Chapter 3 Individual Differences Matter

• Individual differences help explain why some people

Individual Differences and Work embrace change and others are fearful of it.
Behavior • Why some employees will be productive only if they are
closely supervised, while others will be productive only if
they are not.
• Why some workers learn new tasks more effectively than
others.

Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives • Effective managers need to ask how such

• Identify the major individual variables that influence work
behavior. differences influence the behavior and
• Explain how organizations can leverage employee diversity. performance of employees.
• Differentiate between abilities and skills .
• Describe what an attitude is and identify its three components. • Managers who ignore such differences often
• Discuss the relationship between job satisfaction and
performance.
become involved in practices that hinder
• Identify the Big Five personality dimensions. achieving organizational and personal goals.
• Summarize the dimensions of emotional intelligence.

1
 • Work behavior is anything a person does in the work
Individual Differences Influence environment.
Work Behavior – Some of these behaviors contribute to productivity; others are
nonproductive

Diversity Diversity

Perceptions Perceptions
Abilities Abilities
and skills and skills

Work Work
Behavior Behavior

Emotions Attitudes Emotions Attitudes

Personality Personality

Individual Differences Affect Workplace Behavior Individual Differences Affect Workplace Behavior

Diversity

To understand individual differences, a
manager must
1. Observe and recognize the differences and
2. Study relationships among variables that
influence individual behavior.
• Diversity refers to those attributes that make people
different from one another
– The six primary (and stable) dimensions include age, ethnicity,
gender, physical attributes, race, and sexual/affectional orientation.
– Secondary (and changeable) dimensions include educational
background, marital status, religious beliefs, health, and work
experience.

2
 • What are the implications of diversity differences
in the global and domestic workplace?

• Enhanced decision quality

– It is important to understand that even the perception
– Bring a wide variety of experiences, frames of reference,
perspectives, professional contacts, and information networks to that these differences exist influences the behavior of
bear on complex problems. men, women, and minorities in the workplace.
• Better connection with customers
• More creative innovation
– Organizations that are diverse can “tap the creative, cultural, and
communicative skills of a variety of employees and use those skills
to improve company policies, products, and customer
experiences.”

Abilities and Skills

• Organizations with a strong commitment to diversity may
also enjoy higher financial performance.
• Valuing diversity from an organizational and leadership
perspective means understanding and valuing core and
secondary diversity differences between oneself and
others.
• Ability is a person’s talent to perform a
mental or physical task.
– A person’s ability is generally stable over time.
• Skill is a learned talent that a person has
acquired to perform a task.
– Skills change as one’s training or experience
occurs. A person can be trained and
consequently acquire new skills.

3
 Mental ability and tacit knowledge
• Mental ability is often referred to as
intelligence. Mental ability can be divided
into several subcategories:
– Verbal fluency and comprehension,
– Inductive and deductive reasoning,
– Associative memory, and
– Spatial orientation.
Tacit knowledge
• Tacit knowledge refers to work-related practical know-
how that employees acquire through observation and direct
experience.
– This skill was not learned from a manual or training session; it was
developed by the representative through trial and error and
experience with hundreds of customers.
Attitudes
• An attitude is a mental state of readiness learned
and organized through experience, exerting a
specific influence on a person’s response to
people, objects, and situations with which it is
related.
– Each person has attitudes on numerous topics—online
dating, jogging, restaurants, friends, jobs, religion,
politics, elder care, crime, education, income taxes, and
so on.
1. Attitudes are learned.
2. Attitudes define one’s predispositions toward given
aspects of the world.
3. Attitudes provide the emotional basis of one’s
interpersonal relations and identification with others.
4. Attitudes are organized and are close to the
core of personality.
Some attitudes are persistent and enduring. Yet, like each of
the psychological variables, attitudes are subject to change.
4

• Attitudes are intrinsic parts of a person’s personality.
• People “seek a congruence between their beliefs and
feelings toward objects”
• The theory proposes that cognition, affect, and behavior
determine attitudes, and that attitudes, in turn, determine
cognition, affect, and behavior.
• Sometimes there may be discrepancies between attitudes
and behaviors. This kind of discrepancy is called cognitive
dissonance .
• Such an inconsistency between beliefs and behavior
is thought to create discomfort and a desire on the part of
the individual to eliminate or reduce the inconsistency

– The cognitive component of an attitude consists of the Manager style

Technology
person’s perceptions, opinions, and beliefs. Stimuli Noise
Work environment factors Peers
Reward system
Compensation plan
– Affect is the emotional component of an attitude and is Career opportunities

often learned from parents, teachers, and peer group “My supervisor is unfair.”
Cognition Beliefs and values “Having a fair supervisor is
members. important to me.

Affect Feelings and emotions “I don’t like my supervisor.”

– The behavioral component of an attitude refers to the Behavior Intended behavior “I’ve submitted a formal request to transfer.
tendency of a person to act in a certain way toward
someone or something. The Three Components of Attitudes: Cognition, Affect, and Behavior

5
 Attitudes and Job Satisfaction Satisfaction and Job Performance
• Job satisfaction is an attitude people have about their jobs. Causes

1. Job satisfaction Job performance

• It results from their perception of their jobs and the degree
“The satisfied worker is more productive.”
to which there is a good fit between them as individuals
Causes
and the organization.
2. Job performance Job satisfaction
• A number of factors have been associated with job
“The more productive worker is satisfied.”
satisfaction.
Perceived equity

3. Job performance Rewards Job satisfaction

“The more productive worker is satisfied.”

• Pay—the amount of pay received and the perceived fairness of that pay.
• Work itself —the extent to which job tasks are considered interesting
and provide opportunities for learning and accepting responsibility.
• Promotion opportunities —the availability of opportunities for
advancement.
• Supervision —the technical competence and the interpersonal skills of
one’s immediate boss.
• Co-workers —the extent to which co-workers are friendly, competent,
and supportive.
• Working conditions —the extent to which the physical work
environment is comfortable and supportive of productivity.
• Job security —the belief that one’s position is relatively secure and
continued employment with the organization is a reasonable expectation.
Personality
• Personality refers to a relatively stable set of feelings and
behaviors that have been significantly formed by genetic
and environmental factors.
– Appears to be organized into patterns that are, to some degree,
observable and measurable.
– Has superficial aspects, such as attitudes toward being a team
leader, and a deeper core, such as sentiments about authority or a
strong work ethic.
– Involves both common and unique characteristics.

6
 The Big Five Personality
Emotional stability
Dimensions
• Extroversion • Emotional stability is the tendency to experience positive
emotional states, such as feeling psychologically secure,
• Emotional stability calm, and relaxed.
– Anxiety, depression, anger, and embarrassment are characteristics
• Agreeableness of low emotional stability.
• Conscientiousness – The low-stability individual is more likely to experience job-
related stress.
• Openness to experience – Low levels of emotional stability were associated with low levels
of employee motivation

Extroversion
• Extroversion refers to the tendency to be
sociable, gregarious, assertive, talkative, and
active.
– People high in extroversion tend to enjoy talking and
interaction with coworkers, and they gravitate toward
jobs that have a good deal of social interaction.
– Extroverted people tend to perform well in sales and
managerial jobs, tend to do better in training
programs, and tend to have higher levels of overall job
satisfaction.
Agreeableness
• Being courteous, forgiving, tolerant, trusting, and
softhearted are traits associated with agreeableness .
– The employee described as “someone who gets along with others”
is high on agreeableness.
– Individuals low on agreeableness are often described as rude, cold,
uncaring, unsympathetic, and antagonistic
– Jobs and professions that require individuals high in agreeableness
include customer service, sales, auditing, nursing, teaching, and
social work.

7
 The Big Five Personality Dimensions: A Summary

Dimension Associated with Managerial Implications

Conscientiousness High extroversion
These Work Behaviors
Job performance of Use personality assessment to identify extroverted
managers and salespersons; individuals for jobs requiring large amounts of social
training proficiency interaction.
• Conscientiousness is exhibited by those who are High emotional stability Overall job satisfaction; Managers can only do so much to increase job
motivation satisfaction and to motivate employees; employees low
described as dependable, organized, thorough, and in emotional stability will be more difficult to influence
responsible. High agreeableness Peer ratings of team
in these areas.
Managers should try to include on teams individuals
– Individuals who are conscientious also tend to members; interpersonal who are agreeable because they help the team to
skills function more smoothly by using their good
persevere, work hard, and enjoy achieving and interpersonal skills to keep
accomplishing things. communication channels open and to work out
intragroup problems.
– Employees who are low in conscientiousness tend to be High conscientiousness Job performance across most Personality assessments should be used to select
occupations; motivation; job individuals with high levels of conscientiousness
sloppy, inefficient, careless, and even lazy. satisfaction; retention; Selections should include new hires and current
– Conscientious employees perform better across a wide attendance; and fewer employees applying for internal promotions..
counterproductive behaviors
variety of occupations. Openness to experience Training proficiency Personality assessment should be used to identify
employees for key training opportunities

Openness to experience Locus of Control

• Openness to experience reflects the extent to which an
individual has broad interests and is willing to take risks.
• Specific traits include curiosity, broad-mindedness,
creativity, imagination, and intelligence
– People high in openness to experience tend to thrive in occupations
where change is continuous and where innovation is critical.
– Individuals low in openness to experience would not fit in well
where change and innovation are critical for organizational
survival.
• The locus of control of individuals
determines the degree to which they believe
their behaviors influence what happens to
them.
– Some people believe they are autonomous that
they are masters of their own fate and have
personal responsibility for what happens to
them.

8
 Self-Efficacy
• Self-efficacy relates to personal beliefs regarding
competencies and abilities.
– It refers to one’s belief in one’s ability to successfully
complete a task.
– Individuals with a high degree of self-efficacy firmly
believe in their performance capabilities.
– The concept of self-efficacy includes three dimensions:
magnitude, strength, and generality.
– Magnitude refers to the level of task difficulty
that individuals believe they can attain.
– Strength refers to whether the belief regarding
magnitude is strong or weak.
– Generality indicates how generalized across
different situations the belief in capability is.
• Beliefs regarding self-efficacy are learned.
• Self-efficacy tends to be task specific.
• Self-efficacy is associated with work-related performance,
career choice, learning and achievement, and adaptability
to new technology, and they noted that certain training
methods could enhance self-efficacy in individual trainees
• Individuals with high levels of self-efficacy tend to display
higher levels of motivation and performance
Managerial and organizational
implications of self-efficacy
• Selection decisions —Organizations should
select individuals who have a strong sense
of self-efficacy.
– These individuals will be motivated to engage
in the behaviors that will help them perform
well.
– A measure of self-efficacy can be administered
during the hiring/promotion process.
9

• Training programs —Organizations should
consider employee levels of self-efficacy when
choosing among candidates for training programs.
• Goal setting and performance:
Organizations can encourage higher
performance goals from employees who
have high levels of self-efficacy.
Creativity
• Creativity is a personality trait that involves the
ability to break away from habit-bound thinking
and produce novel and useful ideas.
• Creativity produces innovation, and innovation is
the lifeblood of a growing number of corporation.
• Creativity is a personality trait that can be
encouraged and developed within organizations by
giving people opportunity and freedom to think in
unconventional ways.
Emotions
• Emotions are defined as a state of
physiological arousal accompanied by
changes in facial expressions, gestures,
posture, and subjective feelings.
• Emotions play an important role at the
workplace.
10

• Research suggests that there are eight primary emotions:
surprise, joy, anticipation, acceptance, fear, sadness,
disgust, and anger.
– Perhaps you were surprised when you were given a prestigious
employee award this year.
– Co-worker was angry about management’s recent
decision to cut her department’s budget by 15 percent.
Moods
• The mildest forms of emotions are called moods.
• A mood is a low-intensity, longlasting emotional
state.
• Moods act as subtle emotional factors that affect
day-to-day behavior
• Moods can be contagious. This phenomenon,
known as mood (or emotional) contagion, is the
automatic transfer of mood between persons.
Emotional Labor
• Managing emotions in order to perform one’s job
is called emotional labor.
• The rules or norms regarding expectations about
emotional expression may be acquired by
observing colleagues or they may be stated in
selection or training material.
– An employee working in customer service may be
encouraged to smile, listen attentively, and show
respect to even the most belligerent customers.
• Managers who are aware of the possible
negative effects (e.g., withdrawal, poor
attitudes, depression) of emotional labor are
better prepared to provide necessary
support, coaching, training, and guidance.
11
 Emotional intelligence (EI)
• Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to
manage one’s own and others’ emotions in order
to guide one’s behavior and achieve goals.
• Leaders who manage their moods and emotions
may be more effective at developing group goals
and objectives, motivating others, generating
cooperation and trust, and encouraging flexibility
in decision making.
3. Self-management: An important aspect of having EI is not
letting your emotions or mood swings disrupt your
productivity or relationships with your supervisor, coworkers,
or customers
4. Relationship management: Maintaining positive and
productive relationships with people at work requires that we
listen to their needs, communicate in a positive manner,
collaborate with them on projects, and support their ideas and
initiatives

1. Self-awareness: Emotionally intelligent

individuals have a greater awareness of their
own emotions and feelings
2. Social awareness: Individuals with higher
levels of EI are better at demonstrating
empathy or relating to other people.

12