INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Interpersonal Influence and Group Behavior Organizational Processes The Individual THE ORGANIZATION’S ENVIRONMENT • Group behavior and work teams • Intergroup conflict and negotiations • Organizational power and politics • Communication • Skills & Abilities • Perception • Personality • Attitudes • Values • Leadership • Communications • Decision making • Reward System • Job Design INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR IN THE ORGANIZATION
First law of human behavior: • “People are different. What one person considers a golden opportunity another considers a threat.” • Caveat
PERCEPTION • Perception is the process by which individuals make sense of their world. • The process by which individuals attend to, organize, interpret, and retain information from their environments. • Perceptual filters • how people experience stimuli • personality, psychology, experience, preferences, beliefs-based differences • Objective vs. perceived realities
Perception • People perceive the world uniquely • Differences in perceptions can cause problems • Communication • Conflict • Motivation • Judgment • Decision Making
Social Perception How we gather information about the social world--about peoples’ behavior, moods, motives, and traits Similar to object perception, but • People are more dynamic than objects • We’re trying to figure out intentions, motives, and causes of behavior
Attribution Why did they do that? • internal causes • traits • skills • abilities • external causes • situational constraints
PERCEPTUAL DISTORTIONS • Selective perception • notice and accept stimuli which are consistent with our values, beliefs, and expectations • Closure • tendency to fill in the gaps when information is missing • we assume that what we don’t know is consistent with what we do know • Primacy/Recency effects • Disproportionately high weight is given to the first/last information obtained about a stimulus • Fundamental attribution error • The tendency to ignore external causes of behavior and to attribute other people’s actions to internal causes.
PERCEPTUAL DISTORTIONS • Stereotyping • A person has beliefs about a class of stimulus objects and generalizes those beliefs to encounters with members of that class of objects. • Halo Effects • Generalizing from an overall evaluation of an individual to specific characteristics and visa versa. • Expectancy effect • People perceive stimuli in ways that confirm their expectations • Self fulfilling prophecy
PERCEPTION IMPLICATIONS:SELF AWARENESS
Guard against specific biases • Stereotypes • Be aware that stereotyping can occur with very little information, remain open to new information • Recognize that stereotypes rarely apply to a specific individual • Fundamental attribution error? • Primacy/recency? • Halo? • Expectancy?
PERCEPTION IMPLICATIONS:OUR EMPLOYEES
SELF-PERCEPTION • The same processes and biases lead to both accurate and inaccurate perceptions of ourselves. • Self-serving bias • attribute successes to ourselves - internal • attribute failures to the environment – external • Implication for feedback? • Implication of our own self-awareness?
JENSEN SHOES • What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of Brooks and Kravitz performance, interactions, and career management thus far? • What were Brooks’ assumptions about Kravitz’s abilities, attitudes and motivations? Discuss the accuracy of these assumptions. • What were Kravitz’ assumptions about Brooks’ abilities, attitudes and motivations? Discuss the accuracy of these assumptions. • What perceptual biases and distortions occurred and influenced the interactions between Kravitz and Brooks? • What would Brooks and Kravitz have had to do differently to result in a more effective working relationship? • From their own perspective • From the other’s perspective
IMPROVING THE RELATIONSHIP: BROOKS
IMPROVING THE RELATIONSHIP: KRAVITZ
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
PERSONALITY • Unique set of traits and characteristics that are relatively stable over time and determine a person’s preferences and behavior. • Does personality matter? • Implication? • Which dimensions of personality?
Emotional Intelligence • Ability to detect, express, and manage emotion in oneself and others. Other (Social Competence) Self (Personal Competence) Recognition of emotions Regulation of emotions
Emotional Intelligence • Some suggest that EI is the best predictor of work success • It’s “learnable” • It’s related to communication, motivation (self and others), effective leadership (Hendrie Weisinger, “Emotional Intelligence at Work” (Jossey-Bass, 1998).
SELF-ESTEEM (SELF CONCEPT) • How we perceive ourselves in terms of our abilities, competencies, and effectiveness • Global, role-specific, job-based, organization-based • High self esteem is related to higher performance, commitment, loyalty, and longevity. • What can managers do to foster high self esteem?
FOSTERING SELF-ESTEEM(SELF CONCEPT)
LOCUS OF CONTROL • The extent to which people believe their actions determine what happens to them in life. • Internal • External • Why is locus of control important? • How?
JUNGS TYPOLOGY • 16 personality types based on 4 sets of preferences • Extraversion vs. Introversion • Sensation vs. Intuition (N)—Perception • Thinking vs. Feeling—Judgment • Perception vs. Judgment
THE “BIG FIVE”:Conscientiousness • The degree to which a person is dependable, organized, thorough, perseverant, honest • Most consistent personality predictor of performance • Also predicts lack of problem behavior
THE “BIG FIVE”: Agreeableness • The extent to which a person is polite, good natured, flexible, cooperative, trusting. • May predict job performance in jobs…
THE “BIG FIVE”:Neuroticism (Emotional Stability) • The degree to which a person is anxious, depressed, moody, emotionally unstable, temperamental. • May predict job performance in what type of jobs?
THE “BIG FIVE”: Openness • The degree to which a person is imaginative, curious, flexible, open to change. • May predict job performance where?
THE “BIG FIVE”: Extraversion • The degree to which a person is sociable, talkative, assertive, active, ambitious. • May predict job performance in what type of jobs?
