UNIT II

FOUNDATION OF
INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR
 PERSONALITY

•DEFINITION: Fred Luthans defines

“ personality means how a person
affects others and how he understands
and views himself as well as the
pattern of inner and outer measurable
traits and the person-situation
interaction.”
 Characteristics of Personality

Fred denotes the following characteristics of

personality:
• Personality represents certain unique and distinctive
traits of the person. E.g. Serious, Naughty, Emotional
• Personality is often seen as the habit of the person
and it translates into action and behavior in response
to situation, and to other people.
 Structure of Personality

1 2 3 4
Type A Type B Type C Type D
Personality: The Personality: The Personality: The Personality: The
Leader Socialiser Details Seeker Distressed
 Type A Personality
• They are risk takers
• They are very independent, direct and to the point
• They are competitive, value time and social status
• They enjoy change

Demerits
• They are restless, do not like to wait
• They do not like repetitive work or protocol
• They tend to get aggressive
• They are sometimes insensitive to others
• Example: Entrepreneurs, Businessmen, Salesperson
 Type B Personality
• They love to be in groups
• They quickly become the Centre of attention
• They love excitement and are highly
energetic
• They like to stay in the limelight

Demerits:
• They are impatient
• They prefer constantly to be liked by others
• If ignored they take it personally
• Examples: Sales, Advertising, party planners,
Travel planners
 Type C Personality
• They thrive for details and accuracy
• They are serious about everything
• They are usually very neat and precise
• They do not like hype
• They are sensitive and therefore it helps in interactions.

Demerits
• Being sensitive may sometimes affect the decision making
• Stress and Depression
• Their need to produce good work or overemphasis on
details and accuracy may hamper them
• Example: Accountants, Engineers, Computer programmers,
analyst etc.
 Type D Personality
• They do not like change and prefer doing repetitive work
• They like to work under set guidelines or rules
• They are punctual, consistent and support others
• They get easily motivated by security and benefits
• They are happy and content in their life

Demerits
• They do not like change so problem in adaptability
• They have increased negative emotion
• They do not have high ambition in life
• Examples: People in Military forces
 Determinants of personality
• Heredity Heredity Environment
• Environment
• Situation
Personality

Situation
• Heredity
It can be defined as the combination of the biological, physiological or
psychological characteristics that an individual is born with.

• Situational Factors
Human personality is also influenced by situational factors. The
effect of the environment is quite strong. Knowledge, skill and
language are obviously acquired and represent important modifications
of behaviour. The varying demands of different situations call forth
different aspects of one’s personality.

• Environmental Factors
• Cultural factors
• Family Factors
• Social Factors
 Perception

• A process by which individuals

organize and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give
meaning to their environment.
 People’s behaviour is based on
their perception of what reality is,
not on reality itself.
 The world as it is perceived is the
world that is behaviorally
important.
FACTORS
THAT
INFLUENCE
PERCETION
 Barriers to perpetual
accuracy
• Attribution Theory
• When individuals observe
behavior, they attempt to
determine whether it is
internally or externally caused.
• Distinctiveness: shows
different behaviors in different
situations.
• Consensus: response is the
same as others to same
situation.
• Consistency: responds in the
same way over time
Attribution theory
 1.Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency to underestimate the
influence of external factors and
Errors and overestimate the influence of internal
factors when making judgments about the
Biases in behavior of others.
Attributions
2.Self-Serving Bias
The tendency for individuals to attribute
their own successes to internal factors
while putting the blame for failures on
external factors.
 • People selectively interpret what they see on
the basis of their interests, background,
experience, and attitudes. Types of effects
Selective seen are:
1.Halo Effect : Drawing a general
Perception impression about an individual on the basis of a
single characteristic.
2.Contrast Effects : Evaluation of a person’s
characteristics that are affected by comparisons
with other people recently encountered who rank
higher or lower on the same characteristics.

• Stereotyping :Judging someone on the basis

of one’s perception of the group to which that
person belongs.
• Projection :Attributing one’s own
characteristics to other people.
 LEARNING

• Any relatively permanent change in

behavior that occurs as a result of
experience.
• Learning: Involves change
Is relatively permanent
Is acquired through
experience.
 Theories of Learning

• Classical Conditioning
A type of conditioning in which an
individual responds to some stimulus
that would not ordinarily produce such a
response. It is the process of learning to
associate a particular thing in our
environment with a prediction of what
will happen next.
• Operant
Conditioning
A type of conditioning in
which desired voluntary
behavior leads to a reward
or prevents a punishment.
Operant conditioning
argues that one’s behavior
will depend on different
situations. People will
repeatedly behave in a
specific way from where
they will get benefits.
  Positive reinforcement
– Providing a reward for a
desired behavior.
 Negative reinforcement
– Removing an unpleasant
Types of consequence when the desired
behavior occurs.
Reinforcement
 Punishment
– Applying an undesirable
condition to eliminate an
undesirable behavior.
 Extinction
– Withholding reinforcement of a
behavior to cause its cessation.
Let us assume a situation.
A students enters a class late.
Teacher says: Get! Out!
So, for that student its a punishment.
For other students who were sitting it is
negative reinforcement.
(as they will have a assumption that when
they will be late same will apply to
them).

Reinforcement strengthens/increases
behavior; punishment
decreases/weakens .
Thank you