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Module B
Social Psychology Goes to Work:
Applying Social Psychology to Work
Settings and Entrepreneurship
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Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Social Psychology Goes to Work
• Work-Related Attitudes: The Nature and
Effects of Job Satisfaction
• Organizational Citizenship Behavior:
Prosocial Behavior at Work
• Leadership: Influence in Group Settings
• The Social Psychology of
Entrepreneurship
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Social Psychology Goes to Work
• Industrial-Organizational
Psychologists—specialize in studying
all forms of behavior and cognition in
work settings
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Work-Related Attitudes
• Job satisfaction—attitudes individuals hold
concerning their jobs
– The causes of job satisfaction
• Organizational factors
– Being the only member of their ethnicity in the workplace is a
concern for ethnic minority workers.
• Personal factors
• The influence of genetic factors on personality
– Result is that job satisfaction is very stable over time and jobs.
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Work-Related Attitudes
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Work-Related Attitudes
– The effects of job satisfaction
• Job satisfaction is only weakly correlated to job
performance.
– Many jobs do not allow for variations in performance.
– Many other factors influence job performance.
– Job satisfaction may be a result of good job performance
rather than a cause of it.
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
• Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)—
people helping each other at work that is not a
required part of their jobs
– It is performed voluntarily without external rewards.
– Five categories of OCB
• Altruism (helping others perform their jobs)
• Conscientiousness (doing more than is required)
• Civic virtue (showing concern for the organization)
• Sportsmanship (displaying tolerance)
• Courtesy (preventing interpersonal conflicts)
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Organizational Citizenship Behavior
– What factors are related to helping at work?
• Belief that one is being treated fairly according to the
principles of distributive, procedural, and interactional
justice (trust in one’s boss and the organization)
– Also influences how much employees are willing to help
customers, as well as coworkers
• Reciprocity (trading favors)
– The outcome may depend on if one is giving or receiving a favor.
• Employees’ perceptions regarding the breadth of their jobs
• Strong organizational commitment (attitudes toward the
organization)
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Attitudes and Helping at Work
• What are your thoughts?
– Have you been an employee in a work environment
in which job satisfaction was low?
• If so, what factors were responsible for creating the low
levels of job satisfaction?
• Did you or your coworkers engage in any behaviors
indicative of feeling dissatisfied with your jobs?
– If so, what were these behaviors?
– What are ways that employers can increase the
amount of organizational citizenship behavior shown
by their employees?
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Leadership
• Leadership—the process though which one
member of a group (its leader) influences
other group members toward attainment of
shared group goals
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Leadership
– Why do some people become leaders?
• Great Person Theory of Leadership—leaders possess
certain traits that set them apart from other persons and
that are possessed by all leaders no matter where or
when they live
– Recent research shows that leaders do differ from others.
• Leaders tend to possess the following traits:
– Drive, self-confidence, creativity, leadership motivation, and a
high level of flexibility
– Regarding the “Big Five” dimensions of personality, leaders
tend to be high in extraversion, openness to experience, and
agreeableness.
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Leadership
– What do leaders do?
• Initiating Structure (production orientation)—a key
dimension of leader behavior in which leaders are
primarily concerned with getting the job done
• Consideration (person orientation)—a key dimension
of leader behavior in which leaders focus on
establishing good relations with their subordinates and
on being liked by them
– Leaders who are high on both dimensions may be superior
leaders.
• Other dimensions of leader behavior
– Autocratic (makes all decisions) versus participative dimension
– Directive (micro-manage) versus permissive dimension
» The best style of behavior depends on the situation
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Leadership
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Leadership
– Transformational Leaders—leaders who,
because of several characteristics, exert
profound effects on their followers
• Viewed as being charismatic, which is a result of
demonstrating:
– Idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual
stimulation, and individualized consideration
• Also show high levels of self-confidence, excellent
communication skills, an exciting personal style, and
are skilled at impression management
• These leaders wield great influence over many people.
– Followers become more dependent on these leaders while at
the same time they feel more empowered because of them.
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Leadership
– Transactional Leaders—leaders who direct their
groups by rewarding them for desired behavior, by
taking action to correct mistakes or departures
from existing rules, and who generally strengthen
existing structures and strategies within an
organization
• This type of leader is more typical and can be very
effective in most ordinary work settings.
– Transformational leaders appear to perform better
than transactional leaders in uncertain, chaotic work
environments.
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Leadership
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurs—individuals who recognize an
opportunity for a new business and start one
– Why do some people become entrepreneurs?
• Social factors: Modeling (observational learning)
• Cognitive factors: Optimistic bias, planning fallacy, the
perception of low levels of risk
• Personal factors: High in extraversion, low in openness to
experience
– What influences the success of entrepreneurs?
• Social factors: Social skills (effective at social interaction,
social perception, persuasion, and making good first
impressions)
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Entrepreneurship
• Cognitive factors: Engage in counterfactual thinking
significantly less frequently, focus on the future and
not the past; Good at knowing when to stick with
something and when to switch strategies (i.e., avoiding
the pitfalls of sunk costs)
– Regulatory Focus Theory—in regulating their own
behavior, individuals adopt one of two contrasting
perspectives: a promotion focus, in which they focus on
attaining positive outcomes, or a prevention focus, in which
they focus on avoiding negative outcomes
» Which focus is more effective depends on the
availability of better alternatives
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon
Leadership and Entrepreneurship
• What are your thoughts?
– Have you encountered good leaders in the
workplace?
• If so, what characteristics made them good leaders in
that work environment?
– What are possible drawbacks of transformational
leaders in the workplace?
– What makes some people likely to become
successful entrepreneurs?
Copyright 2006, Allyn and Bacon