CHAPTER 2

FOUNDATION OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR AND LEARNING IN AN

ORGANIZATION
INTRODUCTION
Individuals have different abilities, personalities, learning experiences and attitudes.
The skill of management is to be able to match the needs of the individual with the needs of the
organization so goals can be met and satisfaction achieved.
Emphasizing individual differences and valuing diversity is a key driver in the search for
equality at work.
2.1. Perception
Individuals use five senses to experience the environment: sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell.
Organizing the information for the environment so that it makes sense is called perception.
Perception is “a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in
order to give meaning to their environment.
2.1.1. Factors Influencing Perception

2.1.2. Common Errors while Judging Others

1. Selective Perception
People selectively interpret what they see based on their attitude, interest, background and
experience. It is the process of attending to some information received by our senses and
ignoring other information.
It is important that when we read others, we make a mistake reading with speed and putting seal
of what has been selectively seen by a perceiver. For correct perception an individual must be
observed, studied, tried and later perceived without an individual bias.
2. Halo Effect
Refers to judging an individual based on single characteristics, such as intellectual ability,
sociability and appearance.

1
If a supervisor who values punctuality notices that an employee is sometimes late for work, the
supervisor might form a negative image of the employee and evaluate that person’s other traits
unfavorably as well.
3. Projection
 Occurs when we believe other people have the same beliefs and behaviors that we do.
 You assume a person based on your own traits and not what he actually possesses.
 If you were hard working and dependable you would expect others to be so.
 If you are eager for a promotion, you might think that others in your position are similarly
motivated.
 If you are thinking of quitting your job, you start to believe that other people are also
thinking of quitting.
 Projection bias is also a defense mechanism to protect our self-esteem.
 If we break a work rule, projection bias justifies this infraction by claiming “everyone does
it.”
 We feel more comfortable with the thought that our negative traits exist in others, so we
believe that others also have these traits.
4. Contrast Effect
 We do not evaluate a person in isolation. Our reaction to one person is relative to the other.
During selection process, interviewer selects a particular person for a particular job not because
he fulfills all requirements but he is generally selected in relation to the other candidates.
5. Stereotyping
It is the process of assigning traits to people on the basis of their membership in a social
category.
Why people engage in stereotyping?
1. It is a natural and mostly non-conscious process that simplifies our understanding of the
world.
2. We have an innate need to understand and anticipate how others will behave.
3. We have more favorable views of members of our own groups than we do of people in other
groups.
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Attribution is the process of perceiving the causes of behavior and outcomes.
Attribution theory is the perceptual process of deciding whether an observed behavior or event is
caused largely by internal or external factors.
 Internally caused behaviors are those believed to be under personal control of the
individual.
 Externally caused behavior results from outside causes; i.e. the person is seen as forced
into the behavior by the situation.
That determination, however, depends on three factors;
i. Distinctiveness
ii. Consensus

2
 iii. Consistency
a. Distinctiveness: refers to whether an individual displays different behaviors in different
situations.
Example when a worker coming late for duty; there are two factors, one whether arriving late is
usual or unusual behavior.
If it is usual, it is attributed to internal factor on which the worker has full control.
When the behavior is unusual then it can be attributed to external factors.
b. Consensus: if everyone is faced with similar situation responds in the same way, we can say
the behavior shows consensus.
This factor refers to group behavior.
If the entire group taking the same route came late on duty, the causation is attributed to external
factors. But by some chance if one worker only was late then the causation would be internal.
c. Consistency: If the behavior of Mr. X is consistently coming late then attribution should be
to internal factors. In such cases there is a high internal causation.
If Mr.X came late once in a while the causation would be low and attributed to external factors.
The more consistence the behavior, the more the observer is inclined to attribute it to internal
causes.

Another important finding from attribution theory is that there are errors or biases that distort
attribution. When we make judgments about the behavior of other people we have the tendency
to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal
factors or personal factors. This is called the fundamental attribution error.
For example, If an employee is late for work, observers are more likely to conclude that the
person is lazy than to realize that external factors may have caused this behavior.

3
There is also a tendency of an individual to attribute their own success to internal factors such as
ability or effort while putting the blame for failure on external factors such as luck. This is
called self-serving bias.
 We take credit for our successes and blame others or the situation for our mistakes.
 Maintain a positive self-concept.
For example, executives mainly refer to their personal qualities as reasons for the company’s
successes and to external factors as reasons for the company’s failures.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy- The perceptual process in which our expectations about another person
cause that person to act in a way that is consistent with those expectations.
Something that you cause to happen by saying and expecting that it will happen based on
personal belief rather than actual facts.
The supervisor’s expectations influence his or her treatment of employees.
Specifically, high-expectancy employees (those expected to do well) receive more emotional
support through nonverbal cues (e.g., more smiling and eye contact), more frequent and valuable
feedback and reinforcement, more challenging goals, better training, and more opportunities to
demonstrate good performance.
The main lesson from the self-fulfilling-prophecy literature is that leaders need to develop and
maintain a positive, yet realistic, expectation toward all employees.
This recommendation is consistent with the emerging philosophy of positive organizational
behavior, which suggests that focusing on the positive rather than negative aspects of life will
improve organizational success and individual well-being.
Communicating hope and optimism is so important that it is identified as one of the critical
success factors for physicians and surgeons.
More generally, people tend to reduce their perceptual biases by “knowing themselves”—
increasing awareness of their own values, beliefs, and prejudices.
The Johari Window is a popular model for understanding how co-workers can increase their
mutual understanding.
This model divides information about you into four “windows” open, blind, hidden, and
unknown based on whether your own values, beliefs, and experiences are known to you and to
others.

4
The main objective of the Johari Window is to increase the size of the open area so that both you
and colleagues are aware of your perceptual limitations.
This is partly accomplished by reducing the hidden area through disclosure —informing others
of your beliefs, feelings, and experiences that may influence the work relationship.
The open area also increases through feedback from others about your behavior.
This information helps you to reduce your blind area, because coworkers often see things in you
that you do not see.
Finally, the combination of disclosure and feedback occasionally produces exposures about
information in the unknown area.
2.2. Attitude
An attitude is a positive or negative feeling or mental state of readiness, learned and organized
through experience that exerts a specific influence on a person’s response to people, objects, and
situations.
Attitudes are evaluative statements that are either favorable or unfavorable concerning objects,
people.
Implications for managers;
 First, attitudes are learned.
 Second, attitudes define our predispositions toward given aspects of the world.
 Third, attitudes provide the emotional basis of our interpersonal relations and
identification with others.
 Fourth, attitudes are organized and are close to the core of personality. Some attitudes are
persistent and enduring; yet, like each of the psychological variables, attitudes are subject
to change.
E.g. When I say “I like my job,” I am expressing my attitude to work. Attitudes are thus
judgment responses to situations.

5
2.2.1. Components of attitude
1. Cognitive component, which reflects an underlying value.
e.g. “Responsibility is important”
My job lacks responsibility
2. The affective component of an attitude is a specific feeling regarding the personal impact
of the antecedents.
e.g. “I don’t like my job.”
3. The behavioral component is an intention to behave in a certain way based on your
specific feelings or attitudes.
e.g. “I’m going to quit my job.”
A work-related example of the three components of attitudes

2.2.2. Types of Job Attitude

1. Job satisfaction:
It is the collection of feelings and beliefs that people have about their current jobs.
A person having a high level of satisfaction will generally hold a positive attitude while
dissatisfied people will generally display negative attitude towards life.

Components of Job Satisfaction

• The work itself —responsibility, interest, and growth
• Quality of supervision—technical help and social support

6
• Relationships with co-workers—social harmony and respect
• Promotion opportunities—chances for further advancement
• Pay—adequacy of pay and perceived equity vis-à-vis others.
2. Job involvement
Refers to the degree to which a person identifies himself (psychologically) with his job, actively
participates and considers his perceived performance level important to self-worth.
It is the extent to which an individual is dedicated to a job.
3. Organizational commitment
Refers to degree to which an employee identifies himself with the organizational goals and
wishes to maintain membership in the organization.
It is the collection of feelings and beliefs that people have about their organization as a whole.
2.3. PERSONALITY
It is the stable patterns of behavior and consistent internal states that determine how an
individual reacts to and interacts with others.
Some employees are charm, positive and smiling face others are silent anxious etc.
Personality involves both common and unique characteristics.
Determinants of Personality: Nature and Nurture
Personality is partially determined by nature, or biological heritage.
The genes that you inherited from your parent’s influence how your personality has unfolded.

Evidence from research on separated identical twins and other studies suggests that
approximately 50 percent in employees' personalities in organizations reflects the distinctive
ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving they inherited from their parents nature-to genetic
factors.
The other 50 percent reflects the influence of nurture or life experiences.

7
The Big Five Model of Personality
There is now a body of evidence, which suggests that five dimensions capture distinct
differences between people. These traits, known as the Big Five, are:
1. Extraversion–introversion.
2. Neuroticism
3. Agreeableness.
4. Conscientiousness
5. Openness to experience
1. Extraversion
Extraversion, or positive affectivity, is a personality trait that predisposes individuals to
experience positive emotional states and feel good about themselves and about the world around
them.
Extraverts- people high on the extraversion scale-tend to be sociable, affectionate, friendly,
outgoing, talkative, and assertive.
At work, extraverts are more likely to experience positive moods, be satisfied with their jobs, and
generally feel good about the organization and those around them.
Extroverts get their energy from the outer world (people and things around them).
The opposite is introversion, which characterizes those who are quiet, shy, and cautious.
Introverts-people low on the extraversion-
 Have fewer social interactions with others.
 Get their energy from the internal world, such as personal reflection on concepts and
ideas.
 Are more inclined to direct their interests to ideas than to social events.
 Feel quite comfortable being alone, whereas extroverts do not.
2. Neuroticism
Neuroticism-or negative affectivity-reflects people's tendencies to experience negative emotional
states, feel distressed and generally view themselves and the world around them negatively.
Individuals who are high on neuroticism are more likely to experience high levels of anxiety,
hostility, depression, self-consciousness, negative moods at work and influence during group
decision making by playing devil's advocate and pointing out the negative aspects of proposed
decision.
In contrast, people with low neuroticism (high emotional stability) are poised, secure, and calm
and are not as critical and pessimistic.
3. Agreeableness
It generally refers to the extent to which people are imaginative, creative, curious, and
aesthetically sensitive.
Individual’s low on agreeableness are careless, irresponsible, antagonistic, mistrustful,
uncooperative, unsympathetic, rude, and more resistant to change, less open to new ideas, and
more conventional and fixed in their ways.
This dimension is the most complex and has the least agreement among scholars.
8
4. Conscientiousness
Conscientiousness is the extent to which an individual is careful, scrupulous, and persevering.
Individuals high on conscientiousness are organized and have a lot of self-discipline.
Individuals low on conscientiousness may lack direction and self-discipline, careless, less
thorough, more disorganized, and irresponsible.
5. Openness to Experience
Openness to experience captures the extent to which an individual is original, open to a wide
variety of stimuli, has broad interests, and is willing to take risks as opposed to being narrow-
minded and cautious.
For openness to experience to be translated into creative and innovative behavior in
organizations, however, the organization must remove obstacles to innovation.
Summary

Types of Personality
1. Type A
 Are always moving, walking, and eating rapidly;
 Have sense of urgency, impatient and hostile struggle to achieve more and more in less and
less time
 Feel impatient with the rate at which most events take place;
 Doing two or more things at once and can’t cope with leisure time
 Cannot cope with leisure time; and
 Are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success in terms of how much of everything
there acquire.
 They emphasize quantity over quality.
2. Type B
 Never suffer from a sense of time urgency with its accompanying impatience.
 Feel no need to display or discuss either their achievements or accomplishments unless such
exposure is demanded by the situation;
 Play for fun and relaxation, rather than to exhibit their superiority at any cost; and
 Can relax without guilt.

9
In managerial positions, Type A’s demonstrate their competitiveness by working long hours and,
not infrequently, making poor decisions because they make them too fast.
Stressed Type A’s are also rarely creative. Because of their concern with quantity and speed,
they rely on past experiences when faced with problems.
They will not allocate the time that is necessary to develop unique solutions to new problems.
They seldom vary in their responses to specific challenges in their environment, and so their
behavior is easier to predict than that of Type B’s.
LEARNING
Learning is a relatively permanent change in human behavior that occurs as a result of
experience.
Theories of Learning
1. Classical Conditioning Theory
Introduced by Ivan Pavlov
“It can be defined as a process in which a formerly neutral stimulus when paired with an
unconditional stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus that illicit a conditioned response”.
S-R relationship
The experiment envisaged dog as a subject.
Pavlov carried out this experiment in three sequential stages.
Stage One; he presented meat (unconditional stimulus) to the dog. He noticed a great deal of
salivation (unconditional response).
In Stage Two: he only rang up the bell (neutral stimulus), the dog had no salivation.
In stage three, Pavlov was to accompany the offering of meat to the dog along with ringing up
of bell.
After doing this several times, Pavlov rang up only bell (without offering of meat to the dog).
This time the dog salivated to the ringing up of bell alone.
2. Operant Conditioning
 The concept was originated by B.F. Skinner.
 Deals with Response—Stimulus (R-S) connection.
 In Operant Conditioning particular response occurs as a consequence of many stimulus
situations.
 Behavior is a function of consequences. It is voluntary in nature.
 Reinforcement increases the probability of occurrence.
 Behavior is learned and is not a matter of reflects.
 Employees work hard to get additional benefits.
 The learning process starts with the reward or response.
 In the absence of a reward, behavior is not shaped and learning process doesn’t take place.
The classical learning process lays emphases on changing unconditioned stimuli to conditioned
stimuli.
 Operant learning emphases response which stimulates learning
3. Social Learning

10
 The approach basically deals with learning process based on direct observation and the
experience.
It is achieved while interacting with individuals.
Employees learn from their surroundings, peers, parents, teachers and others.
Individuals learn a great deal from watching attractive models and they copy their behavior
and display the same.
Children copy the behavior of their parents, adults, and copy cinema actors/actresses in
various styles.
METHODS OF SHAPING BEHAVIOR
There are four way in which to shape behavior:
 Positive reinforcement,
 Negative reinforcement,
 Punishment, and
 Extinction
Positive reinforcement– This occurs when the introduction of a consequence increases or
maintains the frequency or future probability of a behavior. Receiving a bonus after successfully
completing an important project usually creates positive reinforcement because it typically
increases the probability that you use those behaviors in the future.
Negative reinforcement- Occurs when the removal or a voidance of a consequence increases or
maintains the frequency or future probability of a behavior. Supervisors apply negative
reinforcement when they stop criticizing employees whose substandard performance has
improved.
Punishment- This occurs when a consequence decreases the frequency or future probability of a
behavior. It may occur by the supervisor’s introducing an unpleasant consequence or removing a
pleasant consequence.
Extinction- occurs when the target behavior decreases because no consequence follows it. For
example, if an employee makes practical jokes that are potentially dangerous or costly, this
behavior might be extinguished by discouraging others from praising the employee when he/she
engages in these pranks. Behavior that is no longer reinforced tends to disappear; it becomes
extinct.

11