INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR

What is individual behaviour?

 How do biographical characteristics affect individual
behaviour?
 Role of ability in individual behaviour.

“There’s beauty in individual differences”

 Individual behaviour
Both innate factors and Environmental factors
affects our behavior. (Lewin, 1951)
B=f (P, E)

where: B=Behavior
P=Person (innate), and
E=Environment
 BIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Personal characteristics—such as age, gender,

and marital status—that are objective and
easily obtained from personnel records.
 DEMOGRAPHIC
CHARACTERISTICS
Age
Gender
Marital status
Tenure

Dependent variables:
I. Productivity (Job performance)
II. Absenteeism
III. Turnover
IV. Job satisfaction
 ABILITIES
Ability
An individual’s capacity to perform the various
tasks in a job.
Intellectual Ability
The capacity to do mental activities.
Multiple Intelligences
Intelligence contains four subparts:
cognitive, social, emotional, and cultural.
 TYPES OF ABILITY

Intellectual Ability Physical Ability

1) Verbal Ability 1) Motor Skills (e.g.
2) Numerical Ability reaction time, dexterity)
3) Reasoning Ability 2) Physical Skills (e.g.
4) Deductive Ability strength, endurance)
5) Memory
6) Spatial Ability
7) Perceptual Ability
 PHYSICAL ABILITIES

The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina,

dexterity, strength, and similar
characteristics.
 Employee’s Job’s Ability
Abilities ABILITY Requirements
-JOB FIT

Ability-Job Fit using Human Resource

Management
Selection
Placement
Training AND Rewards
 LEARNING
Learning-Any relatively permanent change in
behavior that occurs as a result of
experience.
Learning
(a)Involves change
(b)Is relatively permanent
(c)Is acquired through experiencing
Learning is defined by the outward expression
of new behaviors

Focuses solely on observable behaviors

A biological basis for learning

Learning is context-independent
 THEORIES OF LEARNING
BEHAVIOURISM
Confined to observable and measurable behavior

Classical Conditioning - Pavlov

Operant Conditioning - Skinner

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
THEORY
 S R

A stimulus is presented
in order to get a
response:
 IVAN PAVLOV,S EXPERIMENT
 Measured accurately the amount of saliva
sectreted by a dog.
 Presented meat- noticeable salivation
 No meat,only bell-no salivation
 Ring bell,then show food- salivation on
hearing bell
 Hear bell,no food-salivation occrred
 FOUR ELEMENTS
 Unconditioned Stimulus(US)-meat
 Caused the dog to react in a specific way
 Unconditioned response(UR)-noticeable
increase in salivation(whenever US
given)
 Conditioned stimulus(CS)-the bell
 The object that initially does not bring the
desired response
 Conditioned response(CR)
 A conditoned behaviour that the organism
learns to produce
 THEORIES OF LEARNING
Operant Conditioning
A type of conditioning in which desired
voluntary behavior leads to a reward or
prevents a punishment.
Key Concepts
Reflexive (unlearned) behavior
Conditioned (learned) behavior
Reinforcement
 Operant conditioning
 Behaviour is a function of consequences.
 Behaviour follows stimuli in a relatively
unthinking manner
 People learn to associate stimulus and their
response
 Skinner’s Learning Theory
Conditioning stimulus-response (S-R)
associations through reinforcement
Shaping behaviour through selective
reinforcement
 REINFORCEMENT
Anything that increases the strength of the
response and tends to induce repetitions of
the behaviour that preceded the
reinforcement.

 Is an environmental event that follows a

response
 Schedule of Reinforcement

Fixed-ratio
THEORIES OF LEARNING(CONT.)
Social-Learning Theory
People can learn through observation and
direct experience.
Key Concepts-Learning occurs in two
steps-
Person observes how others act-acquires a
mental picture-bears consequences
Person acts out of certain image,if+ve
consequences-tend to do again
-s
 Social Learning Theory (SLT)
Grew out of Cognitivism
A. Bandura (1973)
Learning takes place through observation and
sensorial experiences
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery
Four Processes to determine the
influence....
 Attentional process-when people
recognize and pay attention-they learn.
 Retention process- how well the individual
remembers the model's action
 Motor reproduction process- Observation
turns into action. Individual performs the
modeled activities.
 Reinforcement process- exhibit modeled
behaviour if rewards occur and vice versa
 TYPES OF REINFORCEMENT
Positive reinforcement
Providing a reward for a desired behavior.
Negative reinforcement
Removing an unpleasant consequence when the
desired behavior occurs.
Punishment
Applying an undesirable condition to eliminate an
undesirable behavior.
Extinction
Withholding reinforcement of a behavior to cause its
cessation.
 BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION
OB Mod
The application of reinforcement concepts to
individuals in the work setting.
Five Step Problem-Solving Model
a) Identify critical behaviors
b) Develop baseline data
c) Identify behavioral consequences
d) Develop and apply intervention
e) Evaluate performance improvement
 Organisational 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.