COMMERCE 2BA3 ORGANIZATIONAL

BEHAVIOURClass 2

Personality & Learning Perception, Attribution, & Judgment

Dr. Christa Wilkin

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Can You Solve These Brain Teasers?

MEREPEAT GR 12" AVE

INSULT + INJURY

GESGSEGGGEGSGGES

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Last Class

Discussed how OB has widespread applications

Evolution of OB Different roles of managers Contemporary concerns (e.g., workplace

diversity)

THIS CLASS Personality and learning Perception, attribution, and judgment

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Agenda

Personality traits Experiment on learning Learning theories Attribution and Perceptual errors Nupath Case

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CH 2: PERSONALITY AND LEARNING

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Question

An effective manager will always hire the smartest person available. True? False? Why? What do you think?

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Personality

While intelligence is really important, personality is more likely to affect employees’ attitudes and behavior

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Question

When you become rich and famous, will your best friends and family be surprised about “how much your personality has changed” and make comments about how different you have become?

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What is Personality?

The relatively stable set of psychological characteristics that influences the way an individual interacts with his or her environment and how he or she feels, thinks, and behaves.

Dimensions and traits that are determined by genetic predisposition and one’s long-term learning history.

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The Dispositional Approach

Focuses on individual dispositions and personality.

Individuals possess stable traits or characteristics that influence their attitudes and behaviours.

Individuals are predisposed to behave in certain ways.

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The Situational Approach

Characteristics of the organizational setting such as rewards and punishment influence people’s feelings, attitudes and behaviour.

Many studies have shown that situational factors such as the characteristics of work tasks predict job satisfaction.

E.g., Darley and Batson’s (1973) study of seminary students told to hurry from one building to another or those told had more time; help slumped victim

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The Interactionist Approach

Organizational behaviour is a function of both dispositions and the situation.

To predict and understand organizational behaviour, we need to know something about an individual’s personality and the work setting.

This is the most widely accepted approach to organizational behaviour.

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Situational Strength

Situations can be described as being either “weak” or “strong”.

In weak situations, roles are loosely defined, there are few rules and weak reinforcement and punishment contingencies.

Personality has the strongest effect in weak situations.

In strong situations, the roles, rules, and contingencies are more defined.

Personality has less of an impact in strong situations.

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Individual Exercise

Do a personality test Answers all 60 questions Use the scoring key to find your average

score for each personality trait ***Remember that some questions are

reverse scored or worded negatively (answer is marked with an “R”). So that means if you answered 4, you would change the answer to 2.***

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“Big Five” personality traits

Extroversion Energized by spending time with

others Sociable, assertive, comfortable in

large groups Tendency to “think out loud”

Agreeableness Defers to others Cooperative, trusting, not antagonistic

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“Big Five” personality traits

Emotional stability (neuroticism; emotionality) Ability to withstand stress: backbone Calm, self-confident, resilient

Openness to experience Interested in novel things vs. comfortable with

the familiar Adventurous, curious, artistic

Conscientiousness Reliable, follows through Responsible, organized, dependable, persistent

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Question

Which personality factor is the strongest predictor of job performance? Why?

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Personality

New factor (e.g., Ashton et al., 2004): Honesty / humility

Integrity or morality Sincere, Not conceited, truthful, unpretentious

(modest) Not yet part of the “Big Five”

Not much research on it yet (also not in your textbook)

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Individual Personality Results

1) To what degree do you feel this is an accurate assessment of your personality?

2) What are your strengths that will serve you well, especially in terms of a career?

3) What are your weaknesses which might hinder you in your career, and how might you go about addressing one or more of the weaknesses?

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Locus of Control

A set of beliefs about whether one’s behaviour is controlled mainly by internal or external factors.

Internals believe that the opportunity to control their own behaviour resides within themselves.

Externals believe that external forces determine their behaviour.

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Question

Which type makes for a better employee (internals or externals)?

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Self-Monitoring

The extent to which people observe and regulate how they appear and behave in social settings and relationships.

High self-monitors take great care to observe and control the images that they project.

High self-monitors are more involved in their jobs, perform better, and are more likely to emerge as leaders.

Downside: Dealing with unfamiliar cultures might provoke stress.

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Self-Esteem

The degree to which a person has a positive self-evaluation.

People with high self-esteem have favourable self-images.

People with low self-esteem have unfavourable self-images.

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Question

People with high self-esteem have lower job satisfaction and job performance. True? False? Why? What do you think?

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Positive and Negative Affectivity

People who are high on positive affectivity (PA) experience positive emotions and moods and view the world in a positive light.

People who are high on negative affectivity (NA) experience negative emotions and moods and view the world in a negative light.

PA and NA are emotional dispositions that predict people’s general emotional tendencies.

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Quiz Question

An individual's personality encompasses:A) all aspects of the individual's physical and

emotional response to their environment.B) a relatively stable set of psychological

characteristics.C) behaviours which are mostly learned

through childhood experience.D) all aspects of the individual's consciousness.E) a constantly shifting set of personal

characteristics.

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QUESTIONS?

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What is Learning?

A relatively permanent change in behaviour potential as a result of practice or experience.

Question: What types of skills do employees learn?

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What do Employees Learn?

Practical skills: Job-specific skills, knowledge, technical competence.

Intrapersonal skills: Self: Problem solving, critical thinking, alternative

work processes, risk taking. Interpersonal skills:

Others: Interactive skills such as communicating, teamwork, conflict resolution.

Cultural awareness: The social norms of organizations, company goals,

business operations, expectations, and priorities.

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Experiment

We need two volunteers

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Increasing Probability of Behaviour

One of the most important consequences that influences behaviour is reinforcement.

Reinforcement is the process by which stimuli strengthen behaviours.

A reinforcer is a stimulus that follows some behaviour and increases or maintains the probability of that behaviour.

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Positive Reinforcement

The application or addition of a stimulus that increases or maintains the probability of some behaviour.

The reinforcer is dependent or contingent on the occurrence of some desired behaviour.

E.g., If you participate in class (increase or maintain behaviour), then you will earn high participation marks (application of stimulus)

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Video Clip

Big Bang Theory video clip

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Negative Reinforcement

The removal of a stimulus from a situation that increases or maintains the probability of some behaviour.

Negative reinforcement occurs when a response prevents some event or stimulus from occurring.

E.g., If you participate in class (increase or maintain behaviour), then I will stop calling on you (removal of stimulus)

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Experiment Debrief

Which technique is more effective? How did it feel to be subjected to the

different feedback styles? How did you feel while you were giving

the different types of feedback?

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Reducing Probability of Behaviour

Sometimes learned behaviours are detrimental to the operation of an organization and they need to be reduced or eliminated.

There are two strategies that can reduce the probability of learned behaviour: Extinction Punishment

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Extinction

The gradual dissipation of behaviour following the termination of reinforcement.

If the behaviour is not reinforced, it will gradually dissipate or be extinguished.

E.g., If you talk to your peers while others are speaking (unwanted behaviour), then I will stop smiling.

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Punishment

The application of an aversive stimulus following unwanted behaviour to decrease the probability of that behaviour.

A nasty stimulus is applied after some undesirable behaviour in order to decrease the probability of that behaviour.

E.g., If you talk to your peers while others are speaking (unwanted behaviour), then I will ask you if you would like to share your conversation with the class (aversive stimulus).

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Problems using Punishment

It does not demonstrate which behaviours should replace the punished response.

Punishment indicates only what is not appropriate.

Punishment only temporarily suppresses the unwanted behaviour.

Punishment can provoke a strong emotional reaction from the punished individual.

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Question

Should we avoid using punishment in the workplace altogether? What do you think?

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Social Cognitive Theory

People learn by observing the behaviour of others and can regulate their own behaviour by thinking about the consequences of their actions, setting goals, monitoring performance, and rewarding themselves.

Components of social cognitive theory: Modelling Self-efficacy Self-regulation

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Modelling

The process of imitating the behaviour of others.

Attractive, credible, competent, high-status people are most likely to be imitated Job shadow

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Self-Efficacy

A person’s belief that he or she has the ability, motivation, and resources to complete a task successfully (Bandura, 1986)

Different than self-esteem Can change over time

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Question

What advice would you give to someone who was faced with a new and difficult task; how would you convince them that he or she could do it successfully?

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Self-Efficacy Theory

Enacted Mastery You have done the task beforeVerbal Persuasion You have been told “you can do it”Vicarious experience You have watched someone else

complete the task successfullyPhysiological State You are not unduly frightened by the task

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Self-Regulation

The use of learning principles to regulate one’s own behaviour

A key part of the process is people’s pursuit of self-set goals that guide behaviour

E.g., you find a gap between how well you want to do and your performance on a test Set specific short-term goals Study harder (rehearse) Ask others what they do (observe models)

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Quiz Question

Ron is a sensitive person, and he works very hard so that his boss doesn't criticize him. Criticism is a(n) __________ of Ron's work.

A) punisherB) positive reinforcerC) extinguisherD) negative reinforcerE) continuous reinforcer

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QUESTIONS?

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CH. 3: PERCEPTION, ATTRIBUTION, AND

JUDGMENT

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What do you see?50

What is Perception?

The process of interpreting the messages of our senses to provide order and meaning to the environment

Depends on Target

Attributes of a target, relationship of target to others, etc.

Situation Social or work setting, actions of others, etc.

Perceiver Attitudes, experiences, personalities, etc.

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Bruner’s Model of the Perceptual Process

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Attribution Theory

When individuals observe behaviour, they try to guess if it is “internally” or “externally” caused e.g., if a colleague does not do his share of

the work, do you assume It’s because he is lazy, selfish, incompetent

(internal attribution) It’s because his boss asked him to do some

other work (external attribution)

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Attribution Theory

Distinctiveness IF he acts the same way in other situations THEN we assume the behavior is internally caused

Consistency IF he has acted like this for a long period of time THEN we assume the behavior is internally caused

Consensus IF other people in the same situation behave the

same way… does everyone else do this? THEN we assume the behavior is externally

caused

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Biases in Attribution

Fundamental attribution error When judging other people’s SUCCESS we:

Inflate the role of external factors Underestimate the role of internal factors

When judging other people’s FAILURES we: Inflate the role of internal factors Underestimate the role of external factors

Self-serving bias Opposite of fundamental attribution error

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Perceptual Errors

Primacy effect: First impressions e.g., start of the interview, first meet someone

Recency: Most recent info dominates perceptions e.g., big error a week before performance review

Halo Effect Possession of one excellent characteristic makes

others think that other excellent characteristics are possessed

e.g., you know a person is a McMaster alumni, so you think that they must also be friendly and smart, etc.

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Perceptual Errors

Contrast Effect When an evaluation is affected by a

comparison to the evaluation that preceded it e.g., Give a presentation after an excellent or

poor one Projection

When you assume that other people are similar to you

e.g., You assume that your housemates will clean their dishes right away because that’s what you always do

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Perceptual Errors

Stereotyping Tendency to generalize about people in a social

category and ignore variations among them e.g., older workers don’t work hard

Self-fulfilling Prophecy Occurs when our expectations about another

person cause that person to act in a way that is consistent with those expectations

e.g., a person who expects people to be friendly, may smile more and thus receive more smiles

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QUESTIONS?

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Case: Nupath Foods

Form groups of 5 to 6 people How does perception play a role in this

case?(ie. What perceptual problems or errors have occurred?)

Be prepared to report back to the class

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Summary

Intelligence is very, very important, but it is not the only factor that will affect performance

There are different tools available to influence other people’s behaviour

Being aware of perceptual errors is important for recruitment and retention efforts

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For Next Class

Read chapter 4 on values, attitudes, and work behaviours

*** Remember your namecard ***

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