week 1
The study of how people think, feel, and behave in organizations.
What is Organizational Behaviour?
The “O” in the Big Five personality model stands for this trait.
What is Openness?
The idea that people return to their baseline happiness after good or bad events.
What is the Hedonic Treadmill?
A situation where the group’s best interest conflicts with individual self-interest.
What is a Social Dilemma?
The process by which newcomers learn the culture, values, and behaviours of an organization.
What is Socialization?
This approach says there’s no single best way to manage people — it depends on the situation.
What is the Contingency Approach?
The trait most consistently linked to strong job performance across many jobs.
What is Conscientiousness?
Motivation driven by internal satisfaction or enjoyment.
What is Intrinsic Motivation?
A person who benefits from others’ work without contributing.
What is a Free Rider?
People value groups more when joining requires effort, even discomfort.
What is Effort Justification?
This bias happens when we only look at successful examples and ignore failures.
What is Survivorship Bias?
These are visible traces of personality that show up in someone’s environment, like their bedroom or desk.
What are Personality Artifacts?
The phenomenon where external rewards reduce a person’s internal motivation.
What is the Overjustification Effect?
When a group performs worse because members fail to share or use their knowledge effectively.
What is Process Loss?
The Asch line study demonstrated this social phenomenon.
What is Conformity?
When two things are related but one doesn’t cause the other, it’s this logical mistake.
What is Correlation ≠ Causation?
When a situation is structured with clear rules, personality is less predictive of behaviour.
What is a Strong Situation?
The daycare fine study showed that introducing fines increased lateness because it replaced this kind of motivation.
What is Moral or Intrinsic Motivation?
When a group decision is worse than individual decisions because of conformity or communication failure.
What is the Groupthink?
When team members stay silent about new ideas or concerns because they don’t want to stand out or go against the majority opinion, this pressure to conform takes over. (conformity pressure)
What is Normative Influence?
According to OB, managers should rely on this instead of intuition to make better decisions.
What is the Scientific Method?
Hofstede’s cultural dimension that describes how much a society tolerates inequality.
What is Power Distance?
Activities that bring lasting happiness through mastery or meaning, not short-term pleasure.
What are Gratifications (Eudaimonic Activities)?
In group situations where members face a conflict between maximizing personal benefit and contributing to the collective good, everyone ends up worse off when they act selfishly. This scenario, shown in the Red Card/Black Card activity, illustrates this concept.
What is a Social Dilemma?
This bias explains why groups focus on shared info instead of unique info during decisions.
What is the Corroboration Bias?