Chapter Fifteen

Basic Elements of
Individual Behavior in
Organizations
Slide content created by Charlie Cook, The University of West Alabama
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 Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Explain the nature of the individual-organization
relationship.
2. Define personality and describe personality attributes
that affect behavior in organizations.
3. Discuss individual attitudes in organizations and how
they affect behavior.
4. Describe basic perceptual processes and the role of
attributions in organizations.
5. Discuss the causes and consequences of stress and
describe how it can be managed.
6. Describe creativity and its role in organizations.
7. Explain how workplace behaviors can directly or
indirectly influence organizational effectiveness.
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 Understanding Individuals in
Organizations
• The Psychological Contract
– The overall set of expectations held by an
individual with respect to what he or she
will contribute to the organization and what
the organization will provide in return.

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 Figure 15.1: The
Psychological Contract

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 Understanding Individuals in
Organizations (cont’d)
• The Person-Job Fit
– Reasons for poor person-job fit:
• Organizational selection procedures are imperfect.
• Both people and organizations change over time.
• Adopting new technologies changes the skills needed by
employees.
• Each individual is unique and each job is unique.
• Individual Differences
– Personal attributes that vary from one person to
another.
• Physical, psychological, or emotional.

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 Personality and
Individual Behavior
• Personality
– The relatively stable set of psychological and
behavioral attributes that distinguish one person from
another.
• The “Big Five” Personality Traits
– Agreeableness—a person’s ability to get along with
others.
– Conscientiousness—the number of goals on which a
person focuses.
– Negative emotionality—the extent to which a person is
calm, resilient, and secure.
– Extraversion—a person’s comfort level with
relationships.
– Openness—a person’s rigidity of beliefs and range of
interests.
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 Figure 15.2: The “Big Five”
Model of Personality

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 The Myers-Briggs Framework
• The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
– A popular questionnaire that some organizations
use to assess personality types.
• Is a useful method for determining communication styles
and interaction preferences.
• Has questionable validity and reliability.
• Personality Types
– Extraversion (E) versus Introversion (I)
– Sensing (S) versus Intuition (N)
– Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F)
– Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P)

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 Other Personality
Traits at Work
• Locus of Control
– The extent to which people believe that their
behavior has a real effect on what happens to
them.
• Internal locus of control—individuals who believe they
are in control of their lives.
• External locus of control—individuals believe that
external forces dictate what happen to them.
• Self-Efficacy
– A person’s belief about his or her capabilities to
perform a task. High self-efficacy individuals
believe they can perform well while low self-
efficacy individuals doubt their ability to perform.

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 Other Personality
Traits at Work (cont’d)
• Authoritarianism
– The extent to which an individual believes
that power and status differences are
appropriate within hierarchical social
organizations.
• Machiavellianism
– Behavior directed at gaining power and
controlling the behavior of others.

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 Other Personality
Traits at Work (cont’d)
• Self-Esteem
– The extent to which a person believes
she/he is a worthwhile individual.
• Risk Propensity
– The degree to which an individual is willing
to take chances and make risky decisions.

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 Emotional Intelligence
• Emotional intelligence, or EQ
– The extent to which people are self-aware, can
manage their emotions, can motivate themselves,
express empathy for others, and possess social
skills.
• Dimensions of EQ
– Self-awareness
– Managing emotion
– Motivating oneself
– Empathy
– Social skill

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 Attitudes and
Individual Behavior
• Attitudes
– Complexes of beliefs and feelings that people
have about specific ideas, situations, or other
people.
• Attitudinal Components
– Affective component
• Feelings and emotions toward a situation (i.e., how we
feel).
– Cognitive component
• Perceived knowledge (i.e., why we feel the way we feel).
– Intentional component
• Expected behavior in a given situation (i.e., what we
intend do about the situation).

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 Attitudes and
Individual Behavior
• Cognitive Dissonance
– The conflict individuals experience
among their own attitudes.
– The affective and cognitive components
of the individual’s attitude are in conflict
with intended behavior.

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 Work-Related Attitudes
• Job Satisfaction or Dissatisfaction
– An attitude that reflects the extent to which an
individual is gratified or fulfilled by his or her work.
• Job Satisfaction and Work Behaviors
– Job satisfaction is influenced by personal, group,
and organizational factors.
– Satisfied employees are absent less often, make
positive contributions, and stay with the
organization.
– Dissatisfied employees are absent more often,
may experience stress which disrupts coworkers,
and may be continually looking for another job.
– High levels of job satisfaction do not necessarily
lead to high job performance.
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 Work-Related
Attitudes (cont’d)
• Organizational Commitment
– An attitude that reflects an individual’s
identification with and attachment to an
organization.
• Organizational Commitment and Work
Behaviors
– Employee commitment strengthens with an
individual’s age, years with the organization,
sense of job security, and participation in decision
making.
– Committed employees have highly reliable habits,
plan a longer tenure with the organization, and
muster more effort in performance.
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 Affect and Mood in
Organizations
• Positive Affectivity
– A tendency to be relatively upbeat and optimistic,
have an overall sense of well-being, see things in
a positive light, and seem to be in a good mood.
• Negative Affectivity
– A tendency to be generally downbeat and
pessimistic, tend to see things in a negative way,
and seem to be 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.
• Selective Perception
– The process of screening out information that we
are uncomfortable with or that contradicts our
beliefs.
– If selective perception causes someone to ignore
important information it can become quite
detrimental.

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 Figure 15.3: Perceptual
Processes

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 Perception and
Individual Behavior
• Stereotyping
– The process of categorizing or labeling
people on the basis of a single attribute
(e.g., gender and race).
– Stereotyping may cost the organization
valuable talent, violate federal anti-bias
laws, and is likely unethical.

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 Perception and Attribution
• Attribution
– A mechanism through which we observe
behavior and attribute a cause to it.
• Ways in Which Attributions Are Formed:
– Consensus
– Consistency
– Distinctiveness

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 Stress and Individual Behavior
• Stress
– A person’s response to a strong stimulus
(i.e., a stressor).
• General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS)
– The general cycle of the stress process.
– Stage 1 Alarm
– Stage 2 Resistance
– Stage 3 Exhaustion

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 Stress and Individual Behavior
(cont’d)
• Personality Types
– Type A personality
• Extremely competitive (aggressive), devoted to work,
have a strong sense of time urgency (impatient).
• Have a lot of drive and want to accomplish as much as
possible as quickly as possible.
– Type B personality
• Less competitive, less devoted to work, have a weaker
sense of time urgency.
• Less likely to experience personal stress or to come into
conflict with other people.
• More likely to have a balanced, relaxed approach to life.

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 Figure 15.4: The General
Adaptation Syndrome

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 Figure 15.5: Causes
of Work Stress

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 Causes and Consequences of
Stress (cont’d)
• Consequences of Stress
– Negative personal consequences
• Behavioral
• Psychological
• Medical
– Negative work-related consequences
• Poor quality work output and lower productivity.
• Job dissatisfaction, low morale, and a lack of
commitment.
• Withdrawal through indifference and absenteeism.
– Burnout
• A feeling of exhaustion that may develop when someone
experiences too much stress for an extended period of
time.
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 Managing Stress
• Stress Management Strategies for Individuals
– Regular exercise
• reduces tension and stress, and improves self-
confidence and feelings of optimism.
– Relaxation
• allows individuals to adapt and better deal with their
stress.
– Time management
• reduces stress by prioritizing activities to accomplish
them in their order of importance.
– Support groups
• socializing away from work reduces stress.

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 Managing Stress (cont’d)
• Stress Management Strategies for
Organizations
– Organizations are partly responsible for stress.
– Organizations also bear the costs of stress-related
claims.
– Organizational wellness/stress management
programs can be used to promote healthful
employee activities and derive the benefits of
increased organizational productivity.

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 Creativity in Organizations
• Creativity
– The ability of an individual to generate new ideas
or to conceive of new perspectives in existing
ideas.
• The Creative Individual
– Background experiences and creativity
• Many creative individuals were reared in creative
environments.
– Personal traits and creativity
• Creative persons have personal traits of openness, an
attraction to complexity, high levels of energy,
independence, autonomy, strong self-confidence, and a
strong belief in their own creativity.

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 Creativity in Organizations
• The Creative Individual
– Cognitive abilities and creativity
• Most creative people are highly intelligent.
• They are both divergent and convergent
thinkers, a skill they use to see differences and
similarities in situations, phenomena, and
events.

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 The Creative Process
• Preparation
– Formal education and training is used to “get up to
speed.”
– Experiences on the job provide additional
knowledge and ideas.
• Incubation
– A period of less intense conscious concentration
during which knowledge and ideas acquired,
during reparation,
mature and develop.
– Incubation can be helped by pauses in rational
thought.

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 The Creative Process (cont’d)
• Insight
– A spontaneous breakthrough in which the creative
person achieves a new understanding of some
problem or situation.
– Patterns of thought coalesce into a new
understanding.
• Verification
– Determines the validity or truthfulness of the
insight.
– Tests are conducted and prototypes are built to
see if the insight leads to the expected results.

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 The Creative Process (cont’d)
• Enhancing Creativity in Organizations
– Make creativity part of the organization’s
culture.
• Set goals for revenues from creative products
and services.
– Reward creativity; refrain from punishing
creative failures.
• Some ideas work out as expected, others don’t
work out as intended.

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 Types of Workplace Behavior
• Workplace Behavior
– A pattern of action by the members of an
organization that directly or indirectly
influences organizational effectiveness.
• Performance Behaviors
– The total set of work-related behaviors an
organization expects an individual to
display.

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 Types of Workplace Behavior
• Withdrawal Behaviors
– Absenteeism occurs when an individual
does not show up for work when expected
for legitimate or feigned reasons.
– Absenteeism may be a symptom of other
work-related problems.
– Turnover occurs when individuals quit their
jobs for work-related or personal reasons.

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 Types of Workplace Behavior
(cont’d)
• Organizational Citizenship
– The behavior of individuals that makes a positive
overall contribution to the organization.
– The determinants of organizational citizenship is a
complex mosaic of individual, social, and
organizational variables.
• The personality, attitudes, and needs of the individual.
• The social context, or work group, in which the individual
works.
• An organization (and its culture) capable of rewarding
citizenship behaviors.

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 Key Terms
• contributions • locus of control
• psychological contract • self-efficacy
• inducements • authoritarianism
• individual differences • Machiavellianism
• personality • self-esteem
• openness • risk propensity
• conscientiousness • attitudes
• negative emotionality • cognitive dissonance
• extraversion • emotional intelligence
• “Big Five” personality (EQ)
traits • job satisfaction or
dissatisfaction

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 Key Terms
• organizational • General Adaptation
commitment Syndrome (GAS)
• negative affectivity • burnout
• perception • creativity
• selective perception • workplace behavior
• stereotyping • absenteeism
• attribution • turnover
• stress • organizational
• Type B citizenship
• Type A • dysfunctional behaviors

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