1. Foundations of Individual
Behavior
Chapter 2

2. Learning Objectives
• Contrast two types of ability
• Define intellectual ability and demonstrate its
relevance to OB
• Identify the key biographical characteristics and
describe how they are relevant
• Define learning and outline the principles of three
major theories of learning
• Define shaping and show how it can be used in OB
• Show how culture affects our understanding of
intellectual abilities, biographical characteristics and
learning

3. ABILITY
• Ability is an individual’s current capacity to
perform various tasks in a job.
• Current assessment of what one can do
• Made up of two sets of factors:
Intellectual Abilities
Physical Abilities

4. Intellectual Abilities
• The abilities needed to perform mental activities.
 Thinking
 Reasoning
 Problem solving
• General Mental Ability (GMA) is a measure of
overall intelligence.
• Wonderlic Personnel Test: a quick measure of
intelligence for recruitment screening
• No correlation between intelligence and job
satisfaction.

5. Dimensions of Intellectual Ability
Number
Aptitude
Verbal
Comprehension
Memory
Spatial
Visualization
Intellectual
Ability
Deductive
Reasoning
2-5
Inductive
Reasoning
Perceptual
Speed

6. Dimensions of Intellectual Ability
Dimensions
Descriptions
Job Example
Number
aptitude
Ability to do speedy and accurate
arithmetic
Accountant5 computing the sales tax on a
set of items
Verbal
Comprehension
Ability to understand what is read or
heard
Plant manager: following corporate
policies on hiring
Perceptual
speed
Ability to identify visual similarities
and differences quickly and accurately
Fire investigator: identifying clues to
support a charge of arson
Inductive
reasoning
Ability to identify a logical sequence in Market researcher: forecasting demand
a problem and then solve the problem for a product in the next time period
Deductive
reasoning
Ability to use logic and assess the
implications of an argument
Supervisor: choosing between two
different suggestions
Spatial
Visualization
Ability to imagine how an object
would look if its position in space
were changed
Interior decorator: redecorating an office
Memory
Ability to retain and recall past
experience
Salesperson: remembering the names of
customers

7. Physical Abilities
• The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity,
strength, and similar characteristics
• Physical abilities have been and will remain important
for successfully doing certain jobs
• Research has identified nine basic abilities involved in
the performance of physical task
• Individuals differ in the extent to which they have each
of these abilities
• There is little relationship among them
• A high score on one is no assurance of high score
others

8. Physical Abilities
• High employee performance is likely to be achieved when management
has ascertained the extent to which job requires each of the nine abilities
and ensures that the employee in that job have those abilities
• Nine Basic Physical Abilities
A. Strength Factors
1. Dynamic Strength:
 Ability to exert muscular force repeatedly or continuously over time
2. Trunk Strength:
 Ability to exert muscular strength using the trunk(abdominal) muscles
3. Static strength:
 ability to exert force against external objects
4. Explosive strength:
 ability to expend a maximum energy in one or series of explosive acts

9. Physical Abilities
• Nine Basic Physical Abilities (contd.)
B. Flexibility Factors
5. Extent flexibility:
 Ability to move the trunk and back muscles as far as possible
6. Dynamic flexibility:
 Ability to make rapid, repeated flexing movements
C. Other Factors
7. Body coordination:
 ability to coordinate the simultaneous actions of different parts of the
body
8. Balance:
 ability to maintain equilibrium despite forces putting off balance
9. Stamina:
 Ability to continue maximum effort requiring prolonged effort over time

10. BIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS
• There is a sizable amount of research on
biographical factors (age, gender, length of
service) and their relationship with
productivity, absence, turnover citizenship,
and satisfaction

11. BIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS
•
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
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




•



Age:
Evidence indicate that employers hold mixed feelings about older workers
Positive Qualities
Experience, judgment
A strong work ethic
Commitment to quality
Negative Aspects
Lacking flexibility
Resistant to new technology
Age and turnover relationship
The older you get the less likely you are to quit the job
As workers get older they have fewer alternative job opportunities
Older workers are less likely to resign because their long tenure tends to
provide them with higher wages, and more attractive retirement benefits

12. BIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS
• Age and absenteeism relationship
 Age – absence relationship is partially a function
of whether absence is avoidable or unavoidable
 In general, older workers have lower rates
avoidable absence than younger workers
 They have higher rates of unavoidable absence,
probably due to poorer health associated with
age
• Age and Productivity Relationship
 Age and job performance are unrelated

13. BIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS
 The finding seems to be true for almost all types of jobs professionals and
nonprofessionals
 The natural conclusion is that the demands of most jobs even those with
heavy manual labor requirements are not extreme enough for any
declines in physical skills attributable to age to have an impact on
productivity; or if there is some decay due to age, it is offset by gains due
to experience
• Age and job satisfaction
 The evidence is mixed
 Most studies indicate a positive relationship between age and satisfaction
at least up to age 60
 Other studies have found U shaped relationship
 The most plausible explanation being that these studies are intermixing
professional and non professional employees
 When two types are separated , satisfaction continually increase among
professionals as they age, whereas it falls among non professionals during
middle ages and then rises again in the latter years

14. BIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS
• Gender
• There are few, if any, important differences between men and women that
will affect their job performance, including the areas of:
 No consistent male-female differences in problem-solving ability,
analytical skills, competitive drive, motivation, sociability, or learning
motive
 Psychological studies have found that women are more willing to conform
to authority
 Men are more aggressive and more likely than women have expectation
of success
 There is a difference between men and women in terms of preference for
work schedules
 Working mothers are more likely to prefer part-time work, flexible work
schedules, and telecommuting
 No significant difference than men in turnover rates
 Women have higher absence rate than men

15. BIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS
• Race and Ethnicity
Controversial Issue
Employees tend to favor colleagues from their
own race in performance evaluations,
promotion decisions, pay raises.

16. BIOGRAPHICAL CHARACTERISTICS
• Tenure
 Extensive reviews have been conducted of the seniority
–productivity relationship
 If seniority is defined as time on particular job most
recent evidence demonstrate a positive relationship
between seniority and job productivity
 Seniority to be negatively related to absenteeism
 The longer is a person on the job, the less likely he/she
is to quit
 Tenure and job satisfaction are positively related

17. Learning
• Learning is relative change in behavior that is brought about by experience
1. Learning involves changes
 Change may be good or bad from organizational point of view
 People can learn unfavorable behaviors
2. The change must become ingrained
 one must distinguish short-term changes in behavior that are due to
factors other than learning
 Example: decline in performance due to fatigue, sickness, and under the
influence of alcohol or drugs
3. Some form of experience is necessary for learning
 Experienced may be acquired directly through observation, or practice,
or it may be acquired indirectly as through reading
 Some changes in behavior or performance comes about through
maturation; inherited, genetic factors representing the nature part.
THESE CHANGES ARE NOT THE RESULT OF EXPERIENCE

18. Classical Conditioning
•
A type of learning in which neutral stimulus comes to bring about a response after
it is shared with a stimulus that naturally bring about that response
 Neutral stimulus: a stimulus that, before conditioning, does not naturally bring
about the response
 Unconditioned stimulus (US) : a stimulus that naturally brings about a particular
response without having been learned (Reflexive Response)
 Unconditioned Response (UCR) : a response that is natural and needs no training
Examples of Unconditioned stimulus and response
•
Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
Unconditioned Response ( UR)
 Individual is stuck by a pin and
 Individual is shocked by a electric pin and
flinches
jumps and screams
 Conditioned Stimulus ( CS): A once neutral stimulus that has been paired with
conditioned stimulus to bring about a response formerly caused only by the
unconditioned stimulus
 Conditioned Response (CR): A response that after conditioning follows a
previously neutral stimulus

19. Classical Conditioning
Meat Powder
(Unconditioned
Stimulus)
Bell
(Conditioned
Stimulus)
Bell
(Conditioned
Stimulus)
Saliva
(Unconditioned
response)
Meat Powder
(Unconditioned
Stimulus)
Saliva
(Unconditioned
Response)
Saliva
(Conditioned
response)

20. Steps in Classical Conditioning
Professor gives
surprise Quiz (UCS)
Professor Wears black
suit
Professor wears black
suit
Students feel anxiety (
UCR)
+
Professor
gives surprise
quiz
Students feel anxiety
Students feel
anxiety

21. Classical Conditioning
• Stimulus Generalization
 Occurs when stimuli that are similar but not identical to the
conditioned stimulus produce the conditioned response
• Example if you get sick after eating clams, the chances are
that you will avoid eating oysters as well
• If you had a bad experience in the dentist chair, the sound
of neighbor high speed drill may make you uncomfortable
• Generalization makes adaptive sense
• Things that look, sound, or feel similar often share similar
properties
• It really does not matter if it is loin, tiger, or panther leaping
at you --- you should run

22. Classical Conditioning
• Stimulus Discrimination
• Occurs when you respond to a new stimulus in a
way that is different from your response to the
original conditioned stimulus
• Through stimulus discrimination you reveal that
you can distinguish between stimuli, even when
those stimuli are quite similar
• When stimuli do share properties – for example
two tones of similar pitch – people often need to
experience to learn to discriminate

23. Classical Conditioning
• In management the best example to demonstrate the principle of
generalization is the principle of “ Management by exception”.
• For example a sales supervisor may set performance benchmark for
his salesmen as minimum of 22 units per month
• As long as the salesmen are selling 22 units he is quite satisfied
with the performance of his team
• As soon as it goes below this number he starts investigating the
reasons for low performance
• In the above example when the salespersons are achieving their
targeted sales he is using principle of stimulus generalization
• He is also using principle of stimulus discrimination by identifying
sales persons whose performance is below 22 units per month

24. Classical Conditioning
•
•
•
•
•
Classical Conditioning is passive
Something happens and we react in a specific way
It is elicited in response to specific , identifiable event
It can only explain simple reflexive behaviors
Most behaviors of individuals in organizations are
emitted rather than elicited (voluntary rather reflexive)
• Examples: employee choose to arrive at work on time
• Ask their bosses for help with their problems
• The learning of those behaviors is better understood by
looking at operant conditioning

25. Instrumental / Operant Conditioning
• Thorndike’s Law of Effect
• “ Of several responses made to the same situation, those that
accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction will more likely to recur,
those which are accompanied or closely followed by discomfort will less
likely to occur.
• This definition suggests the following:
1. Several responses or behaviors can occur in a given situation
2. Not all behaviors, however, will be associated with that situation in the
future
3. Only positive reinforced (rewarded) behaviors will most likely to occur
4. Behaviors associated with punishment or other aversive stimuli will
diminish
5. Behaviors not reinforced are not likely to occur in future

26. The Nature of Reinforcers
• A reinforcer is a stimulus that occurs a after a response and
increases the likelihood that the response (behavior) will be
repeated
• Primary Versus Secondary Reinforcers:
 Primary reinforcers are those that are necessary for
survival i.e., satisfy biological needs.
 Secondary Reinforcers do not directly satisfy biological
needs
 Examples ; a compliment, A grade in an exam, money, etc.
 These reinforcers are established through classical
conditioning
 We learn to associate a neutral stimulus, such as money
(CS) with rewards such as food, security, and power (US

27. Increasing The Probability Of Behavior
• Positive Reinforcement:
 Through the administration of a stimulus (Rewards) increases the
probability that a behavior will be repeated
 Rewarded behaviors will increases in frequency, as when people
work harder in response to praise, or increased pay
• Negative Reinforcement
 Increases behavior through removal of a stimulus
 When one is trying to avoid or escape an unwanted stimulus
 The seven absence rule in I. U., is an example of negative
reinforcement
• The key point is that reinforcement - positive or negative ,
increases the likelihood of a behavior

28. Reducing the Probability Of Behavior
• Punishment :
Involves following an unwanted behavior with
some unpleasant, aversive stimulus
In theory, this should reduce the probability of
the response when the organism learns that
the behavior leads to unwanted consequences
• Extinction/ withdrawal:
Terminating the reinforcement that is
maintaining some unwanted behavior

29. The Practice of reinforcing
consequence
of
Contingent
Reward
( something desirable)
Noxious Stimuli
(Something aversive or
undesirable)
Application
Positive Reinforcement
Behavior Increase
Punishment
Behavior Decrease
Withdrawal
Punishment/ extinction
Behavior Decrease
Negative Reinforcement
Behavior increase

30. The Use Of Punishment
• Meaning Of Punishment
 Punishment results in a decrease in the frequency of an undesired
behavior
 Unless the punishment is severe the behavior will reappear again,
but the bigger the punishment the greater the negative side effect
 To minimize the problems, the person administering it should
always provide an acceptable alternate behavior
• Administering Punishment
1. It should be immediate
2. It should be in private
3. It should have advance warning
4. It should be consistent
5. It should be impersonal
6. It should provide an acceptable alternative behavior

31. Continuous and Partial Reinforcement
Schedules
• Continuous Reinforcement :
 A type of learning in which the desired behavior is influenced each time it
occurs
• Partial Reinforcement Schedule:
 A type of learning in which behavior is reinforced intermittently
• The partial-reinforcement extinction effect:
 Refers to greater persistence of behavior under partial reinforcement than
under continuous reinforcement
 During continuous reinforcement the learner easily can detect when
reinforcement has stopped
 When the behavior is reinforced only some of the times to detect , the
learner has to repeat the behavior comparatively more times to detect the
absence of reinforcement
 Thus the less frequent the reinforcement during training , the greater the
resistance to extinction
 Conditioning a behavior so that it persists involves reinforcing
continuously during early acquisition and then slowly changing to partial
reinforcement

32. Types of Partial Reinforcement
Schedule
• Ratio and Interval Schedules
• Ratio Schedule:
 Is based on the number of times a behavior , occurs, as when
behavior is reinforced every 3rd or 10th time behavior occurs
 Example : factory workers are paid on piece rate
• Interval Schedules:
 Is based on specific unit of time, as when behavior is reinforced
when it is performed every minute or hour
 Example: a factory worker is paid by the hour (passage of time)
 Ratio Reinforcement generally leads to a greater responding than
does interval ratio
 Example: Factory workers paid by piece rate are usually more
productive than those paid by the hour, especially if the workers
receive incentives for higher productivity

33. Types of Partial Reinforcement
Schedule
• Fixed and Variable Schedules:
• Fixed Schedule: it can be both interval or ratio schedules
• Fixed interval Schedule:
 The reinforcer consistently is given after fixed time
 Examples: Workers are paid a hourly wage
 When quizzes are scheduled at fixed intervals students
study only when the quiz is to be administered (the grade
is the reinforcer)
• Fixed Ratio
 When the reinforcer is consistently given after a specific
number of occurrences
 Examples : When a worker is paid by the piece rate they are
paid according to a fix rate , earning the same for each
piece

34. Types of Partial Reinforcement
Schedule

•
•
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•
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When you are paid each time you complete some work
Variable Schedule
Variable Interval:
Reinforcer is given at different times
The responder does not know how much time needs to pass
before reinforcement will occur
Example: you listen to the radio to hear your favorite song. You
don’t know when you will hear it
Variable ratio:
The respondent does not know how many behaviors need to be
performed before reinforcement to occur
A slot machine pays off on average every few pulls , but you never
know when the pull will pay

35. Principles of learning in Operant
conditioning
Fixed
Monthly
salary
Interval
Intermittent
reinforcement
Variable
Ratio
Fixed
promotion
Piece rate
Interval
Praise
Bonus

36. Schedules of reinforcement
Schedule of
reinforcement
Continuous
Reinforcement
Reinforcer Applied
Quickest approach to
establish a new motivated
behavior
Reinforcer Removed
Quickest approach to extinguish
a new motivated behavior
Partial
Reinforcement
a. Variable
interval
b. Variable Ratio
Frequencies of motivated
behavior slow but more
consistent
Slower Extinction rate of
motivated behavior
c. Fixed Interval
Frequencies of motivated
behavior are less
consistent than variable
schedule
Faster Extinction rate of
motivated behavior than
variable schedule
d. Fixed Ratio

37. Behavior Modification
• Is the use of operant conditioning techniques
to eliminate unwanted behaviors and replace
them with desirable ones
• The general rationale is behind behavior
modification is that most unwanted behaviors
are learned and there fore can be eliminated
• People can be taught , for example to be more
productive at work, to save energy, drive
more safely

38. Behavioral Performance Management or O.B. MOD.
Major Steps
Step 1. Identify: Performance related Behavioral events. These have to do with quality and
quantity of work. These should be observable, measurable, and critical to the task
Step 2. Measure: How often are the performance behavior identified in step I occurring under
existing conditions. This called base line data
Step3. Analyze: What are the antecedent (A) cues of the performance behavior (B) and what
are the contingent consequences (C). ABC analysis is necessary prerequisite for developing an
effective strategy
Step 4: Goal is to accelerate functional performance behaviors and de-accelerate dysfunctional
ones. Positive reinforcement strategies of social recognition and feedback are mostly used
Step 5. Evaluate: To make sure that intervention lead to performance, if not than another
analysis and intervention made

39. Example of steps in O.B. MOD
Step 1: Identify. Coming to work on time
Step 2; Measure. Each member of the work group is late at-least three times a week
Step 3: Analysis. Workers know that they should come to work on time but receive no positive
reinforcement for doing so or punishment for coming late
Step 4: intervention. Positively reinforce workers for coming on time as follows: A worker is
allowed one Friday afternoon off each month he/she is never late
Step 5. Evaluate. Workers always come on time

40. OB Modification Steps for Self
Improvement
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Identify a target behavior, such as losing 25 pounds, jogging 2
miles, or controlling your temper
Establish a baseline. Record your present status. This means you
must write your present weight, the distance you can jog, or the
number of times you lose temper each day
Identify a suitable reinforcer. Find a reward that will motivate you.
Make a list of your favorite thing and then find the one that will
be most appropriate for you
Set sub-goals, or steps toward the target. Your sub-goal might be
losing 2 pounds each week, or jogging ¼ mile, then ½ mile, then 1
mile, and finally 2 miles
Write down achievement of sub-goals as planned and reward
yourself with a suitable reinforcer identified in step 3

41. Social Learning/ Observational
learning
• Individuals can learn by observing what happens to others, and
just by being told about something as well as through direct
experience
• This view that we can learn through both observation and
experience is calle3d social-learning theory
• Although social learning theory is an extension of operant
conditioning – that is it assumes that behavior is a function of
consequences
• It also acknowledges the existence of observational learning and
importance of perceptions
• People respond to how they perceive and define consequences ,
not to objective consequences themselves
• The influence of models is central to the social-learning
• Four processes have been found to determine the influence that
model will have on an individual

42. Social Learning/ Observational
learning
1.
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2.
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3.
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4.
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Attentional processes
People learn from model only when they recognize and pay attention to its
critical features
Most influenced by models that are attractive, repeatedly available, important
and similar
Retention Process
How well the individual remembers model’s action after the model is no longer
available
Motor Reproduction process:
Observed model behavior must be converted to doing
This process then demonstrates that individual can perform modeled activities
Reinforcement Process:
Individuals are motivated to exhibit behavior if proper incentives are provided
Behaviors that are positively reinforced are given more attention, learned better,
and performed more often