Chapter 2:Foundations

of Individual Behavior
 Foundations of individual
behavior(Understanding individual behavior)
Managers need to understand and analyze behavior of people at
three levels:
1. Organizational
2. Group and
3. Individual

Individual behavior is primarily a combination of

1. Responses to internal (hunger , thirst) and
2. External stimuli (touch, vision) and may be a result of a
combination of biological and psychological processes.
Kurt • suggests that behavior B is a function
Lewin's of the person and environment around
field theory him

Person's • These qualities hold the key to many

behavior is of the enduring mysteries of life such
product of as how people become what they are,
intelligence, why are some people more intelligent
creativity, than others, and what forces of
personality heredity or environment interacts
and produce the contradiction and
adoptability. complexities of human personality.
Variable/Elements/Factors/Foundations
of Individual (Human) Behavior
Variables A. The person: Personal factors
or Factors
or
elements B. The environment: Environmental
can be
divided factors
into 3
main C. The system and resources :
headings: Organizational systems and resources
 C. The system and
B. The Environment
resources:
A. The person: personal factors :Environmental
Organizational
factors
1. Personal biographical factors
systems and resources
a. Sex
a. Physical
b. Age facilities
c. Education
d. Ability and a. Economic b. Organizational
conditions structure and
e. Marital status
design
b. Political situations
2. Psychological factors c. Leadership
c. Cultural values and styles and
a. Personality
b. Perception d. Social norms d. Reward system
c. Attitudes
d. Values and
e. Learning
 The person: Personal Factors
❑ The person’s basic characteristics is the most influencing factor
that determines human behavior in any situation
❑ These factors are inside the person.
❑ Differences are much more in people than similarities.
❑ Some of the characteristics of the person are inherited while
others are learned over time .
1. Personal Biographical Factors

The heading itself is clear that it is person’s biography

that is “ information about a person’s life.” Let’s have a
detail discussion on this topic from next slide.
 a. SEX

Being a male or female is genetic in nature, but whether being a male or

female in itself is indicative of behavioral patterns is still a debatable matter.
Some of the generalized assumptions like “A man never weeps” are
developed over time.
Sex has a deep impact on behavior, such as physical safety(more for
female)and job turnover, with female employees being more likely to change
jobs and absenteeism than their male counterparts.
 b. Age

1. Physiologically young people are expected to be more

energetic, innovative , risk taking and romantic than aged people.
That means people show behavioral changes as they grow older

2. In an organization employee performance decline with the

increase in age. Senior aged people do not quit the job due to
lack of opportunity as compared to young people. However, job
satisfaction is higher in aged people than the younger ones.
 C. Education
• Education affects individual behavior in two ways.

Level of Type of
education education

• Higher the education level higher will be his/her expectations for promotion and
reward.
• Highly educated employees will have higher level of job satisfaction.
• Type of education like general education (arts, humanities) and vocational
education(Engineering, Medicine, Management etc.) also affect behavior of
individual.
 d. Ability

❖ Knowledge and skills(computer skill, communication skill)

produces one’s ability.
❖ Without ability motivation alone cannot produce results.
❖ Therefore, smart worker demand is higher in today’s organization
rather than hard worker.
❖ A person’s ability to perform an activity is composed of person’s
Aptitude(natural ability to do something- Eg difference of aptitudes
for mathematics) and Learning opportunities.
 e. Marital status

It affects people’s behavior in organizational setting

It has different implications in the areas of:

- Marital status and work life balance,
-Marital status and health,
-Marital status and absenteeism, (married employees have fewer absence)
-Marital status and job turnover,( married employees show less job turnover)
-Marital status and job satisfaction etc. married employees more satisfied
with their jobs
 Psychological factors
• The term "psychological factors" refers to a person's mental (software)
characteristics and attributes.
• These factors are more complex since they cannot be observed, unlike
physiological(hardware) factors. Let's discuss these factors as follows:
a. It is a set of
Personality -traits (inherited from parents) and
characteristics(developed over time like sociability,
aggressiveness)
-habit patterns and
-responses to certain stimulus

Ultimately, they formulate the impression upon others.

It also shows the possibility that they will be able to

perform effectively in a particular situations of job. There
must be personality –job-fit.
 Perception(the ability to see, hear or
become aware of something through
the sense) determines how people
receive, process and derive the
meaning of it.
Based on
People
perception Percep perceive what
people try to
tion they like to
behave
perceive.
accordingly.

Managers need to know the

process of perception.
Values refer to the worth Value generally identifies a
(sufficiently good )or person’s morale structure on
excellence(quality) assigned to which the concept of good or bad
an object or class of object and wrong or right is based

Values

The value that a person holds can

Thus, value and behavior is
influence his/her motivation and
highly correlated.
behavior.
 e. Learning

Learning is a pre-requisite(pre-condition) for behavior.

It is relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a

result of experience.

It involves new ways of doing things. Thus, learning brings

modification in behavior.
 The Environment: Environmental
Factors

Environmental factors are one of the aspects that affect

individual behavior.

All the work performed by individuals comes under a

certain environment.

Individual behavior also affects environmental factors.

The components included in environmental factors are
discussed below:
 Economic Condition
• Economic condition affects the human behavior in several ways:
 Political Situations
• Political situations of the country directly or indirectly affect the behavior of
individuals.
• If the government of the country is stable there is a higher level of capital investment,
creating employment opportunities, freedom available to its citizens, maintaining
price level, etc.
• But if government is unstable than there are economic crises, unemployment, policy
change, low-income level & needs and wants of the people cannot be fulfilled.
Cultural Cultural values are its ideas about what is good, right,
fair and justice.
values
Individual behavior is highly affected by cultural
values like customs, beliefs and values where s/he
work.

If social values and individual values does not match

properly, s/he may leave that society and vice-versa.
 Social Norms

▪ Social norms means rules and regulation to govern communities as it desires.

▪ They contribute to our clothing choices, how we speak, age, ethics, culture, our
music preferences and our beliefs about certain social issues. But norms changes
according to the environment or situation overtime.
C. The system and resources:
Organizational systems and resources

Even with the same environmental factors people’s

behavior differ due to organizational factors as
well.
Because no two organizations are exactly similar.
 Physical facilities

• Individuals prefer physical facilities, like comfortable chairs

human safety etc. in organization, which should be as per the
requirements of their job, and which also satisfies their biological
and psychological needs.

• If this is not so , their behavior will be problematic, less

productive , and low satisfaction on their jobs
Organizational structure and design

Different elements that compose an organizations’ structure

/design are formalization, centralization, number of levels in the
hierarchy etc.
If the existing structure / design is as per the job needs and
expectation of a person, it produces desirable positive
behaviors.
If it is not so, it can produce negative behavioral pattern and
consequence.
 Leadership
styles

1) Leadership’s style is the leader’s behavior towards

subordinates.
2) Three styles of leadership are most popular. They are
-Autocratic
- Democratic
- Free-rein

3) Most people prefer to work under a democratic style.

4)Leadership style also affects individual behavior.

Reward system
Models of Individual Behavior (Behavior as an
Input- Output System

In the absence of a stimulus (If someone shines a bright light in your eye you close
your eyes, light is an external stimuli and hunger, thirst, sleepiness are internal
stimuli) there is no information which can be handled by the internal process to
cause behavior to take place.

There are mainly two view-points of this model.

1. Traditional viewpoint model
a. Stimulus Response (S-R)
b. Stimulus-Organism- Response (S-O-R)

2. Behavioral viewpoint model

Stimulus Organism behavior (S O B)
a. Stimulus–Response model (S-R model)

S-R model agrees that stimulus leads to response as input(stimulus) leads

to output(response) in machine.
This view assumes that all the time you give same stimulus you get the
same response(behavior) because organism is passive.

This model suggests that behavior is caused by certain response.

b. Stimulus-Organism-Response model (S-O-R
model)
❑ In the classical S-R model organism is inserted to make it a new S-O-R mode.
❑This model is based upon the stimulus processed by the organism and
followed by behavior.
❑ This O factor ‘organism’ is active in nature in this model.
❑As organism is active, here with the same stimulus there can be different
responses.
❑Stimulus is input. Organism processes the stimulus and gives response as an
output.
2. Behavioral viewpoints

Three components of
this model is given in
subsequent slides.
 b. Organism (O)
• Organism includes four sub-functions:
1) Physiological (heredity, five sense organs, muscles)
2) Cognitive processes ( thinking, reasoning, problem solving,
decision making etc.
3) Psychological processes ( Motivation and learning)
4) Personality
• Letter ‘O’ denotes interaction between the situation and the
individual before behavior results.
• This type of interaction that is cognition or mental process is
usually called perception which forms a part of ‘O’.
 c. Behavior (B)

• Behaviors are responses which come in the form of overt (easy to see) and
covert ( not easy to see) stimuli and ultimately individuals show a pattern of
behavior.
• There exists a two-way interaction between ‘S’ and ‘O’ and between ‘O’
and ‘B’.
The end