Chapter-2: Understanding Individual Behaviour

Very Short Question and Answer

1. Define cognitive process.

The cognitive process refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes beliefs or behaviour. This is the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time. It is used to individuals perceive the people and objects around them affect their communication patterns. They respond differently to an object or person that they perceive favourably than they do not something they find unfavourable.

2. What is artistic thinking?

The artistic type of thinking is highly private in nature. It may use symbols with very personal meanings. Dreams are the best examples of it.

3. What is belief?

Belief is an enduring organization of perceptions and cognitions about some aspect of the individual world.

4. What do you understand by individual behaviour?

Individual behaviour refers to the response of the person in reference to various perspectives in an organizational situation. Every individual is different in nature so understanding individual behaviour is complex. Individual behaviour moreover is difficult to predict due to the interplay of different variables.

5. Give the meaning of the mental process.

The mental process basically is the performance of some composite cognitive activity. In simple words, it refers to a process that receives information from the environment, analyzes it and makes a decision and develops an attitude based on the analysis.

6. What are the basic steps in the mental process?

The basic stages in the mental process are enlisted as follows:

• Analyze
• Purpose
• Research
• Decide
• Hypothesize
• Initiate

Short Question and Answer

1. Define values and explain the types of values with examples.

Definitions of Values

Value is a framework of personal philosophy which governs and influences the individual’s reactions and responses to any situations. In other words, value refers to the worth or excellence or the degree of worth ascribed to an object. Values represent basic convictions of an individual as to what is right, good or desirable. They imply enduring conviction and carry moral flavour. There may be set of values which form a value system. This system represents an order of priority of individual values in relation to their relative significance. It can be ascertained by assessing the relative significance assigned by an individual to varied objects such as freedom, pleasure, self-respect, honesty, obedience and equality. Culture is a source of values. It contains as well as reinforces them. People learn to include values from their parents, teachers, friends, media and all those whom they respect and thus imitate them.

Types of Values

The main types of value are explained below:

a) Terminal values: They refer to the goals of individuals to be achieved in their lifetime. They signify the objectives of the life of a person. They are the desirable states of existence of individuals. They specify the ultimate things the person wants to achieve through his or her behaviour. Terminal values include things like happiness, self-respect, family security, recognition, freedom, comfortable life, professional excellence, etc.

b) Instrumental values: They are the means of achieving terminal values. Instrumental values are core values, permanent in nature, comprise personal characteristics and character traits. Such values are most important and desirable. They are desirable states of existence that individuals work towards or try to reach. Instrumental value refers to preferable modes of behaviour. and includes values like honesty, sincerity, ambition, independence, obedience, hardworking, capability, cheerfulness, helpfulness, politeness, etc.

2. Explain the individual behaviour as an input-output system. Behaviour as Input-out System

The employee is considered the “spinal cord” of every organization. Managers of every organization must be familiar with the behaviour of employees. Human behaviour is influenced by both internal and external factors. In this regard, it is considered a system comprising input-processing-output.

Understanding an individual behaviour is a very difficult task. Therefore behaviour can be observed as an input-output system.

Input (situation)	Processing (organism)	Outcomes (behaviour)
Environmental stimuli  Feeling Hearing  Seeing Smelling Tasting	Selecting information Organizing information Interpreting information	Covert responses (attitudes, motivation and feelings) Overt responses (behaviour)

Inputs: Stimuli form the inputs for the system and the information getting process or function is the sensation. The event data from the environment are received and transformed into sensations by feeling, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, etc.

Processing: Something happens to the inputs as soon as they are sent to processing. In processing, three activities are mainly carried out enlisted as follows:

Selecting information

Organizing information

Interpreting information

Outputs: Outputs are the behavioural response of the individual. It is caused by inputs and processing components of the individual behaviour. The two key responses are covert and overt. The situations in which outputs occur largely influence the working of the system as a whole. These situations may include environmental factors, which affect, the psychomotor process.

3. Define values. Explain its sources and functions.

Value is a framework of personal philosophy which governs and influences the individual’s reactions and responses to any situation. In other words, value refers to the worth or excellence or the degree of worth ascribed to an object. Values represent the basic convictions of an individual as to what is right, good or desirable. They imply enduring conviction and carry moral flavour. There may be a set of values which form a value system. This system represents an order of priority of individual values in relation to their relative significance. It can be ascertained by assessing the relative significance assigned by an individual to varied objects such as freedom, pleasure, self-respect, honesty, obedience and equality. Culture is a source of values. It contains as well as reinforces them. People learn to include values from their parents, teachers, friends, media and all those whom they respect and thus imitate them.

Sources of Values

Ever wondered where do our values come from? There is no particular answer in regard to the sources of values. However, many studies have pointed out that a major portion of values comes from genes; with the minor portion coming from a number of factors like friends, teachers, society, national culture and similar environmental influences.

One recent study conducted amongst twins pointed out that more than 40 per cent of the value you inherit is explained by genetics. Having said that, environmental factors are also critical sources of value.

Function of Values

The primary functions of values are listed below:

• Values provide goals or objectives to an individual which they aim to fulfil.
• Values are extremely crucial in creating a sense of belongingness as they are shared in common. Values, thus, provide stabilities and uniformities in group interaction.
• A number of rules are accepted and followed as they represent the values accepted by the majority of people. In this regard, value brings legitimacy to the rules that govern specific activities.
• The majority of people try to achieve the same goals in different fields of their life. It is entirely possible that they seek to modify these rules as per their convenience. In this scenario, value helps to bring adjustment between different sets of rules.
• Values help to differentiate between what is desirable and undesirable as well as what is right and wrong.

4. What are attitudes? Describe the elements of attitudes.

Meaning of Attitudes

Attitudes are evaluative statements. They respond to one’s feelings either favourably or unfavourably to persons, objects or/and events. In other words, attitudes reflect how one feels about something. For example, when someone says “I like working on an agricultural farm.”; he is expressing his attitude about his work. Attitudes are not the same as values, but the two are interrelated.

Elements of Attitudes

The key elements of attitudes are explained briefly:

• Cognitive: It is the opinion or belief segment of an attitude.
• Affective: It is the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude. The cognitive element sets the stage for the more critical path of an attitude.
• Behavioural: It is an intention to behave in a certain way towards  Someone or something.

 Hence, one can say that,

Attitudes are related to the feelings and beliefs of people.

Positive attitudes respond to persons, objects or events.

 Attitudes affect behaviour either positively or negatively.

Attitudes undergo changes.

5. Discuss sensation and belief.

Sensation

Sensation can be defined as an individual’s capacity to sense the world. Each and every motivated individual sense the world interprets it, respond to it and reacts to the results of his own responses. Every individual has the capacity to sense. How he/she senses these things or in which way he senses these things affect his behaviour. For example, if an individual sense cold, his behaviour is in regard to wanting warm clothes. Sim inside the organization, how the employees sense the environment mould their behaviour. Sensation has three factors to work namely: stimulus, receptor and nervous system. Stimulus is the inputs that are sensed and received by the receptor organ and transmitted to the nervous system for further processing to draw out meaningful results.

Belief

Belief is an important factor causing individual behaviour variation. Belief can be based on knowledge, opinion and faith. They are acquired from parents, teachers, peers, reference group members, etc. They assign meaning to individuals’ day-to-day perceptions and activities and services in an attempted solution to varied goals. An individual’s beliefs also exert a vital impact on his motivation in two ways:

• He/she must believe that he is capable of performing the acts, that the organization expects of him/her.
• He/she must believe that performance of acts desired by the organization will have positive outcomes for him/her personally

Long Question and Answer

1. Explain the mental process.

Mental Process

The mental process is defined as the mechanism that receives information from the environment, analyzes them and makes a decision or develops an attitude based on the analysis. A mental process is a cognitive process that is not observable directly. For a good mental process, the following elements are essential:

• Ability to perceive visible and invisible information from the environment
• Ability to generate meaning from analysis of information
•  Ability to develop solutions for solving the problem

The mental process is a six-step process which is explained below:

Step-1

Analyze: Analyze is the first step in the mental process. In this step, various aspects related to personal life are critically examined so those essential elements are brought out.

Step-2

Research: Research is a systematic investigation into a subject to discover facts, theories, applications, etc. In this regard, the second step of the mental process is essential to investigate the essential elements brought out and change the belief system.

Step-3

Hypothesize: It is the third step in the mental process. In this process, a hypothesis is formed. This step is utilized to “make sense” of how something works, what actions are appropriate, etc.

Step-4

Purpose: It is the fourth step in the mental process. In this step, a hypothesis is proposed for ourselves.

Step-5

Decide: It is the second last step in the mental process. In this step, a judgment is pronounced so that one can come to a conclusion. To be precise, in this step one makes the decision to try its hypothesis.

Step-6

Initiate: It is the last step in the mental process. Initiate as the word itself suggests is beginning. One uses this step to direct oneself to act on the hypothesis.