Managing Individual

Differences and
Behaviors
Chapter 11
Personality

 Consists of the stable psychological traits and

behavioral attributes that give a person his or
her identity
Big Five Personality
Dimensions
1. Extroversion
2. Agreeableness
3. Conscientiousness
4. Emotional Stability
5. Openness to Experience
Extroversion

 How outgoing, talkative, sociable, and

assertive a person is
Agreeableness

 How trusting, good-natured, cooperative, and

soft-hearted one is
Conscientiousness

 How dependable, responsible, achievement-

oriented, and persistent one is
Proactive Personality

 Someone who is more apt to take initiative

and persevere to influence the environment
 Associated with success, individual, team,
organization, and entrepreneurship
Self-efficacy
 Belief in one’s ability to do a task
 I can/can’t do this task
Learned Helplessness

 The debilitating lack of faith in one’s ability to

control one’s environment.
Locus of control

 Indicates how much people believe they

control their fate through their own efforts.
 I am/am not the captain of my fate
Emotional Stability

 How relaxed, secure, and unworried one is

Emotional intelligence EI

 The ability to cope, empathize with others,

and be self-motivated.
Developing higher EI is
associated with:
 Better social relations for children and adults
 Better family and intimate relationships
 Being perceived more positively by others
 Better academic achievement
 Better psychological well-being
Traits of emotional
intelligence
 Self-awareness – the ability to read your own emotions and
gauge your moods accurately, so you will know how you’re affecting
others.
 Self-management- the ability to control your emotions and
act with honesty and integrity in reliable and adaptable ways.
 Self-awareness – Empathy – allows you to show others
that you care
 Relationship management – the ability to
communicate clearly and convincingly, disarm conflicts, and build
strong personal bonds.
Organizational Behavior

 Trying to explain and predict workplace

behavior.
 Individual behavior
 Group behavior
Values

 Abstract ideals that guide one’s thinking and

behavior across all situations.
Attitude

 A learned predisposition toward a given

object.
Three components of attitude

 Affective
 Cognitive
 behavioral
Cognitive Dissonance

 The psychological discomfort a person

experiences between his or her cognitive
attitude and incompatible behavior.
Perception

 The process of interpreting and

understanding one’s environment.
Four distortions in
perception
 Selective perception
 Stereotyping
 The halo effect
 Casual attribution
Selective Perception

 The tendency to filter out information that is

discomforting, that seems irrelevant, or that
contradicts one’s beliefs.
Stereotyping

 The tendency to attribute to an individual the

characteristics one believes are typical of the
group to which the individual belongs.
 By sex
 By age
 By race/nationality
Absenteeism

 When an employee does not show up for

work.
Halo Effect

 Form an impression of an individual based on

a single trait.
Casual Attributions

 The activity of inferring causes for observed

behaviors.
Fundamental Attribution
Bias
 People attribute another person’s behavior to
his or her personal characteristics rather than
to situational factors.
Self-serving Bias

 People tend to take more personal

responsibility for success than for failure.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Pygmalion Effect
 The phenomenon in which people’s
expectations of themselves or others lead
them to behave in ways that make those
expectations come true.
Employee Engagement

 An individual’s involvement, satisfaction, and

enthusiasm for work.
Organizational Commitment

 Reflects the extent to which an employee

identifies with an organization and is
committed to its goals.
Important Workplace
Behaviors
 Performance and productivity
 Absenteeism and turnover
 Organizational citizenship behaviors
 Counterproductive work behaviors
Performance and
Productivity
 The method of evaluating performance must
match the job being done.
Absenteeism and Turnover

 Absenteeism – when an employee doesn’t

show up for work.
 Absenteeism is related to job satisfaction.
 Turnover – when employees leave their jobs.
Onboarding Programs

 Help employees to integrate and transition to

new jobs by making them familiar with
corporate policies, procedures, culture, and
politics by clarifying work-role expectations
and responsibilities.
Organizational Citizenship
Behaviors
 Those employee behaviors that are not
directly part of employees’ job descriptions –
that exceed their work-role requirements.
Counterproductive Work
Behaviors (CWB)
 Types of behavior that harm employees and
the organization as a whole.
Diversity

 Represents all the ways people are unlike

and alike – the differences and similarities in
age, gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, capabilities, and socioeconomic
background.
Four Layers of Diversity

 Personality
 Internal Dimensions – those human
differences that exert a powerful, sustained
effect throughout every stage of our lives.
 External Dimensions – include an element of
choice – they consist of the personal
characteristics that people acquire, discard, or
modify throughout their lives.
 Organizational Dimensions
Glass Ceiling

 The metaphor for an invisible barrier

preventing women and minorities from being
promoted to top executive jobs.
Americans with Disabilities
Act
 Prohibits discrimination against the disabled.
 Required organizations to reasonably
accommodate an individual’s disabilities.
Underemployed

 Working at jobs that require less education

than they have
Ethnocentrism

 The belief that one’s native country, culture,

language, abilities, or behavior is superior to
those of another culture.
Stress

 The tension people feel when they are facing

or enduring demands, constraints, or
opportunities and are uncertain about their
ability to handle them effectively.
 It is the feeling of tension and pressure.
 The source of stress is called a stressor.
Sources of job related stress
 Demands created by individual differences
 Stress created by the job itself
 Stress created by others’ expectations of you
 Roles: sets of behaviors that people expect of occupants
of a position.
 Stress created by co-workers and managers
 Stress created by the environment and culture
(asbestos removal, coal mining, fire fighting, EMS’s,
police, etc.)
 Stresses created by forces outside the organization
 Money problems, family situations, divorce, etc.
Consequence of Stress

 Burnout – a state of emotional, mental, and

even physical exhaustion.
 Burnout is a physical, mental and emotional
response to constant levels of high stress combined
with a feeling of not being in control.  It usually
results in physical and mental fatigue and can
include feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness
and failure. Burnout often begins when you feel
unable to meet competing demands and become
frustrated, pessimistic and dissatisfied.  Some
demands are self-imposed (such as having very
high expectations of yourself) and some are other-
imposed (from family, job or society).
Some stressors most associated
with burnout:
 feeling overworked and under-appreciated
 confusion about expectations and priorities
 too much responsibility at work
 insecurity about layoffs
 Over-commitment at home and work
Buffers

 Administrative changes
 Changes that managers can make to reduce
the stressors that lead to employee burnout.
Employee Assistance
Programs (EAP’s)
 A host of programs aimed at helping
employees to cope with stress, burnout,
substance abuse, health-related problems,
family and marital issues, and any general
problem that negatively influences job
performance.
Holistic Wellness Program

 Focuses on self-responsibility, nutritional

awareness, relaxation techniques, physical
fitness, and environmental awareness.
Openness to Experience

 How intellectual, imaginative, curious, and

broad-minded one is
Five traits important to
organizations
 Locus of control
 Self-efficacy
 Self-esteem
 Self-monitoring
 Emotional intelligence
Self-esteem

 The extent to which people like or dislike

themselves, their overall self-evaluation.
 High self-esteem
 Low self-esteem

 I like/dislike myself
Self-monitoring

 The extent to which people are able to

observe their own behavior and adapt it to
external situations.
 I’m fairly able/unable to adapt my behavior to
others
Affective Component

 “I feel”
 Consists of the feelings or emotions one has
about a situation.
Cognitive Component

 “I believe”
 Consists of the beliefs and knowledge one
has about a situation.
Behavioral Component

 “I intend”
 Intentional component
 Refers to how one intends or expects to
behave toward a situation.
 Values and attitudes influence people’s
workplace behavior.
 Behavior: their actions and judgments
Work-related attitudes

 Job satisfaction
 Job involvement
 Organizational
Commitment
Job Satisfaction

 How much do you like or dislike your job?

 The extent to which you feel positively or
negatively about various aspects of your
work.
 Work
 Pay
 Promotions
 Co-workers
 Supervision
Job Involvement

 How much do you identify with your work?

 Job Involvement – is the extent to which you
identify or are personally involved with your
job.
 Job involvement correlates with job
satisfaction
Organizational Commitment

 Reflects the extend to which an employee

identifies with an organization and is
committed to its goals.
 Managers are advised to increase job
satisfaction to elicit higher levels of
commitment. Higher commitment can
facilitate higher performance.
Organizational Citizenship
Behaviors
 Those employee behaviors that are not directly part
of employees’ job descriptions – that exceed their
work-role requirements.
 Constructive statements about the business
 Expression of personal interest in the work of others
 Suggestions for improvement
 Training new people
 Care for organizational property, and punctuality and
attendance well beyond standard or enforceable levels
Counterproductive Work
Behaviors
 Types of behavior that harm employees and
the organizations as a whole.
 Absenteeism
 Tardiness
 Drug and alcohol abuse
 Disciplinary problems
 Sexual harassment
 sabotage
Four steps in the Perceptual
Process
 Perception – the process of interpreting and
understanding one’s environment
 Selective attention (did I notice something?)
 Interpretation and evaluation (what was it I noticed
and what does it mean?
 Storing in memory (remember it as an event,
concept, person, or all three)
 Retrieving from memory to make judgments and
decisions (what do I recall about that?)
Self-fulfilling Prophesy or
Pygmalion Effect
 Describes the
phenomenon in which
people’s expectations
of themselves or others
lead them to behave in
ways that make those
expectations come
true.
Reducing stressors in the
organization
 Buffers – (administrative changes) that managers
can make to reduce the stressors that lead to
employee burnout.
 Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
 Holistic wellness program – focuses on self-responsibility,
nutritional awareness, relaxation techniques, physical
fitness, and environmental awareness.
 Create as supportive work environment
 Make jobs interesting
 Make career counseling available