Module 2

-
Foundations of Individual
Behavior
MODULE
Ability physical and intellectual, biographical
characteristics, learning, theories of learning,
shaping behavior.

After studying this chapter,
you should be able to:
1. Define the key biographical
characteristics.
2. Identify different types of abilities.
3. Concept of learning and behavior
modification.
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Foundations of Individual Behavior
Companies who are looking for employees look
for individual characteristics that will improve the
chances of success
Individual differences exist due to
Biographical characteristics
Abilities
Personality
Perception
Attitudes
Emotions
Moods
Each interacts with the other and with the task to
impact the way the employee does the job.
What are the biographical characteristics
that affect the behavior of an individual?
Biographical Characteristics
Personal characteristicssuch as age, gender ,education
abilities, marital status, no of dependant, length of
service with an organization that are objective and
easily obtained from personnel records.
How Biographical Characteristics
affect Organization?
Age :Relation between Age factor and other variables like
productivity, absenteeism and Job Satisfaction.
Gender :Equal access to resources and opportunities for men
and women increase productivity. Gender has a strong effect
on emerging leadership.
Marital Status :married employees have fewer absences report
high job satisfaction. Work-family conflict also affects OB.
Tenure :Tenure or duration of service in the organization refers
employees with more experience is likely to be more productivity.
There is relationship between commitment, satisfaction and tenure.




ABILITY
Physical ability
Intellectual or mental ability -Multiple
Intelligence
Social Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence
Cultural Intelligence

Companies measure these and use the results to
help with the hiring decisions
MARS Model of Individual Behavior
Individual
behavior and
results
Situational
factors
Values
Personality
Perceptions
Emotions
Attitudes
Stress Role
perceptions
Motivation
Ability
Ability, Intellect, and Intelligence
Define Ability
An individuals capacity to perform the
various tasks in a job.
Intellectual Ability
The capacity to do mental activities.
Define Multiple Intelligences
Intelligence contains four subparts:
cognitive, social, emotional, and cultural.
Types of Ability
1.Intellectual Abilities -IQ ,EQ.

2.Physical Abilities Stamina, dexterity,
(ease in using hands)strength.
Intelligence can be sub-divided into four sub-
parts
Cognitive
Social
Emotional
cultural
Cognitive intelligence -
It means includes the attitudes which has been since
long used by traditional intelligence test
Social intelligence
includes a persons ability to relate effectively to
others.
Emotional intelligence
It is the ability to identify, understand, and manage
emotions
Cultural intelligence
It is the awareness of cross cultural differences and the
ability to function successfully in cross cultural
situations


Assessing Competencies at EMC
When EMC was about to
dramatically expand its work
force, an executive team at the
enterprise storage products firm
developed an Employee Success
Profile. This list of generic
competencies represented the
traits of successful employees,
such as goal-orientation and
integrity.
Courtesy of EMC Corp.
Number aptitude
Verbal comprehension
Perceptual speed (the ability to quickly and accurately
compare letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns)
Inductive reasoning(is a type of reasoning that involves
moving from a set of specific facts to a general
Ex:This ice is cold. (Or: All ice I have ever seen
has been cold.So all ice is cold)
Dimensions of
Intellectual Ability
Deductive reasoning (an argument is deductive when
its conclusion is a logical consequence of the premises)
All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, (Therefore ,) Socrates
is mortal .
Spatial Visualization- the ability to mentally manipulate
2-dimensional (length and width) and 3-dimensional
figures.(length, width, and depth)
Memory
Dimensions of
Intellectual Ability


Cognitive Abilities Test/Intelligence
Aptitude Tests
Mechanical Aptitude (measures your ability to comprehend
simple mechanical and physical principles.)
Clerical Aptitude (measures your skills required for
administrative positions.)
Spatial Aptitude (determine your fitness for jobs where
spatial abilities are required.)




Physical Abilities
Physical Abilities
The capacity to do tasks
demanding stamina, dexterity,
strength, and similar
characteristics.
Other Factors
7. Body coordination
8. Balance
9. stamina
Nine Physical Abilities
Strength Factors
1. Dynamic strength
2. Trunk strength
3. Static strength
4. Explosive strength
Flexibility Factors
5. Extent flexibility
6. Dynamic flexibility
Multiple Intelligence
The theory of multiple intelligences was proposed by Howard
Gardner in 1983 . According to multiple intelligence theory,
there are nine basic types of intelligence.
Visual-spatial
Verbal-linguistic
Logical-mathematical
Bodily-kinesthetic
Musical-rhythmic
Interpersonal
Intrapersonal
Naturalistic
Existential

MULTI SMART
Social Intelligence
How well we get along with each other.
Dimensions central to the concept of Social
Intelligence
Understands peoples thoughts, feelings and intentions
well
Is good at dealing with people
Has extensive knowledge of rules and norms in human
relations
Is good at taking the perspective of other people
Adapts well in social situations
Is warm and caring
Is open to new experiences, ideas and values (Kosmitzki
and John, 1993)

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence
The ability to manage moods and emotions in self and
others.

Cultural Intelligence
The ability to function in a cultural
environment that is different than your own.
The ability to recognize cultures different than
your own and adjust your behavior
Learning
Companies look for employees who has the
capabilities to do the job company needs
them to do .

But nobody comes with everything that is
needed.
What is missing has to be learned
Learning Definition and components
Components of Learning
Involves change only change in behavior
Learning itself is not observable.
Is relatively permanent (timid person became brave
At a crisis situation not a permanent change.
Is acquired through experience(a lifelong process)
Learning
Any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs
as a result of experience.
Theories of Learning
Theories of learning explains how learning occurs and how
patterns of behavior is shaped.

1.Classical Conditioning
2.Operant Conditioning
3.Cognitive Learning
4.Social Learning



Classical Conditioning or respondent
conditioning, or Pavlovan conditioning
A type of conditioning in which an individual
responds to stimulus not in the normal way but a
conditional way. This describe learning through
association.

Learning by association
A Russian physiologist called Ivan Pavlov, studied salivation in dogs as part
of his research programme. Normally, dogs will salivate at the time when
food is presented, but Pavlov was interested why the dogs had started to
salivate when the saw the people that usually fed them (they also
responded to the sound of the dishes being used for their meals).

Pavlov set up an experiment to find out if the dogs could be trained to
salivate at other stimuli such as the sound of a bell or a light. At feeding
times, Pavlov would ring a bell and the amount of saliva produced by the
dog was measured. After several 'trials' Pavlov rang the bell without
presenting the food and found that the dogs salivated in the same way as if
food was being presented.

Classical Conditioning
Process
Stage 1 Before conditioning -meat salivation ( UCS-UCR)
stage 2 -bell-no salivation (no response)
stage 3 -ring bell along with meat -salivation(repeated)
( UCS-UCR)

REPEAT THE PROCESS

stage 4 -bell-salivation (CS-CR)

Dog is conditioned .
In this example Pavlov showed how a reflex(salivation,a natural
bodily response) could become conditioned to an external
stimulus(the bell)thereby creating a conditioned reflex.



Classical conditioning
Classical conditioning is a type of conditioning
in which an individual responds to stimulus
not in a normal way but a conditional way. Ex:
Advertisements shape attitudes. Fair and
lovely cream advertise that if you use fair and
lovely, you will be fair in 7 days. Listening to
these advertisements on a continuous basis,
consumers feel like trying the product.

Exercise
Prepare a skit about the following scenarios
using classical conditioning:
Apply classical conditioning
1. To treat conditions such as alcoholism,
chain smoking.
2. drug addiction
3. Procrastination
4. Advertisement for a fairness cream,deo.


Operant-Harward Psychologist
B.F.Skinner

Operant Conditioning
A type of conditioning in which desired
voluntary behavior leads to a reward or
prevents a punishment.

Operant conditioning deals with the modification of "voluntary
behavior" or operant behavior.

Behavior is a function of its consequences.
People learn to behave to get something or to avoid something.
Operant behavior means voluntary or learned behavior in contrast
to reflex behaviour.The tendency to repeat such behavior depends
on the reinforcement or lack of it ,Reinforcement strengthens the
behavior and increases the likelihood that it will be repeated.
3 strategies Reinforcement,punishment,extinction.





The cognitive paradigm essentially argues that the black box of
the mind should be opened and understood.

People are not programmed animals that merely respond to
environmental stimuli; people are rational beings that require
active participation in order to learn, and whose actions are a
consequence of thinking.
Changes in behavior are observed, but only as an indication of
what is occurring in the learners head.
Cognitive uses the metaphor of the mind as computer: information
comes in, is being processed, and leads to certain outcomes.

Learning from
observation
Social learning approach to personality development

What is the influence of others behavior during
development?




Albert Bandura, Stanford
University
Theories of Learning (contd)
Social-Learning Theory or Observational
learning (also known as vicarious learning
or modeling)

People can learn through observation and direct
experience. people learn through observing others
behavior, attitudes and outcomes of those behaviors. Social
Learning is a type of learning that occurs as a function of
observing, retaining and replicating novel behavior
executed by others.

social learning theory
Key Concepts
Reinforcement is required to change behavior.
Some rewards are more effective than others.
The timing of reinforcement affects learning speed and
permanence.
Shaping Behavior
Systematically reinforcing each successive step that
moves an individual closer to the desired response.
Principles of social learning theory
Process -4
Attention
Retention
Motor Reproduction
Reinforcement
Types of Reinforcement FOUR
Positive reinforcement
Negative Reinforcement
Punishment
Extinction



Albert Bandura called the process of social learning modeling and gave four
conditions required for a person to successfully model the behavior of
someone else:
Attention People learn from a model only when they pay
attention. We get influenced with models that are attractive,
repeatedly available, important to us and similar to us in our
estimation.
Retention remembering what you paid attention to when the
model is not available. Includes mental images, cognitive
organization.
Motor Reproduction reproducing the image. The observer must
have the motor skills to reproduce the action.
Reinforcement Process When positive incentive are provided to
the new modeled behaviour,individuals will be motivated to exhibit
the behavior more and more

Types of Reinforcement -FOUR
Positive reinforcement
Providing a reward to strengthen a desired behavior (Bike when
you come first in exam)
Negative reinforcement
Removing an unpleasant consequence when the desired
behavior occurs.(You got just pass marks so that you do not fail)
Punishment
Applying an undesirable condition to eliminate an undesirable
behavior. (If you copy in exam, you will be debarred from writing
exams.)
Extinction
Avoiding an undesired behavior -Ignoring the mischief maker in
the class.

Schedules of Reinforcement
Continuous reinforcement- after every
behavior
good for starting behaviors
drastic fall of after some time
Fixed
Fixed interval- after set amount of time
Fixed ratio- based on a set # of behaviors
Variable
Variable interval- average time, but no pattern
Variable ratio- average number of behaviors, no
pattern


Bobo Doll experiment of
social learning
Albert Bandura's Bobo doll
experiment is widely cited in
psychology as a demonstration of
observational learning and
demonstrated that children are more
likely to engage in violent play with a
life size rebounding doll after
watching an adult do the same.
However, it may be noted that
children will only reproduce a model's
behavior if it has been reinforced.
This may be the problem with
television because it was found, by
Otto Larson and his coworkers (1968),
that 56% of the time children's
television characters achieve their
goals through violent acts.



Behavior Modification
Five Step Problem-Solving Model
1. Identify critical behaviors
2. Develop baseline data
3. Identify behavioral consequences
4. Develop and apply intervention
5. Evaluate performance improvement
Sometimes behavior needs to be altered to maximize
positive and minimize adverse consequences.
Consequences

What happens
After behavior
Employee
receives
attendance
bonus
Example
A-B-Cs of OB Modification
Behavior

What person
says or does
Employee
attends
scheduled
work
Antecedents

What happens
before behavior
Attendance
bonus system
is announced
Behaviour MOD Organizational
Applications
Well Pay versus Sick Pay
Reduces absenteeism by rewarding attendance, not
absence.
Employee Discipline
The use of punishment can be counter-productive.
Developing Training Programs
OB MOD methods improve training effectiveness.
Self-management
Reduces the need for external management control.
Behavior Modification Techniques in the Business Environment

Operant Conditioning-an employer implementing a reward reinforcement
program delivered in various intervals could modify the behavior of his employees
in line with the company's agenda.
Variable-Ratio Schedule
A variable-ratio schedule is based on the architecture of reward reinforcement
Implementing Ceremonies
implement ceremonies and activities involving an employee's physical-emotional
involvement.
Setting Goals to Guide Behavior
As soon as an employee simply attempts to accomplish a goal designed by a
manager; then the employee's behavior has been instantly modified specific to the
business's agenda.
Continuously
observe our behavior
get Clarity on role expectations
Positive feedback motivates future behavior