WGU C715 Organizational Behavior Study Set 2025

personality - characteristics that describe an individual's behavior. personality traits - characteristics that describe an individual's behavior in a large number of situations Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) - A personality test that taps four characteristics and classifies Behavior Big Five Model - A personality assessment model that taps five basic dimensions. extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism. extraversion - A personality describing someone who is sociable and assertive (confident and forceful ) agreeableness - A personality that describes someone who is good natured, cooperative, and trusting. conscientiousness - A personality that describes someone who is responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized. emotional stability - A personality that characterizes someone as calm, self- confident, and insecure. openness to experience - A personality that characterizes someone in terms of imagination, sensitivity, and curiosity. core self-evaluation - Bottom-line conclusions individuals have about their capabilities, competence, and worth as a person. Machiavellianism - The degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means. narcissism - The tendency to be arrogant, self-importance, require excessive admiration, and have a sense of entitlement. self-monitoring - where an individual's has ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors. proactive personality - People who identify opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs. values - Basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence. value system - A hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual's values in terms of their intensity. terminal values - Values that we work towards (happiness, self-respect, family security, recognition) instrumental values - Core values that are permanent in nature (honesty, sincerity, ambition, independence) personality Job-fit theory - A theory that identifies six personality types and proposes that the fit between personality type and occupational environment determines satisfaction and turnover. power distance - where society accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally. individualism - where people prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups. collectivism - A national culture attribute that describes a tight social framework in which people expect others in groups of which they are a part to look after them and protect them. masculinity - where culture favors traditional masculine work roles of achievement, power, and control. femininity - indicates little differentiation between male and female roles; where women are treated as the equals of men in all aspects of the society. uncertainty avoidance - A national culture attribute that describes the extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them. long-term orientation - A national culture attribute that emphasizes the future, thrift, and persistence. short-term orientation - A national culture attribute that emphasizes the past and present, respect for tradition, and fulfillment of social obligations. people value the here and now; they accept change more readily and don't see commitments as impediments to change. heredity - factors determined at conception; one's biological, physiological, and inherent psychological makeup. Perception - A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. attribution theory - An attempt to determine whether an individual's behavior is internally or externally caused. fundamental attribution error - The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others. self-serving bias - The tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors and put the blame for failures on external factors. selective perception - The tendency to selectively interpret what one sees on the basis of one's interests, background, experience, and attitudes. halo effect - The tendency to draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic. contrast effect - Evaluation of a person's characteristics that is affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics. stereotyping - Judging someone on the basis of one's perception of the group to which that person belongs. self-fulfilling prophecy - Causing something to happen by believing it will come true. decisions - Choices made from among two or more alternatives. problem - A discrepancy between the current state of affairs and some desired state. rational - Characterized by making consistent, value-maximizing choices within specified constraints. rational decision-making model - A decision-making model that describes how individuals should behave in order to maximize some outcome. Steps in the rational decision-making model - 1. Define the problem. 2. Identify the decision criteria. 3. Allocate weights to the criteria. 4. Develop the alternatives. 5. Evaluate the alternatives. 6. Select the best alternative. bounded rationality - A less-than-perfect form of rationality in which decision makers cannot be perfectly rational because decisions are complex and complete information is unavailable or cannot be fully processed intuitive decision making - An unconscious process created out of distilled experience. anchoring bias - A tendency to fixate on initial information, from which one then fails to adequately adjust for subsequent information. confirmation bias - The tendency to seek out information that reaffirms past choices and to discount information that contradicts past judgments. availability bias - The tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is readily available to them. escalation of commitment - A human behavior pattern in which an individual or group facing increasingly negative outcomes from some decision, action, or investment nevertheless continues the same behavior rather than alter course. randomness error - The tendency of individuals to believe that they can predict the outcome of random events. risk aversion - The tendency to prefer a sure gain of a moderate amount over a riskier outcome, even if the riskier outcome might have a higher expected payoff. hindsight bias - The tendency to believe falsely, after an outcome of an event is actually known, that one would have accurately predicted that outcome. utilitarianism - A system in which decisions are made to provide the greatest good for the greatest number. whistle blowers - Individuals who report unethical practices by their employer to outsiders. creativity - The ability to produce novel and useful ideas. three-component model of creativity - The proposition that individual creativity requires expertise, creative thinking skills, and intrinsic task motivation. Motivation - The processes that account for an individual's intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. - 1. Physiological 2.Safety 3. Social 4. Esteem 5. Self- actualization lower-order needs - Needs that are satisfied externally, such as physiological and safety needs. self-actualization - The drive to become what a person is capable of becoming. higher-order needs - Needs that are satisfied internally, such as social, esteem, and self-actualization needs. Theory X - The assumption that employees dislike work, are lazy, dislike responsibility, and must be coerced to perform Theory Y - The assumption that employees like work, are creative, seek responsibility, and can exercise self-direction. two-factor theory - Herzberg's theory describing factors that impact work satisfaction and dissatisfaction. hygiene factors - Characteristics of the workplace, such as company policies, working conditions, pay, and supervision, that can make people satisfied or dissatisfied. McClelland's theory of needs - A theory that states achievement, power, and affiliation are three important needs that help explain motivation. McClelland's 3 needs - 1. Need for achievement (nAch) 2. Need for power (nPow) 3. Need for affiliation (nAff); explain motivation Need for affiliation (nAff) - The desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships. Need for power (nPow) - The need to make others behave in a way in which they would not have behaved otherwise. Need for achievement (nAch) - The drive to excel, to achieve in relationship to a set of standards, and to strive to succeed. self-determination theory - A theory that is concerned with the motivation behind choices people make without external influence and interference. cognitive evaluation theory - A version of self-determination theory which holds that allocating extrinsic rewards for behavior that had been previously intrinsically rewarding tends to decrease the overall level of motivation if the rewards are seen as controlling. self-concordance - The degree to which peoples' reasons for pursuing goals are consistent with their interests and core values. job engagement - The investment of an employee's physical, cognitive, and emotional energies into job performance. goal-setting theory - A theory that says that specific and difficult goals, with feedback, lead to higher performance. management by objectives (MBO) - A program that encompasses specific goals, participatively set, for an explicit time period, with feedback on goal progress. self-efficacy - An individual's belief that he or she is capable of performing a task. reinforcement theory - A theory that says that behavior is a function of its consequences. behaviorism - A theory that argues that behavior follows stimuli in a relatively unthinking manner. social-learning theory - The view that we can learn through both observation and direct experience. equity theory - A theory that says that individuals compare their job inputs and outcomes with those of others and then respond to eliminate any inequities.