’s life.
- those who have internal locus of control believe that they
are masters of their own fate.
- internals are most likely to quit a dissatisfying job.
- they take own judgment. They cannot be easily
influenced.
- internals have more job satisfaction than externals.
- internals are less absent than externals.
- internals are more health conscious than externals.
- job involvement is more with internals.
- overall performance is more for internal.
b) External locus of control
control::
- one’s life outcomes attributed to environmental factors
such as luck or fate. 40
- those who have external locus of control believe that what
happens to them in their lives is due to luck or factors beyond
their control.
- external are less satisfied with their job.
- have higher absenteeism than internals.
3. Machiavellianism: (underhand or skilful, clever)
- it refers to individual’s propensity to manipulate people.
- it would be prone to participate in organizational politics.
Some of its characteristics are –
* Pragmatic.
* Maintains emotional distance.
* Believes that ends can justify the means.
* Manipulate more . * Win more.
* Persuaded less.
* Persuade others more. 41
4. Introversion and Extroversion:
- this is normally associated with an individual’s
sociability and interpersonal orientation.
- extroverts are gregarious and sociable individuals
while introverts are shy, quiet and retiring.
- both introverts and extroverts significantly
different career orientations and require different
organizational environments to maximize
performance.
- extroverts are more suitable for positions that
require considerable interaction with others, whereas
introverts are more inclined to excel at tasks that
require thought and analytical skills.
5. Achievement Orientation:
- it varies among people and can be used to predict certain
behaviours.
- employees with high need to achieve, strive to do things
better.
- everyone want to overcome obstacles and feel their success
or failure due to own actions.
- high achievers propensity for tasks where outcome can be
directly attributed to his efforts.
- high achievers will perform better where there is moderate
difficulty, rapid performance feedback, direct relationship
between effort and reward.

6.Self – Esteem:
- the degree to which a person likes or dislikes himself.
- they believe that they possess the ability they need to
succeed at work.
- and more likely to choose unconventional jobs than
people with low self esteem.
- it is directly related to expectations for success.
It has two types –
a) High self esteem – they have abilities to undertake
challenging job.
- they are more satisfied with their jobs.
b) Low self esteem – dependent on receipt of positive
evaluation from others.
7. Risk – taking:
- people differ in their willingness to take chances.
- to avoid risk, it show impact on how long it takes managers
to make decision and how much information required to
make choice.
8. Self – Monitoring:
- it refers to an individual’s ability to adjust his or her
behaviour to external factors.
- individuals with self monitoring can adjust their behaviour
according to external, situational factors.
* High self monitors – capable of presenting striking
contradictions between public, personal and private.
- pay closer attention to behaviour of others.
* Low self monitors – can’t deviate their behaviour 45
9. Type A and Type B Personality:
• Type ‘A’ • Type ‘B’

– Suffer high level of – Difficult to predict
stress behavior
– Quantity over quality – Good decision makers
– Time – Quality of work
pressure/deadlines – No compromise on
– Rarely creative health
– Poor decision makers – Wiser than hasty
– Behavior is easier to – Creative / innovative
predict solutions to same
problem

HOW PERSONALITY DEVELOPS?
The process of personality development at different stages of
a person’s life has been explained by many psychologists.
Important among them are -
1. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator:
Extroversion Introversion
E
Interest Orientation
Talkative, Shy,
I
Sociable, Reserved,
Friendly, Quite,
Outspoken 47
Sensing Intuition
S Information N
Prefer to interpret
Organized, Focus
Detail Require from less
more information information, Able
to take foresee.
Thinking Feeling
T Decision
F
Priorities based on
Reliability of
personal importance
logical order –
and values, First look at
cause and effect,
the people and special
Logic and
circumstances
consistency 48
2. Freudian approach to personality development
STAGE AGE HAPPENINGS
1 ORAL Up to 1 year Biological desires fulfilled by thumb sucking,

biting etc.
(this stage covers the first year of one’s life).
2 ANAL 1 to 3 years Stimulation by regulating bowel movements.
(the parents give toilet training to the child, mother
advices her child for having regular bowel movements )
3 PHALLIC 3 to 4 years Examining & fondling sex organs result in stimulation.
(see’s difference in his brother’s & sister’s or other
children's, examining, enjoying in discussing matters of
birth & sex).
4 LATENCY 4 to 6 years Social needs get priority.
to
adolescence (playing & talking with friends).
5 GENITAL Adolescence Revival of sexual desires.

to (interest, love & attraction with opposite sex
adulthood increases,).
3. Erikson’s approach to personality development
STAGE AGE GROUP POSITIVE EFFECT NEGATIVE EFFECT
1 Infancy Birth of 1 Trust Mistrust

year (if receives love & (if not receives love &
affection & if well taken affection & care
care develops) develops)
2 Early 1 to 3 years Autonomy Doubt & shame
childhood (get the approval from the (if not getting the
parents & others) approval from the
parents & others)
3 Play age 4 to 5 years Initiative Guilty

(if he is encouraged to (if he is discouraged &
attain certain goals) made to feel incapable)
4 School age 6 to 12 years Enterprising Inferior

(act before others do) (lower in status or
quality)
STAGE AGE POSITIVE EFFECT NEGATIVE EFFECT
GROUP
5 Adolescenc Teenage Self identify Confusion
e 13 to 19 (try to gain a sense of
years identity for them in the
society)
6 Early 20 plus Intimacy Isolation
adulthood (close & friendly (single or alone)
relationship with opposite
sex)
7 Middle 40 plus Generativity Stagnation
adulthood (give parental care & (unable to look beyond
guidance to next himself)
generation)
8 Late Old age Integrity Despair
adulthood (fully satisfied & does not (sees no meaning in
have fear of death) life, lack faith, fears
death & no hope)
PERSONALITY AND OB
Understanding personalities is important because individual
personality affects behaviour, perception and attitude.
Personality profiles used to categorize people as means of
predicting job performance.
Personality tests in organization ensure a proper match
between job and worker.
It is need to understand human characteristics, which is
more significant more than personality in organization.
Astrology, philosophy and life sciences are few which
directs to understand human nature.
In today’s world, problems like over population, pollution,
etc brought changes in behaviour of people.
Nature of Attitude:
Attitudes are learned.
Attitudes refer to feelings and beliefs of an individual about
his job.
Attitudes endure, unless something happens.
Attitude can fall anywhere along a continuum for favourable
and unfavourable conditions.
Attitudes are organized and are core to an individual.
All people, irrespective of their status or intelligence, hold
attitudes.
Definition:
“An attitude is mental state of
readiness, learned and organized through
experience, exerting a specific influence on
person’s response to people, object and
situations with which it is related.”
“Attitude is the tendency to feel and
behave in a favourable or unfavourable way
towards some object, person or idea.”
“Attitudes are learned predispositions
towards aspects of our environment. They
may be positively or negatively directed
towards certain
Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I
people, service or
54
institutions.”
Characteristics of attitudes:
1. All individuals hold attitudes.
2. Attitudes are related to the feelings beliefs of
people.
3. Attitudes respond to persons, objects or events.
4. Attitudes influence behaviour.
5. Attitudes undergo changes.
6. Attitudes may be positive or negative.
7. Attitudes are acquired through learning.
8. Attitudes are intangible in nature. (i.e.) they cannot
be directly observed.
How attitude in built with every person or individual?
(E.g.) Ice - berg
Known to Skills &

others Knowledge

Known to Skills & Knowledge
others
Attitude
Unknown
to others

Value of Attitude in terms alphabets value:

Benefits of Attitude:
Some of the important benefits are –
Increases productivity.
Fosters teamwork.
Makes for a pleasing personality.
Improves quality.
Makes for congenial (pleasant to spend time based on
interest and character) atmosphere.
Breeds loyalty.
Increases profits.
Fosters better relationships with employees, employers and
customers.
Reduce stress and Solves problems.
TYPES OF ATTITUDES (OR)
WORK RELATED ATTITUDES
Types of attitudes (or) work related attitudes:
A person may have different attitudes on a wide variety
of subjects, it is only the work- related attitudes that are
important when it's comes to studying OB.
Job - related attitudes are of three types –
a) Job Satisfaction:
- a person has job satisfaction if he likes his job.
- such a person obviously has positive job attitudes.
- it is difficult to identify the particular factor that gives
a person job satisfaction.
Some of the factors influence jobs satisfaction are
1. Pay.
2. Nature of work.
3. Decision making authority.
4. Scope for initiative.
5. Opportunities (promotion).
6. Inter - personal relationship.
7. Supervision.
b) Job Involvement:
- the extent to which a person is able to identify himself with his
job is what is called jobs involvement.
- it is the degree to which employees immerse themselves in their
jobs, invest time and energy in them and consider work as a
control part of their overall lives. 61
- employees with a high level of job involvement strongly
identify with their jobs and take utmost care about the kind
of job they do.
A person usually has job involvement if he
- is regular for work.
- strives to attain his target.
- is able to be innovative.
- does not waste resource of the organization.
- does not complain unnecessarily about his superiors and
fellow workmen.
c) Organizational Commitment:
- an employee has organizational commitment if he is able
to identify himself with his organization.
- it is a process through which employees identify
with the organization and want to maintain
membership in the organization.
- it is something more than job involvement where
the individual identifies himself only with his job.
The important indicators of job commitment are
i) Low rate of absenteeism.
ii) Low rate of labour turn over.
iii) Low rate of complaints and grievance.
iv) Avoidance of strike and lock out etc…

COMPONENTS OF ATTITUDES
* Affective – feelings, sentiments, moods and
emotions about some idea, person, event or object.
* Cognitive – beliefs, opinion, knowledge or
information held by individual.
* Behavioural component –
predispositions to get on
a favourable or Affective Cognitive
unfavourable
evaluation. Attitude
Behaviour
ABC MODEL (COMPONENTS)
(E.g.) The three Components of attitude called ABC Model related
to work environment factors like cognitive (thoughts), affective
(emotional) and behavioural responses.
Managerial Style
STIMULI
Work related factors Technology
Noise & Peers
Reward system My supervisor is
Career opportunities unfair
Having a fair
Cognition Beliefs and Values supervisor is
important to me
Affect Feelings & Emotions I don’t like my

supervisor
Behaviour Intended behaviour I am going to request
Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I a transfer 65
FUNCTION OF ATTITUDES
1. Adjustment Function:
- it help people adjust to their work environment.
- employees develop a positive or negative attitude towards
firm and management if they treated well or poorly manner.
- it help employees adjust to their environment and basis for
future behaviour.
2. Ego-defensive Function:
- people often form and maintain certain attitudes to protect
their own self – images.
- threatened workers may develop prejudices against the
new workers.
- this develop an attitude that newcomers are less qualified
and they might mistreat these workers. 66
- it may aroused by internal and external threats, by frustrating
experiences and by suggestions or directives from an
authoritarian source.
- ego defensive attitudes are difficult to change because of
misdirected nature of impulses association with them.
3. Expressive Function: It has three main aspects –
i) It helps express the individual’s central values and self –
identity. (E.g.) Consumers express their values in products
when they buy.
ii) The expressive function also helps individuals define their self
– concept and facilitates adoption of sub – culture values
considered important. (E.g.) Teenagers may dress and behave
in certain way in order to foster their status in group.
iii) It helps individual adopt and internalize the values of a group
they have recently joined, they are better able to relate to the
group. Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 67
4. Knowledge Function:
- it need maintain a stable, organized and meaningful
structure of their world in order to prevent chaos. (lack of
order).
- it provides standards or frames of reference by which
individual judges objectives or events and attitude provide
consistency in our thinking are particularly relevant.
(E.g.) this attitude is observed more in consumer behaviour.
- it prefer a particular brand of car, they don’t have to re-
examine their values, habit, and lifestyle that decision to
buy.
- existing attitudes are inadequate to resolve issues, the
acquisition of new knowledge could bring changed attitude.

Why do managers need to know about these attitude
functions?
Such knowledge can serve two purposes –
i) It helps us understand and predict how a certain person is
likely to behave. (E.g.) if a person is ‘prejudiced’ against
another, he is less likely to be fair in judging the other
person. This knowledge helps manager to see why the
person has developed such an attitude.
ii) It can help manager to change the attitude of another
person by changing the conditions that sustain the attitude.
(E.g.) he can change people with low self – images by helping
them increase their ability to solve their problems or
providing them with positive feedback.

FORMATION OF ATTITUDES
Factors influencing formation of attitudes:
Experience
with the object
Mass Classical
Communication Conditioning
Economic Attitudes Operant

Status Conditioning
Vicarious
Neighbourhood
Learning
Family and
Peer groups
1. Direct Experience with the object:
- attitudes can develop from a personally rewarding or
punishing experience with an object.
- employees from attitudes about jobs on their previous
experiences.
(E.g.) if a person has been promoted within 6 months, current
job holders likely to believe that they will also be promoted
within 6 months.
- attitudes formed on experience are difficult to change.
2. Classical conditioning and Attitudes:
- people develop associations between various objects and
emotional reactions that accompany them.
- positive associations can develop through classical
conditioning and hold positive attitude.
3. Operant Conditioning and Attitude Acquisition:
- attitudes that are reinforced, either verbally or non –
verbally, tend to be maintained.
- a person who states an attitude that elicits ridicule from
others may modify or abandon the attitude.
4. Vicarious learning:
- it refers to formation of attitudes by observing behaviour
of others and consequences of that behaviour.
- through this learning only, children pick up the prejudices
of their parents.
(E.g.) if child met a blind person, parents says that “blind
people are incompetent” may adopt such attitude
themselves.
- this is learnt through television, films and other media.
5. Family and Peer groups:
- person may learn attitude through imitation of parents, if
parents have positive attitude towards an object and children
likely to adopt similar attitude.
- attitude towards gender, religion, tolerance, education,
occupations and almost all other areas where attitude are
capable of expression.
- attitudes are acquired from peer groups in colleges and
organizations.
6. Neighbourhood:
- it has certain structure in terms of having culture facilities,
religious grouping and ethnic differences.
- it has people who are neighbours-adults, children –
tolerate, or deny certain behaviour and attitudes.
7. Economic Status and Occupations:
- it also contribute to attitude formation.
- it determine attitude towards unions and management and our
belief that certain laws are ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
- it influences present and future attitudes.
8. Mass Communication:
- all mass communication like televisions, radio, newspapers and
magazines feed large quantities of information.
- presentation of news or information cater to the attitude of
audience.
- it selects the specific form of mass communication that reflects
its attitudes on various subjects.
- the item of interest includes gender, crime, teenagers, religion,
etc.
- it plays important role in one’s life, personal and professional.7 4
Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I
CHANGING ATTITUDES
Employee attitudes is changed because of –
i) Escalation of commitment:
- the prior commitment of people to a particular cause and
their unwillingness to change.
ii) Cognitive Dissonance:
- it describe a state of inconsistency between an individual’s
attitude and behaviour.
- it is experienced by people feeling cognitive dissonance
leads to efforts to reduce the tension by –
a) changing the attitudes.
b) changing the behaviour.
c) rationalizing the inconsistency.
iii) Insufficient Information:
- there is no reason why people change their attitudes.
- sometimes boss may not like subordinates negative attitude,
but latter quite pleased with his behaviour.
- subordinate doesn’t change negative attitude unless boss
show why negative attitude is detrimental to career progress
or salary increases.
Ways of Changing:
1. Changing one’s own attitudes: The following will help
individual to change his or her attitude.
a) Be aware of one’s attitude – people who are optimistic have
higher levels of job satisfaction and need to maintain positive
attitudes consciously.
b) Think for self – individual develop his own attitude based on
other’s input. 76
c) Realize that there are few, if any, benefits from harbouring
negative attitudes.
d) Keep an open mind – individual should listen to other
people’s input and use it to develop positive attitudes.
e) Get into continuous education programme.
f) Build a positive self esteem.
g) Stay away from negative influences like smoking, alcohol,
drugs and negative movies, etc.
2. Changing Attitudes of Employees: The following hints can
help manager to change attitudes of his employees.
a) Give feedback – employees to be told about their negative
attitudes which is harmful and manager need to offer
alternative attitudes.
b) Positive role model – if manager has positive attitude,
employees also have similar attitudes. 77
c) Accentuated positive conditions – employees tend to
develop positive attitude towards the work they do and
manager should make sure about working conditions and
resources.
d) Providing new information – new information will help
change attitudes.
- negative attitudes formed due to lack or insufficient
information.
- they change their attitude, once they came to know about
the management cares and welfare.
e) Use of fear – fear can change attitude and it depends on
degree of fear.
- level of fear make the people to reject and ignore things
and will change their attitudes.
f) Influence of friends or peers – change of attitude
can come through persuasion of friends or peers.
- peers with high credibility shall practice influence
on change, but the same is not with peers with low
credibility.
g) The co-opting approach – it means taking people
who are dissatisfied with a situation and getting
them involved in improving things.
h) Others – individual is more likely to change a
privately held attitude than one he has stated
publicly.
- it is avoided where the individual makes his
attitudes public prior to the change attempt. 79
MEASUREMENT OF ATTITUDES
The attitude of a person towards his job or
organization or anything cannot be directly
measured.
Unlike production, sales etc that can be
quantitatively measured, in the case of a study of
attitudes measurement is not possible.
We have studied that attitudes affect behavior.
Changes in attitudes make behavior unpredictable
(able to be changed).
One way to know the attitude dimension (feature) is
attitude measurement.
The most common ways of measurement of attitude include
are –
1. Rating Scale:
- this is most common approach for measuring job
satisfaction is use of rating scales.
* Tailor-made scales – which are constructed for a particular
setting or a project. (frequently used in practice)
* Standardized scales – before their use, have been developed
to establish group norms and ensure reliability and validity
of measuring instruments.
- the popular standardized scales is Job Descriptive Index
(JDI) developed by Smith, Kendall and Hulin.
- it is used with large scale variety of employee samples and
norms provided for employees according to their age, sex,
education, income and type of community. 81
(E.g.) Job Descriptive Index – ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ Question.
Satisfaction Questionnaire like Very Dissatisfied, Dissatisfied,
Neither or Nor, Satisfied, Very Satisfied.
2. Critical Incidents:
- this approach is used of measuring job satisfaction
developed by Herzberg based on two factor theory of
motivation.
- it describes incidents on their job when they are satisfied or
dissatisfied.
- the content analyzed determined related to positive and
negative attitudes.
3. Interviews:
- this is another method of measurement of satisfaction.
- employees are interviewed individually and their response
reveal satisfaction or dissatisfaction. 82
4. Action Tendencies:
- these represent inclinations people have to avoid or
approach certain things.
- by gathering information about how they feel like acting
with respect to their jobs, job satisfaction can be measured.
(E.g.)
Do you often feel like going to lunch at work sooner than
you do?
Do you feel like taking coffee break more often than you
should?
Are you sometimes reluctant to leave your job on evenings
or weekends?
Do you ever wake up at night with the urge to go to work
right then and there?
5. Self- report:
- it is usually elicits (draw) responses from employees through
questionnaires dealing with their feelings about their work &
related matters.
- it is carried out through the use of surveys.
- survey contains a set of statements or questions to be
answered by the employees.
- a number of statements are then prepared in a questionnaire
form.
Some of these statements may be positive -
(E.g.) I am very happy with my job.
Some others may be negative -
(E.g.) I am not able to get along with my boss.
Rensis Likert has developed a scaling technique for measuring
84
attitudes that is named after him.
According to this approach, the respondent will have 5 options to a
given statement as indicated below.
a) Strongly agree
b) Agree
c) Undecided
d) Disagree
e) Strongly disagree
If the respondents selects the opinion strongly agree for a
positive statement, he gets a score of 5.
On the other hand if he selects the same strongly agree for a
negative statement he gets a score of 1.
Similarly the option strongly disagree selected by him for a
positive statement would get him a score of 1.
While the same strongly disagree option selected by him for a
negative statement would get him a score of 5.
Use of Existing Information – two methods of assessing
employees feelings can be done by daily contacts and
existing information.
- managers in contact with employees through constant
interaction and communication.
- collection of information or reports will indicate the
degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Satisfaction and Managerial Implication – job satisfaction
has behavioural implications like absenteeism, turnover, etc.
Manager must be clear that –
i) Employee dissatisfaction is lost frequently caused by what is
perceived to be low pay and boring work.
ii) Employees dissatisfaction is largely influenced by their
feelings of inequity.
iii) Individual satisfaction or dissatisfaction is more important,
than overall satisfaction or dissatisfaction of employees.
iv) Job satisfaction has impact on employee turnover, absenteeism.
v) Satisfaction survey can prove to be invaluable and it assess the
degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Responses to Job Dissatisfaction – it is the way through which
employees express their job dissatisfaction.
(E.g.) Employees can complain, steal organization property, shirk
a part of their work responsibilities.
It has four response with two dimension like constructiveness .
Destructiveness and active / passive.
Active
Exit Voice
Destructive Constructive
Neglect Loyality
Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I Passive 87
* Exit – it represents behaviour directed towards leaving the
organization and includes looking for a new position as well
as resigning.
* Voice – actively and constructively attempting to improve
conditions which includes suggesting improvements,
discussing problems with superiors and union activity.
* Loyalty – passively but optimistically waiting for conditions
to improve and includes speaking for organization in face of
external criticism and trusting the management and
organization to do right things.
* Neglect – passively allowing conditions to worsen and
includes chronic absenteeism, reduced effort and increased
error rate.

There are other types of attitude scaling commonly used in
attitude measurement of employees in the organization.
There are -
a) Equal appearing interval scale:
- the most widely used procedure of attitude measurement is
LL.Thurstone’s technique of equal appearing interval scale.
- it is simple in application as it requires only one judgment
for each item/statement.
- the statement range 1 to 11 corresponding to the most
favourable & the most unfavourable respectively.
- the scales so prepared are then presented to the
respondents for their responses on the statements.
- the responses given by the respondents are then summed
up.
b) Semantic differential scale:
- it refers to the successive allocation made of a
concept to a score in a given space by selection from
a set of given alternatives.
- the respondents mark the score along the scale for
his/her attitude about the given object.
- the respondent’s scores assigned to each statement
are summed. The sum reflects the individual’s
attitude to the object, person or event, whatsoever it
may be.
- the other scales developed for attitude measurement
includes the Guttmann technique, the error- choice
method, & the sentence completion method. 90

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UNIT 2

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 3

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 6

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 7

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 8

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 15

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 21

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 24

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 25

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 28

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 30

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 35

Locus Self - Esteem

Introversion – Type A and Type B

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 43

• Type ‘A’ • Type ‘B’

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 46

1 ORAL Up to 1 year Biological desires fulfilled by thumb sucking,

5 GENITAL Adolescence Revival of sexual desires.

1 Infancy Birth of 1 Trust Mistrust

3 Play age 4 to 5 years Initiative Guilty

4 School age 6 to 12 years Enterprising Inferior

Known to Skills &

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 56

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 57

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 58

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 63

Affect Feelings & Emotions I don’t like my

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 68

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 69

Economic Attitudes Operant

Unit 2 – Individual Determinants of OB - I 88

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