Chapter Two:

FOUNDATION OF INDIVIDUAL
BEHAVIOR AND LEARNING IN AN
ORGANIZATION
• 2.1. Perception
• 2.1.1. What Is Perception Mean?
• Perception may be defined as the process with
which individuals detect and interpret
environmental stimuli.
• Components of perception
• There are three components are involved in
perception as listed below:
Perceiver : is who receive the stimuli
Target: refers to the thing to be perceived
Situation: refers to context (e.g. timing) the
perceiver and the target meet
• 2.1.2. Perceptual Process
• The perceptual process is composed of the
process of:
 receiving,
selecting,
organizing,
interpreting,
Responding.
• 2.1.3. Factors Influence Perception
• A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes
distort perception. These factors can reside :
perceiver
target
situation
• 2.1.4 Attribution Theory
• Tries to explain the ways in which we judge people differently,
depending on the meaning we attribute to a given behavior.
• It suggests that when we observe an individual’s behavior, we
attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally
caused.
• That determination, however, depends largely on three factors:
 distinctiveness,
 consensus,
 consistency.
• Internally caused behaviors are those we believe to be under the
personal control of the individual.
• Externally caused behavior is what we imagine the situation
forced the individual to do.
Determinants:
Determinants:
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• Attribution errors
• In addition to these three influences, two errors
have an impact on internal versus external
determination—the fundamental attribution error
and the self-serving bias.
• Fundamental attribution error: is the tendency to
underestimate the influence of situational factors and to
overestimate the influence of personal factors in evaluating
someone else’s behavior.
• Self-serving bias: refers to the tendency to attribute own
success to internal causation like ability, hard work and self-
worth and the failure, to external factors like chance or Luck.
• Common Errors While Judging Others
• Some common kinds of distortions that can make the perceptual process
inaccurate and affect the response are
 Stereotypes: Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the
group to which that person belongs.
 halo effects: based on single characteristics
 selective perception: selectively interpret what one sees on the basis of
one’s interests, background, experience, and attitudes.
 contrast effects: comparisons with other people recently encountered
 Projection-judging based on your own traits and not what he actually
possesses.
• 2.2. Attitude
• 2.2.1. Definition of Attitude
• Attitudes are evaluative statements either
favorable or unfavorable about objects, people,
or events.
• Attitudes are positive or negative feelings
about objects, people, or events.
• The attitude is the evaluative statements or
judgments concerning objects, people, or
events.
• 2.2.3. Component of attitude
• There are three components of attitude.
• Cognitive component: the thoughts, opinions, knowledge, or
information held by the individual about a specific person,
idea, event, or object;
• E.g. “My pay is low”
• Affective component: the feelings, sentiments, moods, and
emotions about some specific person, idea, event, or object;
which may be positive, negative or neutral.
• E.g. “I am angry over how little I’m paid.
• Behavioral component: the predisposition to act on a
favorable or unfavorable evaluation to a specific person, idea,
event, or object.
• E.g. “I’m going to look for another job that pays better.”
• 2.2.5. Source of attitude
• Attitudes have many sources:
family,
peer groups,
coaches,
society,
 previous job experiences.
• .
• 2.2.5. Types of attitude
• Most of the research in OB has looked at three job related
attitudes:
job satisfaction,
job involvement, and
Organizational commitment.
• Job satisfaction: refers to the feelings people have toward their
job.
• Job Involvement: refers to the degree to which a person
identifies himself (psychologically) with his job, actively
participates and considers his perceived performance level
important to self-worth.
• Organizational Commitment: Organizational commitment is
the emotional attachment people have toward the company they
work for.
• 2.2.7. Attitudes and consistency
• It is seen that people seek consistency among their attitudes or
between attitude and behavior.
• The inconsistency among attitudes or between attitude and
behavior is called Cognitive dissonance.
• Leon Festinger proposed cognitive dissonance theory in 1950s.
The theory seeks to explain linkage between attitudes and behavior.
• Cognitive dissonance: refers to any incompatibility an individual
might perceive between two or more attitudes or between behavior
and attitudes.
• E.g:- A friend of yours has consistently argued that the quality of
U.S. cars isn’t up to that of imports and that he’d never own
anything but a Japanese or German car. But his dad gives him a
late-model Ford Mustang, and suddenly he says U.S. cars aren’t so
bad.
• 2.3. Personality
• 2.3.1. Definition of Personality
• Personality is defined as the sum total of ways in
which an individual reacts to and interacts with others.
• Personality encompasses the relatively stable
feelings, thoughts, and behavioral patterns a person
has.
• Personality is a stable set of characteristics and
tendencies that determine commonalities and
differences in people’s behavior.
• Personality is an individual’s consistent patterns of
feeling, thinking, and behaving.
• 2.3.2. Personality determinants
• Determinant of personality refers to factors directly
and indirectly influenced to individual behavior.
• Personality is determined by :
heredity,
environment (culture)
situation
• 2.3.3. Major personality attributes influencing OB
• These are:
 locus of control,
machiavellianism,
self-esteem,
self-monitoring,
risk-taking,
Type A personalities
proactive personalities.
• 2.4. Learning
• Learning is a relatively
permanent change in knowledge
or observable behavior that
results from practice or
experience.
 First, learning involves change.
 Second, the change must be relatively
permanent.
 Third, the change is concerned with
behavior.
 Finally, some form of experience is
necessary for learning acquired
directly through observation or
practice.
• 2.4.2. Theories of Learning
• Three theories have been offered to explain the process by
which we acquire patterns of behavior:
Classical conditioning: Learning by Association
Operant conditioning: learning from consequences
Social learning: learning of People through observation and
imitation
• 2.4.3. Methods of shaping behavior
• There are three ways in which to shape behavior:
Reinforcement
positive reinforcement
negative reinforcements.
punishment,
 extinction
Reinforcement
• Reinforcement is a behavioral shaping method that increases
the frequency of a particular behavior that it follows.
• There are two types of reinforcements which are:
 positive reinforcement
negative reinforcements.
THANK YOU