CHP 9: Foundations of Individual Behavior

Learning outcomes:

Understand the Iceberg metaphor to describe the field of OB.

Identify the focus and goals of OB.
Explain the role that attitudes play in job performance.
Describe different personality theories.
Describe perception and the factors that influence it.
Discuss learning theories and their relevance in shaping behaviour.

What Is Organizational Behavior (OB)?

OB : The study of the actions of people at work.

Focuses on 3 major areas:

Individual behavior
Attitudes, personality, perception, learning and motivation

Group behavior
Norms, roles, team building, leadership, conflict

Organizational aspects
structure, culture, HR policies and practices

Goals of OB:
To explain, predict and influence behavior

Main behaviors of concern:

Employee Productivity:
A performance measure of both work efficiency and effectiveness.

Absenteeism:
The failure to show up for work.

Turnover:
Voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organization.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior:

Discretionary behavior thats not part of an employees formal job requirements, but which promotes
effective functioning of an organization.

Job Satisfaction:
An employees general attitude toward his or her job

Workplace Misbehavior:
Any intentional employee behavior that is potentially harmful to the organization or individuals
within the organization.

3 Components of Attitude (CAB)

Cognitive (C): Made up of the beliefs, opinions, knowledge, and information held by a person.
Affective (A): The emotional or feeling part of an attitude.
Behavioral (B): An intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something.

What Attitudes Might Employees Hold?

Job Involvement
The degree to which an employee identifies with his or her job, actively participates in it, and
considers his or her job performance important for self-worth.
Organizational Commitment
An employees orientation toward the organization in terms of his or her loyalty to, identification
with, and involvement in the organization.
Employee Engagement
When employees are connected to, satisfied with, and enthusiastic about their jobs.

Personality
A unique combination of emotional, thought, and behavioral patterns that affect how a person reacts
to situations and interacts with others.
Personality type:
- Affects how and why people behave the way they do.
- Influence the way people interact and solve problems.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
A personality assessment that uses 4 dichotomies (dimensions) of personality to identify 16 different
personality types based on the responses to an app.100-item questionnaire.

The Big Five Model of Personality

A personality trait model that examines 5 traits:
1. Extraversion: The degree to which someone is sociable, talkative and assertive.
2. Agreeableness: The degree to which someone is good natured-cooperative and trusting.
3. Conscientiousness: The degree to which someone is responsible, dependable, persistent and
achievement oriented.
4. Emotional stability: The degree to which someone is calm, enthusiastic and secure (positive)
OR tense, nervous, depressed and insecure (negative).
5. Openness to experience: The degree to which someone is imaginative, artistically, sensitive
and intellectual.

Perception
A process by which we give meaning to our environment by organizing and interpreting sensory
impressions.

Perception shortcuts:
Selective Perception
The tendency for people to only absorb parts of what they observe, allowing them to speed
read others.
Assumed Similarity (similar to me error)
An observers perception of others is influenced more by the observers own characteristics than
by those of the person observed.
Stereotyping
When we judge someone on the basis of our perception of a group he or she is part of.
Halo Effect:
When we form a general impression of a person on the basis of a single characteristic.

Learning Theory and Behavior

To explain, predict and influence behavior, we need to understand how people learn.
Operant Conditioning
A theory of learning that says behavior is a function of its consequences.
The tendency to repeat learned behavior is influenced by reinforcement or lack of
reinforcement that happens as a result of the behavior.
Social Learning Theory
A theory of learning that says people can learn through observation and direct experience.