Chapter Two

FOUNDATION OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR

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 Topics
• Introduction:
– Equation of behavior
• Individual difference variables
— Personality,
— Perception,
— Attribution,
— Attitudes,
— Values, and
— Ethics.

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 Introduction

According to Lewin’s behavior is a function of

the person and the environment.

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 Introduction

B = f(P,E)
Where, B = Behavior
P= Person
E= Environment

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 Introduction

Idea has been developed by the

interactional psychology approach.

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 Interactional

The person Environment

Skills and abilities Organization
Personality Work group
Perception Job
Attribution Personal life

Behavior
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Interactional Psychology: Four basic propositions

1. Continuous, multidirectional interaction

2. Person is active in this process and both are changed by
situations and changes situations.
3. People vary in many characteristics, including cognitive,
affective, motivational, and ability factors.
4. Two interpretations: objective situation and the person’s
subjective view of the situation.

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 Individual Behavior

• Individual difference variables:

— Personality,

— Perception,
— Attribution,
— Attitudes,

— Values, and
— Ethics.

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 Personality

Personality:
— Refers to a relatively stable set of feelings and
behaviors that have been significantly formed
by genetic and environmental factors.

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 Personality

Nature Nurture
Pattern of
Hereditary life
forces experiences

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Personality

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 Personality

The Big Five Model

 Extroversion
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Emotional stability
Openness to experience
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 Extroversion

• Refers to the tendency to be sociable, friendly, and

expressive.
• Describes the predisposition of individuals to
experience positive emotional states and feel good
about themselves and the world.

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 Agreeableness

o Being courteous, forgiving, tolerant, trusting, and self-hearted.

o Are caring, affectionate, and likable,
o Individuals low in this dimension are antagonistic, mistrustful,
unsympathetic, and uncooperative.

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 Conscientiousness

o Is exhibited by those who are described as

dependable, organized, and responsible.
o Careful, scrupulous, self-disciplined and
persevering.

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 Emotional Stability

oRefers to the tendency to experience

positive emotional states

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 Emotional Stability

Neuroticism, or negative affectivity, refers to

people’s dispositions to experience negative
emotional states, feel distressed, and view the
world around them negatively.

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 Openness to Experience

Reflects the extent to which an individual

has broad interests and is willing to be a
risk-taker.

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 Openness to Experience

Is open to a wide variety of stimuli, has broad

interests, and is willing to take risks

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 The Big Five Model & OB

 High relation with job performance

— Conscientiousness leads to high level of job knowledge.
— Extroverts are good sales persons.
— High on agreeableness makes a person good team
player.
— People are good and quick learners if they are high on
openness.
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 Personality Attributes influencing OB

• Other Organizationally Relevant Personality Traits:

– Locus of Control
– Self-Esteem
– Self-efficacy
– Self-monitoring
– Positive/Negative Affect

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 Locus of Control

The extent to which an individual perceives that

his/her behavior has a direct impact on the
outcomes which result from that behavior.

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 Ic
wh ont
1. LOC
to at rol
m ha
e! pp
en
s
Internal

Pe
cir ople
co cum an
Locus of Control

nt st d
ro an
l m ce
yf s
ate
!
External
….Other Personality Traits

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 Implication on OB and work
• Those with an internal locus of control have:
– higher job satisfaction
– more likely to assume managerial positions,

– to prefer participative management styles

– display higher work motivation,
– hold stronger beliefs that leads to performance,

– receive higher salaries, and

– display less anxiety than externals

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 ….Other Personality Traits

Self-Esteem:
• Is the extent to which people have pride in themselves and
their capabilities.(FEELING OF BEING HAPPY WITH
YOUR OWN CHTS AND ABILITY)

• Is an individual's general feeling of self-worth.

• Self-esteem:
– Success tends to increase self-esteem

– Failure tends to decrease self-esteem

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 Self-esteem

High self-esteem Low self-esteem

• Positive feelings about • View themselves
themselves, negatively
• Perceive themselves to • affected by what other
have strengths as well as people think of them
weaknesses, and • Focuses on positive
• Believe their strengths feedback but negative
are more important than feedback
their weaknesses.

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 ….Other Personality Traits

Self-efficacy:
 An individual's beliefs and expectancies about his or her
ability to accomplish a specific task effectively.
 Four sources of self-efficacy:
— prior experiences,

— behavior models (witnessing the success of others),

— persuasion from other people, and

— assessment of current physical and emotional capabilities.

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 …Self-efficacy

• Tools:
– Providing job challenges,
– Coaching and counseling for improved
performance,
– Rewarding employees' achievements, and
Empowerment

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 ….Other Personality Traits

Self-monitoring
• Is the extent to which people base their behavior on
cues from people and situations.
• Refers to the extent to which people try to control the
way they present themselves to others.

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 Self-monitoring
High
• Pay to what is appropriate in
particular situations.
• Pay to the behavior of other
people
• They behave accordingly.
• Behave in a socially
acceptable manner.
Low
• Not as vigilant to situational
cues
• Act from internal states
• adhere more to internal
guidelines for behavior
• “ I am who I am”
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 ….Other Personality Traits

Positive/Negative Affect
– Positive affect:
• An individual’s tendency to emphasize positive aspects
of him/herself, other people, and the world in general.
—Negative affect:

• An individual’s tendency to emphasize negative aspects

of him/herself, other people, and the world in general.

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 Personality Theories

• Theories include:
– Trait theory,
– Psychodynamic theory,
– Humanistic theory, and
– The integrative approach.

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 …Theories

Trait theory
– To understand individuals, we must break down behavior
patterns into a series of observable traits.
– According to trait theory, combining these traits into a
group forms an individual's personality.
• Pioneers: Raymond Cattell and Gordon Allport

– Thousands of traits have been identified over the years but

reduced to five basic factors.

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 …Theories

Psychodynamic theory
– Emphasizes the unconscious determinants of behavior.

• Pioneer: Sigmund Freud

— Saw personality as the interaction between three elements
of personality. The id, ego, and superego.
— The id: is the most primitive element, the source of drives
and desire that operates in an unrestricted manner.

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 …Theories

Psychodynamic theory
– According to Freudian theory, superego, is the part of the mind that acts as a

conscience to the ego, developing moral standards and rules through contact

with parents and society.

– The superego, similar to conscience, contains values and the "should and
should not" of the personality.
– Ego: Somebody's idea of his or her own importance or worth, usually of an
appropriate level
• Compromises, and the result is the individual's use of defense mechanisms such as
denial of reality.

• Its focus on unconscious influences on behavior.

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 …Theories

Humanistic theory
• Believed that all people have a basic drive toward self-
actualization.
• Focuses on individual growth and improvement.
• Self to personality theory and contends that the self-concept is
the most important part of an individual's personality.
• Distinctly people centered.

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 …Theories

Integrative Approach
— Personality is described as a composite of the individual's
psychological processes.
— Personality dispositions include emotions, cognitions,
attitudes, expectancies, and fantasies.
— Dispositions, in this approach, simply mean the tendencies of
individuals to respond to situations in consistent ways.
— focuses on both person (dispositions) and situational variables

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 Measuring Personality

• Several methods can be used to assess personality:

– Projective tests: individuals are shown a picture, abstract
image, or photo and are asked to describe.
– Behavioral measures: involves observing an individual's
behavior in a controlled situation.
– Self-report questionnaires: Is the self-report questionnaire
• Individuals respond to a series of questions, usually in
agree/disagree or true/false format.

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 Type A and Type B Personalities

• Type A
– Always moving, walking & eating fast
– Feel impatient
– Strive to do two or more things at once
– Cannot cope with leisure time
– Obsessed with number; how many, how much
they have achieved
– Competitive
– Desire to achieve

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 Type A and Type B Personalities

Type B Personalities
– Never suffer from a sense of time urgency

– Feel no need to display/discuss their achievements

unless required
– Play for fun /relaxation
– Can relax without guilt

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 Type ‘A and work Behavior

• Type ‘A’
– Suffer high level of stress

– Quantity over quality

– Time pressure/deadlines

– Rarely creative

– Poor decision makers

– Behavior is easier to predict

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 Type ‘B’ and work Behavior

• Type ‘B’
– Difficult to predict behavior

– Good decision makers

– Quality of work

– No compromise on health
– Wiser than hasty

– Creative / innovative solutions to same problem

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 Social Perception
• Perception is the process by which individuals select,
organize, and interpret the input from their senses to give
meaning and order to the world around them.(THE WAY YOU
NOTICE THINGS ,ESPECIALLY WITH SENSES
– Touch, smell, hearing, vision, and taste.

• Social perception is the process of interpreting information

about another person.
• Perception is also culturally determined.

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 …Perception
• Factors Affecting Perception
Ch
e ar
th ac
s of te
tic ris
r i ver
s ti cs
c e
t cei
a
r Per o ft
a
Ch he
ta
rg
et

Characteristics of the situation

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 …Perception
• Characteristics of the perceiver
– Familiarity with target
– Attitudes
– Mood
– Self-concept
– Cognitive structure

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 …Perception
• Characteristics of the target
– Physical appearance
– Verbal communication
– Nonverbal cues
– Intentions
• Characteristics of the situation
– Context of the interaction
– Strength of situational cues
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 …Perception
• Barriers
– Selective Perception
– Stereotyping

– Halo Effect
– First Impression error
– Implicit Personality Theory

– Self fulfilling Prophecies

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 …Perception
Selective Perception
• is our tendency to choose information that supports our
viewpoints.
• Individuals often ignore information that makes them feel
uncomfortable or threatens their view­points.
• It is impossible for us to assimilate everything we see—only
certain stimuli can be taken in.

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 …Perception
Stereotyping
• Judging someone on the basis of our perception of the group to
which he or she belongs.
• A stereotype is a generalization about a group of people.
• Stereotypes reduce information about other people to a
workplace level and they are efficient for compiling and using
information.
• Can be accurate, and when they are accurate, they can be useful
perceptual guidelines.
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 …Perception
Halo-Effect
• A general impression about an individual is based on a single
positive characteristic.
• Occurs when we draw a general impression on the basis of a
single characteristic.
• When the perception of a person is formulated on the basis of
a single favorable or unfavorable trait or characteristic and
tends to shut out other relevant characteristics of that person.

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 …Perception
First Impression error
• Impression : Opinion, or mental image of somebody
• First Impression error: Means that we observe a very brief bit
of a person's behavior in our first encounter and infer that this
behavior reflects what the person is really like.
• The process by which individuals try to control the
impressions others have of them is called impression
management.

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 …Perception
Implicit personality theories
• Is ones own mini-theories about how people look and behave.
• Theories help us organize our perceptions and take shortcuts
instead of integrat­ing new information all the time.
• Implicit personality theories are barriers, because they limit our
ability to take in new information when it is available.
• We are cognitive misers:
– the world is complex and ambiguous and we have a limited mental
capacity

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 …Perception
Self-fulfilling Prophecies
• Expectations affect the way we interact with others such that
we get what we wish for.
• A manager's expectations of an individual affect both the
manager's behavior toward the individual and the individual's
response.

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 Attribution in Organizations

• Attribution is an explanation of the cause of behavior.

• Is the Process through which individuals attempt to determine
the causes of others behavior.
• Attribution theory describes how people explain the causes of
their own and other people’s behavior.
• To the extent that attributions are accurate, better
organizational decisions can be made.

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 Attribution in Organizations

• Attribution theory aids in this interpretation by focusing on

how people attempt to :

– Understand the causes of a certain event

– Assess responsibility for the outcomes of the event, and

– Evaluate the personal qualities of the people involved in

the event.

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 Attribution in Organizations

• Internal and External Attributions

– Internal: Behavior caused by some characteristic

of the target/individual.

– External: Behavior assigned to factors outside

the individual.

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 Attribution in Organizations

• Attribution patterns differ among individuals:

– Achievement-oriented individuals attribute their success to

ability and their failures to lack of effort, both internal causes.

– Failure-oriented individuals attribute their failures to lack of

ability, and they may develop feelings of incompetence

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 Attribution in Organizations

• Kelley's Attribution Theory:

– identify the antecedents of internal and external
attributions.
– Kelley proposed that individuals make attributions based
on information gathered in the form of three informational
cues.
– These are: Consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.

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 Attribution in Organizations

– Distinctiveness: Shows the different behaviors in

different situations.

– Consensus: Response is the same as others to the same

situation.

– Consistency: Responds in the same way over time.

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 Attribution in Organizations

Attribution Biases/errors
• Two very common errors:
– The fundamental attribution error: The tendency to make
attributions to internal causes when focusing on someone
else's behavior.
– The self-serving bias: occurs when focusing on one's own
behavior.

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 Attribution in Organizations

• Example:
– The managers claimed that internal causes (their
employees' lack of effort or lack of ability) were the basis
for their employees' poor performance- fundamental

– When we succeed, we take credit for it; when we fail, we

blame the situation or other people.

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 Individual Behavior

• Individual difference variables:

— Personality

— Perception,
— Attribution,
— Attitudes,

— Values, and
— Ethics.

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 Attitudes

• Is a mental stage of readiness, learned and organized through

experience, exerting a specific influence on a person’s

response to people, objects, and situations with which it is

related.

• Attitudes are evaluative statements that are either favorable or

unfavorable concerning objects, people, or events.

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 Attitudes
• Three components of an attitude:
– Cognition: Thinking or mind set
– Affect: is the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude .
• Example: “I don’t like Jon because he discriminates
minorities.”
– Behavior: refers to an intention to behave in a certain way toward
someone or something.
• Example: “I chose to avoid Jon because he discriminates.”

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 Attitudes
• OB has been
c on c e r n ed with three att
itudes:
– job satisfacti
on,

– job involvem
ent, and

– organization
al commitment.

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 Values
• Are people’s personal convictions about what one should
expect to obtain from working and how one should behave at
work.

• There are two types of work values:

– Intrinsic work value

– Extrinsic work value

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 Values
• Intrinsic work value: Are values related to the work itself.
– Example: Something interesting and challenging or
having a sense of accomplishment

• Extrinsic work value: Are values related to the

consequences of work
– Example: Having family security or status in the
community.

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 Values
• Work Values

– Achievement (career advancement)

– Concern for others (compassionate behavior)

– Honesty (provision of accurate information)

– Fairness (impartiality)

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 Values
• Basic convictions:( “Imnat) A specific mode of conduct or end-state of
existence”.

– They contain a judgmental element in that they carry the

individual’s idea of what is right, good, or desirable.
• Sources of values
– Parents.
– Friends.
– Teachers???????????????????????????
– Role models.
– External reference groups.

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 Ethics

• Ethics
– Moral principles/values -- determines whether actions are

right/wrong and outcomes are good/bad.

• Ethical behavior
– “Good” and “right” as opposed to “bad” or “wrong” in a
particular setting.
• An organization’s ethics are rules, beliefs, and values that
outline ways in which managers and workers should behave

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 Ethics

• Ethical behavior enhances the well-being (the happiness, health,

and prosperity) of individuals, groups, organizations, and the
organizational environment.
• Ethical dilemmas occur in relationships with:
– Superiors.
– Subordinates.
– Customers.
– Competitors.
– Suppliers.
– Regulators.

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End of the Chapter

Thanks you

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