ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

UNIT – II

(PART-1) Personality and Attitudes - Personality as a continuum – Meaning of personality.

Johari Window and Transactional Analysis.

Nature and Dimension of Attitudes – Job satisfaction and organisational commitment.

(PART-2) Motivational needs and processes- Work Motivation Approaches, Theories of

Motivation- Motivation across cultures.

Positive organizational behaviour: Optimism – Emotional intelligence – Self-Efficacy.

1. Definition of personality? Give brief examples of each of the major elements.

Answer

Personality can be defined as how people affect others and how they understand and view
themselves, as well as their pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and the person-situation
interaction.

According to this definition, people’s external appearance and traits, their inner awareness of
self, and the person-situation interaction make up their personalities.

External appearance and traits consist of height, weight, facial features, color, and other physical
aspects. Thus, a very tall worker will have an impact on other people that is different from that of
a very short worker.

Inner awareness of self refers to an individual’s self esteem and self concept. Both research and
everyday experience confirm that employees with high self-esteem feel unique, competent,
secure, empowered, and connected to the people around them.

In terms of person-situation interaction, everyday work experience can change people.

The social environment also has an impact on personality. Specific techniques of socializing new
employees would include the use of mentors or role models, orientation and training programs,
reward systems, and career planning.

1. What are the “Big Five” personality traits? Which one seems to have the biggest impact
on performance? How would knowledge of the Big Five help you in your job as a
manager?
Answer

The “Big Five” personality traits are conscientiousness, emotional stability, agreeableness,
extraversion, and openness to experience. (Refer PPT)

2. How does sensation differ from perception?

Answer

Sensation deals chiefly with very elementary behavior that is determined largely by
physiological functioning. A human being uses his senses to experience color,
brightness, shape, loudness, pitch, heat, odor, and taste.

Perception is more complex and much broader than sensation. The perceptual process
or filter can be defined as a complicated interaction of selection, organization, and
interpretation. Perception depends largely on the senses for raw data, the cognitive
process filters, and modifies or completely changes the data.

3. What does stereotyping mean? Why is it considered to be a perceptual problem?

Answer

The term stereotype refers to the tendency to perceive another person as belonging to
a single class or category.

It is considered to be a perceptual error because it involves attributing favorable or

unfavorable traits to the person being perceived. However, because each individual is
unique, the real traits of the person will generally be quite different from those the
stereotype would suggest.

4. What is meant by the halo effect? Summarize the current thinking on this halo effect.

Answer

Halo effect refers to the tendency to perceive another person on the basis of one trait.
Halo is often discussed in performance appraisal when a rater makes an error in
judging a person’s total personality and performance on the basis of a single positive
trait such as intelligence, appearance, dependability, or cooperativeness. Halo effect
has important implications for the study and eventual understanding of organizational
behavior.

Current thinking on the halo effect can be summarized as follows:

1. It is a common rater error.

2. It has both true and illusory components.

 3. It has led to inflated correlations among rating dimensions and is due to the
influence of a general evaluation and specific judgments.

4. It has negative consequences and should be avoided or removed.

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS AND JOHARI WINDOW:

The Transactional Analysis refers to the psychoanalytic process wherein the interpersonal
behaviors are studied. In other words, a social psychological model that talks about the personal
growth and personal change, i.e., identifying the ego states of each individual to understand their
behaviors and altering them to solve the emotional problems.

This model was originally developed by Dr Eric Berne, who during his observation found that
his patients behaved in a way as if several different people were inside them. This forced him to
study the personality and dynamics of self and its relationship with others which helped in
determining the kinds of behaviors that an individual shows in different real time situations.

Now, this study has become a well-established approach and is being widely used in several
fields such as psychotherapy, counseling, education, organizational development, etc. The
transactional analysis gives birth to several models that help in explaining the relationship
formed between the individuals as a result of their interactions. It mainly involves:

1. Johari Window (Analysis of Awareness)

2. Ego States or PAC Model (Structural Analysis)
3. Life Positions
4. Life Script
5. Analysis of Transactions

Thus, when people interact with each other, the social transaction gets created which shows how
people are responding and behaving with each other, the study of such transactions between
people is called as the transactional analysis.
 Johari Window
Definition: The Johari Window is the psychological model developed by Joseph Luft and
Harrington Ingham, that talks about the relationship and mutual understanding between the
group members. In other words, a psychological tool that helps an individual to understand his
relationship with himself and with other group members is called as a Johari Window.

The objective behind the creation of a Johari window is to enable an individual to develop trust
with others by disclosing information about himself and also to know what others feels about
himself through feedback.

The Johari Window model is made up of four quadrants that explain the overall relationship of
an individual with himself and with other group members. These are as follows:

1. Open Self: This quadrant shows the behavior, motives, attitudes, knowledge skills of an
individual that he is aware of and is willing to share it with others. The open self is characterized
 as a state wherein the individual is open and straight forward to himself and others about what he
is doing, how is he doing and what are his intentions.
2. Blind Self: The blind self shows the state of an individual known to others but not known to
him. It usually happens, when an individual or a subject copies the behavior of some significant
personalities unconsciously since his childhood.
3. Hidden Self: This quadrant of the Johari window shows the state of an individual known to him
but not known to the others. This is generally seen in the individuals who are introvert and do not
like to share their private lives with anyone. The individual keeps his feelings, ideas or thoughts
to himself and do not disclose it in front of the others.
4. Unknown Self: The unknown self is the mysterious state of an individual neither known to him,
nor others know about it. Ofen the feelings, thoughts or ideas go so deep down the individual
that it becomes difficult for the individual as well for the other people to understand it.

The ultimate need is to enlarge the open self quadrant with the intent to establish a fruitful
relationship with the self as well with others such that the work can be performed efficiently
when working as a team.

Ego States
Definition: The Ego States are an important aspect of transactional analysis that talks about how
a person feels, behave or think at any point of time.

people usually interact with each other in terms of three psychological and behavioral patterns
classified as parent ego, adult ego and child ego, often called as a PAC Model. This
classification is not made on the basis of the age group of an individual rather these are related to
the ways in which an individual behaves. Thus, it is observed that a person of any age group may
possess varying degrees of these ego states.

Let’s understand each of these three ego states in detail:

Parent Ego: The parent ego, refers to the behavior and attitude of an emotionally significant
individual who acted with quite a maturity when he was a child. He possesses the parental traits
of being overprotective, dogmatic, distant, indispensable and upright and behaves very
judiciously at any time.

There are two types of a parent ego: critical and nurturing. The critical parent ego is one when an
individual shows the critical and evaluative behavior while interacting with the others.

Whereas the nurturing parent ego is one, when individual shows the kind and nurturing behavior,
not only towards children but towards all with whom he interacts.

Adult Ego: The adult ego shows the logical thinking and reasoning ability of an individual. The
person behaving or interacting with adult ego seeks all the information properly, validate it using
his reasoning skills and then provide it to the other people. The person possessing the adult ego
can be judged through his discussions and the way he thinks about a situation before arriving at
the conclusion.

As the individual grows, he updates his parent data to identify what is valid or not valid,
similarly the child data is also updated to determine which feeling should be expressed and
which should be left unspoken. In this way, the adult ego helps an individual to control his
emotional expressions appropriately.

Child Ego: The child ego, refers to the state of an individual when he behaves illogically and
takes quick actions to satisfy the immediate needs without thinking much about its consequences.
The creativity, depression, conformity, dependence, hate, fear, etc. are some of the main
characteristics of this ego state. The child ego represents the childhood state when an individual
has not become social and is in its initial stage of development.

The child ego can be natural, adaptive and rebellious. The natural child is sensuous, impulsive,
affectionate and does things that come naturally. Whereas the adaptive child is one, who is
trained and instructed by parents to behave in a manner taught by them. The rebellious child is
one who is not allowed to open up and experiences anger, fear and frustration.

Life Script
Definition: The Life Script refers to the meaning that one attributes to the events that happened
to him at the early stage of life. Psychologists believe that an individual’s life script gets created
in his childhood when he learns things unconsciously from the transactions between father,
mother and the child.

Whenever an individual face any situation, he acts with reference to the script created as a result
of the past experiences and the way he views his life positions, i.e. I am O.K you are O.K, I am
not O.K. you are O.K., I am O.K. you are not O.K., I’m not O.K. you are not O.K.

An individual can determine his life script by understanding how his thoughts, behavior, ideas,
etc. get influenced due to his past experiences. Every individual has a life script. A script is a
complete plan of living that offers two structures: a structure that defines a winner or looser and
the structure of authoritative warning or order, prescriptions and consent.

The life scripts can be changed with the time since these are not inborn but rather learned. The
life script resembles the drama or a movie script that includes the characters, dialogues, actions,
plays, etc. and move towards the climax and ultimately reach the end with the closure of
curtains.
 Life Positions
Definition: The Life Positions refers to the specific behavior towards others that an individual
learns on the basis of certain assumptions made very early in the life.

The life positions can be categorized as follows:

1. I am O.K., You are O.K.: This life position shows that an individual has several O.K.
experiences with others. This means, an individual encountered no severe problems or issues
with others in his childhood and had a normal relationship with them. People with such life
positions about themselves and others around him can solve any problem very easily and realizes
the significance of others being in his life. This position is based on the adult ego.
2. I am O.K., You are not O.K.: This life position is created when an individual was too much
ignored when he was a child. Here, an individual believes that he is right, and all the others
around him are wrong. These are the individual who possesses the rebellion child ego and put
blame on others for anything that goes wrong with them.
3. I am not O.K., you are O.K.: This life position gets created when an individual feels that others
do things better than him. He feels inferior to others and believes that others can do many things
which he cannot do by himself. These kinds of people always complain about one thing or the
other and remain highly dissatisfied with their lives.
4. I am not O.K., you are not O.K.: This kind of life position is created by those who lacks
interest in living. They feel life is not worth living and are the ones who have been neglected by
their parents in their childhood and were brought up by the servants. Such kind of people
commits suicide or homicide to end their lives.
Thus, the life positions talk about the individual developing his identity, sense of worth and
perception about others during his childhood and believing it to be true until and unless some
major experience changes it.

Analysis of Transactions
Definition: The interactions between people give rise to the Social Transactions, i.e. how
people respond and interact with each other depends on their ego states. The transactions routed
through ego states of persons can be classified as complementary, crossed and ulterior.

Complementary Transactions: A transaction is said to be complementary when the person

sending the message gets the predicted response from the other person. Thus, the stimulus and
response patterns from one ego state to another are parallel.

Ulterior Transaction: This is the most complex transaction because the communication has the
double meaning. Such as, on the surface level the communication may have a clear adult
message, but it may carry some hidden message on the psychological level and gets
misinterpreted.

Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is defined as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the
appraisal of one’s job or job experience. Job satisfaction is a result of employees’ perception of
how well their job provides those things that are viewed as important.

The major factors that affect job satisfaction are:

1. The work itself: The extent to which the job provides the individual with interesting tasks,
opportunities for learning, and the chance to accept responsibility

2. Pay: The amount of financial remuneration that is received and the degree to which this is
viewed as equitable vis-à-vis that of others in the organization

3. Promotion opportunities: The chances for advancement in the organization

4. Supervision: The abilities of the supervisor to provide technical assistance and behavioral
support

5. Coworkers: The degree to which fellow workers are technically proficient and socially
supportive.

Outcomes of job satisfaction

In examining the outcomes of job satisfaction, it is important to break down the analysis into a
series of specific outcomes. Some of the important outcomes are as follows.

Satisfaction and performance

There is a positive relationship between satisfaction and performance but probably not as great as
conventional wisdom assumed concerning happy workers as productive workers.

Satisfaction and turnover

Research has uncovered a moderately inverse relationship between satisfaction and turnover.
High job satisfaction will not, in and of itself, keep turnover low, but it does seem to help. On the
other hand, if there is considerable job dissatisfaction, there is likely to be high turnover.
Obviously, other variables enter into an employee’s decision to quit besides job satisfaction such
as age, tenure in the organization, and commitment to the organization.

Satisfaction and absenteeism

There are many variables which affect absenteeism besides job satisfaction. High job satisfaction
will not necessarily result in low absenteeism but low job satisfaction is more likely to bring
about absenteeism.

Other effects

Research reports that highly satisfied employees tend to have better physical health, learn new
job-related tasks more quickly, have fewer on-the-job accidents, and file fewer grievances. Also,
by building satisfaction, stress may be reduced.
Organizational commitment

Organizational commitment is defined as (1) a strong desire to remain a member of a particular

organization; (2) a willingness to exert high levels of effort on behalf of the organization; and (3)
a definite belief in, and acceptance of, the values and goals of the organization.

The three dimensions of organizational commitment are:

1. Affective commitment involves the employee’s emotional attachment to, identification with,
and involvement in the organization.

2. Continuance commitment involves commitment based on the costs that the employee
associates with leaving the organization. This may be because of the loss of seniority for
promotion or benefits.

3. Normative commitment involves employees’ feelings of obligation to stay with the

organization because they should; it is the right thing to do.

The current work environment is characterized by downsizing, mergers and acquisitions, loss of
job security, stress, rapid changes in technology, diversity, telecommuting, etc. all of which are
likely to increase in the future. In light of these changes, it is important to create a work
environment that promotes a sense of commitment to the organization. Thus, an understanding of
organizational commitment is likely to be especially important in the years to come.

Organization Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs)

Organization citizenship behaviors can be defined as an individual behavior that is discretionary,

not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate
promotes the effective functioning of the organization.

Employees must perceive that they are being treated fairly, that the procedures and outcomes are
fair. It seems that procedural justice affects employees by influencing their perceived
organizational support, which in turn prompts them to reciprocate with OCBs, going beyond the
formal job requirements.

The major forms of OCBs can be summarized as: (1) altruism (e.g., helping out when a coworker
is not feeling well), (2) conscientiousness (e.g., staying late to finish a project), (3) civic virtue
(e.g., volunteering for a community program to represent the firm), (4) sportsmanship (e.g.,
sharing failure of a team project that would have been successful by following the member’s
advice), and (5) courtesy (e.g., being understanding and empathetic even when provoked).