Introduction to Organizational Behavior

Personality and Attitudes : Chapter 7

The study of personality and attitudes gives insights into the behavior of people. Personality refers to the way in which a person views and understands himself, and the way in which he interacts with people and reacts to situations. Self-concept (in personality theory) refers to the attempts made by people to understand themselves. Self-esteem is the self-perceived competence and self-image of people. People with high self-esteem do well in managerial positions. Self-efficacy refers to the self-perceptions of a person regarding his ability to cope with situations as they arise. Individuals with high self-efficacy can quickly cope with the demands of tough jobs (such as sales jobs).

High risk-taking people perform well in jobs such as stock brokers and currency traders. Individuals who have a Type A personality are continuously involved in the struggle to achieve more in less time in the face of opposition from other people. But because of their emphasis on quantity than quality and their poor decision-making skills, they often do not make good managers. Type B people lay more emphasis on quality of outcome rather than quantity and have good analytical skills. They therefore make good managers.

According to Edwin A. Locke, job satisfaction is the pleasurable or positive emotional state that results when an individual evaluates his job or job experience. Job involvement refers to the degree to which a person psychologically identifies with his job, actively participates in it, and considers that his performance in the job contributes to his self-worth. Organizational commitment refers to the extent to which an individual identifies with a particular organization, and its goals and wishes to remain a member of that organization. Organizations can reduce turnover by taking steps to enhance the job satisfaction of their employees and increase their job involvement and organizational commitment.

Attitudes enable people to adapt to their work environment. They are also used by people to defend their ego, express their values, and to interpret events. The cognitive dissonance theory refers to the incompatibility that an individual may perceive between two or more of his attitudes, or between his behavior and attitudes. The efforts made by an individual to reduce dissonance depend on the significance of the elements that give rise to the dissonance, the extent to which they can be controlled, and the rewards that the individual is likely to lose by not overcoming the dissonance.

Chapter 7 : Overview