Management Chapter 10 Homework Exhibit 102 Rate Your Job Satisfaction Spotlight

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CHAPTER 10

UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Are You Ready to Be a Manager?

I. Organizational Behavior

II. Attitudes

A. Components of Attitudes

B. High-Performance Work Attitudes

C. Conflicts among Attitudes

III. Perception

A. Perceptual Selectivity

B. Perceptual Distortions

C. Attributions

VI. Learning

A. The Learning Process

B. Learning Styles

VII. Stress and Stress Management

A. Type A and Type B Behavior

B. Causes of Work Stress

C. Innovative Responses to Stress Management

ANNOTATED LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After studying this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Define attitudes and explain their relationship to personality, perception, and behavior.

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An attitude is an evaluation that predisposes a person to act in a certain way. The three

components of attitudes are cognitions (thoughts), affect (feelings), and behavior. The cognitive

component of an attitude includes the beliefs, opinions, and information the person has about the

object of the attitude, such as knowledge of what a job entails and opinions about personal

abilities.

2. Discuss the importance of work-related attitudes.

A positive attitude toward one’s job is called job satisfaction. People experience this attitude

3. Define major personality traits and describe how personality can influence workplace

attitudes and behaviors.

In common usage, people think of personality in terms of traits, or relatively stable

characteristics of a person. Extroversion is the degree to which a person is sociable, talkative,

4. Identify positive and negative emotions and describe how emotions affect behavior.

Positive emotions are triggered when people are on track toward achieving their goals.

Examples include happiness/joy, pride, love/affection, and relief. Negative emotions are

triggered when people become frustrated in trying to achieve their goals. Examples include

5. Define the four components of emotional intelligence and explain why they are important for

today’s managers.

The four components of emotional intelligence include:

• Self-awareness. The basis for all the other components. Being aware of what you are

6. Explain how people learn in general and in terms of individual learning styles.

Learning is a change in behavior or performance that occurs as the result of experience. There

are individual differences in the learning process. First, a person encounters a concrete

7. Discuss the effects of stress and identify ways individuals and organizations can manage

stress to improve employee health, satisfaction, and productivity.

Stress is an individual’s physiological and emotional response to stimuli that place physical or

psychological demands on the individual and create uncertainty and lack of personal control

when important outcomes are at stake.

These stimuli, called stressors, produce some combination of frustration (such as the inability to

meet a deadline because of inadequate resources) and anxiety (such as the fear of being

LECTURE OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION

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Managers’ attitudes, and their ability to understand and shape the attitudes of employees, can

profoundly affect the workplace and influence employee motivation, morale, and job

performance. People differ in many ways. Some are quiet and shy while others are gregarious;

some are thoughtful and serious while others are impulsive and fun loving. Employees—and

Are You Ready to Be a Manager?

This questionnaire gives students an idea of their level of self-awareness.

I. ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

INSTRUCTOR’S NOTES_________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________

New Manager Self-Test: Are You Self-Confident?

Self-confidence is the foundation for many important behaviors of a new manager. This exercise

helps students learn about their levels of self-confidence.

A. Organizational Behavior

1. Organizational behavior, commonly referred to as OB, is an interdisciplinary field

dedicated to the study of human attitudes, behavior, and performance in

organizations.

2. Managers can foster organizational citizenship—the tendency of people to help one

another and put in extra effort that goes beyond job requirements to contribute to the

organization’s success.

a. An employee demonstrates organizational citizenship by being helpful, doing

II. ATTITUDES

INSTRUCTOR’S NOTES_________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________

An attitude is a positive or negative evaluation that predisposes a person to act in a certain way.

Understanding employee attitudes is important to managers because attitudes determine how

Spotlight on Skills: David’s Bridal

Planning a wedding can be one of the most joyful experiences in a woman’s life – and one of the

most nerve-wracking. The salespeople at David’s Bridal bear the brunt of these intense

A. Components of Attitudes

1. Attitudes have three components: cognitions (thoughts), affect (feelings), and

behavior.

Exhibit 10.1: Components of an Attitude

a. The cognitive component includes the beliefs, opinions, and information the

person has about the object of the attitude, such as knowledge of what a job

entails and opinions about personal abilities.

Discussion Question #2: In what ways might the cognitive and affective components of attitude

influence the behavior of employees who are faced with learning an entirely new set of

computer-related skills in order to retain their jobs at a manufacturing facility?

B. High-Performance Work Attitudes

1. Job Satisfaction

a. Job satisfaction is a positive attitude toward one’s job.

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c. Satisfaction varies according to the amount of control the employee has.

Exhibit 10.2: Rate Your Job Satisfaction

Spotlight on Skills: Workplace Bullying and Trauma Institute

When Ruth Namie found herself with a debilitating boss, she decided to take action. Attorneys

told her there was no legislation to protect her, so Dr. Ruth and her husband, Gary Namie, took

2. Organizational Commitment

a. Organizational commitment is loyalty to and engagement in one’s organization.

b. Most managers want to enjoy the benefits of loyal, committed employees,

3. Conflicts among Attitudes

a. Sometimes people discover that their attitudes conflict with one another or are not

reflected in behavior.

b. Cognitive dissonance is a psychological discomfort that occurs when individuals

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III. PERCEPTION

INSTRUCTOR’S NOTES_________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________

Exhibit 10.3: The Perception Process

Perception is the cognitive process people use to make sense out of the environment by

selecting, organizing, and interpreting information from the environment. Because of individual

Exhibit 10.4: Perception—What Do You See?

A. Perceptual Selectivity

2. People focus on stimuli that satisfy their needs and that are consistent with their

attitudes, values, and personality.

3. Primacy and recency are important to perceptual selectivity. Primacy supports the

4. Managers can use an understanding of perceptual selectivity to obtain clues about

why one person sees things differently from others and apply this to communication.

B. Perceptual Distortions

1. Perceptual distortions are errors in perceptual judgment that arise from inaccuracies

in any part of the perceptual process.

2. Managers who recognize perceptual distortions can adjust their perceptions to more

closely match objective reality.

a. Stereotyping is the tendency to assign an individual to a group or broad category

Business Blooper: American Apparel

Once the darling of Wall Street and fashionistas, American Apparel lost $86 million in 2010 and

is on the verge of collapse. Deloitte & Touche, its accounting firm, resigned because of serious

Understanding Individual Behavior •

257

Exhibit 10.5: How Accurate Is Your Perception?

C. Attributions

1. Attributions are judgments about what caused a person’s behavior—something

about the person or something about the situation.

Exhibit 10.6: Factors Influencing Whether Attributions Are Internal or External

2. Three factors influence whether an attribution will be external or internal.

a. Distinctiveness. Whether the behavior is unusual for that person.

3. People tend to have biases that they apply when making attributions.

a. Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to underestimate the influence of

Discussion Question #4: How might a manager be able to use an understanding of perceptual

selectivity and perceptual organization to communicate more effectively with subordinates?

IV. PERSONALITY AND BEHAVIOR

INSTRUCTOR’S NOTES_________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

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______________________________________________________________________________

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Personality is the set of characteristics that underlie a relatively stable pattern of behavior in

response to ideas, objects, or people in the environment. Understanding personality can help

managers predict how a person might act in a particular situation. Managers who appreciate the

ways their employees’ personalities differ have insight into what kinds of leadership behavior

will be most influential.

A. Personality Traits

1. There are five general dimensions that describe personality, often called the Big Five

personality factors.

a. Extroversion refers to the degree to which a person is sociable, talkative,

assertive, and comfortable with interpersonal relationships.

Exhibit 10.7: The Big Five Personality Traits

2. A person may have a low, moderate, or high degree of each quality.

3. Having a moderate-to-high degree of each personality factor is considered desirable

Discussion Question #5: In the Big Five personality factors, extroversion is considered a

“good” quality to have. Why might introversion be an equally positive quality?

B. Attitudes and Behaviors Influenced by Personality

1. Locus of control defines whether individuals place the primary responsibility for

success or failure within themselves (internally) or on outside forces (externally).

a. Those with a high internal locus of control believe that their actions can strongly

influence what happens to them (e.g., top leaders of e-commerce and high-tech

organizations).

b. Those with a high external locus of control believe that events occur because of

chance, luck, or outside people or events.

Discussion Question #8: How might understanding whether an employee has an internal or an

external locus of control help a manager better communicate with, motivate, and lead the

employee?

2. Authoritarianism is the belief that power and status differences should exist within

the organization.

3. Individuals are concerned with power and toughness, obey recognized authority

above them, stick to conventional values, critically judge others, and oppose the use

of subjective feelings.

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Spotlight on Skills: Bridging the Personality Gap

Personality differences among employees make the life of a new manager interesting—and

sometimes exasperating. Consultant Deborah Hildebrand took a lighthearted look at this issue

by comparing the manager to a ringmaster at the circus. Here are a few of the “performers” that

managers encounter:

Lion Tamers. These people are fiercely independent and like to be in control. They are

willing to tackle the biggest, toughest projects but aren’t typically good team players.

Clowns. Everybody loves them, but clowns tend to goof off a little too much and disrupt

the work of others.

Exhibit 10.8: Measuring Locus of Control

4. Machiavellianism is the tendency to direct much of one’s behavior toward the

acquisition of power and the manipulation of others for personal gain.

5. Research shows that high Machs are predisposed to being pragmatic, capable of lying

to achieve personal goals, more likely to win in win-lose situations, and more likely

to persuade than to be persuaded.

a. In loosely structured situations, high Machs actively take control, while low Machs

6. Problem-Solving Styles and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

a. Individuals differ in the way they go about gathering and evaluating information for

(1) Sensation-type people would rather work with known facts and data.

c. People evaluate information by thinking or feeling.

(1) Thinking-type people base their evaluations on impersonal analysis using reason and

d. According to Jung, only one of the four functions—sensation, intuition, thinking, or

feeling—is dominant; however, the dominant feature is backed up by one of the others.

e. Two additional sets of paired opposites not related to problem solving are introversion–

extroversion and judging–perceiving.

Exhibit 10.9: Four Problem-Solving Styles

f. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a personality test that measures a

person’s preference for introversion vs. extroversion, sensation vs. intuition, thinking vs.

feeling, and judging vs. perceiving.

(1) The various combinations of these four preferences result in 16 unique personality

C. Person-Job Fit

1. Person-job fit is the extent to which a person’s ability and personality match the

Discussion Question #9: You are a manager, and you realize that one of your employees

repeatedly teases coworkers born in another country, saying that they come from a backward