ORGANISATION BEHAVIOUR
Module 2
TOPICS TO BE COVERED
• Individual Behavior:
• Biographical characteristics
• Ability
• Learning, Values, Attitudes,
• Personality: Definition, determination, Traits, attributes, Locus of control,
INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR
• Individual behavior can be defined as a mix of responses to external and internal stimuli. It is the
way a person reacts in different situations and the way someone expresses
different emotions like anger, happiness, love, etc.
• Individual behaviour refers to the way in which an individual reacts or behaves at his place of work.
It can be defined as a combination of reactions to internal and external stimuli. Individual behaviour
defines how a person will respond under distinct conditions and will express different emotions such
as happiness, rudeness, love, anger etc. It refers to some concrete action by an individual. Study of
individual behaviour reveals the behaviour of human at the working environment. Behaviour of an
individual have a great influence on the performance of organization. Positive behaviour will lead to
enhance the productivity. Whereas on another hand, negative behaviour will cause damages and
bring heavy losses for company.
CAUSES OF DIFFERENTIATION IN INDIVIDUAL
BEHAVIOUR
• Causes of Individual Behavior
• Certain individual characteristics are responsible for the way a person behaves in daily life situations as well as reacts to any
emergency situations. These characteristics are categorized as −
• Inherited characteristics
• Learned characteristics
• Inherited Characteristics
• The features individuals acquire from their parents or from our forefathers are the inherited characteristics. In other words, the
gifted features an individual possesses by birth is considered as inherited characteristics.
• Following features are considered as inherited characteristics −
• Color of a person’s eye
• Religion/Race of a person
• Shape of the nose
• Shape of earlobes
FACTORS INFLUENCING INDIVIDUAL
BEHAVIOUR
FACTORS INFLUENCING INDIVIDUAL
BEHAVIOUR
• Various factors affecting the individual behaviour is classified into following categories:
–
1. Personal Factors
2. Environmental Factors
3. Organizational Factors
• Personal Factors
• Personal factors are of 2 types: Biographic and Learned Characteristics
BIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Biographical characteristics:
1.
Age: there are two distinct age group younger and older,
2.
Gender: male and female.
3.
Race: individual favor race which affect employment decision.
4.
Social Groups: focus for scheduled cast , tribes and backward
classes( Reservation benefits)
5.
Tenure: duration of time in the job.
6.
Religion: people of different religion faith conflict, so manger
need to be sensitive.
7.
Sexual orientation: inter-sexual, gay, lesbians
8.
Gender identity: focus on employees who change gender, i.e.
transgender.
1.
• Physical Characteristics- Personal characteristics relates to skin, complexion, vision, height,
weight, size of nose etc. which influence the performance of individual. A person with good
physical characteristics have an attractive personality, they dress well and behave gently in an
organization.
• Age- Age is an individual inherited characteristic that is determined by date of birth. Young
people are expected to be more efficient, energetic, risk-taking, innovative and ambitious.
• Gender- Gender is an inherited characteristic as being a men or women is genetic in nature.
Woman are expected to be more emotional than men and generates high turnover rates. It is
due to more likeness of woman quitting their job citing personal reasons.
• Religion- Religious values of individual influence distinct aspects of his/her behaviour in
organization. Highly religious person is stricter towards following moral values, ethics and code
of conduct while performing their roles.
• Marital Status- Researcher indicated that with marital status, responsibilities of individual get
inclined and for them having steady proper job becomes more important. Such employees have
less absences, low turnovers and more job satisfaction.
• Gender
• Research proves that men and women both stand equal in terms of job performance and mental
abilities; however, society still emphasizes differences between the two genders. Absenteeism is one
area in an organization where differences are found as women are considered to be the primary
caregiver for children. A factor that might influence work allocation and evaluation in an organization is
the manager’s perception and personal values.
• For example − An organization encourages both genders to work efficiently towards the company’s goal
and no special promotion or demotion is given or tolerated for any specific gender.
• Race & Culture
• Race is a group of people sharing similar physical features. It is used to define types of persons
according to perceived traits. For example − Indian, African. On the other hand, culture can be defined
as the traits, ideas, customs and traditions one follows either as a person or in a group. For example −
Celebrating a festival.
• Race & culture have always exerted an important influence both at the workplace as well as in the
society. The common mistakes such as attributing behavior and stereotyping according to individual’s
race & culture basically influences an individual’s behavior.
• In today’s diverse work culture, the management as well as staff should learn and accept different
cultures, values, and common protocols to create more comfortable corporate culture.
• For example − A company invites candidates for a job post and hires one on the basis of eligibility
criteria and not on the basis of the country a person belongs to or the customs one follows.
LEARNING – IMPACT ON INDIVIDUAL
BEHAVIOUR
Learning:
It is any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs in
individual a result of experience. The change is behavior is directly
associated with successful learning. i.e.
Permanent change in behavior =successful learning.
Thus, learning must focus on

Changing the behavior

The change must be permanent and

Individual should experience change
• Learned Characteristics: Learned characteristics refers to the changes in persons behaviour that
comes from his/her interactions with environment.
• Personality- Personality solely do not refer to physical characteristics of person but indicates the
growth of individual’s psychological system. These are the personal traits of persons that comprises of
patience, extrovertness, dominance, aggressiveness etc.
• Perception- It is a viewpoint of individual through which it interprets a particular situation. Perception
is defined as a process via which information enters mind and an interpretation takes place for
providing some sensible meaning to world.
• Values- These are global beliefs that guides distinct actions and judgements in several situations. It
comprises of idea of an individual that is based on good, right and desirable opinions.
2. ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS
• Environmental Factors
• The external environment has an effective role in influencing the individual behaviour.
• Employment level- Employment opportunities available within the country act as a major determinant of individual behaviour. In
case of less employment opportunities, he/she will remain stick to same job level irrespective of how much satisfaction is attained.
However, if there are more employment opportunities available then employees will shift to other jobs.
• Wages Rate- Monetary compensation is a major factor that every employee considers before joining any organization. Therefore,
a decision whether to stay in a particular company or shift anywhere else is taken on the basis of wages he/she is getting.
• General Economic Environment- Economic cycle in a country greatly influences the behaviour of individual in an organization.
They are subject to retrenchment and layoffs. Job security and a stable income are the most relevant factors of motivation for
these type of employees. Whereas, employees of public sector undertakings are not affected by economic position within the
country as they receive their fixed salaries irrespective of economic conditions.
• Political Factors- Political factors indirectly influences the behaviour of an individual. In a politically stable environment, there will
be large opportunities of steady job positions. It will provide better freedom to individual which will influence their career choice,
performance and jib design.
ORGANIZATIONAL FACTORS
• Wide range of organizational factors influence behaviour of individual which are listed below: –
• Physical Facilities- Physical environment at work place have a great influence on behaviour of
individual. It comprises of factors like lighting, cleanliness, heat, noise level, office furnishing, strength
of workers etc.
• Structure and Design- It is concerned with set-up design of departments within an organization.
Individual behaviour is influenced by where an individual perfectly fits in a hierarchy of organization.
• Reward System- Fair reward system adopted by company for compensating its employees enhances
the overall performance and behaviour of individual.
• Learned Characteristics
• Nobody learns everything by birth. First our school is our home, then our society followed by our
educational institutions. The characteristics an individual acquires by observing, practicing and
learning from others and the surroundings is known as learned characteristics.
• It consists of the following features −
• Perception − Result of different senses like feeling, hearing etc.
• Values − Influences perception of a situation, decision making process.
• Personality − Patterns of thinking, feeling, understanding and behaving.
• Attitude − Positive or negative attitude like expressing one’s thought.
LEARNING
• Meaning of Learning
• There are two primary elements in meaning of learning:
1. Change must be relatively permanent: This means that after “learning” our behavior must be different,
either better or worse as compared to our behavior prior to this learning experience.
For example, you “learn” to drive a car or have learned how to use a computer.
2. This change must occur due to some kind of experience or practice. This learning is not caused by
biological maturation.
For example, a child does not learn to walk, it is a natural biological phenomenon. We do not learn to eat or
drink.
•
ABILITIES
• Abilities are the traits a person learns from the environment around as well as the traits a person is
gifted with by birth. These traits are broadly classified as −
• Intellectual abilities
• Physical abilities
• Self-awareness abilities
• In order to understand how these affect a person’s behavior, we need to know what these abilities
are.
• Intellectual abilities − It personifies a person’s intelligence, verbal and analytical reasoning abilities,
memory as well as verbal comprehension.
• Physical abilities − It personifies a person’s physical strength, stamina, body coordination as well as
motor skills.
• Self-awareness abilities − It symbolizes how a person feels about the task, while a manager’s
perception of his abilities decides the kind of work that needs to be allotted to an individual.
• Thus the psychological, physical, self-assurance traits owned by a person defines the behavior of a
person in social and personal life. For ex: Ram has a high IQ level, whereas Rahul can lift a bike and
is a strong guy.
ATTITUDE
• Attitude
• Attitude is the abstract learnt reaction or say response of a person’s entire
cognitive process over a time span.
• For example − A person who has worked with different companies might develop
an attitude of indifference towards organizational citizenship.
• Now we have a clear idea about what are the factors responsible for the way we
behave. We never think about these elements and how they affect our daily life
but we can’t ignore.
•
• An attitude is a positive, Negative and mixed assessment of an
individual or object, which is expressed at some level of
intensity. It is an expression of a favorable or unfavorable
assessment of a person, place, object or event. These are
fundamental determinants of our perceptions and actions
towards all aspects of our social environment. The approach
involves a complex organization of evaluative beliefs, feelings
and tendencies for certain actions.
PERSONALITY- CONCEPT
• Personality means the constitution of mental as well as the physical health of an
individual. Personality may be defined as the characteristic pattern of behaviour
that determines an individual’s adjustment to the environment or situation.
• Personality means the constitution of mental as well as the physical health of an
individual.
• Personality of an individual is unique, personal and a major determinant of his
behaviour. Because of differences in personality, individuals differ in their manner of
responding to different situations. Some personality theorists emphasize the need to
recognize the person-situation interaction, i.e., the social learning aspects of
personality. Such an interpretation is highly meaningful to the study of human
behaviour.
DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
• Personality is not determined by a single factor, but by an accumulation of many factors. Some of
those factors are psychological, while others are physical, biological, and hereditary.
• 1. Physical Characteristics
• One of the most important factors in determining personality are an individual's physical
characteristics. These factors play a vital role in determining one’s behavior in a social
organization. Physical characteristics include, but are not limited to:
• Height
• Skin tone
• Weight
• Hair color
• Beauty
• 2. Social Experiences
• Social experiences play a vital role in determining one’s personality. The things that occur around a person on a
regular basis determine how that person will behave and perceive themselves. A person's social experiences
affect:
• Coordination
• Cooperation
• Family relationships
• Organizational relationships
• Workplaces relationships
• Involvement in communities
• 3. Culture and Religion
• The culture in which one lives almost always involves:
• Traditional practices
• Norms
• Customs
• Procedures
• Rules and regulations
• Values.
• 4. Heredity
• Perhaps the most surprising and astonishing personality determinant is
heredity.
• Heredity is perhaps the most important factor in determining personality,
since mostly all other determinants, such as physical characteristics, gender,
psychology, and more, are passed down through genes.
PERSONALITY TRAITS
• Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Personality traits imply consistency and stability—someone who scores high on a specific trait like
Extraversion is expected to be sociable in different situations and over time. Thus, trait psychology
rests on the idea that people differ from one another in terms of where they stand on a set of basic
trait dimensions that persist over time and across situations.
• The most widely used system of traits is called the Five-Factor Model. This system includes five broad
traits that can be remembered with the acronym OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
• 1. Openness
• This trait features characteristics such as imagination and insight.1 People who are high in this trait also tend to
have a broad range of interests. They are curious about the world and other people and eager to learn new
things and enjoy new experiences.
• People who are high in this trait tend to be more adventurous and creative. People low in this trait are often
much more traditional and may struggle with abstract thinking.
• High
• Very creative
• Open to trying new things
• Focused on tackling new challenges
• Happy to think about abstract concepts
•
• Low
• Dislikes change
• Does not enjoy new things
• Resists new ideas
• Not very imaginative
• Dislikes abstract or theoretical concepts
• 2. Conscientiousness
• Standard features of this dimension include high levels of thoughtfulness,
good impulse control, and goal-directed behaviors.1 Highly conscientious
people tend to be organized and mindful of details. They plan ahead,
think about how their behavior affects others, and are mindful of
deadlines.
• High
• Spends time preparing
• Finishes important tasks right away
• Pays attention to detail
• Enjoys having a set schedule
• Low
• Dislikes structure and schedules
• Makes messes and doesn't take care of things
• Fails to return things or put them back where they belong
• Fails to complete necessary or assigned tasks
• Extraversion
• Extraversion (or extroversion) is characterized by excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness, and high amounts of
emotional expressiveness.1 People who are high in extraversion are outgoing and tend to gain energy in social situations.
Being around other people helps them feel energized and excited.
• People who are low in extraversion (or introverted) tend to be more reserved and have less energy to expend in social
settings. Social events can feel draining and introverts often require a period of solitude and quiet in order to "recharge."
• High
• Enjoys being the center of attention
• Likes to start conversations
• Enjoys meeting new people
• Has a wide social circle of friends and acquaintances
• Finds it easy to make new friends
• Feels energized when around other people
• Say things before thinking about them
• Low
• Prefers solitude
• Feels exhausted when having to socialize a lot
• Finds it difficult to start conversations
• Dislikes making small talk
• Carefully thinks things through before speaking
• Dislikes being the center of attention
• Agreeableness
• This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and other social
behaviors.1 People who are high in agreeableness tend to be more cooperative while those low in this trait
tend to be more competitive and sometimes even manipulative.
• High
• Has a great deal of interest in other people
• Cares about others
• Feels empathy and concern for other people
• Enjoys helping and contributing to the happiness of other people
• Assists others who are in need of help
• Low
• Takes little interest in others
• Doesn't care about how other people feel
• Has little interest in other people's problems
• Insults and belittles others
• Manipulates others to get what they want
• Neuroticism
• Neuroticism is a trait characterized by sadness, moodiness, and emotional instability.1
• Individuals who are high in this trait tend to experience mood swings, anxiety, irritability, and
sadness. Those low in this trait tend to be more stable and emotionally resilient.
• High
• Experiences a lot of stress
• Worries about many different things
• Gets upset easily
• Experiences dramatic shifts in mood
• Feels anxious
• Struggles to bounce back after stressful events
• Low
• Emotionally stable
• Deals well with stress
• Rarely feels sad or depressed
• Doesn't worry much
• Is very relaxed
PERSONALITY TRAITS
PERSONALITY
TYPES OF PERSONALITY
• Realistic Personality − These types of individuals have a realistic personality. They are shy in nature,
stable, and practical. They belong to professions like agriculture, engineering, fashion designing, etc.
• Investigative Personality − These types of individuals are analytical, curious, and have an independent
mindset. They belong to professions like writing, teaching, medicine, etc.
• Artistic Personality − These types of individuals have great imagination and are idealistic. They belong
to professions like fine arts, music, photography, etc.
• Social Personality − These types of individuals are sociable, helpful and cooperative in nature. They
belong to professions like teaching, social work, counseling, etc.
• Enterprising Personality − These types of individuals are ambitious, adventurous and energetic. They
belong to professions like business, journalism, consultancy, etc.
• Conventional Personality − These types of individuals are practical, organized, and logical. They
belong to professions like training, nursing, finance, etc.
LOCUS OF CONTROL
• Locus of Control:
• It may be defined as the degree to which people believe that they are the
master of their own fate. In simple term, it can be described as the
extent to which he believes that he knows everything.
• Locus of control refers to one’s assumption about responsibility for good
and bad events. Every person during his lifetime comes across some
good and some had outcomes. While he acts to maximise the possibility
of good outcomes and enjoys the success of his life, he tries to minimise
the possibility of bad outcomes.
TYPES OF LOCUS OF CONTROL:
• Locus of control is of two types:
• (1) Internal Locus of control,
• (2) External Locus of control.
1. INTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL:
• When a person believes that he or she is able to act so as to maximise the possibility of
good outcomes and to minimise the possibility of bad outcomes he is said to have
internal locus of control.
• Internal locus of control which implies that the degree to which an individual controls
himself without other’s assistance. In this case individual believes that he controls his
destinies. Here the individual believe that his behaviour determines many of the
events in his life. For example – individual with moderately strong internal locus of
control is successful in his job career and lives. He performs his job better, copes better
in stressful situation and is satisfied with challenging job and performance based
rewards.
2. EXTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL:
• On the other hand External locus of control may be defined as the degree to which an
individual is controlled by the help of other people. In this case individual believes that his life
is controlled by outside forces. Here he believes that his behaviour determines chance, luck and
fate. What happens to him is due to his luck or fate. For example – the individual with
moderately strong external locus of control may not be successful in his jobs, career and lives.
• Those who are always at the mercy of luck, fate and unforeseen uncontrollable outside force
and feel helpless all the time and never like to take the responsibility for their bad outcomes
and miserable performances in life are said to have external locus of control.
FAQS
• What is attitude?
• Attitude is defined as a more or less stable set of predispositions of opinion, interest or purpose involving
expectancy of a certain kind of experience and readiness with an appropriate response.
• What is Personality?
• Personality is the fundamental and foremost determinant of individual behaviour. It seeks to integrate
the physiological and psychological facets of an individual to put them into action.
• What is Perception?
• Perception is the process by which a person interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful
experience of the world.
• What is Learning?
• Learning can be defined as a relatively permanent change in behaviour or potential behaviour as a result of
direct or indirect experience. Learning is thus a change in behaviour as a result of experience.