1. Chapter Five
Appreciating Individual Differences: Self-Concept, Personality, Emotions
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Organizational Behavior: Key Concepts, Skills & Best Practices, 3/e
Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

2. Individual Differences
Moving to individual level of organizational phenomena (culture : org. or societal level)
People differ
In terms of self-concept, personality, attitudes, abilities, and emotion
Presenting big challenges to the managers
To understand how other people would behave in an organization, you have to know their differences and individuality

3. Self-Concept Self Self-concept Core of one’s conscious existence
Because of it, you can distinguish yourself from others as an independent human being
Self-concept
Awareness of self
A person’s self-perception as a physical, social, spiritual being.

4. Self-Concept Two elements of self-concept Self-esteem
Self-esteem, Self-efficacy
Self-esteem
A belief about one’s own self-worth based on an overall self-evaluation
“I feel I am a person of worth, the equal of others”
“I feel I don’t have much to be proud of”
Cross-cultural differences
Self-esteem plays a bigger role in individualistic culture
(Ex. : SE ~ Life Satisfaction)
Why? : Socialization

5. Self-Concept Self-esteem and performance Can self-esteem be improved?
Popular view : Self-esteem -> performance
One study : Performance -> self-esteem
Can self-esteem be improved?
Self-esteem is largely determined by childhood experiences
Still it can be improved in later years
Finding good things in you, etc.

6. Self-Concept Self-efficacy “I can do that”
A specific dimension of self-esteem
A person’s belief about his/her chances of successfully accomplishing a specific task
Self-efficacy and performance
Very strong relationship
Efficacy -> performance -> efficacy -> performance
(spiral upward or downward)
Learned helplessness : the severely debilitating belief that one has no control over one’s environment
Can we do something about self-efficacy?

7. Mechanism of Self-Efficacy
Figure 5-2

8. Personality
Personality – stable mental characteristics responsible for a person’s identity
(attitude, intelligence, and mental abilities are not personality)
Determined by genetics and environment
Dimensions of Personality
Big Five Personality Dimensions
Locus of Control
Self Monitoring
Machiavellianism, Risk-taking Propensity, Proactive Personality, Authoritarianism, A/B Type, etc.

9. Personality : Big Five The Big Five Personality Dimensions
Many personality dimensions were distilled to Big Five

10. Personality : Big Five Personality and Job Performance
Conscientiousness has the strongest positive correlation with job and training performance
Extraversion is associated with success for managers and salespeople

11. Personality : Locus of Control
Internal locus of control
Internals : People who believe they can control the events and consequences that affect their lives
External locus of control
Externals : People who believe their performance and consequences are beyond their control
Researchers have shown that the ILC is associated with positive outcomes

12. Personality : Self-monitoring
Self-monitoring – extent to which a person observes their own self-expressive behavior and adapts it to the situation
Positive relationship between high self-monitoring and career success

13. Attitudes
Attitude – learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object, person, or idea
Three components of attitude
Cognitive
Affective (Emotional)
Behavioral
General attention to attitudes is based on the assumption that attitudes affect behavior
According to cognitive dissonance theory,
behavior attitude (in order to rationalize the behavior)

14. Attitudes : Job satisfaction
Examples of workplace attitudes
Job satisfaction
General JS
Facet JS : pay, promotion, supervisor, peer, work
Itself
JS and performance
Early view : JS performance
Later view : JS not related to performance
Recent view : Performance satisfaction
Reward
JS and other outcomes
JS Higher OC and Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)
JS Lower absenteeism and turnover
JS Less negative behavior
Is high job satisfaction always good?

15. Attitudes : Organizational commitment
Three dimensions
Moral (Normative)
Affective
Calculative (Continuous)
OC Lower turnover
Higher OCB
Is high OC always good?

16. Intelligence
Intelligence – capacity for constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving
Is IQ innate capacity?
Partly determined by environmental forces
Two types of abilities
General mental ability needed for all cognitive tasks
Unique to the task at hand
IQ tests do a good job of predicting both academic achievement and job performance

17. Intelligence
Seven major mental abilities

18. Emotion(Affect)
Logic and rationality do not always dominate the organizational life
In actuality, emotional elements often push aside logic and rationality in the workplace
Concept
Affect : generic terms that covers a broad range of feelings that people experience
Emotions : intense feelings that are directed at someone or something
Moods : feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions, and that lack s contextual stimulus

19. Emotion Positive and negative emotions
Distinction between positive and negative emotions is goal oriented

20. Mood Kinds of Mood Engaged Unpleasant Pleasant Disengaged
Intense Positive Mood
Intense
Negative Mood
Surprised
Astonished
Aroused
Hostile
Nervous
Annoyed
Enthusiastic
Excited
Elated
Grouchy
Sad
Blue
Happy
Cheerful
Pleased
Unpleasant
Pleasant
Bored
Sluggish
Drowsy
Serene
Calm
Content
Quiet
Still
Inactive
Disengaged

21. Emotion(Affect) Emotional (Moods) contagion Emotional labor
One to one contagion
Ex. Salespersons Customers
Group to individual contagion
Emotional labor
Occurs due to mismatch between felt and displayed emotions
If not adequately addressed, it results in emotional exhaustion and burnout

22. Emotion(Affect) Emotional Intelligence (EI, EQ)
The ability to mange oneself (especially emotion) and one’s relationships with others in mature and constructive ways
Four components
Self-awareness
Self-management
Social awareness
Relationship management
Relationship with organizational outcomes
Leadership success