1. Exploring Management
Chapter 12
Individual Behavior

2. Chapter 12 How do perceptions influence individual behavior?
How do personalities influence individual behavior?
How do attitudes, emotions and moods influence individual behavior?

3. Perceptual distortions can obscure individual differences
12.1 Perceptions
Perceptual distortions can obscure individual differences
Perception can cause attribution errors as we explain events and problems
Impression management is a way of influencing how others perceive us
The expression “Perception is reality” is valid. The way a person perceives things is real to that person.

4. PERCEPTIONS Individual Differences
Process for receiving and interpreting information from the environment
The accuracy of two–way communication is limited by the perceptual distortions of the sender and receiver.

5. PERCEPTIONS Individual Differences
Stereotypes
Using limited attributes of a group to describe an entire group or individuals in the group
Halo effect
Using one characteristic of a person to form an overall impression
Stereotypes do not allow for individual differences. Managers can miss spotting potential in employees if stereotypes interfere with perception.

6. PERCEPTIONS Individual Differences
Selective perception
Limit perception of information to that which agrees with existing beliefs
Projection
Assign our personal attributes to another individual
Perception related problems can be overcome by building trust.

7. PERCEPTIONS Attribution Errors
Developing explanations or causes for events
Fundamental attribution error
Tendency to blame someone else when things go wrong
Self-serving bias
Blame personal problems on external causes rather than accept personal responsibility
When faced with employee related perception related problems, it is good to remember that there are two perceivers and to question your perceptions of the employee as well as the employee’s perception of you.

8. PERCEPTIONS Impression Management
Attempting to influence how others perceive us
Is it misrepresenting yourself to try to influence others by the way we dress and act? Probably not. We’re just trying to overcome perceptual distortion.

9. Self-monitoring and other personality traits influence work behavior
12.2 Personalities
The Big Five personality traits describe work-related individual differences
The Myers-Briggs type indicator is a popular approach to personality assessment
Self-monitoring and other personality traits influence work behavior
People with Type A personalities tend to stress themselves
Stress has consequences for work performance and personal health
There are as many personalities as there are people. Fortunately, they can be combined into a number of groups for academic and professional reasons. However, keep in mind that each person is unique in some way.

10. PERSONALITIES Personality Traits
Combination of characteristics that make us unique individuals
Understanding the elements of personality help us to understand the strengths and weakness of each combination and how they will react in the workplace.

11. PERSONALITIES Personality Traits
The “Big Five” personality traits
Extroversion
An extravert is talkative, comfortable, and confident in interpersonal relationships; an introvert is more private, withdrawn, and reserved.
Agreeableness
An agreeable person is trusting, courteous, and helpful, getting along well with others; a disagreeable person is self-serving, skeptical, and tough, creating discomfort for others.
Conscientiousness
A conscientious person is dependable, organized, and focused on getting things done; a person who lacks conscientiousness is careless, impulsive, and not achievement oriented.
Emotional stability
A person who is emotionally stable is secure, calm, steady, and self-confident; a person lacking emotional stability is excitable, anxious, nervous, and tense.
Openness to Experience
A person open to experience is broad-minded, imaginative, and open to new ideas; a person who lacks openness is narrow-minded, has few interests, and resists change.
When you consider that each person has various degrees of these variables and each of us have different perceptions of the same person, it is easy to see how everyone appears to be different.

12. PERSONALITIES Personality Assessment
Myers-Briggs
Dimensions of
Personality
- how we relate to others
Extraversion/Introversion
- how we gather information
Sensation/Intuition
- how we evaluate information
Thinking/Feeling
- how we react to the outside world
Judging/Perceiving
Myers-Briggs type indicator
Myers-Briggs types are based on the work of Carl Jung.

13. PERSONALITIES Personality Traits
Locus of Control
Internal
Personal control over success and failure
“If it is to be, it’s up to me!”
External
Little personal control
“What happens, happens.”
People with an internal locus of control tend to have higher self-esteem.

14. PERSONALITIES Personality Traits
Authoritarianism
Respect authority
Machiavellianism
Manipulate others to achieve goals
In his Sixteenth-century book The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli gained lasting fame for his advice on how to use power to achieve personal goals.

15. PERSONALITIES Personality Traits
Self monitoring
Open to feedback
Able to adjust to changing situations
Self monitoring involves flexibility and emotional intelligence.

16. PERSONALITIES Personality Traits
Type A personalities
High achievement orientation
Creates own stress
Indicators of a type A personality are:
Always moving, walking, and eating rapidly
Impatient, disliking waiting
Doing or trying to do several things at once
Feeling guilty when relaxing
Trying to schedule more in less time
Using nervous gestures such as clenched fists
Hurrying or interrupting the speech of others

17. Stress Tension when faced with demands, constraints and opportunities
PERSONALITIES Stress
Stress
Tension when faced with demands, constraints and opportunities
Constructive stress
Destructive stress
Different people can handle different levels of stress. Many believe that it is not the amount of stress in your life that counts but how you handle it that counts.

18. Job burnout Workplace rage PERSONALITIES Stress
Workplace rage makes the news when it turns into a shocking event. However, the signs are usually visible long before such events occur.

19. PERSONALITIES Stress
Symptoms of stress can be misleading. Behaviors like low energy and bad attitude appear to be behavior problems rather than a symptom of job stress.

20. Personal Wellness Helps cope with stress and job demands Rest Exercise
PERSONALITIES Stress
Personal Wellness
Helps cope with stress and job demands
Rest
Exercise
Eating right
Healthy habits
Workplace wellness programs can help employees cope with stress by encouraging healthy living habits like adequate exercise and proper diet.

21. 12.3 Attitudes and Behavior
Attitudes predispose people to act in certain ways
Job satisfaction is a positive attitude toward one’s job and work experiences
Job satisfaction influences behavior
Job satisfaction has a complex relationship with job performance
Emotions and moods are positive and negative states of mind that influence behavior
Recent trends such as eliminating pensions and health benefits and layoffs caused by the recession likely have a negative impact on employee attitudes.

22. ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR Attitudes
Attitudes predispose people to act in certain ways
Cognitive dissonance
Discomfort felt when behavior is inconsistent from attitude
Attitudes are highly influenced by environment. If you are in the wrong environment, it might be wise to consider changing it.

23. ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR Job Satisfaction
Positive feeling about a job and work experience
The Facts to Consider feature in the text indicates that job satisfaction in the U.S. has declined since 1995.

24. ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR Work Behaviors
Withdrawal behavior
Absenteeism
Turnover
Organizational citizenship
Positive work behaviors
Going the extra mile
Employee engagement
An increase in withdrawal behaviors should be an indicator to management that the job characteristics are unfulfilling.

25. ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR Job Satisfaction and Performance
Job satisfaction and performance are interrelated
They are so interrelated that one does not necessarily need to be first. An increase in one leads to an increase in the other.

26. ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR Emotions and Moods
Strong feelings directed at someone or something
Emotional Intelligence
Ability to understand and manage emotions
Emotional intelligence is an important management trait. It allows managers to keep a cool head in difficult situations and help other to keep theirs too.

27. ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOR Emotions and Moods
Positive or negative feelings or state of mind
Mood contagion
Influence of one’s mood on others
Enthusiasm is contagious. Unfortunately, so are negative moods.