AECC401A UNIT 5

What is human behaviour?

Human behaviour is the potential and expressed capacity, (mentally, physically and
socially) of human humans. Individuals or groups to respond to internal and external
stimuli throughout their life.
Behaviour is driven by genetic and environmental factors that a ect an individual.
Human behaviour comprises the fact that the way human interact runs through a
complete range, including physical, mental and emotional conduct. Further more human
behaviour is in uenced by a variety of factors, including genetic and environment.

How is human behaviour a ected?

Behaviour is a ected by factors relating to the person, including:
• physical factors - age, health, illness, pain, in uence of a substance or medication
• personal and emotional factors - personality, beliefs, expectations, emotions, mental
health
• life experiences - family, culture, friends, life events @AATREYEEKAR
• what the person needs and wants.
• what is happening at the time
• the environment - heat, light, noise, privacy
• the response of other people, which is a ected by their own physical factors,
personal and emotional factors, life experiences, wants and needs.
A. Personal factors – The personal factors that can in uence the behavior of an
individual is further categorised into 2 parts that includes Biographic and learned
characteristics.
1. Biographic Characteristics – Every human being have certain type of characteristics
which are inherited and genetic in nature. These characteristics cannot get changed. In an
organization, if the manger will come to know about the limitations and qualities each
personal possess, then they can easily make use of their behavior techniques of an
organization in an e ective manner. These characteristics include:
(i) Physical Characteristics – It mainly consists of skin, vision, height, complexion and
many more. It creates impact on the performance of the individuals. Also, certain features
includes tall, fat or slim. A person with good personality is always expected to dress and
behave well in an organization, even if there is any correlation between the behavior and
body structure or not. @AATREYEEKAR
1. Age – It is the inherited characteristic of an individual. In increasing performance, it is
considered as an issue. Young people are expected to behave more energetic,
adventurous, innovative, risk taking and ambitious. With the advancement in age,
performance of a person is more likely to decline.
2. Gender – It is a genetical feature. This concept has initiated lots of discussion, debates
and opinions. It is a traditional view that women are more emotional. A small di erence
between men and women can a ect their job performance. Without any male-female
di erences, some of the people have competitive drive, leadership, motivation, learning
ability, analytical skills or problem solving ability. A study have been conducted which
says that the female employees generate more turnover rates. This is because there are
more chances of females to quit their job for their personal reasons.
3. Religion – In determining some of the aspects of individual behavior, religion and its
related cultures plays a signi cant role especially that have the basic concern with ethics,
morals and code of conduct. It also helps in identifying the attitude of an individual
towards their work and nancial management incentives. But nobody can deny from
the fact that people who are highly religious have more moral values than others.
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 4. Marital Status – A recent research says that the responsibilities of the person inclined
with their marital status and it has become di cult to s6table in a particular job for the
longer period of time. Employees that are married have fewer absences, more job
satisfaction and fewer turnovers.
5. Experience – The tenure or the experience of an employee plays a signi cant role
within the organization. It creates lot of speculations and misconceptions due to the
seniority factor. Also, work experience is considered as a good indicator that helps in
increasing productivity with greater e ciency and e ectiveness. There is a positive
relationship between the job performance and the seniority. The turnover of an employee
is also considered as negative in relation to the seniority.
2. Learned Characteristics – Learning is de ned as a permanent change in the behavior
of an employee that results in the interactions with the environment. The biographical
features of a person are impossible to modify. Therefore, the managers of the organization
paid a great interest in learning, studying and predicting the learned characteristics that
include: @AATREYEEKAR
(1)Personality – Personality does not only lie with the physical appearance of the person.
A person with a good personality comprised of smart person, smiling face and charming
personality. This concept is considered as dynamic that describes the growth and
development of the psychological system of the person. It is also refereed as personal
traits or characteristics that include persistence, dominance, aggressiveness and other
qualities that is re ected through the behavior of the person within the organization.
(2)Perception – It is the viewpoint that helps in the interpretation of some situation. Also,
it is considered as the process which allows the information to enter in the minds and
allowed to obtain sensible meaning for the whole world.
(3)Values – Values are considered as the global belief that instructs di erent judgments
and actions across various situations. It consists of an individual’s idea based on the
right, good and desirable opinions. It is closely embedded in the people who could be
re ected through their behavior. Also, most of time values are directly in uenced from the
teachers, parents, friends and various other external factors that completely changed the
ideas, opinions and thoughts of the person. For an organizational behavior, values are
very signi cant. It helps in understanding the motivation and the attitude of an individual
along with the in uences of their perceptions or view point.
B. Environmental Factors – On the behavior of a person, the external environment plays
a signi cant role.
1. Economic Factors – In an economic environment, the behavior of an individual is
largely a ected due to certain factors including:
(a)Employment Level – The employment opportunities available to an individual directly
in uence the behavior of an individual. Even after the lack of job satisfaction, the
individual have to stick to the same job as there are less job opportunities for him/her. In
such cases, it is important that they may be loyal to the company in providing better
productivity; they are only remaining in the same organization due to the monetary
bene ts o ered to them.
b)Wage Rates – Every employee is majorly concern with the wages o ered to them by
the company or the organization. The decision of a worker or an employee is directly
a ected by the monetary terms from the side of the company.
(c)General Economic Environment – There are various employees that does not have
any e ect of economic cycle whether in a public sector undertakings or government
o ces. Regardless of their economic position within the organization, they will receive
their salaries. Employees in the private sectors are greatly a ected by the stable income
and job security but the former employees can be motivated from other factors.
@AATREYEEKAR
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 Similarly, there are various other environmental factors in an organization that could a ect
the behavior of the employees, including social factors, political factors or legal
environment.
C. Organizational Factors – With wide variety of resources and organizational systems,
individual behavior is in uenced that includes:
1. Physical Facilities – At a workplace, the physical environment is considered as an
arrangement of people and things positive that could also create in uence on other
people. There are certain factors that in uence the behavior of an individual including
cleanliness, light, ventilation, noise level, nature of job, number of people working, etc.
(a)Structure and Design – The way in which every department of the organization is set-
up has direct concern with the structure and design. The performance and the behavior of
an individual is directly in uenced by the position at which person could perfectly ts in
the whole organizational hierarchy.
(b)Leadership – The management of the organization establish the system of leadership
so that the proper assistance, advice, guidance, direction and coaching could be given to
the individuals. The behavior of each employee is in uenced to the large extent to the
behavior of the leaders or the superiors of the same organization. The behavior of the
leaders is more important than the qualities of the leaders.
(c)Reward System – The performance and the behavior of individuals are directly
in uenced by the reward system that is established by the organization so that the
employees could be able to compensate.
Importance of studying human behaviour @AATREYEEKAR

There are several reasons to study human behavior.

1. To make our relationships better.
• As a very logical thinker, it was often very confusing trying to communicate
with my wife. She knew why she wanted to do things. But I couldn’t
understand her motivations. As I started studying human behavior and
di erent personality types I started understanding her in a much better way.
Our relationship (even though it was good before) is much better as a result.
2. To understand ourselves better.
• When you study other people and you start to see trends, weaknesses and
strengths etc. Eventually you start to apply these things to your own life. You
learn why you may be more naturally gifted in something then the general
population. And you may learn why certain things “rub you the wrong way”.
3. To help us in our careers
• The best example of this may be in sales. There are quite a few di erent
ways that a sales person can word things so that you are more likely to buy
something from them. (hopefully still considered ethical)
• An example is at a real estate agency. If a secretary answers the
phone and instead of saying something like “Yes, I will pass you
through to Bob, he is one of our agents” if he/she says “Yes, I will pass
you through to Bob, he has over 20 years of experience with housing
in that area.” The percentage of sales goes up dramatically (I can’t
remember the exact percentage but I think it was about a 20%
increase).
• If you understand your employer/manager’s motivations you can much easier
help them accomplish their goals. While also not doing things they may see
as a negative. (This is close to the same as reason 1, but di erent because of
the use)
4. To not repeat history
@AATREYEEKAR
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 • In a larger type of societal view, humans repeat history over and over.
Studying history and what happened to people in the past can give us the
knowledge to avoid mistakes they have made.
• The opposite of this is also true, in that we can learn to repeat good
decisions that have been made in the past.
• In a smaller sense then 4a. We can see mistakes our parents or other
ancestors make/have made and attempt to correct our lives to not make the
same mistakes.
5. As we grew, we watched people.
• As a baby you learned almost everything from watching people. Even things
like when a baby sees a bug or mouse etc., they often look at a parent’s face
to see what reactions the parent has to this new “object”. I think this
continues into adulthood. As we look around at other people to see how they
react to something new to us. So the idea of studying human behavior starts
at a subconscious level. But bringing some of those things into the
conscious world can be incredible. Thus the study of human behavior.

@AATREYEEKAR