Lesson 03
Understanding Individual Differences
Understanding Individual Differences
This unit focuses on the individual in the organization. You will learn about individual differences--those physical, psychological, and emotional differences that distinguish each of us. We will learn about individual variations in personality, attitudes, and emotions.
The readings and questions in this lesson will help you to:
This lesson begins our focus on the individual in the organization. You will learn about individual differences—those physical, psychological, and emotional differences that distinguish each of us. This lesson addresses the individual variations in personality, attitudes, and emotions.
Personality is one of the determinants of behavior. Researchers have identified several personality dimensions and traits that you will be introduced to in this chapter. The Big Five Personality Factors present five dimensions of personality in which each dimension is a collection of personality traits that are used to describe personality. For greater clarity of the relation between personality and behavior, it is sometimes helpful to focus on individual personality traits such as self-esteem, locus of control, introversion/extroversion, and emotional intelligence. These personality traits are considered to be more useful personality traits for describing an individual's personality. Managers need to be familiar with each of these dimensions and traits and be able to recognize them in others. This is important so managers can take into consideration how differences in personality components motivate and affect employees.
The following chart identifies personality characteristics that are congruent with particular occupations. Think about individuals you know who are in these particular occupations. Do their personality characteristics seem congruent with their personality type and their occupation?
Matching Personality and Occupations
Should organizations try to match personality characteristics of employees with the requirements of the job? According to John Holland's personality-job fit theory, the answer is YES. Holland's model is based on the concept of fit between a person's interests—interpreted to represent personality—and his or her occupation. According to this theory, there are six basic personality types. An individual's satisfaction and propensity to leave a job depend on the degree to which an individual's personality matches his or her occupation. That is, satisfaction is highest and turnover lowest where personality and occupation are in agreement. The key point of this model is that there do appear to be intrinsic differences in personality among individuals in different occupations. When individuals' personalities are congruent with their occupations, they are more satisfied and less likely to resign than people in incongruent occupations. The following are examples of the six personality types, typical personality characteristics, and matching congruent occupations: |
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Personality Type |
Personality Characteristics |
Congruent Occupations |
| Artistic | Involves: Self-expression, creativity, emotional activities | Art, music, writing, design, architecture |
| Enterprising | Involves: Attaining power and status, verbal activities to influence and persuade | Law, small-business management, public relations |
| Social | Involves: Interpersonal and communication activities | Social work, teaching, counseling, foreign service |
| Investigative | Involves: Thinking, organizing, and understanding concepts | Mathematics, news reporting, biology, physical sciences |
| Realistic | Involves: Physical activities, skill, strength, coordination, assertive behaviors | Farming, forestry, training |
| Conventional | Involves: Rule-regulated activities, sublimation of personal needs to organization or person of power and status | Accounting, finance, corporate management |
| Based on: Holland, J. Making Vocational Choices: A Theory of Vocational Personalities and Work Environments, 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1985. | ||
Attitudes refer to an individual's feelings, beliefs, and behaviors that are directed toward a targeted person, place, situation, idea, etc. Thus, attitudes are much more specific than personality. For example, you might have an attitude toward higher education, but you do not have a personality toward higher education. Attitudes are relatively long lasting, but are amenable to change depending on one's background and experiences. The sources that shape personality (family, culture, group membership) also strongly influence attitudes.
There are three components to an attitude: affective, behavioral, and cognitive. Most Americans have an attitude about the national anthem
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This attitude can be observed by watching what people do when they hear this song. Individuals may display the affective or emotional component; you see tears come to the eyes of many--generally a sign of love for their country. The behavioral component is evident when people stand facing the United States flag and place their right hand over their heart. It is difficult to know what people are thinking (the cognitive component) without asking them. If you did ask them, you would get various responses such as people remembering battles of war and those who gave their lives for our freedom, or perhaps remembering family members who were held hostage, or in other ways served their country. Thus, all three of these components interact to shape behavior; each does not exist separately.
When trying to understand the relationship between attitudes and behavior, one cannot assume that attitudes will directly predict behavior. For example, the correlation between performance and job satisfaction is approximately .10 at best, suggesting that satisfied workers are not necessarily the best performers and the best performers are not necessarily the most satisfied workers. Part of the reason for this low correlation is that job satisfaction is a general measure that takes into account satisfaction with supervisor, coworkers, working conditions, etc. Performance is a specific measure that takes into account number of units produced, number of customers served, and so on.
Job satisfaction (a general measure) has been shown to be an important indicator of organizational effectiveness (a general measure). Organizations with satisfied workers tend to have higher levels of organizational effectiveness.
On the other hand, job dissatisfaction is related to higher levels of employee absenteeism, turnover, and health problems. Thus job dissatisfaction is very costly to employers, and successful organizations keep a close eye on this relationship to keep these costs at a minimum.
A work attitude that affects an individual's work behaviors is hope. Researchers have defined hope as a person's mental willpower (determination) and waypower (road map) to achieve goals. It is more involved than "wishing" for something to happen as all of us have done when were children. For example, you might recall wishing for a huge snowfall on Sunday evening so that you did not have to go to school on Monday. You had no control over this wish—you could not make it snow.
Hope, as a job-related attitude, refers to one's means to make things happen and the tenacity to make it happen—you have resources and the drive to make it happen. Typically, a high-hope person embraces the seemingly impossible challenges, and has the cognitive ability work around obstacles. Keep in mind that resources do not have to be tangible resources. Brainpower is a tremendous resource. High-hope individuals make things happen. On the other hand, low-hope individuals are typically discouraged by stressors encountered during the pursuit of their goals. They are not likely to see ways around roadblocks. They are prone to negative emotions and are more likely to withdraw from social settings.
Another important work attitude that has a bearing on organizational behavior is organizational commitment. Organizational commitment refers to the strength of an employee's involvement in and identification with the organization. Organizational commitment goes beyond loyalty to an active contribution in accomplishing organizational goals. As with job satisfaction, the sources of organizational commitment may vary from person to person. Initial commitment to the organization is determined primarily by individual characteristics. Eventually, employees tend to have stronger organizational commitment because of ties and seniority with the organization. Managers are interested in the commitment of employees to the organization because it usually leads to lower absenteeism and higher productivity.
The following is an example of how the thoughtless and inconsiderate actions of a company can destroy the organizational commitment of an employee.
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A Good Way to Destroy Employee Commitment For many years, Pat Walter, a rising management star in a major restaurant concern, was "the most loyal employee any company could want." He loved the company and was committed to it, enduring difficult transfers, rigid bosses, and a lock-step career path. But all that loyalty and commitment evaporated in an instant, through just one profoundly hurtful action by his boss. According to Mr. Walter, his former employer's action demonstrated such an egregious lack of concern for him that he could not overlook it. "His boss ordered him to fly to a monthly budget meeting in a distant city even though his pregnant wife was three days overdue. By the time he got a phone call that his wife would undergo an emergency cesarean section, it was too late to catch a plane home." … Afterwards he quit his job, and the company lost a committed employee!
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Emotions refer to a complex pattern of feelings. Our behavior is influenced by the emotions we are experiencing. Managers are particularly interested in the way emotions affect employee productivity. When people experience positive emotions, they think more creatively, seek new information and experiences, behave more flexibly, have greater confidence, and are more persistent. Negative emotions such as anger, disgust, or sadness tend to narrow a person's focus and limit options to seek alternatives.
Your text presents a model of how emotions affect behavior. The goal is the desired future state that an individual is attempting to achieve. Anticipatory emotions refer to the emotions that the individual believes he will feel after achievement or failure of achieving his goal. If the anticipatory emotions are of sufficient intensity to motivate a person, the person will engage in those behaviors needed to reach the goal. Goal attainment is the next step. In good times and in a crisis, positive emotions and behaviors create fun in organizations because people copy each other's emotion–they are contagious. Employees feel gratitude for the goodwill received and show greater loyalty and effort. Positive emotions in organizations can be a competitive advantage that is not easily copied by competitors.
Keep in mind that the emotions of employees can also affect the emotions of clients and customers. If the employees convey a positive demeanor, the client is likely to "be infected" with the positive emotions, and respond with the same emotions. Think of a positive experience that you have had at a particular organization. Most likely the employees with whom you interacted were pleasant, happy, energetic, etc. This positive emotional energy may have had an impact on you. Perhaps you bought more than you intended, you became a repeat customer of that organization, you referred others because of the positive experience you had. Of course, the opposite is also likely to affect you in a negative direction. When you have interacted with a grumpy waiter, a rude salesperson, etc., you are likely to feel irritated or angry. In these situations you are likely not to buy much or you may tell others about the poor service.
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