3-2 Individual Differences: What Makes Employees Unique Copyright © 2008 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. McGraw-Hill/Irwin Organizational.

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Individual Differences: What Makes Employees Unique

Copyright © 2008 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/IrwinOrganizational Behavior, Core Concepts

3Organizational Behavior

core concepts

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Learning Objectives

• Explain how a person’s self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-monitoring affect the person’s self-concept and behavior

• Describe how people change their behavior through self-management

• Identify important personality dimensions and their relationship to job performance

• Define the individual differences of locus of control, attitudes, and intelligence

• Summarize the role of emotions and emotional intelligence in the workplace

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From Self-Concept to Self-Management• Self

– core of one’s conscious existence

• Self-concept – a person’s self-perception as a physical,

social, spiritual being

• Cognitions – a person’s knowledge, opinions, or beliefs

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An OB Model for Studying Individual Differences

Figure 3-1

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From Self-Concept to Self-Management• Self-esteem

– one’s overall self-evaluation.

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Can General Self-Esteem Be Improved?• Low self-esteem can be raised more by

having a person think of desirable characteristics possessed rather of undesirable characteristics from which he is free

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Question?

What is a person’s belief about his chances of successfully accomplishing a specific task?

A. Self-monitoring

B. Self-reliance

C. Self-efficacy

D. Learned Helplessness

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Self-Efficacy

• Self-efficacy – a person’s belief about his chances of

successfully accomplishing a specific task

• Learned Helplessness – debilitating lack of faith in one’s ability

to control the situation

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Self-Efficacy

See an article on self-efficacy by Judge and Bono

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Self-Efficacy Beliefs Pave the Way

for Success or Failure

Figure 3-2Figure 3-2

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Managerial Implications

• On-the-job research evidence encourages managers to nurture self-efficacy, both in themselves and in others

• Significant positive correlation between self-efficacy and job performance

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Managerial Implications

• Recruiting/ selection/job assignments

• Job design

• Self-management

• Training and development

• Creativity

• Coaching

• Leadership

• Rewards• Goal setting and

quality improvement

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Self-Monitoring

• Self-monitoring – extent to which a person observes their own

self-expressive behavior and adapts it to the demands of the situation

• Positive relationship between high self-monitoring and career success

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Self-Management: A Social Learning Model• Social Learning Theory

– an individual acquires new behavior through the interplay of cognitive processes with environmental cues and consequences

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A Social Learning Model of Self-Management

Figure 3-3

Figure 3-3

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An Agenda for Self-Improvement

1. Be proactive. Choose goals, and take responsibility for achieving them.

2. Begin with the end in mind; be goal-oriented.

3. Put first things first. Set priorities including work and personal goals, present and future.

4. Think win/win. Look for mutually beneficial solutions.

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An Agenda for Self-Improvement

5. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Listen carefully.

6. Synergize. Generate teamwork, and value people’s differences.

7. Sharpen the saw. Renew yourself mentally, spiritually, socially/emotionally, and physically.

8. Find your voice by seeking fulfillment, acting passionately, and making a significant contribution—then help others do the same.

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Managing Situational Cues

• Reminders and attention focusers

• Self-observation data

• Avoiding negative cues while seeking positive cues

• Challenging personal goals

• Self-contract

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Arranging Cognitive Supports

• Symbolic coding – human brain stores information in visual and

verbal codes

• Rehearsal – mental rehearsal of challenging tasks can

increase one’s chance of success

• Self-talk – set of evaluating thoughts that you give

yourself about facts and events that happen to you

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Administering Consequences

1. Individual must have control over desired reinforcers

2. Individual must reward himself only for meeting the conditions of success

3. Individual needs performance standards that establish the quantity and quality of target behavior required for receiving the reward

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Personality Dynamics

• Personality

– stable and mental characteristics responsible for a person’s identity

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The Big Five Personality Dimensions• Extraversion

• Agreeableness

• Conscientiousness

• Emotional stability

• Openness to experience

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Question?

Which personality trait has the strongest positive correlation with job and training performance?

A. Extraversion

B. Conscientiousness

C. Openness-to-experience

D. Agreeableness

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Personality and Job Performance

• Conscientiousness has the strongest positive correlation with job and training performance

• Extraversion is associated with success for managers and salespeople

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Proactive Personality

• Proactive Personality – an action-oriented person

who shows initiative and perseveres to change things

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Locus of Control

• Internal locus of control – attributing outcomes to one’s own actions

• External locus of control – attributing outcomes to circumstances

beyond one’s control

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Attitudes

• Attitude – learned predisposition to respond in a

consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object

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Intelligence

• Intelligence – capacity for constructive thinking, reasoning,

and problem solving

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Positive and Negative Emotions

• Emotions – complex human reactions to personal

achievements and setbacks that may be felt and displayed

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Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional Intelligence – ability to manage oneself and interact with

others in mature and constructive ways