Unit 2: PART I

Individual
Behavior
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3.1 Introduction to individual
Behavior
3.2 Personality
3.3 Perception
3.4 Learning in an organization
3.5 Attitude
3.6 Value
3.7 Stress
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After completion of this chapter, students will be able to:
 Define personality, identify determinants and key dimensions of personality,
obtain knowledge about personality characteristics, and basic methods of
measuring personality.
 Define learning, distinguish between classical and operant conditioning, and
explain the strategies of reinforcement and punishment using positive and
negative consequences of behavior.
 Define perception and identify the nature and the processes of perception, get
acquainted with the concepts of social perception and understand its common
barriers, and know the relationship between perception and attribution.
 Know the functions and the formation of attitudes; identify the importance of
work related attitudes and know how attitudes can be changed through
persuasion.
 Identify types of values and concepts of work related values.
 Know the causes and effects of stress and the ways of managing stress.
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 Behavior refers to the response made by the
individual. The response may be the result of
influence of external factors.

 The external factor is termed as stimulus and

the action taken by the individual is known as
response.

 Both heredity and environment determine the

behavior of an individual.
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 Identify the behavior to be learn
 Baseline performance
 Functional analysis
 Intervention strategy
 Evaluation of performance

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 Demographic Factors
 Ability and Skills
 Perception
 Attitude
 Personality

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What is Individual Difference?
 It is the ways in which people differ from each
other
 Individual difference may be grouped into two
categories: personality differences and
difference in ability
 Everybody wants to understand others
behavior. Understanding others behavior help
the persons to influence them.

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High
Others Acceptance of My Capacity (C)

C√ PX CC√X P√

CX PX CX P√

Low
Low Others Acceptance of My Personality (P) High

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• Before we understand others, we need to understand
ourselves – self-awareness.
Each individual has four sets of personality characteristics.
• One set, which includes such characteristics as working hard, the
individual is well aware of and so are others.
• A second set is unknown is unknown to the individual but obvious
to others.
– For e.g. in a working situation a peer might observe that your jumping in to
get the group moving off dead center is appropriate. At other times, you
jump in when the group is not really finished, and you seem to interrupt.
• A third set is known to the individual but not others. These are
situations that you have elected not to share, perhaps because of a
lack of trust.
• Finally, there is a fourth set, which is not known to the individual
or to others, such as why you are uncomfortable at office parties.

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 My Own Perceptions

Things I Know Things I Do not

About Myself Know About Myself

Things Others The Open Self The Blind Self

Know About
Me Characteristics Characteristics
Apparent to me not Apparent
Other Persons’ Perceptions

& to Others to me

The Concealed
Self The Unknown
Self
Things Others Characteristics
Do not Know Known to me but The Blind Area
About Me
Kept Hidden from
Others
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 Personality is the study of the characteristics traits of an
individual, relationships between these traits, and the way in
which a person adjust to other people & situations.
 Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual
reacts & interacts with others (Robbins).
 Personality is the pattern of relatively enduring ways that a person
feels, thinks, & behaves. It is a factor in accounting why employees
have favorable or unfavorable attitudes towards their jobs &
organizations (George & Jones).

 Personality has been shown to influence career choice, job

satisfaction, stress, leadership, & some aspects of job performance
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Based on the above definitions personality characteristics are:
 Personality refers both physical & psychological qualities.
 It is unique in the sense that no two individuals are same in terms of
their personality.
 Personality is the manner of adjustment of individual to the
organization, environment and the group.
 It is a qualitative aspect. Certain techniques exist to quantify it
indirectly.
 Personality is dynamic. It changes with the time & situation.
 Personality is a system. It has input, processing and output.
 Personality influences goal achievement & performance of an
individual.
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 Nature Nurture
Biological Heritage Personality Life Experiences

Biological Factors
 Heredity- physical stature, facial attractiveness, gender, color of skin,
hair & eye balls, temperament, skills, abilities, etc.
 Brain
 Physical Feature – height, color, facial attraction, muscle strength
influences ones self-concept.

Family Factors
 Socialization
 Birth Order

Environmental Factors (Social & Cultural Factors)

Situational Factors

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Both personality & situational factors affect Organizational behavior. It is
the interaction of personality & situational factors that determines how
people think, feel, & behave in general &, specifically, how they do so
within an organization.

Feelings
Thoughts Situational Factors
Personality (Job requirements,
Attitudes rules, etc.)

Behavior
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 Locus of Control – is the degree to which people believe they are masters
of their own situation. Internal locus of control describes people who
believe that their ability & effort determines what happens to them.
External locus of control describes people who believe that what happens
to them is controlled by external forces such as fate, luck, or chance.
 Machiavellianism (Mach) – is a degree to which an individual is
pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can
justify means. High Machs manipulate or win more, but persuades less.
 Self-Monitoring – is the extent to which people try to control the way they
present themselves to others (ability to adjust).
 Self-Esteem – is individuals’ degree of liking or disliking themselves. High
self-esteemed individuals take more risks in job selection and choose
unconventional jobs.
 Risk Taking Attitude decision making, achievement, motivation
 Authoritarianism negative belief (command) about work & workers
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 Rational Economic Man Model – Classical theories
(Taylor). Economic rewards regulate behavior.
 Organizational Man Model – (William Whyte) This
model suggests that individual behavior is oriented towards loyalty,
belongingness, conformity, & sacrifice of individual interest in the
realization of organizational goals.
 Social Man Model – (Mayo, Lewin, McGregor) It is an
outgrowth of human relations movement. It stresses that social
relationship, group norms, and social reward direct individual
actions.
 Self Actualizing Man Model – It suggested that men
engaged in innovations, creations, & dynamism.
 Complex Man Model – (recent origin) It assumes that an
individual behavior in his/her unpredictable) 17
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (100 question personality test)
 Extroverted vs Introverted. Extroverted individual are outgoing,
sociable, & assertive. Introverts are quiet & shy.
 Sensing vs Intuitive. Sensing types are practical & prefer routine &
order. They focus on details. Intuitive rely on unconscious
processes & look at the big picture.
 Thinking vs Feeling. Thinking types use reason & logic to handle
problems. Feeling types rely on their personal values & emotions.
 Judging vs Perceiving. Judging types want control, & prefer their
world to be ordered & structured. Perceiving types are flexible &
spontaneous.
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Extrovert-Introvert Personality Types (Carl Jung)
Type A & Type B Personality
 Type A: A person with desire to change, extremely
competitive, strong sense of urgency, impatient & can
be hostile.
 Type B: A person who tends to be easygoing &
relaxed.

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Ability is the mental or physical capacity to do
something.
 Cognitive Ability - predicts performance. However, other things can
also determine performance.
 Physical Ability - involves Motor Skills (ability to manipulate objects)
& Physical Skills (Person's fitness & strength).
 Emotional Intelligence (EI): A New Kind of Ability – It is the ability
to understand & manage one’s own feelings & emotions & the
feelings & emotions of other people.
 EI is an assortment of noncognitive skills & capabilities that influence a
person’s ability to succeed in copying with environmental demands. It is
composed of 5 elements: self-awareness, self-management, self-
motivation, empathy, & social skills.

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 Cognitive Description Example of jobs in which the
Ability ability is especially important
Verbal ability Ability to understand and use written and spoken Comedians, teachers, lawyers,
language writers
Numerical Ability to solve arithmetic problems & deal with Waiters, investment bankers,
ability numbers engineers, accountants
Reasoning Ability to come up with solutions for problems and Therapists, interior designers, car
ability understand the principles by which different problems mechanics, computer software
can be solved designers
Deductive Ability to reach conclusions from observations or Medical researchers, deductive,
ability evaluate the implication of a series of facts scientists, investigative reporters
Ability to see The ability to see how two things are related to each Anthropologists, travel agents,
relationships other and then apply this knowledge to other consultants, wedding planners
relationships and solutions
Ability to Ability to recall things ranging from simple Translators, salespeople. managers,
remember associations to complex groups of statements researchers
Spatial ability Ability to determine the location or arrangement of Air tragic controllers, architects,
objectives in relation to one’s own position and to clothing designers, astronauts
imagine how an object would appear if its position in
space were altered
Perceptual Ability to uncover visual patterns and see relationships Professional photographers,
within and across patterns airplane pilots, cruise ship captains,
landscape designers
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 When a person experiences stimuli, he/she is
likely to develop an inner feeling.
 Emotion is an expression of a feeling of fear,
anger, joy, love, hate grief, frustration,
satisfaction or any other similar feelings.
 Emotions help to understand employees’
behavior in organizations. The 2 components
emotions are Affect & Moods.
 Affect is a broad range of feelings. Moods are feelings
that tend to be less intense than emotions & that lack a
contextual stimulus.
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 Employee Satisfaction – Employees often conceal their real
emotions & display emotions suitable to the demands of the
environment.
 Organizations select employees who possess this
quality (emotional intelligence).
 Decision Making – Managers overlooking the importance of
negative emotions (fear, anxiety, frustration, doubt,
excitement, angry, stress, coolness, etc) in decision making
process are likely to overlook number of alternatives.
 Leadership – It is concerned with communication of directions,
motivation of subordinates & resolving inter personal conflicts.
 Management of Change – Linking emotions with change (evocation,
framing & mobilization of emotions) will reduce resistance to change.
 Deviant Workplace Behavior – Promotion of positive emotions controls
deviations (slow working, sabotage, politicking, recrimination,
harassment, aggressions, etc.).
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 OB deals with human behavior at work place and
perception is an important determinant of behavior.
 Perception may be defined as the way a person sees
the universe and feels about certain elements in a
situation.
 E.g. Happy employees are productive. It may or it
may not. Perception can provide false
interpretations of sensory information.
 Incorrect perceptions are called illusions. Illusions
may take place in two ways: due to physical
processes (mirages), & cognitive processes.
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 Factors in the perceiver (perceiver variable)
 Attitudes, Motives
 Self-concept, Experience, etc.
 Factors in the target (subject characteristics)
 Status, Appearance
 Sound and Background of the Target, etc.
 Factors in the situation (situational variables)
 Social context, Organizational roles
 Work setting, Time, etc.

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 Stereotyping
 Halo effect
 Similar-to-me effect or projection
 Selective perceptions
 Distortion
 Contrast effects

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 Advertising
 Maintaining Safety
 Managing Impression
 Building Corporate Image
 Managing Performance
 Evaluating Performance
 Judging Employees’ Loyalty
 Self-Assessment and Development
 Building Relationship
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 Getting feedback & receiving feedback
 Having empathy
 Having positive attitudes
 Enhancing self-concept
 Avoiding common biases
 Communication
 Correct use of attribution

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 According to Petty and Cacioppo, attitudes are general
evaluations people make about themselves, other
persons, objects, or issues.

 There are three basic components of attitudes:

 Evaluative component (how do they feel)
 Cognitive component (what do you believe)
 Behavioral component (a predisposition to act in a
certain way)

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 Providing new information
 Fear arousal and reduction
 Dissonance arousal
 Position discripancy
 Participation in decesion making

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 Job satisfaction
 Job involvement
 Organizational commitment , unwilling
to leave their organization

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 Values provide the basic foundation for understanding
a persons attitudes, perceptions and personality
 Values contain judgemental element as to what is right,
good, or desirable.
 Values have both content and intensity attributes.
Content attribute describes what is important and
intensity attribute describes how much is it important.
 According to Edward Spranger, values are the constellation of
likes, dislikes, viewpoints, shoulds, inner inclinations, rational
and irrational judgments, prejudice and association patterns that
determine a persons view of the world.

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 Instrumental Values & Terminal Values
(Milton Rokeach)
 Terminal Values – Desirable end state of
existence; the gols that a person would like to
achieve during his or her lifetime.
 Instrumental Values – preferable modes of
behavior or means of achieing one‘s terminal
values.

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Terminal Values Instrumental Values
 Comfortable life  Ambitious (hardworking,
aspiring)
 Lasting contribution
 Capable (competent, efficient)
 Inner harmony
 Imaginative (daring, creative)
 National security
 Intellectual, reflective
 Pleasure (leisurely life)
 Logical (rational)
 Salivation (saved, eternal life)
 Loving (affectionate, tender)
 Wisdom (a mature
understanding of life)  Self-controlled (restrained, self-
disciplined)
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 Theoretical: high importance to discovery of truth through critical &
rational approach.
 Economic: emphasis on useful & practical.
 Aesthetic: highest value on form & harmony
 Social: highest value to the love of people.
 Political: emphasis on acquisition of power & influence.
 Religious: concerned with unity of experience & understanding of the
cosmos as a whole.

Other Types of Values

 Ethical Values – personal conviction about what is right & wrong.
 Work Values – personal convictions about outcomes & behavior at work
1. Intrinsic work values –are related to the nature of the work itself
2. Extrinsic work values – are related to the consequences of work
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Intrinsic work values Extrinsic work values
 Interesting work  High pay
 Challenging work  Job security
 Learning new things  Job benefits
 Making important  Status in wider community
contributions
 Social contacts
 Reaching full potential at
work
 Time with family

 Responsibility & autonomy

 Time for hobbies

 Being creative 38
 Treat people with trust
 Be respectful to human being
 Accept and utilize human differences
 Use authority and networking for benfit of
organization
 Encourage appropriate confrontation
 Encourage willingness to take calculated risks
 Emphasize collaboration
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