Topic 4: Attitudes, Perception and Personality

MGMT 1001, s1 2015

School of Management

Reflective Questions to guide this lecture

Part 1: (Behaviours of ) Individuals in Organisations (OB)

Why is it important to look at individual behaviour in an organisation?

What are the 6 behaviours that managers want to predict and influence?

Attitudes

What are the 3 components of an attitude? What are 3 job-related attitudes?

How does job satisfaction affect employees behaviour?
How do individuals reconcile inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviour?

Personality

How can we identify/ classify personality?

What are the personality traits that explain behaviour in organisations?
How do emotions and emotional intelligence impact behaviours?

Perception

How does perception relates to individual behaviour?

What are the key elements of the attribution theory?
How does fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias distort attributions?
What are the three shortcuts used in judging others?

Organisational Behaviour (OB)

OB is the study of the actions of people at work

Understanding Individual Behaviour

Organisational behaviour (OB)
The actions of people at work

Dual focus of OB
- Individual behaviour
- Group behaviour
- Norms, roles, team building, and conflict

Goals of OB
To explain, predict, and influence behaviour.

6 Important Employee Behaviours

ATTITUDES

An attitude is an expression of favour or disfavour toward a person,

place, thing, or event (the attitude object).

Pause & Reflect: Who controls your attitudes? Can attitudes be

influenced?
Components of an attitude
Cognitive component: the beliefs, opinions, knowledge, or information
held by a person
Affective component: the emotional or feeling part of an attitude
Behavioural component: the intention to behave in a certain way

Employee
attitude

Subsequent
behaviour

Three job-related attitudes

1. Job satisfaction
- The individual's general attitude toward his or her job
- Job satisfaction is affected by level of income earned and by the type of a job a
worker does.

satisfaction
and
productivity
- "SoJob
what"
if there is no job
satisfaction?
2 perspectives, from employee's views and employer's views

??
?

Attitude

Behaviour

Job satisfaction

Productivity

Three job-related attitudes (contd)

Job satisfaction and absenteeism
- 2 perspectives (from employee/s views & employer/s views)
- Satisfied employees tend to have lower levels of absenteeism

Job satisfaction and turnover

If you are a manager, how would

you reduce turnover?

- 2 perspectives (from employee's views and employer's views)

- Satisfied employees have lower levels of turnover; dissatisfied empoyees have
higher levels of turnover (and also affect other employees' attitude)
- Turnover is affected by the level of employee performance
- The preferential treatment afforded superior employee makes satisfaction less
important in predicting their turnonver decisions
Attitude
Low/ Poor Job
satisfaction

Behaviour
Job withdrawal/
Absenteeism/
Turnover

Three job-related attitudes (contd)

Job satisfaction and customer satisfaction
- 3 perspectives (from employee, employer's, and customer's views)
- The level of job satisfaction for frontline employees is related to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty
- Actions to increase job satisfaction for customer service workers
- Hire upbeat and friendly employees
- Reward superior customer service
- Provide a positive work climate
- Use attitude surveys to track employee satisfaction
- Interaction with dissatisfied customers can increase an employee's job dissatisfaction.

Three job-related attitudes (contd)

2. Job involvement
The degree to which an employee identifies with his or her job, actively
participates in it, and considers his or her performance to be important to his or
her self'worth

3. Organisational commitment
- The degree to which an employee identifies with a particular organisation and
its goals and wishes to maintain membership in the organisation
- There are 3 forms of organisational commitment:
- Affective commitment: employee strongly identifies with organisation and
desires to remain

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Three job-related attitudes (contd)

3. Organisational commitment
3 forms of organisational commitment:
- Continuance commitment: employee commits because he/she perceives high costs of losing organisation membership
- Normative commitment: employee commits due to feelings of obligation

In summary:
Affective Commitment
Continuance Commitment
Normative Commitment

Employee commits to the organisation because

he/she "wants to"
Because employee "has to"
Because employee "ought to"
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Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Cognitive dissonance

A
- any incompatibility or inconsistency between attitudes or between behaviour
and attitudes
- any form of inconsistency is uncomfortable and individuals will try to reduce the
dissonance
Intensity of the desire to reduce the dissonance is influenced by:
- The importance of the factors creating the dissonance
- The degree to which an individual believes that the factors
causing the dissonance are controllable
- Rewards available to compensate for the dissonate

The theory suggests that dissonance, being unpleasant,

motivates a person to change either his or her cognition,
attitude, or behaviour.

PERSONALITY
Personality

The unique combination of psychological characteristics

(measurable traits) that affect how a person reacts and
interacts with others.

- Examples: quiet, passive, loud, aggressive, ambitious,

extroverted, loyal, tense, sociable, positive, negative, daring, etc.
- There are many ways to identify or classify personality. For
examples, the big 5 model, myers-biggs type indicator (MBTI)
Pause and reflect:
- Can a person have more than one personality?
- Are there distinct personality types between cultures?
- What is my personality? How will this impact my performance at
work?

Pause & Reflect

Question:
How will the 5 listed personality insights below impact on
(i) performance at work?
(ii)Team cohesiveness? Team performance?

5 Personality dimensions (Additional Personality Insights)

1) Locus of control (External/ Internal)
External locus: persons who believe that what happens to them is due to
luck or chance (the uncontrollable effects of ouside forces)
Internal locus: believe that they control their own destiny

2) Machiavellianism (High/ Low)

The degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance,
and seeks to gain and manipulate power "the ends justify the means"

3) Self-Esteem (High/ Low)

The degree to which people like or dislike themselves

Five personality dimensions (contd)

4) Self-Monitoring (High/ Low)
- An individual's ability to adjust his or her behaviour to external,
situational factors
- High self monitors:
- sensitive to external cues and behave differently in different situations
- can present contradictory public personal and private selves

5) Risk-Taking (High/ Low)

The propensity (willingness) to take risks

The Big Five Model

1.

Extroversion Sociable, gregarious, assertive, talkative, expressive

2.

Agreeableness Courteous, trusting, good-natured, tolerant,

cooperative, and forgiving

3.

Conscientiousness Dependable, organised, persevering, thorough,

4.

and achievement orientated

Emotional Stability Calm, non-depressed, secure, and content

5.

Openness to Experience
Curious, imaginative, artistically, sensitive, broad-minded, and
intellectual

The big 5 personality test. (2008). The big 5 personality test. http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive/,
accessed 22 March, 2015.

BREAK

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is
a psychometric questionnaire designed to
measure psychological preferences in how people
perceive the world and make decisions.

T
S
N
F
I J

Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

4 Dimensions*

Social
interaction
Preference for
gathering data
Preference for
decision making
Style of
decision making

Preferences*
Extrovert (E)
Introvert (I)
Sensing (S)
Intuitive (N)
Feeling (F)
Thinking (T)
Perceptive (P)
Judgmental (J)

*Combining dimensions/preferences results in 16 personality types.

Hollands theory of personality-job fit

Type
Realistic
Investigative
Social
Conventional
Enterprising
Artistic

Personality

Occupations

Emotions and Emotional Intelligence

What is Emotion?

Emotions and Emotional Intelligence

Emotion Intelligence (EI)

PERCEPTION

2. PERCEPTION
Perception
A process by which individuals give meaning (reality) to their
environment by organising and interpreting their sensory impressions.
Since people behave according to their perceptions, managers need to
understand it.

Factors influencing perception:

Factors
That Can
Influence
Perception

The
perceiver
The
target
The
situation

How we perceive people?

Attribution theory

How the actions of individuals are perceived by others

Determining the source of behaviours:

Distinctiveness

Consensus

Consistency

Attribution Theory

Key Elements of Attribution Theory (AT)

AT research finds that there are errors or biases that distort attributions

1) Fundamental Attribution Error

2) Self-Serving Bias

Judgmental / Perceptual shortcuts

Assumed
similarity

Halo effect

Selectivity

Stereotyping

Question: How do you turn Judgmental/

Perceptual shortcuts to your advantage?

LEARNING REVIEW
1. Attitudes
3 components of an attitude. 3 job-related attitudes
Link between job satisfaction and employee behaviour
2. Personality

The MBTI and the Big Five Model of personality

5 other personality traits that can explaining individual behaviour

Emotions and emotional intelligence
3. Perception

Perception and individual behaviour

Attribution theory, Fundamental attribution error, Self-serving bias

3 cognitive shortcuts
Reflection:
How does todays lecture fit into our learning of managing organisations
and people?
Which aspects of the lecture are likely to be examined in the final
exams?