OB Module 2

Individual Beviour in Organization

Perception
 Perception is the process by which individuals organize and
interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning
to their environment.
 However actually it may be very different from real situation.
 What is Perception?
 –The process by which individuals organize and interpret their
impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.
 Why is it important?
 –Because behaviour is based on perception of what reality is,
not on reality itself.
 –The world as it is perceived is the world that is behaviourally
important.
Why We Study Perceptions

 To better understand how people make attributions about

events.
 •We don’t see reality. We interpret what we see and call it
reality.
 •The attribution process guides our behaviour, regardless of
the truth of the attribution.
Factors that influence perception
 Several factors operate to shape or distort the perception.
 These factors can reside in the perceiver, in the object, or
target, being perceived; or in the context of the situation in
which the perception is made.
 Factors in the
perceiver
•Attitudes
•Motives
•Interest
•Experience
•Expectations

Factors in the situation

•Time Perception
•Work Setting
•Social Setting
Factors in the target
•Novelty
•Motion
•Sounds
•Size
•Background
•Proximity
•Similarity
Perceptual Errors

 Attribution Theory
 Selective Perception
 Halo Effect
 Contrast Effects
 Projection
 Stereotyping
Person Perception: Making Judgments
about others
 Attribution Theory: An attempt to determine whether an
individual’s behavior is internally or externally caused.
 It depends largely on three factors:
 1.Distinctiveness: To whether an individual displays
different behavior in different situations.
 2.Consensus: If every one faces the similar situation
responds in the same way, we can say the behavior shows
consensus.
 3.Consistency: Does the person respond in the same way
over time?
 Fundamental Attribution Error
 –The tendency to underestimate external factors and
overestimate internal factors when making judgments about
others’ behaviour.
 Self-Serving Bias
 –The tendency to attribute one’s successes to internal factors
while putting the blame for failures on external factors.
Frequently used shortcuts in judging
others
 Halo effect: The tendency to draw a general impression
about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic.
 Contrast Effects: Evaluation of a person’s characteristics
that is affected by comparisons with other people recently
encountered who rank higher or lower on the same
characteristics.
Frequently used shortcuts in judging
others contd…
 Selective perception:
 The tendency to selectively interpret what one sees on the
basis of one’s interest, background, experience and attitudes.
 Stereotyping:
 Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the
group to which that person belongs.
Why Do Perceptions and Judgment
Matter?

 Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
 –A concept that proposes a person will behave in ways
consistent with how he or she is perceived by others
Ability
 An individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job.
 Current assessment what one can do.
 Made up of two sets of factors:
 Intellectual abilities:
 Ability needed to perform mental activities.
 For thinking, reasoning, and problem solving.
 Measurement through IQ, CAT, GMAT etc.
 Physical Abilities:
 The capacity to do tasks that demand stamina, strength and
similar characteristics.
 Wonderlic Personality Test: Most widely used intelligence test .
 Different forms of test and each form has 50 questions.
 Eg.:
 Assume the first two statements are true . Is the final one:
 1. True 2.False 3.Not certain?
 A. The boys plays football
 All football players wear hats.
 The boy wears a hat.
 It test both speed and power.
 So the average is pretty low. About 21/50
Learning
 Any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a
result of experience.
 Theories of Learning:
 Classical Learning:
 Operant Learning:
 Social Learning:
Classical Learning:

 A type of conditioning in which an individual responds to

some stimulus that would not ordinarily produce such a
response.
 Russian Physiologist Ivan Pavlov.
 Ringing of a bell.
 Meat: An unconditioned stimulus
 Increase in salivation : unconditioned response
 Bell: Conditioned Stimulus
 Conditioned response: salivation without meat on ringing the
bell.
 Dog ‘s salivation
Meat
Caused increased
US
UR

The reaction took place whenever the unconditioned

stimulus occurred was called Unconditioned response.

Bell is
Caused Dog ‘s salivation
ringing
does not increased
CS

Dog ‘s salivation
Bell is
Meat Caused increased
ringing
US CR
CS

The reaction took place when CS was paired with US the

reaction occurred was called conditioned response.
Classical Conditioning
 It is passive.
 People had learnt to associate cleaning of windows and office
with the visit from head office.
 But complex behaviour in the organization is emitted rather
than elicited.
Operant Conditioning
 A type of conditioning in which desired voluntary behavior
leads to reward or prevents a punishment.
 Argues that behavior is a function of its consequences.
 Means voluntary or learned behavior.
 The tendency to repeat such behavior is influenced by the
reinforcement or lack of reinforcement brought about by the
consequences of behavior.
 Reinforcement strengthens a behavior and increase the
likelihood that it will be repeated.
 B.F. Skinner did operant conditioning.
Operant Conditioning Contd.
 Creating pleasing consequences to follow specific forms of
behavior would increase the frequency of that behavior.
 The people will most likely engage in desired behaviors if
they are positively reinforced for doing so; that rewards are
most effective if they immediately follow the desired
response; and that behavior that is not rewarded, or punished
is less likely to repeated.
Social Learning
 The view that people can learn through observation and direct
experience.
 Called as social learning theory.
 Mainly watching our role models –parents, teachers, bosses,
peers, television performers etc.
 It is an extension of operant conditioning.
 It assumes that behavior is a function of consequences.
 Four process , to determine the influence of a model on an
individual:
 Attentional Processes:
 When we recognize and pay attention to them.
 Retention Processes:
 Influence depends on how well the individual remembers the
model’s action after the model no longer readily available.
 Motor Reproduction Processes:
 The watching must be converted to doing .
 Reinforcement Processes:
 Individuals motivated to exhibit the modeled behavior, If
positive incentives or rewards provided
Shaping Desired Behavior
 Systematically reinforcing each successive step that moves an
individual closer to desired response.
 Methods of shaping behavior:
 Positive reinforcement: Following a response with something
pleasant .
 For ex: a boss praises an employee for a job well done.
 Negative reinforcement: Following a response by a
termination or withdrawal of something unpleasant .
 Punishment: Causing an unpleasant condition in an attempt
to eliminate an undesirable behavior.
Shaping Desired Behavior Contd.
 For ex: giving employees 2 days suspension.
 Extinction: Eliminating any reinforcement that is maintaining
a behavior .
 For ex: a class instructor who wish to discourage students
from asking questions in class can eliminate this behavior in
their students by ignoring those who raise their hands to ask
questions.
Schedules of Reinforcement
 Continuous reinforcement:
 Schedule reinforces the desired behavior each and every time
it is demonstrated.
 Intermittent Reinforcement:
 Not on every instance of desirable behavior is reinforced, but
reinforcement is given often enough to make behavior worth
repeating.
Behavior modification: OB Mod
 The application of reinforcement concepts to individuals in
the work setting.
 It follows 5 steps:
 1) Identify critical behavior
 2) Develop baseline data
 3) Identify behavioral consequences
 4) Develop and implement an intervention strategy
 5) Evaluate performance improvement
 1) Identify behavior that impact significantly on employee’s
performance.
 2) Determining number of times identified behavior is
occurring in present condition.
 3) Identify the consequences of performance
 4) Develop and implement a new strategy that link
performance with reward.
 5) Evaluate performance after implementation of strategy.
Attitudes
 Attitudes are evaluative statements or judgments concerning
objects, people, or events.
 They reflect how we feel about something.
 Main components of Attitudes:
 Cognitive Component:
 The aspect of an attitude that is a description of or belief in
the way things are.
 The opinion or belief segment of an attitude.
 Affective Component :
 The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude.
 Behavioral component:
 An intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or
something.
 Ex: My pay is low- cognitive component
 I am angry over how little I’m paid.-affective component
 I’m going to look for another job that pays better.-behavioral
component
 The Components of an Attitude

Cognitive
=
evaluation

Affective Negative
= Attitude toward
Feeling supervisor

Behavioral
=
Action
Does Behavior Always Follow From
Attitude?
 The Attitudes people hold determine what they do.
 Some Conflicts?
 Did you ever notice how people change what they say so it doesn’t contradict
what they do?
 Reason is:
 Cognitive Dissonance :
 Cognition: Belief
 Two belief
 Dissonance
 Any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and
attitudes.
 People seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and
their behavior.
 They do this by altering either their attitude or their behavior or by developing
a rationalization for discrepancy.
 The desire to reduce dissonance depends on importance of
the elements creating it and degree of influence the
individual believes he has over the elements; individuals will be
more motivated to reduce dissonance when the attitudes or behavior
are important or when they believe that the dissonance is due
to something they can control. A third factor is the rewards
of dissonance; high rewards accompanying high dissonance
tends to reduce tension.
 Ex: Know smoking is injurious to health and Love to smoke
 Choose to smoke with certain logic like so many old people
smokes and still they are healthy.
Major Job Attitudes?
 Job satisfaction: A positive feeling about one’s job
resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.
 Job involvement: The degree to which a person identifies
with a job, actively participates in it, and considers
performance important to self-worth.
 Psychological empowerment: Employees’ belief in the
degree to which they affect their work environment, their
competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and their
perceived autonomy of their work.
 Organizational Commitment:
 The degree to which an employee identifies with a particular
organization and its goals and wishes to maintain
membership in the organization:
 A) Affective Commitment: An emotional attachment to an
organization and a belief in its value.
 B) Continuance Commitment: The perceived economic value
of remaining with an organization compared with leaving it.
 C) Normative Commitment: An obligation to remain with an
organization for moral or ethical reasons.
 Employee engagement and job engagement:
 An individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with and
enthusiasm for the work he or she does.
Job satisfaction
 Measuring Job satisfaction:
 Single Global rating:
 A summation of job facets:
 Causes of job satisfaction:
 Compensation and benefits
 Supervision
 Communication
 Teamwork
 Work environment
 Job satisfaction
Consequences on Dissatisfaction
 Exit: The exit response involves directing behavior toward leaving the
organization, including looking for new position as well as resigning.
 Voice: The voice response involves actively and constructively
attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting improvements,
discussing problems with superiors, and undertaking some forms of
union activity.
 Loyalty: The loyalty response involves passively but optimistically
waiting for conditions to improve, including speaking up for the
organization in the face of external criticism and trusting the
organization and its management to “ do the right thing.”
 Neglect: The neglect response involves passively allowing conditions to
worsen, including chronic absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and
increased error rate.
Impact of satisfied and dissatisfied
employees on the workplace

Active

Exit Voice

Destructive Constructive

Neglect Loyalty

Passive
Job satisfaction and Job performance
 Positive relationship between job satisfaction and job
performance.
Job satisfaction and OCB
 Job satisfaction is major determinants of OCB.
 Job satisfaction is moderately correlated with OCB.
 It comes through Perception of fairness.
Job satisfaction and customer
satisfaction
 Satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and
loyalty.
Job satisfaction and Absenteeism
 There is consistent negative relationship between satisfaction
and absenteeism
Job satisfaction and turnover
 Satisfaction is also negatively related to turnover.
Job satisfaction and workplace
Deviance
 Workers who don’t like their jobs are some how behave like
as in workplace.
Personality
 Given by Gordon Allport
 He said, “The dynamic organization within the Individual of
those psychological systems that determine his unique
adjustments to his environment.”
 The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and
interacts with others.
 Measuring Personality:
1. Self-report surveys
2. Observer rating surveys
3. Projective measures (Thematic Appreciation Test)
 Self Report Survey:
 Completed by the individual.
 Disadvantages:
1. Accuracy
2. Mood of individual
 Observer Rating Survey:
1. Coworker could do the rating.
 Projective Measures:
 TAT:
1. Series of pictures on cards.
2. The individual being tested writes a story about the
picture.
 Rarely used.
 Personality test can be used in screening, selection,
succession planning, Career planning, team building
Personality Determinants:
 Personality appears to be result of both hereditary and
environmental factors .
 Hereditary:
 Physical stature
 Facial attractiveness
 Temperament
 Muscle Composition
 Energy Level etc.
The Myers- Briggs Type Indicator
 MBTI Is the personality assessment instrument.
 100 question on personality are asked.
 Extraverted versus introverted:
 Extroverts are outgoing sociable, and assertive. Introvert are
quiet and shy.
 Sensing versus Intuitive:
 Sensing are practical and prefer routine and order. They focus
on details. Intuitive rely on unconscious processes and look at
the big picture.
 Thinking versus feeling:
 Thinking types use reason and logic to handle problems.
 Feeling types rely on their personal values and emotions.
 Judging versus perceiving:
 Judging types want control and prefer their world to be
ordered and structured .
 Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous.
 These classification together describe 16 personality types.
 Like wise INTJs are visionaries., determined, independent
and often stubborn.
 ESTJs are organizers, realistic, logical, analytical have natural
head for business.
 ENTPs are conceptualizer, innovative, versatile and attracted
to entrepreneur ideas.
The Big Five Personality Model
 Extraversion: Captures one’s comfort level with relationships
 Agreeableness: Refers to an individual’s propensity to defer
to others.
 Conscientiousness: Is a measure of reliability
 Emotional Stability: Taps a person’s ability to withstand
stress.
 Openness to experience: Addresses one’s range of interest
and fascination with novelty.
Type A personality
 Are always moving, walking and eating rapidly
 Feel impatient with rate at which most events take place
 Strive to think or do two or more things at once
 Cannot cope with leisure time
 Are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success in terms
of how many or how much of everything they acquire.
Type B Personality
 Opposite to type A.
 Type A operate under moderate to high levels of stress.
Values
 Basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end state
of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite
or converse mode of conduct or end state of existence.
 Values have both content and intensity attributes.
 Content Attribute says that a mode of conduct or end state of
existence is important.
 Intensity attribute specifies how important it is.
Importance of Values
 They lay the foundation for our understanding of people’s
attitudes and motivation and because they influence our
perceptions.
 Type of values:
 Terminal Values: Desirable end states of existence; the goals a
person would like to achieve during his or her lifetime.
 Instrumental Values: Refers to preferable modes of behavior,
or means of achieving the terminal values.
Terminal Values Instrumental Values
Self Respect Honest
Family Security Responsible
Freedom Capable
A sense of accomplishment Ambitious
Happiness Independent
Person Job Fit Theory
 The effort to match job requirements with personality
characteristics is best articulated in John Holland’s
Personality-Job –Fit theory.
Type Personality Congruent
Characteristics (matching)Occupations
Realistic: Prefer physical Shy, Genuine, persistent, stable Mechanic, drill press operator,
activities that require skill, farmer
strength and coordination
Investigative: Prefers activities Analytical, original, curious, Biologist, economist,
that involve thinking, independent mathematician, news reporter
organizing, and understanding
Social: Prefer activities that Sociable, friendly, cooperative, Social worker, teacher,
involve helping and developing understanding counselor
others
Conventional: Prefer rule- Conforming, efficient, Accountant, corporate
regulated, orderly and practical , unimaginative manger, file clerk
unambiguous activities.
Enterprising: Prefers verbal Self-confident, ambitious, Lawyer, real estate agent,
activities in which there are energetic public relations specialist,
opportunities to influence small business manger
others and attain power
Artistic: Prefers ambiguous Imaginative, disorderly , Painter, musician, writer,
and unsystematic activities that idealistic, emotional, interior decorator
allow creative expression impractical
 Represent current state of thinking in explaining employee
motivation.
 Cognitive evaluation Theory:
 A theory that states that allocating extrinsic rewards for
behaviour that had been previously intrinsically rewarding
tends to decrease the overall level of motivation.
 When extrinsic rewards are given to someone for
performing an interesting task , it causes intrinsic interest in
the task itself to decline.
 Goal Setting theory:
 A theory says that specific and difficult goals, with feedback,
lead to higher performance.
 Self- Efficacy theory:
 An individual belief that he or she is capable of performing a
task.
 Reinforcement Theory:
 A theory that says that behaviour is a function of its
consequences.
 Equity theory:
 A theory that says that individuals compare their job inputs
and outcomes with those of others and then respond to
eliminate any inequities.
 Expectancy Theory:
 It says that the strength of tendency to act in a certain way
depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be
followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that
outcome to individual.