Individual Behaviour Concept and Theories
Individual behavior
Individual behaviour refers to the actions, reactions, and patterns of conduct exhibited by a person within various contexts, including personal and professional environments. In organizational settings, understanding individual behaviour is crucial because it influences how employees interact with each other, perform their tasks, and contribute to the overall organizational culture and effectiveness. The concept of individual behaviour encompasses a wide range of psychological, social, and biological factors that influence how a person acts, reacts, and interacts with their environment. It is a multifaceted subject that integrates various theories and models to explain the complexities of human actions and reactions.
Definitions
Understanding individual behavior in organizational contexts involves various perspectives from different authors and theorists. Here are some definitions and viewpoints from prominent authors:
1. According to John W. Atkinson
“Individual behavior is the result of the interplay between an individual’s motive to achieve success and the motive to avoid failure. This dynamic is influenced by the individual’s expectations of success and the perceived value of the success or failure outcomes.”
2. According to Sigmund Freud
“Individual behavior is the manifestation of underlying unconscious drives and internal conflicts. It is influenced by repressed desires, unresolved conflicts, and the interaction between the id, ego, and superego.”
3. F. Skinner
“Individual behavior is a response to environmental stimuli and is shaped by the consequences that follow those responses. Behavior is influenced by reinforcement and punishment, which determine the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.”
4. Abraham Maslow
“Individual behavior is motivated by the need to fulfill a hierarchy of needs, ranging from basic physiological necessities to higher-level psychological and self-fulfillment needs. Behavior is driven by the desire to achieve self-actualization once more fundamental needs have been satisfied.”
5. Douglas McGregor
“Individual behavior is influenced by the assumptions that managers hold about their employees. Theory X assumes that individuals are inherently lazy and require close supervision, while Theory Y assumes that individuals are self-motivated and capable of self-direction. These assumptions shape management practices and, consequently, employee behavior and performance.”
Components of Individual Behavior
1. Cognition: The mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and understanding, such as perception, memory, and decision-making. How an individual perceives their environment and processes information affects their behavior.
2. Emotions: Feelings that influence how individuals react to situations and interact with others. Emotions can impact motivation, job satisfaction, and interpersonal relationships.
3. Motivation: The internal and external drives that prompt an individual to act in certain ways. Motivation theories, such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs or Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, help explain what drives behavior in different contexts.
4. Personality: The unique set of traits and characteristics that influence how an individual thinks, feels, and behaves. Personality frameworks like the Big Five personality traits can provide insights into how different individuals are likely to behave in various situations.
5. Values and Attitudes: Core beliefs and feelings that shape an individual’s behavior and decision-making processes. Values influence what is important to an individual, while attitudes reflect their predispositions towards certain aspects of their environment.
Models of Individual Behaviour
Models of individual behavior provide frameworks for understanding and predicting how people act in various situations. These models can range from simple stimulus-response theories to more complex theories incorporating cognitive, emotional, and social factors. Here are some key models of individual behavior:
1. S-R Model
2. S-O-R Model
3. S-O-B-C Model
4. S-O-B-C Mdel
1. S-R Model
Key Proponents: John B. Watson, B.F. Skinner.
S-R model of human behavior suggests that the behaviour is caused by certain reasons. These reasons can be internal feelings (motivation) and external environment (stimulus). A stimulus is an agent, such as, heat, light, piece of information, etc., that directly influences the activity of an organism (person). Without the stimulus there is no information to be handled by the internal processes prior to action taken by the person. It implies that individual behaviour is determined by the situation. Inherent in the situation are the environmental forces that shape and determine his behaviour at any given moment. The entire situation has been traditionally described as stimulus response (S-R) process as there is direct relation between stimulus and response.
This S-R model, however, does not give the total concept of caused nature of behaviour specially when the person concerned plays an important role in behaviour because behaviour is shaped by his internal feelings also. Thus, combination of stimulus-response situation and human being will give more comprehensive model of human behaviour denoting that the situation interacting with the human precedes and causes behaviour. The drawback of the model is that does not give a complete picture as to what caused the person to act in a particular way in a particular situation.
2. S-O-R Model
Key Proponents: Richard E. Petty, John Cacioppo.
S-O-R model of human behaviour is achieved by inserting O (organism) in the classical S-R model. The S-O-R model is based upon the stimulus processed by the organism and followed by a behaviour. This O is not passive and immobile as assumed in S-R model. Rather the O is viewed as mediating, maintenance and adjective function between S and R. As a mediating function, the O is constantly active, scanning its surroundings, monitoring its own actions, seeking certain conditions and avoiding others. As a maintenance function, organs of O are responsible for its health and growth. There are three categories of maintenance organs-receptors (sense and glands), connectors (nervous organs) and effectors (muscles and glands). The adjustments function of the O monitors the person’s activities so that he can overcome obstacle and satisfy his needs.
Though the insertion of O in S-R model gives some recognition to the importance to the human variables, it sill remains a relatively mechanistic and simplistic approach and does not explain the complexity of human behaviour.
3. S-O-B-C model
This model incorporates a more complex mechanism of human behaviour which modifies and extends S-O-R model. In this model, S stands for the situation which is more comprehensive than stimuli of S-O-R model and incorporates all aspects of the environment – immediate stimulus, physical environment and socio-cultural environment. O is the organism but does not only represent the physiological being as in the S-O-R model, but also the physiological being which is more complex. B stands for pattern of behaviour both overt and convert. C stands for contingent consequences both overt and covert. Thus, this model of behaviour has significant departure from earlier models of behaviour which have considered only overt aspects. In S-O-B-C model, behaviour takes place because of the interaction of situation (S), organism (O), behaviour pattern (B) and consequences (C) as shown in following fig.
4. S-O-B-A Model
S-O-B-A model is a comprehensive model of human behaviour which combines the S-R situation and human being. But O in this model is not passive or immobile, but it is mediating, maintenance and adjustive function between S and R.
The S in this model stands for stimulus or the external environmental situation. It includes light, heat, sound, actions of supervisors or other aspects of environment to which a person is sensitive. The stimulus is very comprehensive and all encompassing in nature. It stimulates the organism or person in to action, interrupt what they are doing and help them to make their choices. The stimulus incorporates all aspects of the environment-immediate stimulus, physical environment and socio-cultural environment.
The O in this model stands for the organism as the person. But this O does not stand for only the physiological being but also it includes the process within the person, e.g., heredity, maturity, knowledge, skills, values, perceptions, attitudes, personality and motivation. The double headed arrow between S and O indicates the interaction between the situation and organism.
The B stands for behaviour. It includes both overt and covert behaviour such as body moments, talking, facial expressions, emotions, sentiments and thinking. The response of organism indicated by a single headed arrow is the behaviour. Behaviour is anything that a person does, it is not something that is done to a person.
