Unit – 2
Attitude, Perception, Motivation, Personality and values
A positive attitude in the workplace helps employees to accomplish tasks faster and in a better manner. The performance of employees to a great extent depends on the good relationship they share with their colleagues.
A good relationship can be established only when employees demonstrate a positive attitude towards their work and colleagues. Through positive energy, work becomes a pleasure and employees find it easier to achieve their goals. A positive attitude has significant benefits for an individual in many aspects.
Let ‘s look at some of them below
1. Career success
Employees ‘success in the workplace is measured through their performance. Employees with a positive attitude will always think of ways to accomplishing their task in a well-defined manner instead of complaining or finding excuses for non-performance. This results in success either through promotion or increased compensation.
2. Productivity
With a positive attitude, employees tend to take more interest in what they do and deliver. Consequently, they produce better quality work with minimum errors. This improves their overall output as well as productivity.
3. Leadership
Working in an organization is all about managing a diverse workforce. Some employees earn respect easily and people often follow and listen to them. This is possible through the positive attitude demonstrated by leaders.
4. Team work
Good relationships among employees help them to build effective teams where all the members are united and work for a common cause. A positive attitude helps employees to appreciate each other ‘s competencies and work as a team for achieving common objectives instead of being overly perturbed by inadequacies of team members.
5. Decision making
Having a positive attitude helps employees to take better decisions, in an objective manner. It triggers a healthy thought process, enabling employees to choose wisely and logically.
6. Motivation
Having a positive attitude helps in motivating employees to overcome obstacles that they may face during the course of their job. It also determines the way they see the world around them. The moment they are successful in overcoming obstacles, they are motivated to move forward.
7. Interpersonal relations
Customers prefer to deal with someone who is positive in nature. A positive attitude enables employees to share a better rapport with customers, earning valuable customer loyalty.
8. Stress management
Stress has a detrimental effect on the health of employees. So how can employees cope with it? Stress can be reduced through positive thinking; and with reduced stress, employees will enjoy better health and take fewer sick leaves.
Components of Attitudes
Attitudes are simply expressions of much we like or dislike various things. Attitudes represent our evaluations, preferences or rejections based on the information we receive.
It is a generalized tendency to think or act in a certain way in respect of some object or situation, often accompanied by feelings. It is a learned predisposition to respond in a consistent manner with respect to a given object.
This can include evaluations of people, issues, objects, or events. Such evaluations are often positive or negative, but they can also be uncertain at times.
These are the way of thinking, and they shape how we relate to the world both in work and outside of work. Researchers also suggest that there are several different components that make up attitudes.
One can see this by looking at the three components of an attitude: cognition, affect and behavior.
3 components of attitude are;
Cognitive Component.
Affective Component.
Behavioral Component.
Cognitive Component
The cognitive component of attitudes refers to the beliefs, thoughts, and attributes that we would associate with an object. It is the opinion or belief segment of an attitude. It refers to that part of attitude which is related in general knowledge of a person.
Typically, these come to light in generalities or stereotypes, such as ‘all babies are cute’, ‘smoking is harmful to health’ etc.
Affective Component
Affective component is the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude.
It is related to the statement which affects another person.
It deals with feelings or emotions that are brought to the surface about something, such as fear or hate. Using the above example, someone might have the attitude that they love all babies because they are cute or that they hate smoking because it is harmful to health.
Behavioral Component
Behavior component of an attitude consists of a person’s tendencies to behave ‘in a particular way toward an object. It refers to that part of attitude which reflects the intention of a person in the short-run or long run.
Using the above example, the behavioral attitude maybe- ‘I cannot wait to kiss the baby’, or ‘we better keep those smokers out of the library, etc.
Conclusion
Attitude is composed of three components, which include a cognitive component, effective or emotional component, and a behavioral component.
Basically, the cognitive component is based on the information or knowledge, whereas the affective component is based on the feelings.
The behavioral component reflects how attitude affects the way we act or behave. It is helpful in understanding their complexity and the potential relationship between attitudes and behavior.
But for clarity’s sake, keep in mind that the term attitude essentially refers to the affected part of the three components.
In an organization, attitudes are important for their goal or objective to succeed. Each one of these components is very different from the other, and they can build upon one another to form our attitudes and, therefore, affect how we relate to the world.
One of the widely accepted facts about human beings is, no two people are alike, whether in terms of physical appearance (i.e., body structure, height, weight, colour, etc.) or abstract aspects (like intelligence, attitude, personality, behaviour and so on). Many people take a person’s attitude as their behaviour. Although directly or indirectly they are interrelated, they are different in the sense that attitude represents how a person thinks or feels about someone or something.
On the other extreme, behavior represents an individual’s reaction to a particular action, person or environment.
It has been said that ‘a person’s attitude affects thoughts while his/her behavior affects actions.’ So, in our today’s topic, we are going to explore some significant differences between attitude and behavior.
BASIS FOR COMPARISON | ATTITUDE | BEHAVIOR |
Meaning | Attitude refers to a person's mental view, regarding the way he/she thinks or feels about someone or something. | Behavior implies the actions, moves, conduct or functions of an individual or group towards other persons. |
Based on | Experience and observation | Situation |
Trait | Human | Inborn |
What is it? | A person's mindset. | Outward expression of attitude. |
Reflects | What you think or feel? | What you do? |
Defined by | Way we perceive things. | Social Norms |
Definition of Attitude
To put simply, attitude is a person’s mental outlook, which defines the way we think or feel anything. It is a hypothetical construct, i.e., whose direct observation is not possible. It is a predisposition to respond in a settled way to a person, event, opinion, object, etc., which is reflected in our body language. It has a strong impact on our decisions, actions, stimuli, etc. Education, experience, and environment are the major factors that affect a person’s attitude.
A person’s attitude can be positive, negative or neutral views, which shows one’s likes and dislikes for someone or something. So, the type of attitude we carry, speaks a lot about us, as we get into that mood and transmits a message to the people around us. There is no such thing like ideal attitude, for a particular situation as it is spontaneous and so we always have a choice to opt the right attitude for us.
Definition of Behavior
The term ‘behavior’ can be described as the way of conducting oneself. It is the manner of acting or controlling oneself towards other people. It is the range of actions, responses, and mannerisms set by an individual, system or organization in association with themselves or their environment, in any circumstances.
In short, behavior is an individual or group reaction to inputs such as an action, environment or stimulus which can be internal or external, voluntary or involuntary, conscious or subconscious.
Key Differences Between Attitude and Behavior
The difference between attitude and behavior can be drawn clearly on the following grounds:
So, it is clear that whatever is said or done, conveys a message to the world about what’s going on in the mind. It is universally accepted fact that the emotions, opinions and thoughts cannot be observed, which shows attitude. Further, the behavior is ruled by our attitude as actions are the reflection of the thoughts.
While attitude is nothing but a person’s perception on something or someone in life. As against this behavior, is how a person reacts to various inputs and stimulus.
We probably all know people, either at work or in our personal lives, who are really good listeners. No matter what kind of situation we're in, they always seem to know just what to say – and how to say it – so that we're not offended or upset. They're caring and considerate, and even if we don't find a solution to our problem, we usually leave feeling more hopeful and optimistic.
We probably also know people who are masters at managing their emotions. They don't get angry in stressful situations. Instead, they have the ability to look at a problem and calmly find a solution. They're excellent decision makers, and they know when to trust their intuition. Regardless of their strengths, however, they're usually willing to look at themselves honestly. They take criticism well, and they know when to use it to improve their performance.
Emotional intelligence (shortened to EI or EQ for emotional quotient) can be defined as:
“EQ refers to someone’s ability to perceive, understand and manage their own feelings and emotions”
(Chignell, 2018)
Job attitude is a set of evaluations of one's job that constitute one's feelings toward, beliefs about, and attachment to one's job. Overall job attitude can be conceptualized in two ways. Either as affective job satisfaction that constitutes a general or global subjective feeling about a job, or as a composite of objective cognitive assessments of specific job facets, such as pay, conditions, opportunities and other aspects of a particular job Employees evaluate their advancement opportunities by observing their job, their occupation, and their employer.
Research demonstrates that interrelationships and complexities underlie what would seem to be the simply defined term job attitudes. The long history of research into job attitudes suggests there is no commonly agreed upon definition There are both cognitive and affective aspects, which need not be in correspondence with each other. Job attitude should also not be confused with the broader term attitude, because attitude is defined as a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor, whereas job attitude is a particular instance as an entity. In the definition above, the term "job" involves one's current position, one's work or one's occupation, and one's employer as its entity. However, one's attitude towards his/her work does not necessarily have to be equal with one's attitudes towards his/her employer, and these two factors often diverge.
Barriers to changing attitudes.
Employees' attitudes can be changed, and trying to do so is the best interest of management. For example, if employees believe that their employer does not care for their welfare, then the management should change the attitude of employees, and help to develop a more positive attitude towards them. However, the process of changing attitude is not easy task. But organization should try to take action to change the attitude of its employees, to achieve its preset goals with them and take corrective action.
There are following barriers to change attitudes,
Prior Commitment.
Insufficient Information.
Balance and Consistency.
Lack of Resources.
Improper Reward System.
Resistance to Change.
Prior Commitment
When people commitment to a particular action, that has already been agreed upon and thus makes it difficult for them to change or accept new ways of functioning.
Insufficient Information
Insufficient Information acts as a major barrier to change attitude. Sometimes people should not change their attitude due to non-availability of right information.
Balance and Consistency
Another barrier to the change of attitude is the attitude theory of balance and stability. This is why humans prefer their attitudes about people and things to conform to their behavior and objects towards each other.
Lack of Resources
If plans become overly ambitious, sometimes can be hindered by a lack of resources from a company or organization. Therefore, in this case, if the organization wants to change the attitude of employees towards the new plan. So sometimes it becomes impossible for lack of resources to achieve this.
Improper Reward System
Inappropriate reward system acts as a barrier to change attitude. If an organization places too much emphasis on short-term performance and results, managers may ignore long-term issues as they set goals, and make plans to achieve high profits in the short term. If this reward system is introduced in the organization, the employees Not motivated to change their perspective.
Resistance to Change
Resistance to change is Another barrier in continuous process within and outside the organization to set goals. Employees have to change themselves when the authority changes a plan of the organization. But among them Some do not like it. If their attitude about the change of plan cannot be changed, the organization will not succeed.
Personality
Consider the following quote “Regarding behavior – forget about personality – it’s the situation that determines how someone will behave!”
What is personality?
The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others, measurable traits a person exhibits.
Personality Traits
Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behavior.
Personality Determinants
Heredity – so we’re born to be “just the way we are”?
Environment – oh, so it’s the environment instead?
Situation – or is it the situation that determines our personality?
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
A personality test that taps four characteristics and classified people into 1 of 16 personality types.
Ex) Extroverted vs. Introverted (E or I)
The Big Five Model
1. Extroversion (sociable, gregarious, assertive)
2. Agreeableness (good-natured, cooperative, trusting)
3. Conscientiousness (responsible, dependable, persistent, organized)
4. Emotional Stability (calm, self-confident, secure under stress)
5. Openness to Experience (curious, imaginative, artistic, sensitive)
Major personality attributes influencing OB
Core Self-Evaluation (self-esteem, locus of control)
Machiavellianism
Narcissism
Self- Monitoring
Risk-Taking
Type A vs. Type B Personality
Proactive Personality
Values
Definition: Mode of conduct or end-state is personally or socially preferable (i.e., what is right and good)
They contain a judgmental element in that they carry the individual’s idea of what is right, good, or desirable.
Value System -- a hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual’s values in terms of their intensity.
Note: Values tend be relatively stable and enduring
A significant portion of values are genetically determined. Other factors include national culture, parental dictates, teachers, friends, and similar environmental influences.
Importance of Values
• Provide understanding of the attitudes, motivation, and behaviors of individuals and cultures
- Influence our perception of the world around us
- Represent interpretations of “right” and “wrong”
- Imply that some behaviors or outcomes are preferred over others
Types of Values
• Terminal values = “desirable end states”
• Instrumental values = “modes of behavior or means towards achieving one’s terminal values”
Values, Loyalty, and Ethical behavior
Do ethical values and leader behavior impact the ethical climate in the organization?
Values Across Cultures: Hofstede’s Framework
• Power distance
• Individualism vs. Collectivism
• Masculinity vs. Femininity
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Long term vs. short term orientation
Achieving Person-Job Fit
Personality-Job Fit Theory (Holland)
Six personality types are identified and a fit between these and occupation determines satisfaction and turnover.
Organizational Culture Profile (OCP)
Useful for determining P-O fit
Forces a choice/ranking of one’s personal values
Meaning and concept of perception
Perception is the sensory experience of the world. It involves both recognizing environmental stimuli and actions in response to these stimuli.
Through the perceptual process, we gain information about the properties and elements of the environment that are critical to our survival. Perception not only creates our experience of the world around us; it allows us to act within our environment.
Perception includes the five senses; touch, sight, sound, smell, and taste. It also includes what is known as proprioception, a set of senses involving the ability to detect changes in body positions and movements. It also involves the cognitive processes required to process information, such as recognizing the face of a friend or detecting a familiar scent.
Factors influencing perception
Perception is the process by which an individual selects, organizes, and interprets information to create a meaningful picture. Perception depends not only on the physical stimuli but also on the stimuli’s relation to the surrounding field and on conditions within the individual. Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory perceives in order to give meaning to their environment.
However, what one perceives can be substantially different from objective reality. It is the process through which the information from the outside environment is selected, received, organized and interpreted to make it meaningful.
This input of meaningful information results in decisions and actions. A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception. These factors can reside in the perceiver in the object or target being perceived, or in the context of the situation in which the perception is made.
When an individual looks at a target and attempts to interpret what he or she sees, that interpretation is heavily influenced by the personal characteristics of the individual perceiver.
Personal characteristics that affect perception include a
person’s attitudes, personality, motives, interests, past experiences, and expectations.
There are some factors that influence the target such as- novelty, motion, sounds, size, background, proximity, similarity, etc.
Characteristics of the target being observed can affect what is perceived. Because targets are not looked at in isolation, the relationship of a target to its background also influences perception, as does our tendency to group close things and similar things together.
There are also some situational factors like the time of perceiving others, work settings, social settings, etc. which influence the perception process.
Besides these, there are some other factors like perceptual learning which is based on past experiences or any special training that we get, every one of us learns to emphasize some sensory inputs and to ignore others.
Another factor is the mental set, which refers to preparedness or readiness to receive some sensory input.
Such expectancy keeps the individual prepared with good attention and concentration. The level of knowledge we have may also change the way we perceive his or her behaviors.
For example;
if a person knows that her friend is stressed out over family problems then she might overlook her snappy comments. Learning has a considerable influence on perception.
It creates expectancy in people. The nature of the things which have to be perceived is also an influential factor. By nature, we mean, whether the object is visual or auditory, and whether it involves pictures, people or animals.
Perception is determined by both physiological and psychological characteristics of the human being whereas sensation is conceived with only the physiological features.
Thus, perception is not just what one sees with the eyes it is a much more complex process by which an individual selectively absorbs or assimilates the stimuli in the environment, cognitively organizes the perceived information in a specific fashion and then interprets the information to make an assessment about what is going on in one’s environment.
When an individual looks at a target and attempts to interpret what he or she sees, that interpretation is heavily influenced by the personal characteristics of the individual perceiver.
Personal characteristics that, affect perception included a person’s attitudes, personality motives interest, past experiences, and expectations.
Selective perception
Selective perception is the tendency not to notice and more quickly forget stimuli that cause emotional discomfort and contradict our prior beliefs. For example, a teacher may have a favorite student because they are biased by in-group favoritism. The teacher ignores the student's poor attainment. Conversely, they might not notice the progress of their least favorite student.
Selective perception is the process by which individuals perceive what they want to in media messages while ignoring opposing viewpoints. It is a broad term to identify the behavior all people exhibit to tend to "see things" based on their particular frame of reference. It also describes how we categorize and interpret sensory information in a way that favors one category or interpretation over another. In other words, selective perception is a form of bias because we interpret information in a way that is congruent with our existing values and beliefs. Psychologists believe this process occurs automatically.
Selective perception may refer to any number of cognitive biases in psychology related to the way expectations affect perception. Human judgment and decision making is distorted by an array of cognitive, perceptual and motivational biases, and people tend not to recognize their own bias, though they tend to easily recognize (and even overestimate) the operation of bias in human judgment by others One of the reasons this might occur might be because people are simply bombarded with too much stimuli every day to pay equal attention to everything, therefore, they pick and choose according to their own needs.
Attribute Theory
Attribution theory is concerned with how individuals interpret events and how this relates to their thinking and behavior. Heider (1958) was the first to propose a psychological theory of attribution, but Weiner and colleagues (e.g., Jones et al, 1972; Weiner, 1974, 1986) developed a theoretical framework that has become a major research paradigm of social psychology. Attribution theory assumes that people try to determine why people do what they do, i.e., attribute causes to behavior. A person seeking to understand why another person did something may attribute one or more causes to that behavior. A three-stage process underlies an attribution: (1) the person must perceive or observe the behavior, (2) then the person must believe that the behavior was intentionally performed, and (3) then the person must determine if they believe the other person was forced to perform the behavior (in which case the cause is attributed to the situation) or not (in which case the cause is attributed to the other person).
Weiner focused his attribution theory on achievement (Weiner, 1974). He identified ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck as the most important factors affecting attributions for achievement. Attributions are classified along three causal dimensions: locus of control, stability, and controllability. The locus of control dimension has two poles: internal versus external locus of control. The stability dimension captures whether causes change over time or not. For instance, ability can be classified as a stable, internal cause, and effort classified as unstable and internal. Controllability contrasts causes one can control, such as skill/efficacy, from causes one cannot control, such as aptitude, mood, others’ actions, and luck.
Perceptual Process
The perceptual process allows us to experience the world around us.
In this overview of perception and the perceptual process, we will learn more about how we go from detecting stimuli in the environment to actually taking action based on that information and it can be organized into our existing structures and patterns, and are then interpreted based on previous experiences.
Although the perception is a largely cognitive and psychological process, how we perceive the people and objects around us affects our communication.
Actually, perception process is a sequence of steps that begins with the environment and leads to our perception of a stimulus and action in response to the stimulus.
In order to fully understand how the perception process works, we have to follow each of the following steps.
3 stages of perception process are;
Selection
The world around us is filled with an infinite number of stimuli that we might attend, but our brains do not have the resources to pay attention to everything.
Thus, the first step of perception is the decision of what to attend to.
When we attend to one specific thing in our environment — whether it is a smell, a feeling, a sound, or something else entirely — it becomes the attended stimulus.
Selecting is the first part of the perception process, in which we focus our attention on certain incoming sensory information. In selection, we choose stimuli that attract our attention.
We focus on the ones that stand out to our senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch). We take information through all five of our senses, but our perceptual field includes so many stimuli that it is impossible for our brains to process and make sense of it all.
So, as information comes in through our senses, various factors influence what actually continues on through the perception process.
Organization
Once we have chosen to attend to a stimulus in the environment, the choice sets off a series of reactions in our brain.
This neural process starts with the activation of our sensory receptors (touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing).
Organizing is the second part of the perception process, in which we sort and categorize information that we perceive based on innate and learned cognitive patterns.
Three ways we sort things into patterns are by using proximity, similarity, and difference (Stanley, mo).
Interpretation
After we have attended to a stimulus, and our brains have received and organized the information, we interpret it in a way that makes sense using our existing information about the world Interpretation simply means that we take the information that we have sensed and organized and turn it into something that we can categorize.
By putting different stimuli into categories, we can better understand and react to the world around us.
Perception of others involves sensing, organizing, and interpreting information about people, and what they say and do. The sensation is a main characteristic of perception as it relates to outside input. In the perceptual process, firstly the perceiver should select what will be perceived.
Then, the organization takes place when listeners identify the type of sound and compare it to other sounds heard in the past.
Stereotyping
People usually can fall into at least one general category based on physical or behavioral traits then they will be evaluated. When we judge someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which he or she belongs, we are using the shortcut called stereotyping.
or example, a boss might assume that a worker from a Middle East country is lazy and cannot meet performance objectives, even if the worker tried his best.
Halo Effect
The individual is evaluated on the basis of perceived positive quality, feature or trait. When we draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic, such as intelligence, sociability, or appearance, a halo effect is operating.
Definition & Concept of Motive & Motivation
Motivation and motives aren’t the same things. Nevertheless, both have significant power over our behavior.
Motivation is the word derived from the word 'motive' which means needs, desires, wants or drives within the individuals. It is the process of stimulating people to actions to accomplish the goals. In the work goal context, the psychological factors stimulating the people's behaviour can be - desire for money.
Motives and motivation are two related terms, but they don’t have the same meaning. Instead, they’re complementary. Understanding the difference between both concepts is the key to understanding human behavior in general. It can also be useful to try to understand why people decide to either do one thing or another.
In other words, motivation is the psychological process that refers to general behavior. Motive, on the other hand, is the concrete cause of said behavior. Thus, motivation is the process itself and the motive is the concrete reason for taking action.
In conclusion, we can say that motives are the reasons why people engage in a particular behavior. Motivation, on the other hand, refers to the basic psychological processes that explain why different motives act on motivated behavior. In other words, why and how motives motivate us.
The Content Theories of Motivation (Maslow’s Need Hierarchy & Herzberg’s Two Factor Model Theory)
Motivation implies the process of encouraging people to act in order to attain the desired objectives. It is something that stimulates an individual to keep doing the act already initiated. In this context, Abraham Maslow, a renowned psychologist, highlighted the elements of the theory of motivation, in a classic paper released in 1943. His theory is based on human needs and its fulfilment.
On the other hand, Frederick Herzberg is an American psychologist, who coined out the concept of job enrichment and two-factor theory on motivation based on rewards and incentives. He attempted to shed more light on the concept of work motivation.
Maslow was an American psychologist, who introduced the popular ‘Need hierarchy theory’ on motivation. The theory emphasizes the urge to satisfy needs of people working in the organization.
The theory is divided into two categories, i.e., growth needs and deficiency needs, which are further sub-classified into five needs, within each individual, represented in the shape of a pyramid. The theory is based on the premise that human needs are in proper sequence, wherein psychological need is at the bottom, and self-actualization needs are at the top level. Other needs, i.e., safety needs, social needs and esteem needs are in the middle.
It infers that higher level needs cannot evolve until the lower-level needs are satisfied. As the needs of human beings are unlimited, whenever one need is satisfied, another need takes its place. Moreover, an unsatisfied need is the motivator which governs the behaviour of the individual.
Frederick Herzberg was a behavioural scientist, who developed a theory in the year 1959 called ‘The two-factor theory on Motivation or Motivation-Hygiene Theory’.
Herzberg and his associates carried out interviews of 200 persons including engineers and accountants. In that survey, they were asked about the components of a job that make them happy or unhappy, and their answers made it clear that it was the working environment that causes unhappiness or dissatisfaction.
As per the theory, hygiene factors, are essential to keep a reasonable level of satisfaction among employees. Such factors do not actually result in satisfaction, but their absence causes dissatisfaction, that is why, they are known as dissatisfiers. Secondly, motivational factors are inherent to the job, and so the increase in these factors will lead to the rise in the satisfaction level, while the decrease does not cause dissatisfaction in employees.
Key Difference Between Maslow and Herzberg’s Theory of Motivation
The basic points of difference between Maslow and Herzberg’s theory of motivation can be summed up as follows:
The two models developed by the two experts aims at simplifying the motivational process which proved that motivation is an important factor to improve the performance level of employees. Herzberg’s theory is an addition to the Maslow’s theory. These are not contradictory but complementary to one another.
The Process Theories (Vroom’s expectancy Theory & Porter Lawler model)
Vroom's expectancy theory assumes that behavior results from conscious choices among alternatives whose purpose it is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Together with Edward Lawler and Lyman Porter, Victor Vroom suggested that the relationship between people's behavior at work and their goals was not as simple as was first imagined by other scientists. Vroom realized that an employee's performance is based on individual’s factors such as personality, skills, knowledge, experience and abilities.
The theory suggests that although individuals may have different sets of goals, they can be motivated if they believe that:
There is a positive correlation between efforts and performance,
Favorable performance will result in a desirable reward,
The reward will satisfy an important need,
The desire to satisfy the need is strong enough to make the effort worthwhile.
The theory is based upon the following beliefs:
Valence
Valence refers to the emotional orientations people hold with respect to outcomes [rewards]. The depth of the want of an employee for extrinsic [money, promotion, time-off, benefits] or intrinsic [satisfaction] rewards). Management must discover what employees’ value.
Expectancy
Employees have different expectations and levels of confidence about what they are capable of doing. Management must discover what resources, training, or supervision employees need.
Instrumentality
The perception of employees as to whether they will actually get what they desire even if it has been promised by a manager. Management must ensure that promises of rewards are fulfilled and that employees are aware of that.
Vroom suggests that an employee's beliefs about Expectancy, Instrumentality, and Valence interact psychologically to create a motivational force such that the employee acts in ways that bring pleasure and avoid pain.
Contemporary Motivation Theories
Contemporary Theories of Motivation
Early motivation theories were based on the assumptions and sometime these theories were not supported by strong evidence. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a good example of this approach. Therefore, alternative theories of motivation have been put forward over time.
SELF-DETERMINATION THEORY
Self-determination theory of motivation and argues that people often seek control of their actions.
GOAL SETTING THEORY
Goal setting theory is based on the view that challenging objectives should aid and improve workplace performance. In this theory, it is assumed that an employee is committed to the firm’s goals and desires to make a positive contribution. It is important that the set goals are also perceived as achievable.
SELF-EFFICACY THEORY
Self-efficacy theory is based upon an employee’s view about their ability to perform the tasks of their job role. This theory is also known as social learning theory or social cognitive theory.
If an employee has a high self-efficacy, then they will be more confident and have a greater chance of success. In more challenging situations, employees with a low self-efficacy will often have a reduction in their job performance levels.
According to the Albert Bandura, self-efficacy can be increased by four ways such as:
Vicarious modeling
Enactive mastery
Arousal
Verbal persuasion
REINFORCEMENT THEORY
Reinforcement theory refers that to behavior or an attitude is a function of its outcomes or consequences. That is, the theory suggests that the outcomes of behaviour (positive or negative) will either reinforce (or modify if a negative outcome) ongoing behavior.
EQUITY THEORY
Equity theory is where employees compare their job inputs and outputs with others in the organisation – primarily in an attempt to reduce the perceived inequities.
If the employees find inequities, they seek resolve them by:
Changing the inputs
Changing the outcomes
Distorting perceptions of themselves
Distorting perceptions of others
Quitting their job
EXPECTANCY THEORY
Expectancy theory is the tendency to act in a particular way based upon a preconceived expectation of the likely outcome.
References:
1. Understanding Organizational Behaviour, Parek, Oxford
2. Organizational Behaviour, Robbins, Judge, Sanghi, Pearson.
3. Organizational Behaviour, K. Awathappa, HPH.
4. Organizational Behaviour, VSP Rao, Excel
5. Introduction to Organizational Behaviour, Moorhead, Griffin, Cengage.
6. Organizational Behaviour, Hitt, Miller, Colella, Wiley
