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Chapter Three
Foundations of
Individual Behavior
Chapter Objectives
• Explain the nature of the individualorganizational relationship.
• Define personality and describe personality
attributes that affect behavior in
organizations.
• Discuss individual attitudes in organizations
and how they affect behavior.
• Describe basic perceptual processes and the
role of attributes in organizations.
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3-2
Chapter Objectives (continued)
• Discuss the causes and consequences
of stress and describe how stress can
be managed.
• Describe creativity and its role in
organizations.
• Explain how workplace behaviors can
directly or indirectly influence
organizational effectiveness.
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3-3
Understanding Individuals in Organizations
• The Psychological Contract
– A person’s set of expectations regarding what he
or she will contribute to the organization and what
the organization will provide in return.
• Unlike a business contract, a psychological contract is
not written on paper, nor are all of its terms explicitly
negotiated.
• Nature of the Psychological Contract
– Contributions and Inducements
• Individual’s contributions to the organization- effort, skills,
ability, time, loyalty,
• Organization’s inducements to the individual, such as
pay and career opportunities.
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Figure 3.1: The Psychological Contract
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The Person-Job Fit
• Person-Job Fit
– The extent to which the individual’s contributions
match the organization’s inducements.
– In theory, each employee has a specific set of
needs that he or she wants fulfilled and a set of
job-related behaviors and abilities to contribute.
– If the organization can take perfect advantage of
those behaviors and abilities and exactly fulfill the
employee’s needs, it will have achieved a perfect
person-job fit.
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The Nature of Individual Differences
• Individual Differences are personal attributes
that vary from one person to another:
• Physical
• Psychological
• Emotional
• Individual differences are neither good nor
bad.
• Whenever an organization attempts to assess
or account for individual differences among its
employees, it must also be sure to consider
the situation in which behavior occurs.
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Personality and Individual Behavior
• Personality is the relatively stable set of
psychological attributes that distinguish one
person from another.
• Managers should strive to understand basic
personality attributes and the ways they can
affect people’s behavior in organizational
situations, as well as their perceptions of and
attitudes toward the organization.
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The “Big Five” Personality Traits
• In recent years, researchers have
identified five fundamental personality
traits that are especially relevant to
organizations.
• Because these five traits are so
important and receive so much
attention, they are referred to as the
“Big Five” personality traits.
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The “Big Five” Personality Traits (continued)
• Agreeableness
– The ability to get along with others
• Conscientiousness
– The number of goals on which a person
focuses
• Negative Emotionality
– A trait characterized by moodiness and
insecurity
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The “Big Five” Personality Traits (continued)
• Extraversion
– The quality of being comfortable with
relationships; the opposite extreme,
introversion, is characterized by more
social discomfort
• Openness
– The capacity to entertain new ideas and to
change as a result of learning new
information
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Figure 3.2:
The
“Big Five”
Personality
Framework
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The Myers-Briggs Framework
• The Myers-Briggs Framework differentiates
people in terms of four general dimensions.
1. Extroversion (E) Versus Introversion (I)
2. Sensing (S) Versus Intuition (N)
3. Thinking (T) Versus Feeling (F)
4. Judging (J) Verses Perceiving (P)
• To use this framework, the organization has
people complete a questionnaire designed to
measure their personalities on each
dimension.
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Other Personality Traits at Work
• Locus of Control
– The extent to which people believe their
circumstances are a function of either their own
actions or external factors beyond their control.
• Self-Efficacy
– A person’s beliefs about his or her capabilities to
perform a task.
• Authoritarianism
– The belief that power and status differences are
appropriate within hierarchical social systems
such as organizations.
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Other Personality Traits at Work
(continued)
• Machiavellianism
– People who behave to gain power and control the
behavior of others.
• Self-Esteem
– The extent to which a person believes she or he is
a worthwhile and deserving individual.
• Risk Propensity
– The degree to which an individual is willing to take
chances and make risky decisions.
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Emotional Intelligence
• The concept of emotional intelligence
refers to the extent to which people:
– are self-aware
– can manage their emotions
– can motivate themselves
– can express empathy for others
– possess social skills
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Emotional Intelligence (continued)
• Self-Awareness
– The basis for. the other components that refers to
one’s capacity for being aware of how one is
feeling.
• Managing Emotions
– One’s capacity to balance anxiety, fear, and anger
so they do not overly interfere with getting things
accomplished.
• Motivating Oneself
– The ability to remain optimistic and continue
striving in the face of setbacks, barriers, and
failure.
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Emotional Intelligence (continued)
• Empathy
– A person’s ability to understand how others
are feeling even without being explicitly
told.
• Social Skills
– This refers to a person’s ability to get along
with others and to establish positive
relationships.
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Attitudes
• A person’s complexes of beliefs and feelings about
specific ideas, situations, or other people.
• Important because they are the mechanism through
which most people express their feelings.
• 3 components:
1. affective component – reflects feelings and emotions an
individual has toward a situation.
2. cognitive component – derives from knowledge an
individual has toward a situation.
3. intentional component – reflects how an individual expects
to behave toward or in the situation.
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Cognitive Dissonance
• The anxiety a person experiences when she
or her simultaneously possesses two sets of
knowledge or perceptions that are
contradictory or incongruent.
– For example, a person who has vowed to never
work for a large company but instead open a small
firm, may find herself seeking a job with a large
company as the result of financial setbacks.
– To reduce this dissonance, the individual might
tell herself that the situation is only
temporary and she can go back out
on her own in the near future.
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Work-Related Attitudes
• Job Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction
– The extent to which a person is gratified or fulfilled
by his or her work.
• While high levels of satisfaction may not lead to high
levels of performance, satisfied employees tend to be
absent less often, make positive contributions, and stay
with the organization.
• Organizational Commitment
– A person’s identification with and attachment to
the organization.
• A person with high levels of commitment is likely to see
herself as a true member of the organization and
overlook minor sources of dissatisfaction.
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Affect and Mood in Organizations
• Positive Affectivity
– People who possess positive affectivity are upbeat
and optimistic, have an overall sense of wellbeing, and see things in a positive light.
• Negative Affectivity
– People characterized by negative affectivity are
generally downbeat and pessimistic, see things in
a negative light, and seem to be perpetually in a
bad mood.
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Perception and Individual Behavior
• Perception
– The set of processes by which an individual
becomes aware of and interprets information
about the environment.
• Basic Perceptual Processes
– Selective perception
• The process of screening out information that we are
uncomfortable with or that contradicts our beliefs.
– Stereotyping
• The process of categorizing or labeling people on the
basis of a single attribute.
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Figure 3.3: Basic Perceptual Processes
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Stress and Individual Behavior
• Stress
– An individual’s response to a strong stimulus (a
stressor.)
• Type A vs. Type B Individuals
– Type A individuals are extremely competitive, are
very devoted to work, and have a strong sense of
time urgency.
– Type B individuals are less competitive, are less
devoted to work, and have a weaker sense of time
urgency.
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Figure 3.4: The General Adaptation Syndrome
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Causes and Consequences of Stress
• Causes of Stress
– Physical Demands
• Stressors associated with the job setting (i.e., too hot, too
cold, poorly designed office, too little social interaction,
etc.)
– Role Demands
• Stress can result from either role ambiguity or role
conflict that people experience in groups.
– Interpersonal Demands
• Stressors associated with relationships that confront
people in organizations. For example, group pressures
regarding restrictions of output and norm conformity can
lead to stress.
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Causes and Consequences of Stress
(continued)
• Consequences of Stress
– The results of stress may be positive or
negative.
– The negative consequences may be
behavioral, psychological, or medical.
• Burnout
• Burnout is a sense of exhaustion that develops
when someone experiences too much stress
for an extended period of time.
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Creativity in Organizations
• Creativity
– The ability to generate new ideas of
conceive of new perspectives on existing
ideas.
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Figure 3.5: The Creative Process
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Types of Workplace Behavior
• Performance Behaviors
– The total set of work-related behaviors that the
organization expects the individual to display.
– They derive from the psychological contract.
• For some jobs performance behaviors can be narrowly
defined and easily measured (i.e. an assembly line
worker,who remains at the workstation and attaches
parts.)
• For many other jobs, performance behavior is more
diverse and much more difficult to assess (a researcher
at a major pharmaceutical company.)
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Types of Workplace Behavior (continued)
• Withdrawal Behaviors
– Absenteeism occurs when an individual does not
show up for work.
– Turnover occurs when people quit their jobs.
• Dysfunctional Behaviors
– Work-related behaviors that detract from
organizational performance.
• Organizational Citizenship
– Extent to which the individual's behavior makes a
positive overall contribution to the organization.
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