Organisational Behaviour

Week 3 – Individual Differences
 Overall Framework
o Individual characteristics/processes: individual differences and work motivation
o Group characteristics/processes: group process and leadership
o Organizational context: organizational culture and organizational structure
o Behavior/outcome: attitudes and behaviors & well-being
 Individual differences
o Physical appearance, demographic attributes, personalities, abilities, self-
concepts, past experiences, beliefs and values
 Personality: the psychological qualities that influence individual’s
characteristic behavior patterns in stable/distinctive manner
 Helps identify unique characters and to understand differences
between individuals – stability: consistent patterns in different
contexts – distinctiveness: unique to individual
 5 Big Model of Personality: consistent trait clusters that capture
the main dimensions of personality
o OCEAN – Openness to experience, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism
 Openness to experience: range of
interests/fascinations with novelty, imaginative,
cultured curious, original, broad-minded – fantasy,
aesthetic, feelings, actions, ideas, values – explorer
vs. preserver
 Conscientiousness: measure of reliability – careful,
thorough, responsible, organized, planful,
hardworking, achievement oriented, persevering –
competence, order, dutifulness, self-discipline,
deliberation – focused vs. flexible
 Extraversion: comfort level with relationships –
sociable, gregarious, assertive, talkative, activity,
ambition – warmth, excitement-seeking, positive
emotions – extravert vs. introvert
 Agreeableness: individual’s propensity to defer to
others (likability) – courteous, flexible, trusting,
cooperative, forgiving, tolerant –
straightforwardness, altruism, compliance,
modesty, tender-mindedness – adapter vs.
challenger
 Neuroticism: person’s inability to withstand stress
(emotional stability) – nervous, insecure under
stress, secure under stress – anxious, depressed,
angry, embarrassed, emotional, worried,

, discouragement, self-consciousness, impulsive,
vulnerable – reactive vs. resilient
o Personality and Performance – Which matters most?
o Universal predictors
 Conscientiousness and neuroticism
 Valid predictors of overall work
performance over all studies examined

o Contingent Predictors
 Extraversion – valid predictor for some
occupational groups and specific criteria
 Agreeableness – valid predictor for teamwork
 Openness to experience – valid predictor for
training performance
 Nature vs. Nurture
o Nature argument – personality is inherited, determined by genetics and
biochemistry and physiology of brain
o Nurture argument – personality is shaped by environment, culture and social
factors that our feelings and behavioral patterns are learned
 Cognitive Abilities – intelligence – IQ – general mental abilities (GMA) – G
o Stability of GMA –
o GMA and Performance
 The most powerful single predictor of performance – explains about 5-%
of variance in performance
 To explain performance better – Big 5 independent from GMA –
Motivation x Ability = Performance
 Other characteristics important still to explain other behaviors ex.
Creativity, citizenship behavior, ethical behavior
o Emotional Intelligence (EI)
 “the ability to identify, integrate, understand and reflectively manage
one’s own and other people’s feelings”
 Ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion
 Dimensions of EI
 Self Emotions Appraisal (SEA) – an individual’s ability to
understand his deep emotions and be able to express emotions
naturally
 Other’s Emotions Appraisal (OEA) – an individual’s ability to
perceive and understand emotions in people around them
 Use of Emotions (UOE) – an individual’s ability to make use of her
emotions by directing the toward constructive activities/
personal performance

,  Regulation of Emotions (ROE) – individual’s ability to regulate her
emotions, enabling more rapid recovery from psychological
distress
o EI and Performance
o Mixed findings – questions: why EI predicted job performance in some
past studies but not in others? – Graph shows EI becomes stronger
predictor of task performance as cognitive intelligence decreases







 Self Concepts – the set of perceptions that we have about ourselves
o Self-efficacy: belief about his/her chances of successfully accomplishing
specific task – one of the strongest motivational factors
o Core self-evaluation – the fundamental appraisals individuals make about
their self-worth and capabilities – higher order construct composed of
broad and evaluative traits
 Self-esteem – generalized self-efficacy – emotional stability –
Locus of Control
 Self-esteem – general belief about one’s own worth
 Locus of Control – belief that desired effects result from
one’s own behavior rather than by fate or powerful others
o Internal Locus of Control – you make things happen
– look what I can do – I can determine my future
o External Locus of Control – things happen to you –
why does everything happen to me – Why bother?
 Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
o Emphasizes that we have a fundamental personality type that shapes and
influences how we understand the world, process information, and socialize
o MBTI identifies individuals’ preferences for:
 Energy: introversion vs. extroversion
 Information gathering sensing vs. intuition
 Decision making thinking vs. feeling
 Lifestyle: judging vs. perceiving