PSYCH 338 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Reinforcement, Social Cognitive Theory, Conflict Resolution

• School: University of Waterloo
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH 338
• Professor: Doug Brown

Document Summary

Some companies focus on personality when hiring employees. Personality as an important factor in areas such as: motivation, attitudes, performance, leadership. Individuals are predisposed to behave in certain ways. Job satisfaction and work related attitudes are determined by situational factors characteristics of the work tasks. To predict and understand organizational behaviour, some details of an individual"s personality and the setting in which they work in should be known: example: Weak: not clear how a person should behave, personality has the most impact. There are loosely defined roles, few roles, and weak reward and punishment contingencies. Strong: there are clear expectations for appropriate behaviour, personality has less impact. More defined roles, rules and contingencies: trait activation theory: traits lead to certain behaviours only when the situation makes the need for the trait salient. There is no one perfect personality therefore, managers need to appreciate the advantages of employee"s diversity.