Individual behavior in organizations is influenced by many personal and environmental factors. Personal factors include an individual's personality, perceptions, attitudes, values, and learning. Environmental factors that influence behavior include organizational elements like leadership, structure, and rewards as well as broader sociocultural factors. Understanding individual behavior requires studying all the factors that shape personality and influence how people react in different situations.

1. Individual Behaviour

2. • Organizations are composed of individuals
& the behavior of each individual is
influenced by several factors.
• Each individual has particular motives,
ambitions, perceptions and abilities.
• To understand the human behavior in
organization better, a careful study of all
the factors which affect the individual
behavior is a must.

3. • Personality
• Perception
• Attitude
• Values
• Learning
Personal Factors Psychological Factors
• Political Factors
• Economic Factors
• Socio-Cultural Factors
• Technological Factors
Environmental
Factors
• Physical Facilities
• Organization structure
and design
• Leadership
• Reward System
Organizational Factors
• Physical Chr.
• Age
• Gender
• Education
• Marital Status
• Experience
• Intelligence
• Ability

4. BASIC PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
AFFECTING INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR
• Personality
• Perception
• Learning
• Motivation
• Attention

5. PERSONALITY
 The word ‘Personality’ is derived from the Latin word
‘persona’ which means ‘to speak through’
 Personality can be defined as the sum total of ways in
which an individual interacts with people and react to
situations.
 The unique combination of emotional, thought and
behavioral patterns that affect how a person reacts and
interacts with others.
 It can also be defined as the traits or abilities exhibited by
a person during social interactions.

6. Determinants of Personality
• Heridity • Environment• Heridity
Culture SituationalSocialFamily

7. Determinants of Personality
A) Heredity
 According to heredity approach to personality, an
individual’s personality is determined by the type of genes
he inherits from his parents.
 Some of the characteristics that an individual wholly or
partially inherit from his parents are physical stature, facial
features, skin and hair colour, temperament (character),
muscle composition etc.
B) Environment
 According to environment approach, the factors in the
environment to which an individual is exposed to plays a
major role in shaping his personality.
 Environmental factors include culture, norms set by family,
friends and social groups and situational factors.

8. 1. Culture
• Culture establishes norms, attitudes & values that are passed
along from generation to generation and create consistencies
over time. Every culture expects & trains its members to behave
in the ways that are acceptable to the group.
• Persons belonging to different cultural groups generally have
different attitudes towards independence, aggression,
competetion, cooperation etc.
2. Family
• Families influence the behaviour of a person especially in the
early stages. The nature of such influence will depend upon the
following factors:
 Socio-Economic level of the family, Family Size, Birth Order,
Religion, Parent’s education level, Geographical location.

9. 3. Social
• The persons, groups, & organizations exercises their due
role in personality development. This is commonly called
the socialisation process.
• It is especially relevant to Organisational Behaviour
because the process is not confined to early childhood, but
takes place throughout one’s life.
4. Situation
 According to situation approach, the demands of different
situations in which an individual is , also influences his
personality.
 On the basis of Migram’s research study, he states that : “
In certain circumstances, it is not the kind of person a man
is, but it is the kind of situation in which he is placed that
determines his actions.”

10. The ‘Big Five’ Personality Model
Extroversion
Extroversion Introversion
Agreeableness
High Agreeableness Low Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
High Conscientiousness Low Conscientiousness
Emotional Stability
Positive Emotional Stability Negative Emotional Stability
Openness to experience
More Openness Less Openness

11. Extroversion :-
 It refers to the extend to which a person is sociable with other
people.
 Extroverts are sociable, talkative and friendly.
 People who are less sociable and have a shy nature are called
introverts. Introverts are reluctant to interact with other people
and avoid developing new relationships.
Agreeableness :-
 It refers to a person’s ability to get along with others or it is the
extend to which a person compromises his interests for the sake
of others.
 Agreeable people are good-natured, co-operative and trust
others.
 People who score low on agreeableness focus more on their own
needs than the needs of the others.

12. Conscientiousness :-
 It refers to the extend to which a person is responsible and
achievement oriented.
 High conscientious people are organized, systematic, careful,
responsible, self-disciplined and focuses on few goals at one time.
 Low conscientious people are disorganized, careless,
irresponsible and set too many goals for themselves and often fail
to achieve any of them.
Emotional Stability :-
 It refers to an individual’s ability to withstand stress.
 People with positive emotional stability feel emotionally secure,
seems very calm, are capable of withstanding tensions and are
enthusiastic about their work.
 People who have negative emotional stability are emotionally
insecure, experience feeling of anxiety, nervousness, depression
and are unable to withstand job pressures.

13. Openness to experience :-
 It refers to an individual’s willingness to accept new ideas.
 An individual with a high level of openness has a wide range
of interests, innovative and are willing to change their own
ideas, beliefs and attitudes in response to new information.
 Individuals with low level of openness have narrow interests,
rigid mindsets and are less willing to accept new ideas.

14. Major Personality Traits influencing OB.
1) Locus of Control:
 It refers to an individual’s belief that events are within one’s
control(Internal locus of control) or are determined by forces beyond one’s
control(External locus of control).
Individuals with
 internal locus of control, referred to as
internals believe that it is their own behaviour
and actions which determine many of the
events in their life.
 external locus of control, referred to as
externals believe that events are determined or
controlled by external or outside forces such as
luck or chance.

15. 2) Machiavellianism.
 The term is derived from the writings of Niccolo Machiavelli.
 It refers to an individual’s propensity/tendency to manipulate
people.
 An individual in high Machiavellianism is good at
manipulating others, is pragmatic, maintains emotional
distance and try to win by any means.
 They do not need to be persuaded, but are able to successfully
persuade others.
 They perform well in situations that involve face-to-face
meetings and are especially productive in jobs that require the
use of bargaining skills and in jobs that offer substantial
rewards for the achievement of goals.

16. 3) Self- Esteem.
 It is the degree to which people like or dislike themselves.
 People with high self-esteem are generally confident that they
possess the abilities required for succeeding at work and prefer
to take challenging jobs. They also do not care about pleasing
others and are not afraid of taking unpopular stands.
 People with low self-esteem are more susceptible to external
influence, are dependant on positive evaluations from others
and are more confirmed to the beliefs and behaviours of those
they respect.
 They are more concerned with pleasing others and are less
likely to take unpopular stands.

17. 4) Self- Monitoring
 It refers to an individual’s ability to adjust his or her behaviour
to external, situational factors.
 High self-monitors are capable of presenting striking
contradictions between their public persona and their private
self.
 They are capable of changing their behaviour according to the
situation, can play multiple roles and are capable of putting on
different ‘faces’ for different audiences.
 They make successful managers and are promoted faster than
others.
 Low self-monitors find it difficult to disguise their true feelings,
emotions and reactions and cannot adapt quickly to situations.
 They do not advance in their careers as high self-monitors.

18. 5) Risk Taking.
 It refers to the extend to which an individual is willing to take risks.
 High risk takers make decisions quickly without searching for much
information.
 Risk averse people do not make decisions in a hurry and gather a lot of
information, before making any decision.
6) Type A personality.
 He is aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more
and more in less and less time.
Type A’s
 They try to be fast in everything they do, find always moving, walking and
eating rapidly.
 They feel impatient at the rate at which most events take place.
 They try to be involved in two or more things at a time.
 They are always busy and cannot cope with leisure time.
 They emphasize numbers and quantity and measure their success in
quantitative terms.

19. 6) Type B personality.
Type B’s
 They do not experience a sense of urgency when carrying out tasks and do
not get upset or impatient, if the tasks are not accomplished in time.
 They try to make the best use of their leisure time and relax without any
feeling of guilt.
Comparison between Type A and Type B
 Type A individuals are hardworking by nature and are suitable jobs that
requires continuous hard work – sales persons, business development
executives etc.
 They are poor decision makers as their emphasis on speed prevents them
from spending too much time on any problem.
 Type B individuals are suitable for top management positions, since they
tend to be wise, tactful and creative in making decisions.

20. Theories of Personality
Theories adopting
trait approach.
 Allport’s trait
theory.
Theories adopting
Psycho-analytical
approach.
 Freud’s
psycho-
analytical
theory.
Theories adopting
humanistic
approach.
 Roger’s self
theory.
Theories adopting
Learning
approach.
 Albert
Bandura’s
social learning
theory.

21. 1. Trait Approach.
 The trait approach views personality as a combination of
various traits.
 Traits may be defined as relatively permanent and consistent
general behavioural patterns that an individual exhibits in most
situations.
 Trait theorists believe that the personality of an individual is a
combination or sum total of these personality or behavioural
traits that can be discovered through the continuous
observation of his behaviour.

22. Allport’s Trait theory
 Gordon.W.Allport was the first theorist who adopted the trait approach for
the description of individual personalities.
 According to him, personality vary due to difference in traits.
 Allport identified three types of traits namely:
Cardinal traits
 These are primary traits that dominate a person’s life.
 They are limited in number and only a few people possess these traits.
Eg: Social justice – Mahatma Gandhi.
Central traits
 These are primary traits that influence and organize much of our behavior.
 These traits are ordinarily used to describe a person, such as honesty,
kindness, submissiveness etc.
Secondary traits
 These traits are not as dominant as cardinal or central.
 They appear only in selective situations and are not considered as strong
enough to describe an individual’s personality.

23. Psycho-analytical Approach.
 This approach uses psychoanalysis –analysis of the psyche or
mind, as the method or understanding behaviour and
personality.
Psychoanalytic theory
 It was first created and advocated by Sigmund Freud.
 According to him, human mind has three main divisions namely - conscious
mind, semi-conscious mind and the unconscious mind.
 The theory states that, these three levels of human mind continuously clash
and compromise to give birth to one or the other type of behavioural
characteristics resulting in a specific type of personality.

24. Conscious mind.
 That portion of the mind, of which one is presently aware.
Semi-Conscious mind/sub-conscious mind.
 That portion of the mind containing memories that are not presently
conscious but can be easily brought into consciousness.
 It is the vast storehouse of easily accessible memories, the contents of which
were once conscious and can be returned to consciousness when needed.
Unconscious mind.
 That portion of the mind which is below the surface of awareness, containing
information that are normally not accessible to consciousness.
 They can rarely be made fully conscious and only with great difficulty.
 It is a storehouse of primitive memories and emotions that are threatening to
the conscious mind and that have been repressed.
 Repression refers to the process of pushing the unpleasant information into
the unconscious mind without being aware of it.

25. Based on these levels of consciousness, Freud classified the personality
structure into three components- id, ego and superego.
Id.
 It is the raw, savage, immoral part of an individual’s personality that is
hidden in the deep layers of his unconscious mind.
 Freud views it as the dark side of human mind that uses the primary process
thinking to satisfy the needs and that acts according to the pleasure principle.
 Pleasure principle: Obtain immediate pleasure and avoid pain regardless of
how harmful it might be to others.
 Primary process thinking: Simply forming a wish fulfilling mental image of
the desired object. The primary process satisfies the motives through
imagination rather than reality.
 Id has no values, knows no laws, follows no rules, does not recognize right or
wrong and only considers the satisfaction of its needs as important.
According to Freud, during infancy, we have only id. As we
grow up, our interactions with our parents and other parts of the real world
help us to convert a part of the id into two other parts of the mind – the ego
and the superego.

26. Ego.
 It is that part of the mind that uses the reality principle to satisfy the id.
 The ego is formed because the id has to find realistic ways of meeting its
needs and avoiding trouble caused by selfish and aggressive behaviour.
 It holds the id in check until a safe and realistic way has been found to satisfy
its motives.
 The ego’s goal is to help the id fulfill its needs. It only opposes the id’s wishes
until it finds a realistic way to satisfy them.
 Hence ego is considered as the executive of the personality, as it uses its
mental abilities to manage and control id.
Superego.
 It is the ethical or moral arm of the personality.
 It is the decision making entity, which decides what is good or bad to the
social norms and therefore acceptable or otherwise.
 According to Freud, it is that part of mind, that opposes the desires of id by
enforcing moral restrictions.

27.  The superego represents society’s rules of right or wrong that often hold the
id in check, not on the basis of what is realistic but on the basis of what is
moral.
OR
 As per Freud’s view most of us do not steal or murder not because we do
not want to or because our egos could not find relatively safe ways to do so,
but because our superego hold those desires in check.
Freud put forward a dynamic concept of personality by
conceptualizing the continuous conflict among id, ego and superego. While
the id operates on pleasure principle, for the immediate satisfaction of bodily
tension, the superego concerned with morality prohibits such gratification.
Thus a war-like situation is created between the id and the superego, with the
ego attempting to mediate.

28. Inference :
The extent to which the ego is able to discharge its responsibilities,
decides the personality make-up of the individual. Based on this, individual’s
personality is classified into two:
1. Individuals with strong or powerful ego – have a strong or balanced
personality as the ego maintains a
balance between the id and the superego.
2. Individuals with weak ego – have a maladjusted personality .
* Superego powerful than ego - unfulfilled wishes and impulses resulting
in neurotic personality.
* Id powerful than ego - engages in unlawful or immoral activities
resulting in delinquent personality.

29. Humanistic Approach.
 This approach focuses on the study of individual’s subjective
experiences, feelings, private concepts as well as his views of the
world and the ‘self’.
Self theory
 The most important contribution in self theory was made by Carl Rogers.
 ‘Self’ refers to the personality of an individual as viewed by that person
himself.
 ‘Self concept’ refers to the efforts made by an individual to understand his or
her ‘self’ or it is the subjective perception of who we are and what we are
like.
 Rogers distinguished four factors in the self concept:
1) Self Image : This is the way one sees oneself based on the beliefs about who or
what he is.
2) Ideal self : This denotes the way one would like to be, as perceived by the
individual.

30. 3) Looking glass self : This denotes the individual’s perception that ‘this is how’
others perceive about his or her qualities and actually see him. OR
It is the perception of other’s perception.
4) Real Self : This is what one really is.
According to Rogers, a person perceives a situation depending upon his
self concept which has a direct influence on his behaviour.

31. Individual Differences and Personality:
Individual differences stand for “the variations or deviations among
individuals in regard to a single characteristic or a number of haracteristics”.
The differences among individuals that distinguish or separate them from
one another and make one as unique individual, may be termed as individual
differences.
Types or Varieties of Individual Differences
1) Physical differences.
2) Mental differences.
3) Differences in motor ability.
4) Differences in achievement.
5) Emotional differences.
6) Differences in interests and aptitude.
7) Differences in attitudes, beliefs and opinions.
8) Learning differences.
9) Differences in social and moral development.