Organizational Behaviour

Prof. Deepak Shyam

Department of Management Studies

deepakshyam@pes.edu
Organizational
Behaviour
Unit 2: Personality and
Values

Prof. Deepak Shyam

Department of Management Studies
What is Personality?

The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and

interacts with others.

Personality Traits:
Enduring characteristics
that describe an Personality
individual’s behavior.
Determinants
• Heredity
• Environment
• Situation
What is Personality?

• It’s who we are.

• Our personalities determine
how we act and react, as
well as how we interact with
and respond to the world.

Culture

Parents Friends
Environment

Genetics Work
What is Personality?
- Derived from the Latin word ‘persona’ meaning
‘mask’.
- The relatively stable feelings, thoughts, and
behavioural patterns a person has.

If personality is stable, does

this mean that it does not
change?

It does. Changes occur.

What is Good Personality?

What are attributes of a person with “Good

personality”?
• Good health
• Pleasing manners
• Personal and Professional integrity
• Trustworthiness and reliability
• Good control over mind
Personality Development

• An improvement in all spheres of an individual’s life, be

it with friends, in the workplace or in any other
environment.

IMPORTANCE:
• Personality development helps an individual in becoming
a success.
• Personality development goes a long way in reducing
stress and conflicts.
• Personality development helps you develop a positive
attitude in life.
Characteristics of Personality
Development
 Openness

The degree to which a person is curious, original,

intellectual, creative, and open to new ideas

• People high in openness are highly motivated to learn

new skills, and they do well in training settings
• They also have an advantage when they enter into a
new organization.
• Their open-mindedness leads them to seek a lot of
information and feedback about how they are doing and
to build relationships, which leads to quicker adjustment
to the new workplace.
 Conscientiousness

The degree to which a person is organized, systematic,

punctual, achievement oriented, and dependable
• Conscientiousness is the one
personality trait that uniformly
predicts how high a person’s
performance will be, across a variety
of occupations and jobs.
• In addition to their high
performance, conscientious people
have higher levels of motivation to
perform, lower levels of turnover,
lower levels of absenteeism, and
higher levels of safety performance
 Extroversion

The degree to which a person is outgoing, talkative, and

sociable, and enjoys being in social situation
• Extroverts do well in social
situations, and as a result they
tend to be effective in job
interviews.
• They have an easier time
than introverts when adjusting to
a new job.
• They actively seek
information and feedback, and
build effective relationships,
which helps with their
 Agreeableness

The degree to which a person is nice, tolerant, sensitive,

trusting, kind, and warm.

• People who are high in agreeableness are likeable

people who get along with others.
• Not surprisingly, agreeable people help others at work
consistently, and this helping behavior is not dependent
on being in a good mood.
• They are also less likely to retaliate when other people
treat them unfairly.
 Neuroticism

The degree to which a person is anxious, irritable,

aggressive, temperamental, and moody.

• These people have a tendency to have emotional

adjustment problems and experience stress and
depression on a habitual basis.
• People very high in neuroticism experience a number
of problems at work.
The Big Five Model of Personality
Dimensions
Extroversion
Sociable, gregarious, and assertive

Agreeableness
Good-natured, cooperative, and trusting.

Conscientiousness
Responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized.

Emotional Stability
Calm, self-confident, secure (positive) versus nervous, depressed,
and insecure (negative).

Openness to Experience
Imaginativeness, artistic, sensitivity, and intellectualism.
Significance of Values

- Refer to stable life goals that people have, reflecting

what is most important to them
- Broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of
action or outcomes
- The values that are important to people tend to affect the
types of decisions they make, how they perceive their
environment, and their actual behaviours.
 Values

• Early family experiences are important influences over

the dominant values.

• Values of a generation also change and evolve in

response to the historical context that the generation
grows up in.

• The values a person holds will also affect his or her

employment.
Value Systems

• Community Values
• Relative importance individual assigns to
values such as:
– Freedom
– Happiness
– Self-respect
Rokeach Values

1. Terminal Values
• Desirable end-states of existence
• Desired goals to be achieved during
lifetime

2. Instrumental Values
• Preferable modes of behavior
• Means of achieving the terminal values
 Rokeach Values
Terminal Values
• A comfortable life (a prosperous
life)
• A sense of accomplishment (lasting
contribution)
• A world of peace (free of war and
conflict)
• A world of beauty (beauty of nature
and the arts)
• Equality (brotherhood and equal
opportunity for all)
• Family security (taking care of loved
ones)
• Freedom (independence, free
choice)
• Happiness (contentedness)
• Inner harmony (freedom from inner
conflict)
• Pleasure (an enjoyable, leisurely
life)
• Salvation (saved, eternal life)
• Social recognition (respect,
Instrumental Values
• Ambitious (hardworking,
aspiring)
• Capable (competent, effective)
• Cheerful (lighthearted, joyful)
• Clean (neat, tidy)
• Courageous (standing up for
your beliefs)
• Helpful (working for the welfare
of others)
• Honest (sincere, truthful)
• Imaginative (daring, creative)
• Logical (consistent, rational)
• Loving (affectionate, tender)
• Obedient (dutiful, respectful)
• Polite (courteous, well
mannered)
• Responsible (dependable,
Values and Ethical Behavior

• Values of upper management influence

significantly on the entire ethical
environment within an organization

• Upper management is seen as role

model for middle and lower level
employees
 Defining Some Terms

• Personality: A person’s unique and relatively stable

behavior patterns; the consistency of who you are,
have been, and will become
• Character: Personal characteristics that have been
judged or evaluated
• Temperament: Hereditary aspects of personality,
including sensitivity, moods, irritability, and
adaptability
• Personality Trait: Stable qualities that a person
shows in most situations
• Personality Type: People who have several traits
in common
Personality Types and Other
Concepts

• Experts suggest we are one of two personality

types:
– Introvert: Shy, self-centered person whose
attention is focused inward
– Extrovert: Bold, outgoing person whose
attention is directed outward
• Self-Concept: Your ideas, perceptions, and
feelings about who you are
• Self-Esteem: How we evaluate ourselves; a
positive self-evaluation of ourselves
– Low Self-esteem: A negative self-evaluation
Personality Types and Other
Concepts
Personality Types and Other
Concepts
Personality Theories: An Overview
• Personality Theory: System of concepts,
assumptions, ideas, and principles proposed to
explain personality:
• Trait Theories: Attempt to learn what traits
make up personality and how they relate to
actual behavior
• Psychodynamic Theories: Focus on the inner
workings of personality, especially internal
conflicts and struggles
• Behavioristic Theories: Focus on external
environment and on effects of conditioning
and learning
• Social Learning Theories: Attribute
differences in perspectives to socialization,
expectations, and mental processes
• Humanistic Theories: Focus on private,
Gordon Allport - Traits

• Common Traits: Characteristics shared by most

members of a culture
• Individual Traits: Describe a person’s unique
personal qualities
• Cardinal Traits: So basic that all of a person’s
activities can be traced back to the trait
• Central Traits: Core qualities of a personality
• Secondary Traits: Inconsistent or superficial
aspects of a person
Raymond Cattell - Traits

• Surface Traits: Features that make up the

visible areas of personality
• Source Traits: Underlying traits of a
personality; each reflected in a number of
surface traits
• Cattell also created 16PF personality test
• Gives a “picture” of an individual’s
personality
 Raymond Cattell and Traits

The 16 source traits measured by Cattell’s 16 PF are listed beside the graph. Scores can be
plotted as a profile for an individual or a group. The profiles shown here are group averages for
airline pilots, creative artists, and writers. Notice the similarity between artists and writers and
the difference between these two groups and pilots.
Traits and Situations

• Trait-Situation Interactions: When

external circumstances influence the
expression of personality traits

• Behavioral Genetics: Study of

inherited behavioral traits
Dynamics of Personality and
Anxieties
• Ego is always caught in the middle of battles
between superego’s desires for moral behavior
and the id’s desires for immediate gratification
• Neurotic Anxiety: Caused by id impulses that the
ego can barely control
• Moral Anxiety: Comes from threats of punishment
from the superego
• Unconscious: Holds repressed memories and
emotions and the id’s instinctual drives
• Conscious: Everything you are aware of at a
given moment
• Preconscious: Material that can easily be brought
into awareness
Dynamics of Personality and
Anxieties
Learning Theories and Some Key
Terms
• Behavioral Personality Theory: Model of
personality that emphasizes learning and
observable behavior

• Learning Theorist: Believes that learning

shapes our behavior and explains
personality

• Situational Determinants: External

conditions that influence our behaviors
Dollard and Miller’s Theory

• Habits: Learned behavior patterns; makes

up structure of personality.
• Governed by:
• Drive: Any stimulus strong enough to
spur a person into action (like hunger)
• Cue: Signals from the environment that
guide responses
• Response: Any behavior, either
internal or observable; actions
• Reward: Positive reinforcement
Social Learning Theory (Rotter)

• Definition: An explanation that combines

learning principles, cognition, and the
effects of social relationships
• Psychological Situation: How the person
interprets or defines the situation
• Expectancy: Anticipation that making a
response will lead to reinforcement
• Reinforcement Value: Subjective value
attached to a particular activity or
reinforcer
 Carl Rogers’ Self Theory

Incongruence occurs when there is a mismatch between any of these three entities: the ideal
self (the person you would like to be), your self-image (the person you think you are), and the
true self (the person you actually are). Self-esteem suffers when there is a large difference
between one’s ideal self and self-image. Anxiety and defensiveness are common when the
self-image does not match the true self.
Major Personality Attributes
Influencing OB

• Locus of control
• Machiavellianism
• Self-esteem
• Self-monitoring
• Risk taking
• Type A personality
Locus of Control

• Locus of Control
The degree to which people believe they are
masters of their own fate.

• Internals
Individuals who believe that they control what
happens to them.

• Externals
Individuals who believe that what happens to
them is controlled by outside forces such as
luck or chance.
Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism:
Degree to which an individual is pragmatic,
maintains emotional distance, and believes that
ends can justify means.

Conditions Favoring High Machs

•Direct interaction
•Minimal rules and regulations
•Emotions distract for others
Self-Esteem and Self-Monitoring

• Self-Esteem (SE):
• Individuals’ degree of liking or disliking
themselves.

• Self-Monitoring:
• A personality trait that measures an individuals
ability to adjust his or her behavior to external,
situational factors.
 Risk-Taking
• High Risk-taking Managers
– Make quicker decisions
– Use less information to make decisions
– Operate in smaller and more entrepreneurial
organizations
• Low Risk-taking Managers
– Are slower to make decisions
– Require more information before making
decisions
– Exist in larger organizations with stable
environments
• Risk Propensity
– Aligning managers’ risk-taking propensity to
job requirements should be beneficial to
Proactive Personality Type

Proactive Personality:
• Identifies opportunities, shows initiative,
takes action, and perseveres until
meaningful change occurs.
• Creates positive change in the
environment, regardless or even in spite of
constraints or obstacles.
Achieving Person-Job Fit

• Personality-Job Fit
Theory
• Identifies six personality Personality Types
types and proposes that
the fit between •Realistic
personality type and •Investigative
occupational •Social
environment determines
•Conventional
satisfaction and
turnover. •Enterprising
•Artistic
Emotions - Why Emotions Were
Ignored in OB

• The “myth of rationality”

– Organizations are not emotion-free.

• Emotions of any kind are disruptive to

organizations.
– Original OB focus was solely on the
effects of strong negative emotions that
interfered with individual and
organizational efficiency.
What Are Emotions?

Emotional Labour:
• A situation in which an employee expresses
organizationally desired emotions during
interpersonal transactions.
Emotional Dissonance:
• A situation in which an employee
must project one emotion while simultaneously
feeling another.
Felt versus Displayed Emotions

Felt Emotions:
• An individual’s actual
emotions.
Displayed Emotions:
• Emotions that are organizationally required and
considered appropriate in a given job.
Emotion Dimensions

• Variety of emotions
– Positive
– Negative
• Intensity of emotions
– Personality
– Job Requirements
• Frequency and duration of emotions
– How often emotions are exhibited.
– How long emotions are displayed.
 Gender and Emotions
• Women
– Can show greater emotional expression.
– Experience emotions more intensely.
– Display emotions more frequently.
– Are more comfortable in expressing emotions.
– Are better at reading others’ emotions.

• Men
– Believe that displaying emotions is inconsistent with the
male image.
– Are innately less able to read and to identify with others’
emotions.
– Have less need to seek social approval by showing
positive emotions.
 Emotions at Workplace
• Emotions are negative or positive responses to a work
environment event.
– Personality and mood determine the intensity of the
emotional response.
– Emotions can influence a broad range of work
performance and job satisfaction variables.
• Implications:
– Individual response reflects emotions and mood
cycles.
– Current and past emotions affect job satisfaction.
– Emotional fluctuations create variations in job
satisfaction.
– Emotions have only short-term effects on job
performance.
OB Applications of Understanding
Emotions

• Ability and Selection

– Emotions affect employee effectiveness.
• Decision Making
– Emotions are an important part of the
decision-making process in organizations.
• Motivation
– Emotional commitment to work and high motivation
are strongly linked.
• Leadership
– Emotions are important to acceptance of messages
from organizational leaders.
OB Applications… (cont’d)

• Interpersonal Conflict
– Conflict in the workplace and individual emotions are
strongly intertwined.
• Customer Services
– Emotions affect service quality delivered to customers
which, in turn, affects customer relationships.
• Deviant Workplace Behaviors
– Negative emotions lead to employee deviance
(actions that violate norms and threaten the
organization).
• Productivity failures
• Property theft and destruction
• Political actions
• Personal aggression
Ability and Selection

• Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence: (EI)
• An assortment of – Self-awareness
noncognitive skills, – Self-management
capabilities, and – Self-motivation
competencies that
– Empathy
influence a person’s
ability to succeed in – Social skills
coping with • Research Findings
environmental – High EI scores, not
demands and high IQ scores,
pressures. characterize high
performers.
Managing Emotions
The “Myth of Rationality”

• The “Myth of Rationality”

– Emotions were seen as irrational
– Managers worked to make emotion-free environments
• View of Emotionality
– Emotions were believed to be disruptive
– Emotions interfered with productivity
– Only negative emotions were observed

• Now we know emotions can’t be separated from the

workplace
 What are Emotions and Moods?

• Affect
– A broad range of emotions that people experience
– Made up of:
• Emotions
– Intense feelings that are directed at someone or
something
• Moods
– Feelings that tend to be less intense than
emotions and that lack a contextual stimulus
 The Basic Emotions
• While not universally accepted, there appear to
be six basic emotions:
1. Anger
2. Fear
3. Sadness
4. Happiness
5. Disgust
6. Surprise
• All other emotions are subsumed under these
six
• May even be placed in a spectrum of emotion
– Happiness – surprise – fear – sadness –
anger - disgust
Basic Moods: Positive and Negative
Affect

• Emotions cannot be neutral.

• Emotions (“markers”) are grouped into general
mood states.
• Mood states affect perception and therefore
perceived reality.
What is the Function of Emotion?

• Do Emotions Make Us Irrational?

– Expressing emotions publicly may be
damaging to social status
– Emotions are critical to rational
decision-making
– Emotions help us understand the world
around us

• What Functions Do Emotions Serve?

– Darwin argued they help in survival
problem-solving
– Evolutionary psychology: people must
experience emotions as there is a purpose
behind them
– Not all researchers agree with this
assessment
Sources of Emotion and Mood

• Personality
– There is a trait component – affect intensity
• Day and Time of the Week
– There is a common pattern for all of us:
• Happier in the midpoint of the daily awake period
• Happier toward the end of the week
• Weather
– Illusory correlation – no effect
• Stress
– Even low levels of constant stress can worsen moods
• Social Activities
– Physical, informal, and dining activities increase
positive moods
More Sources of Emotion and Mood

• Sleep
– Poor sleep quality increases negative affect
• Exercise
– Does somewhat improve mood, especially for
depressed people
• Age
– Older folks experience fewer negative emotions
• Gender
– Women tend to be more emotionally expressive, feel
emotions more intensely, have longer lasting moods,
and express emotions more frequently than do men
– Due more to socialization than to biology
Emotional Labour

• An employee’s expression of organizationally

desired emotions during interpersonal
transactions at work
• Emotional Dissonance:
– Employees have to project one emotion while
simultaneously feeling another
– Can be very damaging and lead to burnout
• Types of Emotions:
– Felt: the individual’s actual emotions
– Displayed: required or appropriate emotions
• Surface Acting: displaying appropriately
but not feeling those emotions internally
• Deep Acting: changing internal feelings to
match display rules - very stressful
 Affective Events Theory (AET)

• An event in the work environment triggers positive or

negative emotional reactions
– Personality and mood determine response intensity
– Emotions can influence a broad range of work
variables
• Implications:
1. An emotional episode is actually the result of a series
of emotional experiences triggered by a single event
2. Current and past emotions affect job satisfaction
3. Emotional fluctuations over time create variations in job
performance
4. Emotion-driven behaviors are typically brief and
variable
 Emotional Intelligence (EI)
• A person’s ability to:
– Be self-aware
• Recognizing own emotions when experienced
– Detect emotions in others
– Manage emotional cues and information
• EI plays an important role in job performance
• EI is controversial and not wholly accepted
– Case for EI:
• Intuitive appeal; predicts criteria that matter; is
biologically-based
– Case against EI:
• Too vague a concept; can’t be measured; its
validity is suspect
OB Applications of Emotions and
Moods
• Selection
– EI should be a hiring factor, especially for social jobs.
• Decision Making
– Positive emotions can lead to better decisions.
• Creativity
– Positive mood increases flexibility, openness, and
creativity.
• Motivation
– Positive mood affects expectations of success;
feedback amplifies this effect.
• Leadership
– Emotions are important to acceptance of messages
from organizational leaders.
More OB Applications of Emotions and
Moods

• Negotiation
– Emotions , skillfully displayed, can affect negotiations.
• Customer Services
– Emotions affect service quality delivered to customers
which, in turn, affects customer relationships.
– Emotional Contagion: “catching” emotions from
others.
• Job Attitudes
– Can carry over to home but dissipate overnight.
• Deviant Workplace Behaviors
– Negative emotions lead to employee deviance
(actions that violate norms and threaten the
organization).
• Manager’s Influence
– Leaders who are in a good mood, use humor, and
praise employees increase positive moods in the
 Global Implications

• Do people experience emotions equally?

– No. Culture can determine type, frequency, and depth
of experienced emotions
• Do people interpret emotions the same way?
– Yes. Negative emotions are seen as undesirable and
positive emotions are desirable
– However, value of each emotion varies across
cultures
• Do norms of emotional expression vary?
– Yes. Some cultures have a bias against emotional
expression; others demand some display of emotion
– How the emotions are expressed may make
interpretation outside of one’s culture difficult
Summary and Managerial Implications

• Moods are more general than emotions and

less contextual
• Emotions and moods impact all areas of OB
• Managers cannot and should not attempt to
completely control the emotions of their
employees
• Managers must not ignore the emotions of
their co-workers and employees
• Behavior predictions will be less accurate if
emotions are not taken into account
THANK YOU

Prof. Deepak Shyam

Department of Management Studies
deepakshyam@pes.edu