Chapter 2 Foundations of Individual Behavior

1. Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 9/e Stephen P. Robbins/Timothy A. Judge Chapter 2Foundations of Individual Behavior

2. After studying this chapter, you should be able to: • Explain the relationship between ability and job performance. • Contrast the three components of an attitude. • Discuss similarities and differences between job satisfaction and the other job attitudes discussed. • Discuss the causes and consequences of job satisfaction. • Understand how to shape the behavior of others. • Distinguish among the four schedules of reinforcement.

3. Ability • Refers to an individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job • Is a current assessment of what one can do • Intellectual ability is one of the best predictors of performance • The correlation between intelligence and job satisfaction is about zero • Employee performance is enhanced when there is a high ability-job fit

4. Attitudes • Evaluative statements – either favorable or unfavorable – concerning objects, people or events • Attitudes reflect how one feels about something

5. Major Components of Attitude • Cognition – an opinion or belief • Affect – the emotional or feeling segment • Behavior – the intention to behave in a certain way

6. Consistency of Attitudes • People seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behavior • When there is an inconsistency, the individual may alter either the attitudes or behavior, or develop a rationalization for the discrepancy

7. Major Job Attitudes • Job satisfaction • Job involvement • Psychological empowerment • Organizational commitment • Affective commitment • Continuance commitment • Normative commitment • Perceived organizational support • Employee engagement

8. What causes job satisfaction? • Work itself – the strongest correlation with overall satisfaction • Pay – not correlated after individual reaches a level of comfortable living • Advancement opportunities • Supervision • Coworkers • A person’s personality

9. Effects of Satisfied and Dissatisfied Employees • Job performance – strong correlation • OCB – modest relationship but more related to conceptions of fair outcomes, treatment and procedures • Customer Satisfaction – strong correlation • Absenteeism – moderate to weak negative correlation • Turnover – moderate negative correlation • Workplace deviance – strong correlation

10. Learning Any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience. • Learning involves change • The change must become ingrained • Some form of experience is necessary for learning

11. Methods of Shaping Behavior • Positive reinforcement • Negative reinforcement • Punishment • Extinction

12. Schedules of reinforcement • Continuous – reinforces behavior each and every time it is demonstrated • Intermittent • Fixed or variable ratio • Fixed or variable interval

13. Schedules of Reinforcement

14. Implications for Managers • Ability • Effective selection process improves fit • Promotion and transfer based on abilities • Fine-tune job to better match abilities • Attitudes – raise satisfaction by focusing on making work challenging and interesting • Learning – Use reinforcement instead of punishment

15. Summary • Explained the relationship between ability and job performance. • Contrasted the three components of an attitude. • Discussed similarities and differences between job satisfaction and the other job attitudes. • Discussed the causes and consequences of job satisfaction. • Understand how to shape the behavior of others. • Distinguished among the four schedules of reinforcement.