Foundations of Individual Behavior
Biographical Characteristics
Personal characteristics— such as age, gender, and marital status— that are objective and easily obtained from personnel records.
Age
Tenure of the Employees
Marital
Status
Gender
Biographical
Characteristics
Ability, Intellect, and Intelligence
Ability- An individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job.
Intellectual Ability- The capacity to do mental activities.
Multiple Intelligences- Intelligence contains four subparts: cognitive, social, emotional, and cultural.
Physical Abilities
The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics.
Learning * Any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience. * Learning * Involves change * Is relatively permanent * Is acquired through experience
Theories of Learning
Classical Conditioning- A type of conditioning in which an individual responds to some stimulus that would not ordinarily produce such a response.
Key Concepts * Unconditioned stimulus * Unconditioned response * Conditioned stimulus * Conditioned response
* The theory of classical conditioning evolved from the experiments conducted on dogs by Russian psychologist, Ivan Pavlov. * In the process of classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus when paired with an unconditioned stimulus, becomes a conditioned stimulus that brings about a conditioned response.
Key:
UCS – Unconditional Stimulus
UCR – Unconditional Response
CS – Conditional Stimulus
CR – Conditional Response
Only meat given to dog, salivation takes place
Only bell is rung, no salivation
Bell + meat, salivation takes place
Only bell, no meat, yet salivation takes place
Operant Conditioning- A type of conditioning in which desired voluntary behavior leads to a reward or prevents a punishment.
Key Concepts * Reflexive (unlearned)