Chapter 11

Big 5 Personality Dimensions

1) Extroversionhow outgoing, talkative, sociable, and assertive a
person is
2) Agreeablenesshow trusting, good-natured, cooperative, and
soft hearted a person is
3) ConscientiousnessHow dependable, responsible, achievementoriented, and persistent one is
4) Emotional stabilityhow relaxed, secure, and unworried one is
5) Openness to experiencehow intellectual, imaginative, curious,
and broad-minded one is
Personality Test results
Extroversionsuccess for managers and salespeople, stronger
predictor for job performance than agreeableness
Conscientiousnessstrongest positive correlation with job
performance and training performance
Cautions about using personality tests in the workplace
Use professionals
Dont hire based on personality tests alone
Be alert for gender, racial, and ethnic bias
Graphology tests dont work, but integrity tests do
Proactive Personality
A person who scores well on the big 5 is probably a good worker
Also may be a proactive personalitysomeone who is more apt to take
initiative and persevere to influence the environment
Five traits important in organizations
1) locus of control
2) self-efficacy
3) self-esteem
4) self-monitoring
5) emotional intelligence
Locus of Control
--how much people believe the control their fate through their
own efforts
o internal locuscontrol your own destiny
o external locusexternal forces control you
Implications for managers
o Expect different degrees of structure and compliance for
each type

Internal locusneed high initiative and low

compliance
External locusdo better in higher structured jobs
o Employ different reward systems for each type
Internals would likely prefer and respond more
productively to incentives like merit pay and sales
commissions

Self-Efficacy
Belief in ones personal ability to do a task
Learned helplessnessthe debilitating lack of faith in ones
ability to control ones environment
Implications
o Assign jobs accordingly: complex and challenging jobs
enhance perceptions of self-efficacy, while boring ones do
the opposite
o Develop self-efficacy: quality that can be nurtured with
goals and constructive feedback
Self-Esteem
The extent to which people like or dislike themselves, their
overall self-evaluation
High self-esteem-handle failure better, emphasize the positive, to
take more risks
Low self-esteem-confronted with failure, focus on their
weaknesses and have negative thoughts
Managers can build self-esteem by:
Reinforce employees positive attributes and skills
Provide positive feedback
Break tasks down into small pieces
Express confidence in employee abilities
Provide coaching when employees are struggling
Self-monitoring
The extent to which people are able to observe their own behavior and
adapt it to external situations
Emotional Intelligence
Ability to cope, to empathize with others, and be self-motivated
Better EI results in:
1) better social relationships
2) better family relationships
3) perceived more positively by others

4) better academic achievement

5) higher task performance
6) better psychological well-being
Daniel Golemanpsychologist
Four Key Components
1) Self-Awareness
2) Self management
3) Social awareness
4) Relationship management
Organizational Behavior
Dedicated to better understanding and managing people at work
Two areas:
o Individual behavior: values, attitudes, personality,
perception, and learning
o Group behavior: norms, roles, and teams
Values
Abstract ideals that guide ones thinking and behavior across all
situations
Attitudes
A learned predisposition towards a given object
Three components:
o AffectiveI feel
o CognitiveI believe
o BehavioralI intend
Consistency and Cognitive Dissonance (Leon Festinger)
Describes the psychological discomfort a person experiences
between his cognitive attitude and incompatible behavior
How people deal with the discomfort:
o Importance
o Control
o Rewards
Reducing cognitive dissonance:
o Change your attitude and/or behavior
o Belittle the importance of the inconsistent behavior
o Find constant elements that outweigh the dissonant ones
Behavior
Peoples actions and judgments

IBM innovation jampage 348

Job Involvement
The extent to which an individual is immersed in his or her present job
Work related attitudes:
Employee engagement
An individuals involvement, satisfaction, and enthusiasm for
work
Job satisfaction
The extent to which you feel positive or negative about various
aspects of your work
Organizational commitment
Reflects the extent to which an employee identifies with an
organization and is committed to its goals
Important Workplace Behaviors
Performance and productivity
Absenteeism and turnover
Organizational citizenship behaviors
o Those employee behaviors that are not directly part of
employees job descriptionsthat exceed their work-role
requirements
Counterproductive workplace behaviors
o Types of behavior that harm employees and the
organization as a whole
Violence in the Workplace pg 352
Perceptual Process
The Process of interpreting and understanding ones environment
Steps
1) selective attention
2) interpretation and evaluation
3) storing and memory
4) retrieving from memory to make judgments and decisions
Four distortions
1) selective perceptionI dont want to hear about that
a. the tendency to filter out information that is discomforting,
that seems irrelevant, or that contradicts ones beliefs
2) stereotyping
a. the tendency to attribute to an individual characteristics
that one believes are typical of the group to which that
individual belongs

b. sex-role stereotypes
c. age stereotypes
d. race/ethnicity stereotypes
3) The Halo Effect
a. Form an impression of an individual based on a single trait
b. Halo effect: Attractive men and women pg 355
4) Casual attribution
a. The activity of inferring causes for observed behavior
i. Fundamental attention biaspeople attribute
another persons behavior to his personal
characteristics rather than situational factors
ii. Self-serving biaspeople tend to take more personal
responsibility for success than for failure
Self-fulfilling Prophecy aka Pygmalion effect
The phenomenon in which peoples expectations of themselves or
others lead them to behave in ways that make those expectations
come true
How can managers harness the Pygmalion effect? Pg 357
Stress- the tension people feel when they are facing or enduring
extraordinary demands, constraints, or opportunities and are uncertain
about their ability to handle them effectively
Stressorsource of stress
Sources of job related stress
1) demands created by individual differences: stress created by
genetics or personality characteristics
a. type a behavior pattern: involved in a chronic, determined
struggle to accomplish more in less time
2) individual task demands: stress created by job itself
3) individual role demands: stress created by others expectations
of you
a. roles-sets of behaviors that people expect of occupants of
a position
b. role overload-occurs when others expectations exceed
ones ability
c. role conflict-when ones feels torn by the different
expectations of important people in ones life
d. role ambiguity-occurs when others expectations are
unknown
4) group demands: stress created by co-workers and managers
5) organizational demands: stress created by the environment and
culture

6) nonwork demands: stresses created by forces outside the

organization
symptoms of stress
1) physiological signs
2) psychological signs
3) behavioral signs
burnouta state of emotional, mental, and even physical exhaustion
reducing stressors
buffersadministrative changes that managers can make to
reduce the stressors that lead to burnout
o employee assistance programs
o holistic wellness programs: focuses on self-responsibility,
nutritional awareness, relaxation techniques, physical
fitness, and environmental awareness
o create a supportive environment
o make jobs interesting
o make career counseling available