Chapter 5

Personality
and Individual
Differences
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After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
o Define personality, describe how it is measured, and
explain the factors that determine an individual’s
personality.
o Describe the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator personality
framework and assess its strengths and weaknesses.
o Demonstrate how the Big Five traits predict behavior
at work.
o Define values, demonstrate their importance, and
contrast terminal and instrumental values.
o Compare generational differences in values, and
identify the dominant values in today’s workforce.
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What is Personality?
o Personality can be defined as a dynamic and
organized set of characteristics possessed by a
person that uniquely influences his or her
cognitions, motivations, and behaviors in various
situations.
o Measuring Personality
• Helpful in hiring decisions
• Most common method: self-reporting surveys
• Observer-ratings surveys provide an independent
assessment of personality–often better predictors
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Personality
o Relatively enduring pattern of thoughts,
emotions, and behaviors that characterize a
person, along with the psychological
processes behind those characteristics
• External traits – observable behaviors
• Internal states – thoughts, values, etc.
inferred from behaviors
• Some variability, adjust to suit the
situation
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Five-Factor Personality Model
Conscientiousness and Emotional Stability
o Motivational components of personality
o Strongest personality predictors of performance
Agreeableness
o Effective in jobs requiring cooperation and helpfulness
Neuroticism
o A personality trait characterized by instability, anxiet, and
aggression ...
Openness to experience
o Linked to higher creativity and adaptability to change
Extroversion
o Linked to sales and Mgt performance
o Related to social interaction and persuasion
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How Do the Big Five Traits Predict
Behavior?
Certain traits have been shown to strongly relate to higher job
performance:
o Highly conscientious people develop more job knowledge,
exert greater effort, and have better performance.
o Other Big Five Traits also have implications for work.
• Emotional stability is related to job satisfaction.
• Extroverts tend to be happier in their jobs and have good
social skills.
• Open people are more creative and can be good leaders.
• Agreeable people are good in social settings.
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Machiavellianism - (Machs)
o Degree to which an individual is pragmatic,
maintains emotional distance, and believes that
ends can justify means.
o High Machs are manipulative, win more often,
and persuade more than they are persuaded.
o Conditions Favoring High Machs
• Have direct interaction with others;
• Work with minimal rules and regulations
• Emotions distract for others
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Narcissism
o An arrogant, entitled, self-important person who
needs excessive admiration.
o Less effective in their jobs.
o A Narcissistic Person
• Has grandiose sense of self-importance;
• Requires excessive admiration;
• Has a sense of entitlement;
• Is arrogant;
• Tends to be rated as less effective.
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Psychopathy
o In OB, it does not connote clinical mental illness.
o In the OB context, Psychopathy is defined
• as a lack of concern for others
• and a lack of guilt or remorse when actions
cause harm.
o Measures of psychopathy attempt to assess
• the motivation to comply with social norms;
• impulsivity;
• willingness to use deceit to obtain desired
ends;
• and disregard, that is, lack of empathic concern
for others. 5-9
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
o Most widely used personality – assessment instrument
in the world.
• It’s a 100 questions personality test that ask
people how they usually feel or act in particular
situations.
o On the basis of the answers individual give to the test
and classified as following 04 aspects according to
their characteristics:
• Source Of Energy
• Collecting Information
• Decision Making
• Understanding The world. 5-10
Other Personality Traits Relevant
to OB
Core Self-Evaluation (CSEs)
o The degree to which people like or dislike
themselves.
• Whether the person sees himself or herself as
capable & effective,
• Whether the person feels in control of his or her
environment or powerless over the environment.
o Positive self-evaluation leads to higher job
performance.
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Core Self-Evaluation: Two Main Components
o Self - Esteem
• Individuals’ degree of liking or disliking themselves.
o Locus of Control
• The degree to which people believe they are masters
of their own fate.
• Internals (Internal locus of control)
Individuals who believe that they control what
happens to them.
• Externals (External locus of control)
Individuals who believe that what happens to them is
controlled by outside forces such as luck or chance.
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Self-Monitoring
o A personality trait that measures an individual’s
ability to adjust his or her behavior to external,
situational factors.
• The ability to adjust behavior to meet external,
situational factors.
• High monitors conform more and are more
likely to become leaders.
o High Self-Monitors
• Receive better performance ratings
• Likely to emerge as leaders
• Show less commitment to their organizations
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Risk Taking
o The willingness to take chances.
o May be best to align propensities with job
requirements.
o Risk takers make faster decisions with less
information.
o Risk Propensity
• Aligning managers’ risk-taking propensity
to job requirements should be beneficial to
organizations
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Proactive Personality
o Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action, and
perseveres until meaningful change occurs.
o Creates positive change in the environment, regardless or
even in spite of constraints or obstacles.
o What are the characteristics of a proactive person?
• They ask questions, suggest ideas, and make comments
on things beyond the scope of their day-to-day tasks
• They anticipate potential problems and work to solve
underlying issues before trouble starts
• “Wait and see” is not in their vocabulary
• They tend to be good at working with (or sometimes
manipulating) other people to get the outcome they want
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Type A Personality
o Aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant
struggle to achieve more in less time.
• Impatient: always moving, walking, and eating
rapidly;
• Feel impatient with the rate at which most events
take place;
• Strive to think or do two or more things at once;
• Cannot cope with leisure time;
• Are obsessed with numbers, measuring their
success in terms of how many or how much of
everything they acquire. 5-16
Type B’s personality
o Never suffer from a sense of time urgency
with its accompanying impatience;
o Feel no need to display or discuss either
their achievements or accomplishments;
o Play for fun and relaxation, rather than to
exhibit their superiority at any cost;
o Can relax without guilt.
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Ability
o An individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job.
o Made up of two sets of factors:
Intellectual Abilities
o The abilities needed to perform mental activities.
o General Mental Ability (GMA) is a measure of overall
intelligence.
o Wonderlic Personnel Test: a quick measure of intelligence for
recruitment screening.
o No correlation between intelligence and job satisfaction.
Physical Abilities
o The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity,
strength, and similar characteristics. 2-
Values
o Basic convictions on how to conduct yourself or
how to live your life that is personally or socially
preferable – “How To” live life properly.
o Attributes of Values:
• Content Attribute – that the mode of conduct or
end-state is important
• Intensity Attribute – just how important that
content is.
o Value System
• A person’s values rank ordered by intensity.
• Tends to be relatively constant and consistent.
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Classifying Values – Rokeach Value Survey
Terminal Values
o Desirable end-states of existence; the goals that a person would
like to achieve during his or her lifetime (like a comfortable
life, family security, self respect, freedom, happiness ...)
Instrumental Values
o Preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving one’s
terminal values (like capable, courageous, helpful, honest,
responsible….)
People in same occupations or categories tend to hold similar
values …
o But values vary between groups
o Value differences make it difficult for groups to negotiate and
may create conflict 5-20
Person-Job Fit:
o John Holland’s Personality-Job Fit Theory
• Six personality types
• Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI)
o Key Points of the Model:
• There appear to be intrinsic differences in
personality between people.
• There are different types of jobs.
• People in jobs congruent with their personality
should be more satisfied and have lower
turnover.
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Thanks!!!
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