UNIT II – INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR

Part I: Learning, Attitudes

and Job Satisfaction

Part II: Motivation

Part III: Personality &

Values

Part IV: Perception,

Decision Making and
Emotions
UNIT 2- INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR
PART III- Personality and Values
PERSONALITY
 INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR
• Individual behavior means some concrete action by a person. The
behavior of an individual is influenced by various factors such as:
1. Personality: It refers to personal traits such as dominance,
aggressiveness, persistence and other qualities reflected through a
person’s behavior. An individual’s personality determines the type of
activities that he or she is suited for, and the likelihood that the person
would be able to perform the task effectively. Thus, personality factors
must be taken into account in determining the suitability of an
individual for a position or task in the organisation.
2. Ability: It refers to the actual skills and capabilities that a person
possesses and are required for the effective performance of activities.
3. Perception: It is the viewpoint by which one interprets a
situation. An individual’s behavior is not influenced by the
organisation’s actual expectation of him, but by how these are
perceived by the person.
 INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR
4. Motivation: It refers to all the forces operating within a person
to cause him or her to engage in certain kinds of behavior rather
than others. Even if all the factors are present to facilitate
effective individual behavior on a particular job, these factors
would amount to nothing unless the person is motivated to
perform well. A person’s motivation is influenced by his or her
attitudes, beliefs, values and goals.
5. Organisational factors: Individual behavior is influenced by a
wide variety of organisational systems (organisational structure
and hierarchy) and resources (advice and directions from
leaders, physical support in terms of facilities and technology).
6. Socio - Cultural factors: The social environment of an individual
includes relationship with family members, friends, co-workers,
supervisors and subordinates. These factors moderate the effect
of other factors to determine the behavior of an individual.
 PERSONALITY
• The term ‘personality’ has been derived from the Latin term per
sona which means to ‘speak through’. According to Gordon
Allport, “Personality is the dynamic organization within the
individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his
unique adjustments to his environment.” Personality of an
individual is unique, personal and a major determinant of his
behavior. Because of differences in personality, individuals differ
in their manner of responding to different situations. It can be
said to be the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to
and interacts with others.
• A comprehensive definition of personality is given by Fred
Luthans. In his words, personality means how a person affects
others and how he understands and views himself as well as the
pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and the person-
situation interaction.
 MEASURING PERSONALITY
• Today’s managers need to know how to measure personality of
the employees because personality tests are a useful tool in
making hiring decisions and help in predicting the better fit for a
job. Two most widely used means of measuring personality are:
1. Self-Report Surveys: Although these surveys work well when
they are well constructed but the major weakness in these
surveys is that the respondent might lie or practice impression
management. When people know that their personality scores
are going to be used for hiring purposes they tend to rate
themselves as about half a standard deviation better.
2. Observer-Ratings Surveys: These surveys provide an
independent assessment of personality by employing a co-
worker or another observer for the rating. Research suggests
that observer-ratings surveys are a better predictor of success
on the job.
 DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
1. Biological Factors:
• Heredity. It means the transmission of the qualities from ancestor to
descendant through a mechanism lying primarily in the chromosomes or
genes. Physical stature, facial attractiveness, temperament, muscle
composition, etc. are inherited from one’s parents. However, the
importance of heredity varies from one personality trait to another. For
example, heredity is generally more important in determining a person’s
temperament than his values and ideals.
• Brain. There is a general feeling that brain plays an important role in the
development of one’s personality. However, no conclusive proof is
available so far about the nature of relationship between the brain and
personality.
• Physical features. An individual’s external appearance may have a
tremendous effect on his personality. Some people give relatively higher
weightage to the physical features of an individual while defining his
personality. Such factors include height, weight, colour, facial features, etc.
of the individual. God physical appearance is an asset for the job of a sales
person and public relations.
 DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
2. Family and Social Factors:
• The development of individual’s personality is also influenced by his
family and other social groups. The infant acquires those behaviour
patterns that are customary and acceptable to the standards of the
family and the community where the family lives. The status of the
family in the society influence individual’s perception about self, others,
work, money, etc.
• Family and social factors shape a person’s personality through the
processes of socialisation and identification.
• Socialisation is a process by which an infant acquires, from the
enormously wide range of behavioural potentialities that are open to
him at birth, those behaviour patterns that are customary and
acceptable to the family and social groups.
• Socialisation process starts with initial contact between mother and her
new infant. Later on, other members of the family and social groups
influence the socialisation process.
 DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
• The identification process occurs when a person tries to identify himself
with some person whom he feels ideal in family. Generally a child in the
family tries to behave like his father or mother. The identification process
can be examined from three different perspectives. First, identification
can be viewed as the similarity of behaviour (including feelings and
attitudes) between the child and the model. Second, identification can be
looked as the child’s motives or desires to be like the model. Third, it can
be viewed as the process through which the child actually takes on the
attributes of the model.
3. Situational Factors
• An individual’s personality may change in different situations. The
demands of different situations may call for different aspects of one’s
personality. Therefore, we should not look at the personality factor in
isolation. Although certain generalisations can be made about
personality, there exist significant individual differences which are further
influenced by situational factors.
 DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
• The relationship of the above factors affects the formation and
development of personality. Physiological inheritance is entirely an
internal contribution. Group and the culture are the early environmental
factors that influence later behaviour. Family and the social setting during
early stages of education are the important factors which influence the
initial formation of personality. Whatever the child learns lasts for life
time. Later in life, it is the peer groups of primary affiliations at work,
social activities, etc. which shape the personality of an individual.
4. Other Factors
a) Temperament. Temperament and other non-intellectual personality traits
are distributed according to the normal distribution. Temperament is the
degree to which one responds emotionally.
b) Interest. The individual normally has many interests in various areas. The
top executives in any organisation do not have interest in common. The
organisation should provide opportunities like job rotation and special
training programme to satisfy the interest of executives. The successful
persons in the same occupation have, to a large extent, the same
interests.
 DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
c) Character. Character primarily means honesty. It is resistance to
stealing and cheating others. Character is a very important
requirement for responsible jobs. It is likely that an individual may not
steal under normal circumstances. The situation needs to be
considered to verify this part of the character of the individual. For
example, if the family of an individual is starving, there is a great
probability that one will steal. Thus, it is essential to study the
situation as well as the individual before analysing the behaviour that
shows undesirable character.
d) Schema. It is an individual’s belief, frame of reference, perception,
and attitude which the individual possesses towards the management,
the job working conditions, pay, fringe benefits, incentive system, and
development programmes in the organisation. It depends upon the
individual’s belief towards religion, government and the satisfaction
derived from environment and cultural influences of his community.
The perception of individual depends upon his socio-economic
conditions and particular culture he lives to follow.
 DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
• The behaviour of an individual depends to a great extent upon his
frame of reference which he develops from the childhood experiences.
These experiences are coloured by the social and ideological concepts
of members of his family and community. The other important factors
responsible for his behaviour are religion, education and language.
Because of these reasons, there are marked differences among
individuals so far as their beliefs, major orientations, roles, perceptions,
ideals and values are concerned.
e) Motives. Motives are the inner drives of the individual. They
represent goal directed behaviour of individual. A motive is a
cognitive factor which operates in determining one’s behaviour
towards a goal. Individuals differ in variables which determine the
inner drives. The behaviour of an individual to accomplish the goal
varies because of his inner drives.
 DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY
• Freudian Stages
• Sigmund Freud propounded psychoanalytic theory of personality which
is based on the notion that man is motivated more by unseen forces
than by conscious and rational thought. Freud noted that his client’s
behavior could not always be consciously explained. This clinical finding
led him to conclude that major motivating force in man is unconscious
framework. This framework contains three aspects, though interrelated
but often conflicting. These are:
1. The Id. The id is the source of psychic energy and seeks immediate
gratification for biological or instinctual needs. Freud believed that
instincts could be classified under life-instincts and death instincts. Life
instincts are hunger, thirst, etc. The Id would proceed unchecked to
satisfy motives were it not for the channelling activity into acceptable
ways by the ego. As an individual matures, he learns to control the id.
But even then it remains a driving force throughout life and an
important source of thinking and behaving.
 DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY
2. The Ego. The ego is the conscious and logical part of the human
personality and is associated with reality principle. While id
represents the unconscious part, ego is conscious about the
realities of the external environment. The ego keeps the id in
check through intellect and reason.
3. The Super Ego. The super ego represents societal and personal
norms and serves as an ethical constraint on behavior. It can
best be described as the conscience. The super ego provides
norms to ego to determine what is wrong or right. However, a
person is not aware of the working of the superego and
conscience is developed by absorption of cultural values and
norms of the society.
16 PRIMARY PERSONALITY TRAITS
Reserved Vs. Outgoing
Less Intelligent Vs. More Intelligent
Affected by feelings Vs. Emotionally Stable
Submissive Vs. Dominant
Serious Vs. Happy-go-lucky
Expedient Vs. Conscientious
Timid Vs. Venturesome
Tough-minded Vs. Sensitive
Trusting Vs. Suspicious
Practical Vs. Imaginative
Forthright Vs. Shrewd
Self-Assured Vs. Apprehensive
Conservative Vs. Experimenting
Group-Dependent Vs. Self-Sufficient
Uncontrolled Vs. Controlled
 THE MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most widely used
personality assessment instrument in the world. It is a 100-
question personality test that asks people how they usually feel
or act in particular situations. Respondents are classified as
extraverted or introverted (E or I), sensing or intuitive (S or N),
thinking or feeling (T or F), and judging or perceiving (J or P).
These terms are defined as follows:
1. Extraverted (E) versus Introverted (I). Extraverted individuals are
outgoing, sociable, and assertive. Introverts are quiet and shy.
2. Sensing (S) versus Intuitive (N). Sensing types are practical and
prefer routine and order. They focus on details. Intuitives rely on
unconscious processes and look at the “big picture.”
3. Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F). Thinking types use reason and
logic to handle problems. Feeling types rely on their personal
values and emotions.
 THE MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR
4. Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P). Judging types want control and
prefer their world to be ordered and structured. Perceiving
types are flexible and spontaneous.
• These classifications together describe 16 personality types,
identifying every person by one trait from each of the four pairs.
For example, Introverted/Intuitive/Thinking/Judging people
(INTJs) are visionaries with original minds and great drive. They
are skeptical, critical, independent, determined, and often
stubborn.
• ESTJs are organizers. They are realistic, logical, analytical, and
decisive and have a natural head for business or mechanics.
• The ENTP type is a conceptualizer, innovative, individualistic,
versatile, and attracted to entrepreneurial ideas. This person
tends to be resourceful in solving challenging problems but may
neglect routine assignments.
 THE MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR
4. Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P). Judging types want control and
prefer their world to be ordered and structured. Perceiving
types are flexible and spontaneous.
• These classifications together describe 16 personality types,
identifying every person by one trait from each of the four pairs.
For example, Introverted/Intuitive/Thinking/Judging people
(INTJs) are visionaries with original minds and great drive. They
are skeptical, critical, independent, determined, and often
stubborn.
• ESTJs are organizers. They are realistic, logical, analytical, and
decisive and have a natural head for business or mechanics.
• The ENTP type is a conceptualizer, innovative, individualistic,
versatile, and attracted to entrepreneurial ideas. This person
tends to be resourceful in solving challenging problems but may
neglect routine assignments.
 THE BIG-FIVE MODEL
• According to the Big Five Model, five basic dimensions underlie
all others and encompass most of the significant variation in
human personality. The following are the Big Five factors:
1. Extroversion: This dimension captures one’s comfort level with
relationships. Extroverts (high in extroversion)tend to be friendly
and outgoing and to spend much of their time maintaining and
enjoying a large number of relationships. Introverts tend to be
reserved and to have fewer relationships, and they are more
comfortable with solitude than most people are.
2. Agreeableness: This dimension refers to an individual’s
propensity to defer to others. High agreeable people value
harmony more than they value having their say or their way.
They are cooperative and trusting of others. People who score
low on agreeableness focus more on their own needs than on
the needs of others.
 THE BIG-FIVE MODEL
3. Conscientiousness: This dimension refers to the number of goals
on which a person focuses. A highly conscientious person pursues
fewer goals, in a purposeful way, and tends to be responsible,
persistent, dependable, and achievement-oriented. Those who
score low on this dimension tend to be more easily distracted,
pursuing many goals, and more hedonistic.
4. Emotional stability: This dimension taps a person’s ability to
withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to
be characterized as calm, enthusiastic, and secure. Those with high
negative scores tend to be nervous, depressed, and insecure.
5. Openness to experience: The final dimension addresses one’s
range of interests. Extremely open people are fascinated by novelty
and innovation. They tend to be imaginative, artistically sensitive,
and intellectual. Those at the other end of the openness category
appear more conventional and find comfort in the familiar.
 MAJOR PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTES
INFLUENCING OB
1. Locus of Control. The degree to which people believe they are in
control of their own fate.
– Internals - Individuals who believe that they control what
happens to them.
– Externals - Individuals who believe that what happens to
them is controlled by outside forces such as luck or chance.
Research shows internals are more satisfied with their jobs, have
lower absenteeism, and perform better on certain types of jobs.
2. Machiavellianism. The degree to which an individual is
pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends
can justify means. This personality attribute is named after
Nicoló Machiavelli, the 16th century author of The Prince.
 MAJOR PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTES
INFLUENCING OB
3. Self-esteem. An individual's degree of like or dislike for himself
or herself.
4. Self-monitoring. A personality trait that measures an individual's
ability to adjust his or her behaviour to external situational
factors.
5. Narcissism. The tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose
sense of self-importance, require excessive admiration, and
have a sense of entitlement.
6. Risk Taking. The individual's willingness to take chances. A study
of two groups of managers showed that high-risk-taking
managers make more rapid decisions and use less information in
making their choices than low-risk-taking managers.
Interestingly, the decision accuracy was the same for both
groups.
 MAJOR PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTES
INFLUENCING OB
7. Type A Personality. This type of individual is "aggressively
involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and
more in less and less time.
 Always moving, walking, and eating rapidly.
 Feel impatient with the 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.
 MAJOR PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTES
INFLUENCING OB
8. Type B Personality. Just the opposite of Type A. They are rarely
bothered by desires to obtain a wildly increasing number of
things or participate in an endlessly growing series of events in
an ever decreasing amount of time.
 Never suffer from a sense of time urgency with its
accompanying impatience.
 Feel no need to display or discuss either their achievements or
accomplishments unless such exposure is demanded by the
situation.
 Play for fun and relaxation, rather than to exhibit their
superiority at any cost.
 Can relax without guilt.
VALUES
 VALUES
• Values are 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.
• They contain a judgmental element in that they carry an
individual’s ideas as to what is right, good, or desirable.
• Values have both content and intensity attributes –
 The content attribute says a mode of conduct or end-state of
existence is important.
 The intensity attribute specifies how important it is.
• When we rank an individual’s values in terms of their intensity,
we obtain that person’s value system . All of us have a hierarchy
of values that forms our value system. We find it in the relative
importance we assign to values such as freedom, pleasure, self
respect, honesty, obedience, and equality.
 ARE VALUES FLUID & FLEXIBLE
• Generally speaking, no.
• They tend to be relatively stable and enduring.
• A significant portion of the values we hold is established in our
early years—by parents, teachers, friends, and others. As
children, we are told certain behaviors or outcomes are always
desirable or always undesirable, with few gray areas.
• You were never taught to be just a little bit honest or a little bit
responsible, for example. It is this absolute, or “black- or-white,”
learning of values that ensures their stability and endurance. If
we question our values, of course, they may change, but more
often they are reinforced.
• There is also evidence linking personality to values, implying our
values may be partly determined by our genetically transmitted
traits.
 IMPORTANCE OF VALUES
• Values lay the foundation for our understanding of
people’s attitudes and motivation and influence our
perceptions. We enter an organization with
preconceived notions of what “ought” and “ought not”
to be.
• These notions are not value-free; on the contrary, they
contain our interpretations of right and wrong and our
preference for certain behaviors or outcomes over
others.
• As a result, values cloud objectivity and rationality; they
influence attitudes and behavior.
 IMPORTANCE OF VALUES
• Suppose you enter an organization with the view that
allocating pay on the basis of performance is right,
while allocating pay on the basis of seniority is wrong.
• How will you react if you find the organization you’ve
just joined rewards seniority and not performance?
• You’re likely to be disappointed—and this can lead to
job dissatisfaction and a decision not to exert a high
level of effort because “It’s probably not going to lead
to more money anyway.”
• Would your attitudes and behavior be different if your
values aligned with the organization’s pay policies?
Most likely.
 CAN WE CLASSIFY VALUES?
• YES
• Rokeach Value Survey Milton Rokeach created the
Rokeach Value Survey (RVS).
• It consists of two sets of values, each containing 18
individual value items.
• One set, called terminal values, refers to desirable end-
states. These are the goals a person would like to
achieve during his or her lifetime.
• The other set, called instrumental values, refers to
preferable modes of behavior, or means of achieving
the terminal values.
TERMINAL VS INSTRUMENTAL VALUES
TERMINAL VS INSTRUMENTAL VALUES
 GENERATIONAL VALUES
• Contemporary Work Cohorts Researchers have integrated several
recent analyses of work values into four groups that attempt to
capture the unique values of different cohorts or generations in the
U.S. workforce. The table below segments employees by the era
during which they entered the workforce. Because most people
start work between the ages of 18 and 23, the eras also correlate
closely with employee age.
 BOOMERS
• Boomers ( Baby Boomers ) are a large cohort born after World
War II when veterans returned to their families and times
were good.
• Boomers entered the workforce from the mid-1960s through
the mid-1980s. They brought with them a large measure of
the “hippie ethic” and distrust of authority.
• But they place a great deal of emphasis on achievement and
material success. Pragmatists who believe ends can justify
means, they work hard and want to enjoy the fruits of their
labors.
• Boomers see the organizations that employ them merely as
vehicles for their careers. Terminal values such as a sense of
accomplishment and social recognition rank high with them.
 XERS
• The lives of Xers ( Generation Xers ) have been shaped by
globalization, two-career parents, MTV and computers.
• Xers value flexibility, life options, and the achievement of job
satisfaction.
• Family and relationships are very important. Xers are
skeptical, particularly of authority.
• They also enjoy team-oriented work. In search of balance in
their lives, Xers are less willing to make personal sacrifices for
the sake of their employer than previous generations were.
• On the RVS (Rokeach Value Survey), they rate high on true
friendship, happiness, and pleasure.
 MILLENNIALS
• The most recent entrants to the workforce, the Millennials (also
called Netters, Nexters, Generation Yers, and Generation Nexters )
grew up during prosperous times.
• They have high expectations and seek meaning in their work.
Millennials have life goals more oriented toward becoming rich (81
percent) and famous (51 percent) than do Generation Xers (62
percent and 29 percent, respectively), but they also see themselves
as socially responsible.
• At ease with diversity, Millennials are the first generation to take
technology for granted. More than other generations, they tend to
be questioning, electronically networked, and entrepreneurial.
• At the same time, some have described Millennials as entitled and
needy. They may clash with other generations over work attire and
communication. They also like feedback. An Ernst & Young survey
found that 85 percent of Millennials want “frequent and candid
performance feedback,” compared to only half of Boomers.
 PERSON – JOB FIT
• The effort to match job requirements with personality
characteristics is best articulated in John Holland’s
personality–job fit theory.
• Holland presents six personality types and proposes that
satisfaction and the propensity to leave a position depend on
how well individuals match their personalities to a job.
• Holland developed the Vocational Preference Inventory
questionnaire, which contains 160 occupational titles.
Respondents indicate which they like or dislike, and their
answers form personality profiles. Research strongly supports
the resulting hexagonal diagram.
• The closer two fields or orientations are in the hexagon, the
more compatible they are. Adjacent categories are quite
similar, whereas diagonally opposite ones are highly dissimilar.
PERSON – JOB FIT
 PERSON – JOB FIT
• The theory argues that satisfaction is highest and turnover lowest
when personality and occupation are in agreement.
• A realistic person in a realistic job is in a more congruent situation
than a realistic person in an investigative job. A realistic person in a
social job is in the most incongruent situation possible.
• The key points of this model are that:
1) There do appear to be intrinsic differences in personality among
individuals.
2) There are different types of jobs, and
3) People in jobs congruent with their personality should be more
satisfied and less likely to voluntarily resign than people in
incongruent jobs.
Evidence supports the value of assessing vocational interests in the
selection process, with a match between interests and job
requirements predicting job knowledge, performance, and low
likelihood of turnover.
PERSON – JOB FIT
 PERSON – ORGANISATION FIT
• If an organization faces a dynamic and changing environment
and requires employees able to readily change tasks and
move easily between teams, it’s more important that
employees’ personalities fit with the overall organization’s
culture than with the characteristics of any specific job.
• The person–organization fit essentially argues that people are
attracted to and selected by organizations that match their
values, and they leave organizations that are not compatible
with their personalities.
• Using the Big Five terminology, for instance, we could expect
that people high on extraversion fit well with aggressive and
team-oriented cultures, that people high on agreeableness
match up better with a supportive organizational climate than
one focused on aggressiveness, and that people high on
openness to experience fit better in organizations that
emphasize innovation rather than standardization.
 INTERNATIONAL VALUES
• One of the most widely referenced approaches for analyzing
variations among cultures was done in the late 1970s by Geert
Hofstede. He surveyed more than 116,000 IBM employees in
40 countries about their work-related values and found that
managers and employees vary on five value dimensions of
national culture:
1. Power distance. Power distance describes the degree to
which people in a country accept that power in institutions
and organizations is distributed unequally. A high rating on
power distance means that large inequalities of power and
wealth exist and are tolerated in the culture, as in a class or
caste system that discourages upward mobility. A low power
distance rating characterizes societies that stress equality
and opportunity.
 INTERNATIONAL VALUES
3. Individualism versus collectivism. Individualism is the
degree to which people prefer to act as individuals rather
than as members of groups and believe in individual rights
above all else. Collectivism emphasizes a tight social
framework in which people expect others in groups of which
they are a part to look after them and protect them.
4. Masculinity versus femininity. Hofstede’s construct of
masculinity is the degree to which the culture favors
traditional masculine roles such as achievement, power, and
control, as opposed to viewing men and women as equals. A
high masculinity rating indicates the culture has separate
roles for men and women, with men dominating the society.
A high femininity rating means the culture sees little
differentiation between male and female roles and treats
women as the equals of men in all respects.
 INTERNATIONAL VALUES
4. Uncertainty avoidance. The degree to which people in a
country prefer structured over unstructured situations
defines their uncertainty avoidance . In cultures that score
high on uncertainty avoidance, people have an increased
level of anxiety about uncertainty and ambiguity and use
laws and controls to reduce uncertainty. People in cultures
low on uncertainty avoidance are more accepting of
ambiguity, are less rule oriented, take more risks, and more
readily accept change.
5. Long-term versus short-term orientation. This newest
addition to Hofstede’s typology measures a society’s
devotion to traditional values. People in a culture with long-
term orientation look to the future and value thrift,
persistence, and tradition. In a short-term orientation ,
people value the here and now; they accept change more
readily and don’t see commitments as impediments to
change.