This document provides an overview of key concepts related to individual behavior foundations, including ability, attitudes, and job satisfaction. It discusses ability as an individual's capacity to perform job tasks, with intellectual ability being one of the best predictors of performance. Attitudes are defined as evaluative statements consisting of cognitive, affective, and behavioral components. Job satisfaction is presented as a collection of positive or negative feelings about one's job. The relationship between attitudes and behaviors is explored, noting moderating variables. The importance of ensuring a good fit between employee abilities and job requirements is also highlighted.

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

2. 2-2
Foundations of
Individual Behavior
1. Ability .
2. Attitude.
3. Job Satisfaction
4. Learning

3. 2-3
Ability
What is ability?
• Ability refers to an individual’s capacity to
perform the various tasks in a job
• Ability is a current assessment of what one
can do. (abilities can be improved)
Which kind of ability is most important in
modern society ？
• Intellectual ability or Physical ability ?

4. 2-4
Ability
What is intellectual ability?
• Intellectual ability encompasses mental
activities such as thinking, reasoning, and
problem solving and is one of the best
predictors of performance
Does intelligence make people happier or
more satisfied with their jobs?

5. 2-5
Ability
• No！The correlation between intelligence
and job satisfaction is about zero

6. 2-6
Ability
What is the reason for the correlation
between intelligence and job satisfaction
to be zero?
• The smart people have it better, but they
also expect more.
Can the employee’s abilities predict the
employee performance ?

7. 2-7
Ability
• No！Employee performance depends on
the interaction between ability and job
requirement, and is enhanced when there
is a high ability-job fit

8. 2-8
Ability
What will happen when the ability-job fit is poor?
• The employee performance will be poor in spite
of the positive attitude or high level of motivation
of the employee.
What will happen when an employee has the
abilities that far exceed the requirements of the
job?
• The employee’s performance may be adequate
but it may be accompanied by organizational
inefficiencies and possible declines in employee
satisfaction.

9. 2-9
Ability
Group Study：
“All organizations would benefit from
hiring the smartest people they can
get.”
Do you agree or disagree with this
statement? Support your answer.

10. 2-10
Attitudes
When I say “I like you” , what does it
mean? My attitudes toward you are
negative or positive? What are
attitudes?
• Attitudes are evaluative statements –
either favorable or unfavorable –
concerning objects, people or events

11. 2-11
1. Major Components of Attitudes
What are the three main components of
attitudes?
• Cognition – an opinion or belief
• Affect – the emotional or feeling segment
• Behavior – the intention to behave in a
certain way

12. 2-12
Attitudes
Attitudes
Evaluative
statements or
judgments
concerning
objects,
people, or
events.
Cognitive component
The opinion or belief segment
of an attitude.
Affective Component
The emotional or feeling segment
of an attitude.
Behavioral Component
An intention to behave in a certain
way toward someone or something.

13. 2-13
1. Major Components of Attitudes
• Consider the following three sentences, can
you find which element of attitudes should each
sentence belongs to?
1. I don’t like my supervisor.
2. My supervisor is unfair because he gave a
promotion to a coworker who deserved it less.
3. I will complained about my supervisor to
anyone who will listen and I am going to look
for another job.

14. 2-14
2. Consistency of Attitudes
Group Study
• If you are a tobacco executives and you
have found that there are a lot of data
linking cigarette smoking and negative
health outcomes, then, how will you cope
with the ongoing barrage of data? What is
the reason for you to cope with the barrage
in that way？

15. 2-15
2. 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

16. 2-16
Cognitive dissonance
• Definition:
Cognitive Dissonance refers to any
inconsistency between two or more
attitudes, or between behavior and
attitudes
• Individuals seek to minimize dissonance,
the greater the dissonance is, the greater
the pressures to reduce it.

17. Cognitive dissonance
What will you do, when you have found that your
husband or wife is not the suitable one for you
anymore？ When will you take an action to
reduce the cognitive dissonance?
• The desire to reduce dissonance is determined
by:
2-17
 The importance of the elements creating the
dissonance
 The degree of influence the individual believes he or
she has over the elements
 The rewards that may be involved in dissonance

18. 2-18
The organizational implication of the
theory of cognitive dissonance
It can help managers to predict the propensity of
employees to engage in attitude or behavioral
change.
• There are three strategies for an individual to
reduce the dissonance ：
1.Alter the attitudes
2.Alter the behavior
3.Develop a rationalization for the discrepancy

19. 2-19
Attitudes
Group Study：
“Behavior Always Follow from Attitudes”
Do you agree or disagree with this
statement? Explain Why.

20. 2-20
3. Does Behavior Always Follow
from Attitudes?
• Recent research indicates that attitudes (A) significantly
predict behaviors (B) when moderating variables are
taken into account.
A B
Moderating Variables
• Importance of the attitude
• Specificity of the attitude
• Accessibility of the attitude
• Social pressures on the individual
• Direct experience with the attitude
Moderating Variables
• Importance of the attitude
• Specificity of the attitude
• Accessibility of the attitude
• Social pressures on the individual
• Direct experience with the attitude

21. 2-21
3. Does Behavior Always Follow
from Attitudes?
Moderating Variables of the attitude-behavior relationship
• Importance of the attitude. （ Muslim and pork）
• Specificity of the attitude or behavior
（six month to stay V.S. dislike the job ）
• Accessibility of the attitude
（easy to remember）
• The existence of social
pressures（a marriage with foreigners ）
• A person’s direct experience
with the attitude （ an authoritarian supervisor ）

22. 2-22
Self-Perception Theory
Attitudes are used after the fact to make sense
out of an action that has already occurred.
And, B A !
I had this same job with Marriott
as a trainer for 10 years. Nobody
force me to stay on this job. So I
must like it !

23. 2-23
Self-Perception Theory
• It means that behavior influences attitudes
reversely.
• It argues that attitudes are used after the fact to
make sense out of an action that has already
occurred rather than as devices that precede and
guide action. (Did you like your job before?)
• Tend to infer attitude from behavior when you
have had few experiences regarding an issue
• Attitudes likely to guide behavior when your
attitudes have been established for a while. It’s
the established attitudes that affect behaviors.

24. 2-24
Major Job Attitudes
• Job satisfaction
• Job involvement
• Organizational commitment
 Affective commitment
 Continuance commitment
 Normative commitment
• Perceived organizational support
• Employee engagement

25. 2-25
Types of Attitudes
Job Satisfaction
A collection of positive and/or negative feelings that an
individual holds toward his or her job.
Job Involvement
Identifying with the job, actively participating in it, and
considering performance important to self-worth.
Organizational Commitment
Identifying with a particular organization and its
goals, and wishing to maintain membership in the
organization (Affective, Normative, and Continuance
Commitment).
Quiz1. What is the difference between Job
involvement and Organizational commitment?

26. 2-26
Types of Attitudes
High job involvement means identifying with one’s
specific job, whereas high organizational
commitment means identifying with one’s
organization.

27. 2-27
Types of Attitudes
•Affective commitment:
An emotional attachment to the organization and a belief in its values.
Ex：A Petco employee may be affectively committed to the company
because of its involvement with animals.
•Continuance commitment:
The perceived economic value of remaining with an organization
compared to leaving it.
EX：An employee may be committed to an employer because she is
paid well and feels it would hurt her family to quit.
•Normative commitment:
An obligation to remain with the organization for moral or ethical
reasons.
Ex：An employee who is spearheading a new initiative may remain with an
employer because h feels it would “leave the employer in a lurch.” If he left.
Quiz: Which one is the significant predictor of job performance and turnover ?

28. 2-28
Types of Attitudes
Since you prefer it and trust its value
( have more affective commitment to it)
then we can expect that you will engage in your job
more easily.
Quiz:
Do you think that organizational commitment is still
important as a work-related attitude than it once was ?

29. 2-29
Types of Attitudes
To reflect today’s fluid workforce,
Which means that organization is incrementally
not identical to one’s career development,
so we might expect that something akin to
occupational commitment to become a more
relevant variable.

30. 2-30
Types of New Attitudes
Perceived Organizational Support (POS)
Degree to which employees feel the organization cares
about their well-being.
Quiz：
When will people perceived their organization as
supportive ?

31. 2-31
Types of New Attitudes
• Research shows that people perceived their
organization as supportive when the following are
true:
1. Rewards are deemed fair.
2. Employees have a voice in decisions.
3. Their supervisors are seen as supportive.

32. 2-32
Types of New Attitudes
Employee Engagement
An individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm Quiz：
To assess employee engagement, how many
questions might we ask employees ?

33. 2-33
Types of New Attitudes
To assess employee engagement, one might ask
employees about theses:
1. The availability of resources and
opportunities to learn new skills
2. Whether they feel their work is important and
meaningful.
3. Whether their interactions with their
coworkers and supervisors were rewarding.

34. 2-34
Quiz.
Compare the following 3 variables
1. Job Satisfaction
2. Job Involvement
3. Organizational commitment
which one can be treated as the necessary
condition for the other 2 variables?

35. 2-35
Job Satisfaction
Job Satisfaction
A collection of positive and/or negative feelings
that an individual holds toward his or her job.
• Think about the best job you have ever had.
What made it so?
• Do the jobs that are compensated handsomely
have higher average job-satisfaction levels
than those are paid much less?

36. Job Satisfaction
• Once an individual reaches a level of
comfortable living (in the United States,
that occurs at about $40,000 a year,
depending on the region and family size),
the relationship virtually disappears.

37. What causes job satisfaction?
• Major job-satisfaction facets- work itself,
pay, advancement opportunities, coworker,
supervision
• Which facets always has the strongest
correlation to high levels of overall Job
Satisfaction?

38. 2-38
What causes job satisfaction?
• Satisfaction levels will vary a lot depending on
which facet of job satisfaction you are talking
about.
• Work itself – most people prefer challenging and
stimulating works
• Pay – not correlated after individual reaches a
level of comfortable living, after about $40,000 a
year, there is no relationship between amount of
pay and job satisfaction
• A person’s personality-negative people are
usually not satisfied with their jobs-
Attitude will determine your altitude.

39. Neutral Objects Satisfaction Questionnaire
2-39
Satisfied Neutral Dissatisfied
1. The city in which you live
2. The neighbors you have
3. The high school you attended
4. The climate where you live
5. Movies being produced today
6. The quality of food you buy
7. Today’s cars
8. Local newspapers
9. Your first name
10.The people you know
11. Telephone service
12. 8 ½”x11” paper
13. Restaurant food
14. Modern art

40. 2-40
Effects of Satisfied and
Dissatisfied Employees
How do you think about the relationship between these
two variables?
 Job satisfaction and job performance
a.Happy workers are productive workers
b.Productive workers are happy workers.
 Job satisfaction and absenteeism
 Job satisfaction and Turnover
 Job satisfaction and OCB （A OR B）
 Job satisfaction and customer satisfaction
 Job satisfaction and workplace deviance

41. The Effect of Job Satisfaction on
Employee Performance
• Satisfaction and Productivity – strong correlation
 Satisfied workers are more productive AND more
productive workers are more satisfied!
 Worker productivity is higher in organizations with more
satisfied workers.
• Satisfaction and Absenteeism – moderate to weak
negative correlation
 Satisfied employees have fewer avoidable absences.
• Satisfaction and Turnover – moderate negative correlation
 Satisfied employees are less likely to quit.
 Organizations take actions to retain high performers
and to weed out lower performers.

42. Job Satisfaction and OCB
• OCB – Organizational citizenship behavior
 Discretionary behavior that contribute to organizational
effectiveness but are not part of an employee’s formal job
description
• Satisfaction and OCBs
 Satisfied employees who feel fairly treated by and are
trusting of the organization are more willing to engage
in behaviors that go beyond the normal expectations of
their job.

43. Chapter Check-Up: Attitudes
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Write down three things someone could do at
work that would constitute an OCB. Compare
your list with a neighbor’s.

44. The Effect of Job Satisfaction on
Employee Performance
Which of the following is not generally true?
a. Satisfied workers are productive workers.
b. Productive workers are satisfied workers.
c. Satisfaction is the major determinant of a
worker’s OCB.
d. Satisfaction comes down to fairness of
outcomes, treatments or procedures.
e. Enterprises with a greater percentage of
satisfied workers are more effective than those with a
smaller percentage of satisfied workers.

45. Job Satisfaction and Customer
Satisfaction
• Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction
 Satisfied workers provide better customer service
• Satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction
because:
 They are more friendly, upbeat, and responsive.
 They are less likely to turnover, which helps build long-term
customer relationships.
 They are experienced.
• Satisfaction and Workplace deviance
– strong correlation
 Employees don’t like their work environment,
they will respond somehow.

46. Quiz:
If your employees take deviant behaviors
including unionization attempts, substance
abuse stealing at work and tardiness ,what
will you do?

47. Go back to attack the source of the problem-
Dissatisfaction.

48. Chapter Check-Up: Attitudes
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49. The Implication of Attitudes
2-49
• Attitudes give warnings of problems and influence behavior. Satisfied
and committed employees have lower rates of turnover,
absenteeism, and withdrawing behaviors.
• The most important action managers can take to raise employee
satisfaction is to focus on the intrinsic parts of the job, such as
making the work challenging and interesting.
• Managers should know that high pay alone is unlikely to create a
satisfying work environment.
• If employees are required to engage in activities that appear
inconsistent to them or are at odds with their attitudes, the pressure
to reduce the resulting dissonance will be lessened when employees
perceive that the dissonance is externally imposed and beyond their
control or that the rewards are significant enough to offset the
dissonance.

50. 2-50
Learning
Question ：
1. Since most of you have been in
Taiwan for 1 more semester,
what have you learned during
this period of time?
2. According to your opinion how
do you define the word
“Learning” ? (Harry and Charley)

51. 2-51
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

52. 2-52
Theories of Learning
• Classical Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Social Learning

53. Theories of Learning：
Classical Conditioning
Question:
Can you tell me what do these following cars
mean in your country? Why?
•Mercedes-Benz
•VOLVO
•TOYOTA CAMRY
•FORD
•BMW

54. Theories of Learning
Classical Conditioning
A type of conditioning in which an individual
responds to some stimulus that would not
ordinarily produce such a response.
Key Concepts
• Unconditioned stimulus
• Unconditioned response
• Conditioned stimulus
• Conditioned response
Key Concepts
• Unconditioned stimulus
• Unconditioned response
• Conditioned stimulus
• Conditioned response
Learning a conditioned response involves
building up an association between
conditioned stimulus and unconditioned
stimulus. When the stimuli are paired, the
neutral one become a conditioned
stimulus and hence takes on the
properties of the unconditioned stimulus

55. Theories of Learning：
Classical Conditioning

56. Theories of Learning (cont’d)
Operant Conditioning
A type of conditioning in which desired voluntary
behavior leads to a reward or prevents a punishment.
Argues that people learn to behave to get something
they want or avoid something they don’t want
Key Concepts
• Reflexive (unlearned) behavior
• Conditioned (learned) behavior
• Reinforcement
Key Concepts
• Reflexive (unlearned) behavior
• Conditioned (learned) behavior
• Reinforcement

57. Theories of Learning (cont’d)
Questions:
When performance-appraisal time comes, you find
that you are given no positive rewards for your
overtime work. What will you do?
Operant Conditioning：
Behavior is a function of its consequences.

58. Theories of Learning (cont’d)
Social-Learning Theory
People can learn through observation
and direct experience.
Individuals can learn by observing what happens to
other people and just being told about something, as
well as by direct experiences
Key Concepts: A behavioral model is important
• Attention processes
• Retention processes
• Motor reproduction processes
• Reinforcement processes
Key Concepts: A behavioral model is important
• Attention processes
• Retention processes
• Motor reproduction processes
• Reinforcement processes

59. Theories of Learning (cont’d)
Questions:
Briefly reviewing the definitions of
operant conditioning and social learning theories
can you tell me the similarities and differences
between these two theories?

60. Theories of Learning (cont’d)
Similarity ：
Social learning theory is an extension of operant
conditioning-that is, it assumes that behavior is a function of
consequences.
Difference：
Social learning theory acknowledges the existence of
observational learning and the importance of perception in
learning.
Note ：People respond to how they perceive and define
consequences, not to the objective consequences
themselves.

61. 2-61
Methods of Shaping Behavior
1. Positive reinforcement
2. Negative reinforcement
3. Punishment
4. Extinction

62. Types of Reinforcement
Question:
• Since your kid likes to go to McDonalds
very much, when he is trying to utilize
crying and making disturbance to achieve
his objective, what will you do?

63. 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.

64. Types of Reinforcement
Question:
• Since there are four ways to shape the
behaviors of your employees, can you tell
me which one can strengthen the response
and which one will weaken the response?

65. Theories of Learning
Shaping Behavior
Systematically reinforcing each successive step that
moves an individual closer to the desired response.
Key Concepts
Key Concepts
• Reinforcement is required to change behavior.
• Some rewards are more effective than others.
• The timing of reinforcement affects learning speed
and permanence.
• Reinforcement is required to change behavior.
• Some rewards are more effective than others.
• The timing of reinforcement affects learning speed
and permanence.

66. Theories of Learning
Question:
1. If you always use punishment to teach your kid
what will happen to your kid in the future?
2. Does money always work in shaping the
individual’s behavior? Why?
3. How do you feel when you are not tardy and your
manager will always compliment you with the same
words?

67. Schedules of Reinforcement
Continuous Reinforcement
A desired behavior is reinforced
each time it is demonstrated.
Intermittent Reinforcement
A desired behavior is reinforced
often enough to make the
behavior worth repeating but not
every time it is demonstrated.
•Fixed or variable interval
•Fixed or variable ratio

68. Intermittent Schedules of
Reinforcement

69. Intermittent Schedules of
Reinforcement

70. 2-70
Schedules of Reinforcement

71. 2-71
Questions:
Please identify the right reinforcement schedules such as
continuous, fixed interval, variable interval, fixed ratio,
variable ratio for the following items
1. Slot machines
2. Monthly paychecks
3. A series of random visit to a company office by the
corporate office audit staff
4. An employee in a dressmaking factory is paid $5.00 for
every zipper installed
5. A salesman might get potential customers with 2 calls or
20 more calls.

72. 2-72
Questions:
• There are two major types of
reinforcement schedules. What are the
appropriate situations for these two
schedules to be applied respectively?

73. 2-73
Answer to this Questions
• Continuous reinforcers are appropriate for newly
emitted, unstable, or low-frequency responses
(e.g. getting a reward for a perfect score on an
exam)
• Intermittent reinforcers are appropriate for stable
or high-frequency responses (e.g. getting a
reward for a passing grade on an exam).
• Because：Continuous reinforcement
schedules can lead to early satiation and
Intermittent reinforcement dose not.

74. 2-74
Questions:
• If someone does not get perfect score frequently
and you want this perfect score to happen once
and once again which kind of schedule should
you adopt? Continuous or Intermittent?
• If someone always can pass the exam easily
and you want this guy to keep this behavior
which kind of schedule should you adopt?
Continuous or Intermittent?
• Satiation decides the difference.

75. 2-75
Questions:
• There are two major types of
reinforcement schedules, which one will
always lead to super performance?

76. 2-76
Answer to this Questions:
• In general, variable schedules tend to lead
to higher performance than fixed
schedules.
• Because ： The employee tends to be
more alert because of the surprise factor.

77. 2-77
Questions:
Except the reinforcement which is
empathized in reinforcement theory can
you find another variable to affect the
behaviors of an individual?

78. 2-78
Answer to this Questions:
• Is the only reason we tell someone we
love them because we wish to obtain a
reward or to mold their behavior?
• Thoughts and feelings immediately follow
environment stimuli.

79. 2-79
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

80. 2-80
Summary
1. Explained the relationship between ability and job
performance.
2. Contrasted the three components of an attitude.
3. Discussed similarities and differences between job
satisfaction and the other job attitudes.
4. Discussed the causes and consequences of job
satisfaction.
5. Understand how to shape the behavior of others.
6. Distinguished among the four schedules of
reinforcement.